Star Trek: Death of the Federation

[LadyTevar]

Spector
Deep in the hull of the Akira-class, tactical screens showed the battle around them, marking most importantly the positions of the Spector's uncloaked fighting wings. Kirk watched as her pilots swarmed the injured Sphere, and saw the Borg kill two more of her fighters. A small dot marked the ejected pilot, but it was in the midst of the explosion from the belayed quantum torpedoes. Silently, Kirk accepted the fact this pilot was also dead -- survival in that hell was unlikely.

"The Gilgemesh is unshielded," Serin reported. "Possible full shield failure."

"Order Phantom and Wraith to act as point defense for her, warn Gilgemesh they're coming" Eoife's voice was as steady as a rock. "Ghost Wing should be empty and heading back to base." Kirk turned to view the status of those by the Cube, and froze.

The Heritage would not stand another blow, and Kirk knew it... yet even as her thought came, the Argonaut dove into the Cube's tractor beam and sheltered the smaller vessel like a hen settling over her chick.

The Spector's bridge was in shocked silence, and Eoife slowly rose from her seat, staring at the barrage thrown at the shield and hull of the Argo. Her head turned, blue eyes dark and gleaming. "Full Impulse, get us in range. Then target the Cube with all tubes, ripple fire. I want to see the top third sliced off."

Blinking faces met her gaze, before Serin answered in all seriousness "That will leave us with three torpedoes left in stores, Captain."

Kirk grinned, a little twist of her lips that matched the gleam in her eyes. "Throw them too."

The Spector wheeled about sharply and leapt forward, a wave of torpedoes lashing out as soon as range was reached.

==========
Ghost Wing

The Frigate they had targeted was damaged by the Argonaut, tumbling away with plasma boiling out into space. The Peregrine fighters could do nothing against the Cube, nothing to aid the Heritage or the Argonaut. However, a Frigate with damaged shields was fair game.

As they had before, the four cloaked fighters set up their attack runs to avoid each other and return fire, attacking the Frigate from the points of a 4-dimensional diamond. The first two attacks were staggered as Ghost-1 and Ghost-2 uncloaked to release their last mini-torps before cloaking and evading. They also served as distraction as Ghost-3 & -4 closed in to strafe the Frigate with phasers, darting and vanishing like gnats. A moment later the cloaked fighters regrouped and repeated the attack, reversing who strafed and who fired at range. Once the last mini-torps were gone, it would be down to phasers at close range, where the Ghost Wing's speed and cloaks would be the only safety.

The pilots wouldn't have it any other way.

==========
Phantom and Wraith Wings

The orders came in, and the nine remaining fighters made for the Gilgemesh. Phasers against cap-ship torpedoes were the only hope until the warship could repair herself.

[Cynical Cat]

"Kai!" shouted Kadon as the Exterminator died. "Helm, turn us back towards the Cube. Weapons load-."

The order died on Kadon's lips. He had been focused on squadron command and the larger issues showed the overall situation had degenerated badly. Instead of a unified squadron of Federation ships engaging the Cube on a single facing the Heritage had broken formation attacked another facing. This had left it the sole target of an entire facing worth of weapon systems and its flanks undefended against an Exterminator frigate.

The Cardassian, despite agitating for Federation leadership, had chosen not to obey orders and mass with the missile boats and the Immortal and the Argonaut had broken formation in an attempt to save the Heritage. Now the fire was being split between two shield facings and the Borg cube bring twice as many weapon systems to bear.

"G'dayt!" Kadon swore.

"Gilgamesh's shields are blown!" came Rish's voice behind him.

"Order the Gilgamesh to disengage and invite the S'harien to form up on our wing," snarled Kadon. He was now going to gamble with Klingon and Romulan lives to save foolhardy human ones. "Helm, take us up to engage the Cube's upward facing and close. Full power to the cannon and close." A reckless move for most ships, the Riskadh had been built with systems robust enough to handle the stress. "Cannon on the Cube, others on the Exterminator until its dust. Action!"

The Vor'cha rose with the grace of an eagle riding thermals. It wasn't as swift or agile as the Gilgamesh, but she could move. The ship lifted her nose and climbed, cresting above the invisible but deadly line that brought her weapons to bear on the Cube's top facing where it was engaged with the other Federation ships.

