If you had asked her less than even six hours ago, Teyahna would have said it was unfathomable to consider another confrontation with the Borg. She, like so many others, had fought for her life mere months ago against a Borg threat unlike anything they had ever seen before. For some, it had taken weeks to get anywhere close to normality, and others it was very much a work in progress still, so the sudden news that the Borg were back in some capacity was enough to worry even someone tough like her. Her Orion heritage made her a little more resilient than some of her colleagues, but even she was struggling with the thought of having to face the Borg again.

And this wasn’t even the Borg she had encountered. According to the Captain this was a different kind of Borg. The kind that haunted the entire galaxy nearly forty years ago. They would linger, they would scan and they would scare. And just when you had braced yourself for the probability of death, they would leave. You were insignificant, unimportant. A drain on their resources. Until you weren’t.

Relentless. Determined. Once they considered you a threat, it was game over. One would come for you, then they would all come for you. And they wouldn’t stop until they found you and assimilated you. And they would take the person next to you, and the one next to them, too. They would take everyone until there was no one left. Man. Woman. Child. It didn’t matter to them, and they wouldn’t stop on their search for perfection. ​

Arriving in her science lab on deck seven with a set of orders, the green-skinned beauty found herself intrigued. As a scientist, she believed that people simply feared the unknown, so to her it seemed logical to do her research and learn everything she could about their enemy.

She wished she hadn’t. The stories, the reports, the eye-witness testimonies, all terrified her. They had broken the powerful Federation fleet of the 60’s in just one battle, causing such devastation it took years to rebuild and left the Wolf 359 system unnavigable. They broke Earth’s defences and entered into orbit of Paradise. Twice. They attacked both Earth and Romulan outposts along the Neutral Zone border because, unlike every other species out there, they really could fight wars on two fronts at once. The dread they inspired forced enemies to become allies… and then they assimilated them.

Assimilation. The thought of the process made her skin crawl. Borg nanites travelling through the bloodstream and transforming the being into an automaton, removing all sense of free will and desire. All individuality gone. A mindless drone. A soulless minion.

Thankfully she didn’t have to think about it for very long as her attention was swiftly, and thankfully, diverted by a shrill warning from the main computer.

“Download complete.”

Spinning on her stool, the scientist’s fingers began to dance a merry jig across the panel in front of her, pulling up copies of data files for analysis. What she found was a surprise, even to her. Picking up a data PADD, she placed it on the surface of the computer she was working on.

“Computer, transfer a copy of all downloaded files to this storage unit,” she instructed, then tapped her commbadge.

“Teyahna to Commander D’orr,” she called out, eyes diverting from the console for a minute, “I have what you wanted.”

When the doors to the lab parted some ten minutes later, the scientist didn’t even acknowledge the oncomer, simply sticking to the task at hand and allowing them to approach her at their own speed. As they got closer, the looming shadow of a brutish man made her smile. “Commander,” she nodded at the friendly giant as he came to a stop beside her.

“Teyahna,” he reciprocated, “what have you got for me?”

Picking up the data PADD that was on the top of her console, she waved it in the direction of the Lakota’s Xelliat first officer. “I’ve got several duty logs, some sensor readings and Marlowe’s trajectory up until she was due to make her first check in,” Lakota’s second officer informed her immediate superior, resuming her tapping.

Onsas took ownership of the PADD and pulled up a seat, taking the opportunity to rest his weary feet for the first time in what felt like an age. “Nothing spectacular,” he frowned, disappointed at the recordings that his science officer had managed to share with him.

“Aye,” she nodded, “but the beauty comes in the trajectory file.” Her fingers contorted along the controls until a holographic image displayed itself.

Taking a minute to review the translucent photons that made the image, Onsas found himself nodding. “Alright,” he eventually whispered, “let’s pay a visit to the Captain.”

The commotion in Lakota’s command center had died down significantly since the ship had departed Avalon and had begun hurtling through the cosmos at speed. On the main viewer, the projection was pointed aft of the ship, encompassing a view of the Osiris, complete with down swept nacelles and roll bar, just a few hundred feet from the port nacelle. A little further back, yet still visible off of the starboard nacelle, the sleek, angular frame of the USS Buran concluded the squadron formation. With their departures from Avalon complete, the ships had, for the time being, been stood down from their battle stations, but still the crews remained ready. Especially on the flagship. There wasn’t a Fek’lhr in Gre’Thor’s chance that Nazir was going to be caught with her pants around her ankles.

Or’uil and his security team were busy running drills and ensuring that the weapons in the armouries across the ship were adjusted to compensate for the rotating shield harmonics the Borg were well known for. If there was a chance the ship could get boarded, the Ungeat was taking no chances. Elsewhere, Prida and her engineers were working to ensure the shields were at their best for any encounter, and that transport inhibitors were in place. Apart from that, everyone that should have been at their places were, including the Captain, sat at the heart of the bridge.

“Captain,” Onsas barked across the bridge, taking great strides to approach the squadron commander. Joined by Teyahna, the two didn’t wait to begin briefing the captain. The science chief made her way to her station on the starboard science panel.

“We’ve managed to download the logs Starfleet would send our way,” the Orion spoke between her interactions with the console, “but we also got a little something extra…” she trailed off as she input some final commands and pulled up the schematic that had got her a little excited before.

Onsas took a few steps down to the flight deck and began pointing at the screen. “We know that the Marlowe was first due to report in three days ago,” he began, soon joined by the Trill who stood beside him, arms across her chest in silent contemplation of what she was being told. “Well, according to this data, we now know exactly where the ship was at the time she was first supposed to check in,” the Xelliat revealed.

