“From the computer core?” Mitchell asked of Brek, who nodded in confirmation at the repetition of the stated fact.

Mitchell paced across the station’s control centre, tapping at his chin in thought before he stopped. “Rosa and I will stay here, see if we can’t do something to get comms back with Atlantis.” The Orion woman nodded sharply once, then began scanning around for a working console and getting to work. “Gantzmann, Brek, both of you head to the computer core and see what’s going on. Neutralise any intruders if can safely, otherwise fall back here, report and we’ll go from there.”

Silent acknowledgements all around before Lin and Brek both departed, their passage through the station a silent stalking, communication through hand signals and head nods interpreted through hours of training together. They knew what each was expected to do at each junction, each door frame. At any moment they could run into their plasma-spewing foe and there was no point in taking risks.

The atrium was better lit than the rest of the station, its windows admitting reflected starlight from the communications web the station sat in the middle of to compliment the red emergency lights that had come up before their arrival. But the corridor leading away and to the computer core was progressively darker, the red hue all that lit the doors and walls. Only their torches banished darkness and cast things true where they fell.

There were no signs of a fight, no signs of a mess, just an empty station as they approached the closed door to the computer core. The door bleeped at them in annoyance as they stepped up to it, refusing entry. Both of them took up a position on either side of the door and Brek carefully pulled out a tricorder, the device muted as he aimed in the direction of the door and scanned, an eyebrow rising before he turned it to show Lin.

No life signs detected.

Simple, bland, boring grey letters. Nothing, as the electronic minion could tell, was amiss.

Brek may have considered the result with curiosity or intrigue, but Lin found herself glaring at the tricorder in frustration. No life signs meant that whoever was giving orders in there was either using some form of stealth technology or was outside of their experience. Neither of which she liked.

She waited till Brek was ready once more before tapping at the door control. Again an angry annoyed sound emitted from the door. Without any hesitation, she popped the control panel from the side and reached for a couple of the isolinear chips. Removed, and dropped to the floor, she reached for a button at the top of the small cavity, finding it by feel alone and with that the door gave way.

Weapons up, a sweep of their sectors from where they stood and then Lin proceeded in first, looking down the banks of server racks that made up CR-718’s computer core. Isolinear racks from floor to ceiling lit the space in conjunction with the emergency lights. Blues and greens and yellows all blinking as they did their jobs, some fast, others slow, others again constant as a star.

“Stay together,” she whispered very quietly to Brek, breaking the silence they’d kept since the control room. It didn’t need to be said, but her nerves appreciated it. “Where’s the primary access?”

Brek raised a hand, two waves forward, then one to the left. Two racks down, to the left.

As they proceeded down past the racks, the sound of life support systems smothering their steps as fans in the ceiling pushed air around, electronic chirps, bleeps and whirrs covering their breathing as the computers went about their monotonous jobs. Lin stopped just at the corner of the rack Brek had indicated to her.

“Access denied,” came the bland monotone of a computerised voice decades old and long since out of use on more modern built starships. The station and most of its hardware belonged to the 2360s and in all that time no one had ever changed the voice setting for the computer, or custodians throughout the last four decades had all opted to keep it the same out of some sense of nostalgia perhaps.

“Access denied,” it repeated once more. “Access denied,” said again, the timing between each repetition the same, at least to Lin’s ear.

A breath in, a check of her phaser’s settings and Lin stepped around the corner, weapon raised. “Starfleet Securi…oh shit.” She never raised her voice with her expletive but the upturn gave the impression she had.

Not ten meters, past two more racks, was the primary access point for CR-718’s main computer. A large workstation with multiple consoles and room enough for two people to work together was built into the wall, with a large monitor immediately above it taking up the whole wall. Most of the screens were happily blaring warnings in read, the most obvious being a large ‘Access Denied’ and a security code plastered underneath it.

But what had caused Lin to halt in her announcement, to swear as she rarely did, was a sight that was included in every worse-case training scenario for a security officer for the last quarter-century. A single entity, more terrifying than even the Jem’Hadar merely for the fact that its presence always presaged more of its kind.

A borg drone – it stood even taller than her by a few centimetres, but even from this distance seemed larger thanks to the augmentations and plating that adorned its body. Its attention never waivered from its task, wholly ignoring her challenge as it continued tapping away at a console with one hand, its other merely held near an access port and tubules extended from its wrist, offering it direct access as well. Black panelling, burnished metal extrusions and dull green lights adorned its form, pallid skin cast nearly black itself in the poor lighting and what light did fall on it rendered it sickly looking.

“Access denied.”

Brek, his curiosity peaked, stepped out beside Lin, his weapon equally raised, ready to fire. “Interesting.”

“Not the phrase I would use, Lieutenant,” Lin hissed as she tapped at the controls on the side of her rifle with her thumb, upping the power level a half-dozen steps. The weapon’s pitched alerts informing all around she’d raised it to a level usually reserved for life-and-death situations when one didn’t have time to risk stun not working on an enemy. It settled after a moment and was then joined by Brek’s rifle repeating the sound as he joined Lin in setting his weapon to a higher level.

“Stop!” Lin barked at the drone. “Or we will shoot!” The offer of a chance to surrender was just engrained in her after years of training, exercises and duty. But then she huffed at herself, the futility of offering a Borg drone a chance to surrender hitting her. The shake of her head was subtle, but to her, at this moment, felt exaggerated, her vision moving slowly across a wide arc when she’d barely moved.

With no response after two seconds, she depressed the firing stud, a bright beam of orange light piercing through the gloom at the drone, casting immediate shadows as it leapt from weapon to target nearly instantaneously.

And nothing happened.

Green-blue shields flicked, catching the brunt of the shot and remaining visible for a second more as it dissipated the energy. And still, the drone didn’t respond.

A second beam fired, this time from Brek’s weapon, equally as useless as the first.

Then a third and fourth before Lin held up a hand to stop Brek from continuing.

“Access denied,” announced the computer.

The drone stopped tapping at the screen, turning its body but remaining physically connected as it looked at them. Red laser waved over both of them as it considered them stoically. One eye, its organic eye, blinked once, then twice before the tubules from its right arm retracted from the computer console as it turned to face them now, taking a single step away from the workstation.

It spoke, its voice flat and lifeless, with even less emotion than the computer that had been denying it, but conveying just by the very fact it spoke, far more dread than the station’s electronic brain ever could. There was no plurality of voices as one might expect from the Borg, no overlapping voices speaking as one, but a single tenor voice that spoke loud enough to be heard clearly, enunciated each word of Standard perfectly as it spoke.

“Starfleet security. Type 3 Phaser Rifles. Body armour. Threat level…minimal. You will assist in the assimilation of this station. Your culture will adapt to service ours.”