The Riskadh roared forward as power was sent through her impulse engines. Blazing emerald bolts flew from the Vor'cha's hull, a barrage aimed at the wounded Exterminator. Kalmech, the junior tactical officer, pulled his lips back in a feral snarl as his fingers stabbed the firing controls. The torpedoes and the cannon were under Kallor's command, at least until something happened to him. The mains, the eighteen disruptors the technically constituted the Riskadh's mains but were in reality secondary to the heavy cannon, were his. He eyes blazed as he fought to get another kill.

Kallor, on the other hand, barely showed any emotion at all. The bolts from the cannon were larger and brighter than their lesser cousins, burning stars hurled down at the Borg Cube. The Borg's shields could take the bombardment, or most of it, but not even the Borg were immune to bleed through. Sensor and weapon nodes were his targets as fired.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Avok Tenar stood in front of console and sweated. The environment suit was at a reasonable temperature instead of the fetid swamp heat that Klingons considered normal, but somehow Tenar was always hot. Battle just made it worse and the Riskadh was often fighting.

Not that Tenar really had grounds to complain. He was one of four survivors off the Butler, the inhabitants of the only escape pod to survive the battle that destroyed their ship. The Riskadh was a fighting ship and by all the gods that did not exist he could appreciate that. His Andorian heritage wasn't as violent as that of the Klingons, but that was just a matter of degrees.

So far he hadn't had to do anything but watch his panel, a task made slightly more difficult by the fact that Klingonaase was his fourth language. His job wasn't necessary until it was crucial. If something happened, that something being battle damage, it was his team's job to do whatever was required to keep power flowing and this part of Engineering functional. He had had the same job on the Butler and the Klingon technology was easier to learn than their language. It worked on the same principles as Federation technology and was driven by the same practical concerns and necessities. That had been easy.

What wouldn't be easy was the job, if he had to do it. In the year he had been on the Riskadh, the ship hadn't taken any bad hits in Engineering but the Butler had been crippled by a disruptor volley and plasma torpedo shot to the Engineering deck. If he closed his eyes he could still hear the screams of the men he had sealed into a doomed compartment.

He had had to do it. There was a fire and a coolant leak and neither of them could have been allowed to spread. He had to seal them in and reroute power through secondary conduit. It was his duty and even if he hadn't, they were already dead men. He told himself that every night. He even believed it most nights.

The problem was that he hadn't saved the ship. The Borg had then blasted the main hull before dropping another disruptor volley into Engineering and making Avok's actions completely pointless. The main energizer had exploded and the warp core crashed. Avok hadn't been anywhere near the main energizer and he had been lifted off his feet and smashed into a bulkhead. One of his antenna had been crushed, putting him in agonizing pain.

It had taken him half a minute to start thinking of anything other than pain and take stock of the extent of the damage. He had hit the alarm when he realized that main power was gone and the antimatter storage was in danger of being breached and then he had headed to the nearest escape pod, which turned out to be three decks away.

By some miracle his way had been clear and he had made. He wasn't sure how many ships had been launched form the Butler, but at the end of the fight the only ships to have survived had been Klingon and the only escape pod from the Butler to have survived had been his. So every day he lived with the knowledge he had killed three men for nothing.

Please gods, he whispered, don't make me do that again.

[rhoenix]

It had finally happened.

Despite much tender care to the internals of the Gilgamesh's structure and wiring, her energy conduits had reached an active life of three years, when they were meant to last for only one, and that with proper maintenance into account.

The Gilgamesh had seen far more than its anticipated share of combat, which was saying quite a bit, considering that it was technically a modified Defiant-class escort ship. She had gotten into many fights since she hurriedly left spacedock just a few short years ago, and had none of the recommended maintenance for an escort-class ship. This was sadly no surprise - the tradeoff for a typical escort-class ship's claws and teeth were both its fragility and delicate maintenance needs.

To that end, the mixed crew of the Gilgamesh had not seen a single active spacedock since the Battle for Earth, skulking as they did within the depths of space most of the time. They had performed all maintenance and repairs themselves.

It had been to this little ship's credit that most of the engineering and design teams for the ship were still on it when it had to hurriedly leave spacedock, which had pushed its time-without-incident expectation up considerably.

Powerlines within the ship that carried power to the shields fluxuated for just a bare moment, just enough for the power regulator to trip at the exact wrong time, just as the dorsal shield was struck by the sudden explosion of the Exterminator Frigate.