“Two lightyears from the Ziyafa sector,” Teyahna called out, almost skipping down the stairs to join the command officers on the flight deck. When she came to a stop behind Lieutenant Iersa’s seat, she put her hands on her hips. “She’d just finished surveying the formation of a micronebula in the Ursa Astralis system when she made contact with this vessel here,” the screen changed to display an icon that appeared almost right on cue.

Dropping her arms, the Captain looked worried. “What is it?” she asked, looking at her science chief, and then the XO, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

“Don’t worry Captain,” Onsas shook his brown, leathery head, “it’s not Borg. If anything, it’s a freighter of some sort. And it appeared out of the Ziyafa sector.”

There was a sigh of relief from the Trill, until Teyahna took over the briefing again. “From that point, we know very little.” Right on cue, the marker that demarcated the location of the Marlowe moved, and then vanished. “We know that straight after the rendezvous, Marlowe enters the Ziyafa sector, but it’s at that point she disappears from long range sensors.” Teyahna subconsciously echoed the frustration on the face of the Captain. “For some reason the sector is a sensor blindspot,” she shrugged.

Letting out a huff, the Captain turned and walked back to the comfort of her seat, her right hand rubbing at the small of her back, drawing concerned glances from the XO and her scientist – glances that she clocked and ignored – as she took her seat once more. “Contact the squadron,” she called out, almost looking through the two command figures to address the operations chief at the front of the bridge. “We’re increasing speed, warp seven. Helm, increase speed.”

A series of clicks from the Ops chief and he went about his work, whilst Maddison silently increased the ship’s warp speed, sending a warning to engineering to let them know that they were increasing velocity, and it probably wouldn’t be the last time.

“Squadron has matched course and speed,” Deakon Iersa’s clicks were translated by the universal translator, making them much kinder on the ears of those around him. His species, non-vocal in the normal sense, communicated through clicks and whistles – a challenge for any humanoid to understand, but not the magnificent universal translator embedded in his commbadge.

“Number One,” Nazir finally acknowledged the XO again, pointing to the data PADD he held in his massive grasp. “Go through the logs, identify anything you think might be relevant to Marlowe’s disappearance. Any logs from the captain, send my way.”

“I’ll delve into the stellar phenomenon survey results,” Teyahna advised the captain, showing off her ability to pre-empt orders yet again. “Maybe there are some clues in the science?” she posed the rhetorical question, waiting for the briefest of moments and then vanished to her science station once again.

Onsas bowed respectfully at the Trill and bid a silent farewell, disappearing into the observation lounge aft of the bridge, much preferring the silence of the meeting place for such work as opposed to the bustle of the bridge.

There was much to sort through in the hunt for answers.

“Son of a… bitch!”

A bang, followed by a loud clattering of metal impacting the deck plating, drew Prida from beneath the console she was working on. It didn’t take her long to identify the source of the commotion. Just feet from the warp core, one of her assistants was pacing, angrily, and cradling his hand.

“I got it!” he snapped at a colleague a few seconds later, causing the petty officer to recoil and step away.

Prida let out a sigh, planting her hands either side of her petite frame and pushing herself to her feet. She brushed off her jacket and pulled on the hem, then took several steps towards the Andorian. “Ashrin,” she smiled in greeting.

Once his superior had accosted him, the Andorian came to a halt, glaring down at the smaller woman. The raised brow and half smile on her grey, mottled face told him she’d heard his nonsense. His antennae bowed, and so did his head. “Sorry, Chief…”

“Sorry for what?” Prida asked, taking the man’s hand and wincing in pain on his behalf. A significant gash covered most of his left palm, his blue blood dripping onto his boots. “Jonah will get over it,” the half Bajoran, half Cardassian jutted her head in the direction of the petty officer who had tried to assist.

Grabbing a dermal regenerator, the woman ran the device over the wound. “Care to share?” she asked him, but her tone made it clear it was more of a request than an invitation.

Watching as his chief cleaned and sealed his wound, the Andorian shrugged. “I guess some things I’d buried have been stirred up again,” he frowned.

Making eye contact with her assistant, the Bajassian nodded in the sage, all-knowing way that belied her young age. It was hard for many to comprehend the fact that Prida was still under thirty years old. She’d been headhunted nearly two years ago, plucked from obscurity to serve as a department head and trusted colleague of their captain. Still, she seemed to have grown a little in recent weeks, coming into her own due to the absence of her best friend, Noli. Noli had never intentionally overshadowed her ‘Bajestie’, but her natural aura and personality often meant that Prida sometimes fell into the background. Now that Noli had been ordered to the Osiris (in her own promotion), that meant that Prida had no one else to hide behind. It was almost… liberating.

“I get that,” she whispered as she finished up the healing process. “Go take a break and get this looked at in sickbay. I’m an engineer, not a physician, and the last thing I need is an Andorian with nerve damage in his hand,” she smiled at the man who had joined her from her team on Hathaway.

“Yes chief,” Ashrin nodded. But as he moved to walk away, a gentle hand on his arm stopped him in his tracks.

“It’s okay to be in pain, or be scared of what’s to come,” Prida told him in a hushed manner, “but it’s not okay to suffer in silence. Find someone to talk to, or I’ll put you in a jefferies tube with Solkar for the afternoon.”

Glancing across his shoulder, the Andorian looked at the Vulcan who was boring the pants off of some poor maintenance officer from the propulsion repair team. An afternoon with the Vulcan was not his idea of fun, even centuries after their two peoples had made peace.

“I’ll talk to the Counsellor…”