“Ma’am, before we go in,” Mitchell spoke up, the first time he’d spoken more than basic warnings and instructions as they had proceeded from command to the shuttlebay, “we should consider we’re about to enter the station’s shuttlebay while a Borg drone does seem to have a growing control of the station’s systems.”

They had left the atrium, made their way down the small corridor to the shuttlebay and were only a few metres away from the large hatch that would grant them access to the admittedly confined space. But just before the door to the right were four alcoves, each housing a single Starfleet EV suit that while not the most modern designs aboard Atlantis or Republic, were at least from the last decade.

“Good point,” Lin replied, scanning the corridor with her torchlight, beams of illumination settling on the manual access hatch next to the shuttlebay doors. She’d barely popped it open when the door’s warning klaxon started, indicating it was about to open. Training kicked in as she studied the exposed isolinear chips and the manual pump for forcing the doors open if required. Eyes settled on a few chips and fingers gripped them, yanking them free just as the klaxon finished.

And nothing happened, save for the lights in the door’s normal access panel going dim as they lost power.

“Good timing,” Mitchell commented as he peered through a window in the door to the small shuttlebay beyond.

The outer doors were in the process of opening, the faint blue around the yawning maw to the abyss beyond absent as the atmospheric shield had been deactivated. The atmosphere within the bay was pushed out into void, rapidly condensing into mist and then ice shards as it vacated at great speed, leaving the bay in a vacuum in a matter of seconds.

“Well guess we definitely have to suit up now,” Lin said, offering a slight smirk to Mitchell. His advice had been evident earlier – to suit up should something like this happen. But Lin’s tampering with door controls as a preventative had caused the drone to act sooner. “We’ll seal the other door –“

She stopped speaking as lights began to blink to life on the repair drones. Not the steady dull red of the sensors and status lights, but now an eerie green, pulsing at an unsettling rhythm as they rose from their docking cradles. Each took a moment to orientate itself, and then all four of them, each slightly larger than an average person, moved towards the door to the shuttlebay. They took positions around the door, forming a semi-circle, raising tool arms armed with plasma torches and bringing them to standby as they watched.

“Well, that’s a rather unmistakable message,” Mitchell said. “Thoughts?”

“The drone welded the door shut to the computer core,” Lin answered as she set her phaser rifle down and looked at the EV suits. “And it’s just told us where to get a plasma torch to cut through the door.”

It only took the two of them a few minutes to don the EV suits, another minute to close the air vents into the corridor from the life support system and securely close the door leading to the atrium. They had done all they could to preserve the atmospheric integrity of the rest of the station.

“We are assuming the Borg haven’t somehow put shields on the repair drones, yes?” Mitchell asked.

“If they have, then it’s just a matter of time. I’d rather get things moving, wouldn’t you?”

Mitchell chuckled briefly. “Can’t argue with you there, Commander.” He stepped up to the door beside Lin, looked once more at their opposition, and then grabbed his side of the door. “Pull hard, weapons up, put them down quick and hard.”

Lin merely nodded once from within her helmet, then waited as Mitchell took two breaths and then counted them down with a quick one-two count. As the door cracked open the hissing escaping atmosphere could be heard, ice forming around the edges of the door, then boiling off in quick succession. As the door continued to open a flurry of activity took place.

The first repair drone scooted forward on its anti-gravs, the plasma torch on its arm flaring to bright incandescence, a spear of unrestrained bright white plasma a half meter in length before it. The whine of the phaser was faint in the rapidly thinning atmosphere as Mitchell’s shot hit the repair drone low, causing it to crash to the floor. The other drones rushed forward at the small opening and the two Starfleet officers in it.

More fire followed, Mitchell standing while Lin had dropped to one knee so they both get shots through the opening in the door. The atmosphere was gone in a matter of moments, their shots only heard by themselves. One of the drones, not as incapacitated as the other three, attempted to right itself, to once more take off on its remaining anti-grav systems before a follow-up shot from Mitchell, right through the top of the machine’s sensor dome, put it down for good.

“Clear,” Lin announced over the suit comms, having had to resort to setting them to line of sight.

“I’ll free up a torch,” Mitchell announced as Lin stood, heading straight for the shuttle’s hatch.

A few hand touches on blank consoles within the shuttle, an older model converted for long-haul use, primarily as the preferred escape pod for the station’s minimal crew if needs be while waiting for rescue. Systems slowly woke from dormancy, computers blinking to life, throwing themselves immediately into diagnostics. Lin’s gloved fingers flew over the console at the shuttle’s ops station, interrupting the start-up and prioritising different systems. There was no need for engines just yet or shields for that matter.

Comms and the shuttle’s replicator were her priority and were soon enough rewarded with a confirmation as those systems came up. “Gantzmann to Atlantis,” she said, once her suit was tied into the shuttle’s independent comm system. “Come in Atlantis.”

“Damn it’s good to hear your voice, Commander,” came the relieved-sounding voice of Lieutenant Michaels. “Let me get the captain.”

The pause and quiet were only momentary before Tikva’s voice rang out across the vacuum. “Report Commander,” she said, but Lin could just make out the concern in her voice.

“One Borg drone aboard the station. It’s locked itself in the station computer core and is using what it can to prevent us from getting to it after our first run-in with it.” Lin paused, just briefly to consider her next words. “It’s shielded and none of our weapons are working. I need replicator plans sent over immediately. A sword and a spearhead.”

“Commander?”

“Can’t guarantee the drone might not just resort to jamming all subspace communications, Captain,” she countered.

There was no further questioning, no inquiry following up, just a notification from the shuttle’s computer that it was receiving a data transfer from Atlantis. One plan, then another, then a third.

“Commander, is the team safe?”

“So far,” Lin answered.

“Keep it that way,” came the answer. “Abandon the stat-“ The comm line went dead mid-sentence, filled with static before it snapped clear.

“We are the Borg,” came the ominous singular voice from when Lin and Brek had first scouted the computer core. “Further communication will not be tolerated. Surrender this station’s command codes to us. Your culture will adapt to service ours.” And with that, the line once more filled with jamming static.

“They are at least forthright and honest in their intentions,” Mitchell said from the rear of the shuttle, branding one of the repair drones’ plasma torch arms and a fuel bottle in his arms. “Get what you wanted ma’am?”

Two steps to the shuttle’s replicator, a handful of key presses, voice controls a little difficult to use in a vacuum, and Lin pulled out a spearhead half as long as her forearm. The steel glinted briefly in the light as she examined it, then smiled. “It’s a start.”

“A start?”

“We should head to Engineering. Hopefully, they have a larger replicator we can use there.”

“Still want a sword then?” Mitchell asked.

“Swords,” Lin said as she started towards Mitchell and the rear of the shuttle, “are fun.”