The results were immediate and violent - it was only the lack of air within most of the ship that contained the fires in most places, as the energy held within the conduits eagerly attempted to escape to places with less restriction, and less resistance.

The quick thinking and coordination of the damage control teams and engineering teams within the Gilgamesh was the one and only thing that saved the compact destroyer.

As it was, the explosion rocked the ship, forcing the hull itself to audibly groan at the shearing forces caused by the Gilgamesh's impulse engine without first having the structural integrity field active, before the engine was manually shut down. This design of impulse engine was nearly as powerful as those installed on Sovereign-class vessels, and had been shrunk by the design team of the Gilgamesh to its present size. The downside to such a design however was the same as its greatest strength - its sheer raw power.

The ship seemed to spin twice helplessly before coming to a very sudden stop. The lights within the bridge alternated randomly for a few moments between the reddish light of the standard Red Alert lighting of the bridge, and pure darkness. The holodisplays flickered, but stayed on more often than off, despite the tumultuous power problems the ship had.

"Report!" called Captain Solheim, forcing himself to take deep breaths - it was never an easy thing for a soldier to feel like he was failed by his equipment - on the other hand, they'd been making do for quite a while now without any serious repercussions. Perhaps now was the time Murphy chose to be an asshole.

It was a testament not only to Commander Inzeti's ability to lead and motivate crew, but also to the technical skills of the engineering and damage control teams that they had the power flowing normally in seconds, and the comms up immediately afterward. Commander Inzeti's voice, echoing slightly due to the hardsuit, replied just after the power stabilized. "Captain, there are ruptures in most major plasma conduits leading to the shields. The shields themselves are down; all we can have safely active is the structural integrity field. All other systems have been restored to normal levels except for the shields, but we'll need some major downtime after this fight."

"Captain," spoke up Lieutenant Adranis, "I'm showing a few of the Spector's combat shuttles on intercept course with us - their intention is to escort us to safety."

Nodding, Captain Solheim replied a heartbeat later. "Adranis, reinforce the structural integrity field with whatever power you can safely dump into that system. Swift, take us on a direct course to the Spector at full impulse."

Himself opening up comm channels, he sent two messages in tight-beam encrypted form. The first was sent simultaneously to the Riskadh and the S'harien: "If a knife isn't enough, use a gun - we will begin phase two of assault."

The second was send as a voice message to the Spector: "This is Captain Solheim of the Gilgamesh - we appreciate the bodyguards, and want to know if we can enjoy the hospitality of your shields for a while. We still have a few party favors, after all."

Even as he was beginning to compose the messages, the Gilgamesh's injury, to outward appearances, seemed to be very suddenly shaken off. For a few moments, the compact escort had looked as if it were dead in space - lights out, and all fields silent. Just as abruptly, the lights came back on just as the escort ship suddenly whipped around as if it had been stung, and shot at disquieting speed directly toward the Spector.

[LadyTevar]

Spector

"Gilgemesh is moving, requesting shelter under our shields," Serin informed Kirk, even as Nav and Weapons reported the Akirap-class had reached optimal range for the torpedoes.

"Relative stop," Kirk ordered, meaning for the ship to stay in this position relative to the Cube, where they had full targeting options on the Cube's dorsal facing. "All tube fire in sequence Zeta-5. Serin, work with the Gilgemesh. I don't want the shields down when the Cube attacks."

"Understood," Serin replied, contacting the Gilgemesh as he rapidly worked out a solution to get the Defiant-class inside the Spector's shields without compromising either ship's offensive abilities. The navigation solution and timing was sent to over to the smaller ship via encrypted tight-beam. Wouldn't do for the Borg to know just when the Spector was going to drop her shields.

Meanwhile, the photon tubes of the Spector fired; Zeta-5 sequence dictating which two tubes fired together. The sheer number of photon tubes on the Akira-class allowed continual stream of paired torps.

[Marcao]

Alpha Quadrant
Nivoch System, IRW S'harien
Bridge

The Exterminator seemed to reel beneath a series of blows and exploded a moment before the S'harien itself began to fire. The Warbirds salvo was an afterthought seeming to target the spirit of the Borg ship. Immediately after firing, its Riov took a second or two to assess the situation. The second sphere had been destroyed beneath the appearance of the D'Deridex class cruiser and the utilization of its unusual weapon system in conjunction with fire from the Cardassian Keldon as well as fighters from the Spector. With its destruction only the massive Borg cube predominantly remained which was for all intensive purposes a fleet unto itself.

