The mechanical clicking sounds, the warm temperature, and the green neon lights flicker as the wall panels configure the latest data. A blue light lights up the hallway as a team appears within it. No reaction. The Borg has ignored the away team's arrival for now. 

“Seems this sphere is ignoring the Tokyo,” McKenzie spoke, looking at her tricoder. 

Sujian had his rifle at his chest, ready if needed. He looked around, seeing the drones doing their daily tasks. “The area is clear. The Tokyo is not a threat, so hopefully, it stays that way.” He looked over his shoulder, “Lauwerance, upfront, I take the back. Commander Towalr, your orders?” 

Standing there, frozen at the moment, he was truly in a location he was not expected to be. His nobility, pride, and honor were on the table, overshadowing his deepest fear. Towalr heard his name and nodded briefly in response, “Lieutenant Vahdat, you have the location, let's move” He stayed calm, but the hostile area, the potential of getting killed in a vile location like this, it was eating him up. 

“Understood,” Behrad spoke, looking up from his own tricorder and moving next to Lauwerance. “Do not interact with any of the drones. We are not seen as hostile, as Commander Deem said. So don't give them a reason to investigate us and move forward” Behrad moves on the directions from the tricorder. They needed to get close to the inner structure of the sphere to be able to deploy it. The device that Petty Officer McKenzie was carrying was a prototype. It injected the new pathogen into the Borg system, and what happens after that was the only question that brought up a fog of uncertainty.

Carefully, the team moved past drones and over bridges that brought them from one area to the next. For a brief moment, Towalr looked over the bridge into the sphere's inner structure as Sujian tapped him on the shoulder to move. “These creatures are terrifying to be able to create such construction and work so in sync” The team moved forward. A drone stopped his work and looked in the direction of where the away team was walking, but he didn't react to it and resumed his duties. 

“How long until we are there, Lieutenant,” Sujian said from the back, impatient and ready to finish this job quickly and cleanly. However, the deeper they went, the more he noticed drones acting differently. “I think they are slowly getting aware of our presence, so if we push further we might get noticed, and then it is a different situation."

Behrad shrugs as he looks from his tricorder over his shoulder. “We just entered the inner structure. We need to be deeper to get the full effect of this virus. If we are going to launch it here, then it might not spread as it should” He looked up ahead. “It is about 10 to 20 minutes more walking until we reach our goal” He knew that it was an impossible request, but from the point of view of a scientist, this was a normal request. 

“Petty Officer, what is your opinion about this?” Towalr looked at the woman up front.

Looking at her own tricorder and back at her team leader “Well, Lieutenant Vahdat makes a valid point, but the engineering perspective is that Borg technology is quite a complex puzzle on its own. They work with centralized systems and those you can find in the center of this sphere.” She shrugged a bit as McKenzie looked back at Vahdat. “We can try to get it plugged in here and do a dummy test, yet there are risks with that” 

“Risk?” Sujian blinked and looked at them. “I don't like that word right now in this situation where these drones are around us” 

Towalr nods to Sujian concerns and would rather not be in the situation altogether. “A valid concern, why is a dummy test not a good thing right now?” Towalr saw a drone in the eye corner starting to notice them. “Let us move and talk,” He said calmly as the team started to move again. 

“The risk is that if we plug it in, do a dummy test. The alerts of the sphere will go off, and they might see it as a potential threat and act as they see as being accordingly” Behrad explained following the route on his tricorder and shrugging at the idea. “In my fair opinion, it is either we do it right, or we won't do it” Behrad was pretty clear in his statement about the given plans. 

The factors were given, and now as a team leader, he was in an ugly position to do the right thing. But whatever he would choose it would always work out right? Towalr took a deep breath and gave a halt sign. “Alright, let us go and execute the plan here. I agree that if we go further, we will get noticed more by the drones. If we do a dummy test, we get noticed by the system. So execute the plan here; we need to get out of here also. The effects can be observed from Tokyo when we are a safe distance” 

Behrad didn't quite agree with that statement and just nodded, “Let us find a plug-in socket” He started his search on the tricorder.

McKenzie gets the device off his back and starts preparing it to get functional, “I need at least five minutes to get the right frequency that will be in line with the Borg systems. Then we can put it on a timer and move.”  McKenzie kneels down, places the device on the ground, and taps various buttons.

“Lauwerance, keep your front in check” Sujian orders as he looks at the other side keeping the behavior of the drones in check. “Five minutes is going to feel forever" He taps his rifle as Sujian eyes dart through the hallways taking count of the drones. 

Taking a deep breath, Towalr waited for this part of the plan to get into motion. Hopefully, it was going to go according to plan. Nothing could go wrong…