The S'harien began to maneuever, seeking to turn along with its current sister ships the Riskadh and the Gilgamesh that would place it on a vector more suited for dealing with the Borg cube. As it began to do so, his tactical display dispassionately informed him of the change of status of the Gilgamesh. One moment the potent vessel had been stable and the other, its shields had vanished. A mere fraction of a second after he was informed of the change in state, his sensor officer intruded as he spoke.

"Riov, the Gilgamesh has lost shields." His sensor officer said.

"Communications, find out why." was his response before the state change of the USS Heritage and USS Immortal manifested on his console and he frowned. The story of the battle was playing out in his sensor screen and he did not like where the battle seemed to be heading. The S'harien had only tasted victory so far, but it had been tasked with engaging lesser targets. The Borg cube was a problem that must be tackled as a unified whole. He had hoped that the others had been able to work cohesively towards that end, but the threat to Nivoch IV had pulled apart the squadron.

Outwardly he was calm but inwardly he was all but holding his breath. The situation aboard the Gilgamesh threatened for a moment to eclipse the battle as questions and fears about Samara and Arrichu clawed their way to the surface of his mind. He glanced towards his communication officer, the Romulan female seemed to be talking to her counterpart aboard the Gilgamesh.

Solheim, if Samara or Arrichu are dead you won't make it to Bajor.

The thought swam along the surface of his mind and surprised him. A moment later the message from the Gilgamesh was received and he blinked. The Gilgamesh seemed ready to fight, and the lack of damage report reassured him. Nonetheless, he hoped that the Gilgamesh took a course of action that was indicative of its lowered defenses. A moment later, it began to move towards the USS Spector in a manner that reassured him and he nodded.

Maybe Solheim isn't as crazy as he seems.

"Riov, we are receiving a message from the Riskadh. It is an invitation to form on their wing." His communication officer stated.

He smiled at the politeness behind the request. "Take them up on their offer."

The S'harien twisted in space, its maneuvering becoming more focused as it covered the distance between the Riskadh and itself in order to move more fully into position. The Warbird climbed alongside the Klingon Vor'cha the sole representatives of alien of ancient Empires. The Cardassian Keldon was a non-human vessel but the Cardassian Union had never managed to reach the scale and power of either the Klingon Empire or the Romulan Star Empire. As the distance between the Cube and surviving Exterminators closed, his eyes glanced at his engineering report. The Sword was still marked as yellow, a notation next to the color indicating ongoing work.

"Shift power from engines to shields." He said. Under normal circumstances, the combat power allocation of the S'harien shunted a 20% overcharge to both weapons and engines. His borg enhanced engineering deck was able to transfer and maintain such levels of energy under combat stresses indefinately assuming a lack of battle damage. In doing such a change he acknowledged that the imminent exchange with the Cube was likely to be more of a slugging match than anything that had come before. Conflict against a target of the magnitude of a Cube had always seemed to be a binary solution set. How much damage could a task force dish out before the Cube began to destroy the members of such a task force.

"Coordinate your fire with the Riskadh." He added a moment later as the range between the remaining Borg targets and the Warbird and its Klingon sister ship closed even further. As the Riskadh began to fire upon the exterminator, the type 16 disruptor cannons joined in their deadly attention of the exterminator frigate. The target was in the forward arc and a combination of distance and maneuvering allowed all four weapons to be brought into play for the moment. The six type 20 disruptors that composed the sword were silent until the Riskadh fired on the cube itself. As that occurred, the fire from the Klingon warship was analyzed and tracked before the sword itself fired. Half a dozen emerald pulses of energy lashed out, seeking to work in unison with the fire of its sister ship.

Alpha Quadrant
Nivoch System, IRW S'harien

Even as the S'harien began to fire upon its targets the doors that separated its docking bay from space slid open. Curiously they remained open for over thirty seconds although nothing seemed to leave the Warbird until the doors closed. Beneath the relative protection of their cloaks, two groups of shuttles launched each with their own unique tasks.

[frigidmagi]

The Immortal slewed over, seeming to slide through the void as it turned to present it's front to the Cube facing that was blasting the Argo. It opened fire again with it's full frontal armament in an attempt to knock down the Borg shields.

[SirNitram]

Moving with the Immortal as best it could, the Vigilance couldn't quite swing around so fast. Still, it's shields were energized on the relevent side, and all weapons cut loose. Ripple-firing plasma torpedos slammed down along with phasers powered by the enhanced cores of a Combat-Refit Galaxy, introducing the Cube to a form of Hell.

"We are the Vigilance. Lower your shields and prepare to be annihilated. Your assimilated data and machinery will be atomized. Your chance of victory is nothing. We. Are. Coming."

The broadcast was a defiant, angry, offensive slap back at the Borg, yet if they understood it, they hadn't shown so far.

[Hotfoot]

Alpha Quadrant
Nivoch System
Empyrean Bridge

As the various members of the crew who were holographic disappeared into the air, Captain DuBois furiously tapped orders into his command chair’s console. Dunok would handle the details, but he needed to be sure that the Borg Cube did not send out a reinforcement call to the Collective. It was a trick he had used several times before through his journey through the Gamma Quadrant to limit the Borg’s ability to follow them, to avoid further conflicts, and now, he hoped, it would save the colonists of this planet, at least for today. Any signal the Cube sent was intercepted and replaced with updates as to the battle as DuBois wanted, in this case, that the Cube had managed to split the forces and was now taking them apart piecemeal. The Collective’s signal, meanwhile, would let the Cube think that help was on the way post-haste.

The Empyrean itself, meanwhile, moved in formation with the Spector, keeping up appearances of engaging in the battle, downgrading the ECM assault as it returned shield power to maximum, while power to weapons remained routed to the ECM systems.

[rhoenix]

Flying purposefully at full impulse directly toward the Spector, the Gilgamesh wove in and around nearby bursts of fire as it made the final approach. Only as it closed within the last kilometer though did it suddenly change trajectory, slowing only as it cruised through the much larger Spector's shields, shuddering slightly as it did. Once it had passed within the larger ship's shields, the much smaller escort ship suddenly spun around, its front now facing the same direction as the Spector as it came to a stop only about a hundred meters above the Spector's saucer section.

"Swift, notify the Spector that we've found our parking space, and tell them not to be alarmed by any strangeness from up here," ordered Captain Solheim, next turning to Adranis as Swift murmured her assent.

"Adranis, give me status of the Cometfall," he continued, steepling his fingers as he waited for a response.

The response took a few seconds while he coordinated with Engineering. "Sir, we'll need an extra two seconds per shot to ensure that we don't have any more blown relays, but the Cometfall system is now on standby."

"Swift," Captain Solheim spoke up, breaking the silence. "Notify the Spector that we're about to use our torpedoes to supplement theirs."

Not yet, he thought. Not just yet.

* * * * *

Nog was seated at a small table in a small restaurant in New Orleans, Earth. His bowl of tube grubs was growing cold, his attention far more on the stack of datapads on the table around him than on his food. He sighed as he kept reading, massaging his forehead with his other hand as he read.

"Something wrong, Nog? You haven't even touched those grubs Zach made for ya," spoke up the old owner of the establishment, and the father of Nog's mentor - Joseph Sisko.

Nog looked up at the man with a weak, and tired toothy grin. "It's nothing too bad, sir. I'm just... my final project for engineering isn't coming along well," he finished, looking downcast. He never really could even try to be deceitful around the old man - he seemed to have the Sisko family trait of seeing right through him, something he never had quite gotten used to as a Ferengi.

"Well," replied the old man with a smile, setting down a fresh bowl for the young Ferengi man who had become fast friends with his grandson, "You don't gotta make something entirely new. Sometimes its best to just improve on what the past did that was good."

At this, Nog nodded, looking at the specifications of the Defiant-class escort his mentor, Captain Benjamin Sisko had designed.

The old man walked away with Nog's old bowl, chuckling softly to himself as he made his way slowly to the kitchen, watching Nog look with renewed interest through the datapads clustered around him.

Nog looked back to one of the datapads, which had design notes for old American World War Two-era plane design, and the period shortly afterward in history in aviation, trying to take inspiration from the past. A passage jumped out at him as he was skimming forward through design notes - "This was a gun so awesome, we had to build a plane around it."

He blinked, expanding the entry, reading more about a ground assault craft called the A-10. A smile slowly grew on his face as he read more on the entry, looking back at the design specifications for the Defiant-class. Now, he knew what he would do.

* * * * *

"Adranis," spoke up Captain Solheim once more, his eyebrows narrowing over his artificial blue eyes, "Load phased plasma torpedoes into all four forward banks. Target the Cube's shield generators that feed the facing closest to us."

"Acknowledged, Captain," replied the Gilgamesh's tactical officer Adranis, working for a few moments more over the holo-display before speaking up again a moment later. "Torpedoes loaded, and firing solutions are ready."

Captain Solheim stared cooly at the implacable-looking Borg Cube on the viewscreen for a moment more. "Fire," he said. "Let's see how they like added plasma to their diet."

With that, four somewhat ghostly-looking green torpedoes shot forward from the Gilgamesh, racing eagerly toward their targets.

[General Havoc]

One by one, the stately ships turned back to fight the Cube, and one by one, they unleashed their complements of fire. But time and physics and the mechanics of three dimensional combat were against them, for the battle near the Cube had migrated away from the frontal facing. Heritage's single maneuver, breaking the plane of the conflict, had snowballed, dragging the entire fight up and onto the top facing of the Borg cube, while most of the rest of the fleet still faced the forward section. Both sections could spit fire. Both sections did.

The various ships of the Allied formation had different capacities and different reactions. Barbarossa, a megalith D'Deridex, had as much chance of rapidly changing her facing towards the cube as she did of spontaneously transforming into solid gold. Strung out at range from the Cube thanks to her having held back to shield the planet, she engaged with torpedoes, sending a volley crashing into the Cube's forward shields. But the forward shields of the Cube were scarcely touched, and the torpedoes did nothing meaningful, exploding against the Cube's facing like water balloons on ferro-concrete.

Other ships were faster, or had systems that did not require speed. Spector, built around the light hull of an Akira-class Destroyer, made the appropriate change with ease, positioning herself in such a way as to provide a deflection shot on the top-facing of the Cube. Riskad'h, much less nimble than the torpedo cruiser, nevertheless struggled about as well, rising above the plane of the battle to bring her weapons to bear on the Cube's dorsal facing as her secondary armament engaged one of the remaining Frigates, joined moments later by S'harien's secondaries. Thrown for a loop by Vigilance's fire, the Frigate had no hope of evading, and its shields collapsed entirely before the withering barrage of disruptor fire, though the Frigate managed to retreat behind the shelter of the Cube itself before the Battlecruisers could pound it to dust.


And if it hadn't been for the fighters, it might even have worked.

The fighters had only microtorpedoes available to them, but their target was a damaged Frigate, and the shots took the Borg warship by surprise one last time. A flurry of explosive projectiles blotted it out of the air, leaving the phaser cannons to stir up the wreckage.

As the fires died aboard what was left of the Exterminator, the Riskad'h and S'harien cut loose their main batteries, moments before a wedge of torpedoes streaked past them both, courtesy of Spector, who had wrapped Gilgamesh in her own shields, and was now rapidly redeploying to support the attack on the Cube. Yet even as the Battlecruisers flew, one opened its docking bay, just for a split second. It was debatable if any of the other ships even saw them do so. It was not debatable if the Borg did.

The Cube no sooner saw S'harien open her docking bay, than it fired a wide-angle Tachyon pulse, drenching the Battlecruiser in high energy Tachyons. To a full sized cloak, they would have done nothing more than bounce a signal back, but the shuttles S'harien had deployed were no such things, and the tachyons overloaded their cloaks instantly, revealing them to all the world to see.

The shuttles ran. They could do little else, chased by volleys of disruptor fire that glanced off the Battlecruiser's forward shields like rainwater or vanished into deep space. A moment later, and they had left easy targeting range, and the Cube ignored them once more, preferring to concentrate on prey at hand.

Volley after volley of torpedoes smashed into the dorsal section of the Argonaut, along with heavy disruptor fire from all points of the compass. For every shot the Borg put into Argonaut, Immortal returned them one, and Vigilance another. Other ships were firing, by now, on the Cube's dorsal facing, but those two were in close range, where aim was pointless and missing impossible, deluging the Cube's shields with plasma torpedoes, phasers, and every other weapon conceivable.

But a Cube remained a Cube. And the shields of an Ambassador, no matter how thick they were relative to other ships of the line, were not those of a Cube...

*------------------------------------------------*

The bridge shook like an angry giant had picked it up and hurled the ship about, throwing half the bridge crew off their feet, and deluging those who managed to retain their footing with sparks from lights overhead.

Lt. Luther, the tactical officer, braced himself against his console, staring into the symbols and numbers and forcing his eyes to focus.

"Immortal and Vigilance are firing again. No effect on the Cube."

"Shields?" called Kalpov over the protesting hull.

"32%" called Ereshal from somewhere across the room. "Structural Integrity Field is buckling. They're draining our shields through the tractor beam."

"Reverse the polarity," called Kalpov. "Lock torpedoes on the tractor emitter and fire! Full spread!"

"Torpedo tube 3 is jammed," yelled Luther over the chaos. "The others are in full automatic mode. We have to get out of the tractor!"

"Heritage can't take another volley," said the sensor officer.

"Neither can we!" shouted the tactical officer. "We have got to get - "

"Too late for that," said Kalpov, shutting the conversation down. "We can't break a Tractor beam with our impulse engines."

"We can try a micro Warp pulse," said Luther.

"From inside a tractor beam?" asked Ereshal, her voice indicating just what she thought of the idea. "We'd rip the ship in half!"

"We stay here another minute," shouted Luther," and the Borg will rip it in half for us!"

"All reserve power to the forward - "

The ship bucked beneath them, hurling Luther to the floor, knocking all standing bridge crew down, and briefly washing the viewscreen out in static, as a console exploded from somewhere behind Kalpov. Steam began venting from a broken conduit in the walls, and the ship beneath their feet began groaning, like a damned soul submitted to the tortures of Hell.

"Report!"

"Shields at fifteen percent!" called Ereshal. "Dropping fast. The Borg are launching another volley of - "

Ereshal fell silent, long enough that all eyes turned to her, as she ran her fingers over the tactile console once again, an expression of confusion coming across her face. "Ereshal?" asked Kalpov finally.

"They've... they've switched targets. They're firing torpedoes at Immortal."

Had she reported that the Borg were withdrawing entirely, she would not have gotten a more confused reaction. "What?" asked Kalpov. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Immortal's still moving, sir!" called Lt. Luther. "Our shields are collapsing, why would they stop firing at..."

The same thought occurred to everyone present at the same time. One by one, the bridge officers of the Argonaut fell silent, raising their heads from their flickering consoles, faces paling, eyes widening, as they looked from one to another in silence.

Commander Kalpov reacted first, raising his hand to his combadge, and slapping it.

"This is the Commander," he said, trying his damndest to keep his voice calm, "all hands, this is a boarding alert, repeat, a boarding alert! Evacuate immediately to hard shelters! I say again, evacuate immediately to shelters. All hands, evacuate!"

"Shields collapsing!" cried Lt. Luther. "Twenty seconds at most!"

"Clear the bridge," called Kalpov. "Everyone out, now! Get to the shelter on Deck 3. I'll stay here and transfer bridge control to engineering."

That comment brought half the Bridge crew to an immediate halt. "Commander!" yelled Lt. Luther, speaking for half of them, "they're going to be targeting the bridge, we all have to leave."

"If they take the bridge with control unlocked they could self-destruct the ship or worse," snapped Kalpov, refusing to look up. "Someone has to make sure that doesn't happen. Now get the hell out of here."

"Sir, we can't just - "

"You heard the commander!" yelled Ereshal, managing this once to drown out Lt. Luther, who was nearly twice her size. "Move!"

Luther and two or three others still hesitated, and Ereshal had to practically shove them towards the turbolift. Only after the entire bridge crew had left did she turn back.

He had managed to avoid the rest of the crew, but Kalpov raised his head to meet Ereshal's blank gaze, one which had ceased to be odd a long time ago. He straightened up from the console he had been standing over, saying nothing, for there was nothing that needed to be said.

Ereshal seemed to be trying to choose between several things to say, but finally settled on one. "Be careful, Ivan," she said, managing to make it sound more like an order and less like a plea.

"I'll be all right," said Kalpov. He even managed to make it look convincing. Not an easy feat, given the number of Borg that were likely about to appear all around the bridge.

"Just be careful" repeated Ereshal, still sounding unconvinced. He couldn't exactly blame her. "They can adapt - "

"Not to this," said Kalpov, hurrying her towards the door. "Get to main Engineering and take over. I'll handle everything up here."

She wanted to say more, protest maybe, or just say something encouraging, but there wasn't time. She settled for a simple "Yes sir," before stepping through the doors to the turbolift, which slid shut behind her.

Alone on the deserted bridge of the battered heavy cruiser, Commander Kalpov took a deep breath, and slowly turned around, walking over to the Comm officer's station and bending over it, eyes raised towards the Borg cube that filled the viewscreen.

"This is Argonaut to all ships," he said, triggering the wide-band transmission. "Our shields are failing and we are being boarded by Borg drones. We require immediate assistance from all allied vessels. This is Commander Kalpov, USS Argonaut. We require assistance in any form possible. Please - "

He got no further.

In the twinkling of green lights, twenty five Borg heavy assault drones beamed onto the bridge at the same time as the Computer belatedly reported that the forward shields had failed.

No ordinary drones were these, no half-slagged combines of circuitry and bare flesh. Standard drones were dangerous enough, but Borg Heavy Assault drones were a class above. Covered head to toe in armor, armed with a heavy disruptor as well as the more common nanoprobe tubes, linked together through an internal subdivision collective, and programmed with rudimentary combat tactics, Heavy Assault drones were the very tip of the Borg spear when dealing with enemy ships.

"We are the Borg," they said as one, "resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."

Running his eyes over the interlopers on his bridge, Commander Kalpov depressed the transmit button once more.

"This is the Argonaut. We require assistance immediately. Please respond."

And with that, the transmission went dead.

*------------------------------------------------*

Three hundred Borg Assault drones beamed onto the Argonaut in total, transporting themselves over in less than half a second to nearly every deck in the massive Ambassador-class. Any ship with sensors was more than capable of determining that much. Heritage, nestled beneath Argonaut, received the attentions of sixty more. But having boarded both vessels, the Cube then proceeded to ignore them, releasing the tractor beam that gripped both ships and leaving them to float off, apparently dead in space, giving no sign of what must be transpiring aboard even at this very moment.

[Cynical Cat]

"The Cube has emitted a high energy tachyon pulse," reported Arikel.

"Continue to close," replied Kadon. "Load tricobalt torpedoes in all launchers. Forward disruptors and the cannon on the Cube. Continue to target tractor and weapon emplacements. Ventral and rear disruptors stand by."

"Acting," replied Kallor.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Szaren hissed as the photon torpedo was pulled out of the launch rail and back into the ready magazine. The Gorn and five other Marines were stationed on a ledge overlooking the loading rail that went to the launch tube. The extra hands stood ready to help with damage control or to repel boarders.

There were three other Gorn on the Riskadh, survivors rescued by the Klingons and then put into service where their massive strength and toughness would best serve the ship. Szaren didn't disagree in principle. At least the Klingons kept their ship at a decent temperature, unlike those Federation ice buckets. The best thing you could say about Vulcans, besides the fact they weren't as frail as most mammals, was that they liked it hot.

A new projectile was loaded onto the rail. It was twice the length of a standard torpedo, a physical requirement imposed on the weapon by the size of the triple reaction mechanism of its warhead. It was a tricobalt weapon, immensely destructive but larger and slower than a standard torpedo and thus more easily evaded or intercepted. Of course "more easilly" really meant "with great difficulty" but Szaren wasn't one to bother with small details. It was one of the reasons he never rose up the ranks.

The Klingon operators below stood at secondary control consoles as the torpedoes fed into the locks. Tricobalts were one of the most destructive "conventional" weapons in existence. It was another thing he liked about Klingons. When it came to killing they didn't fuck around.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Take us to close range zan Khedira so we can launch tricobalts with minimal chance of interception. Then take us on a mark zero by one hundred eighty loop." The course would expose the Riskadh's belly as it turned away from the Cube, but not the cruiser's weak flank shields. "Zan Kallor, fire forward torpedoes at your discretion. Then rake them with the ventral disruptors and give them the aft guns and another tricobalt. Zan Aaveroke, signal our intentions to the S'harien and tell the rest of the squadron to avoid point blank range with the cube."

"The shields on the Argonaut and Heritage are failing," said Arikel. "The Borg Cube is redirecting fire."

"The Argonaut is signaling that they're being boarded."

"Of course they're being boarded," snapped Kadon. The Riskadh was already on a high speed attack vector towards the Cube. Killing their velocity and redirecting the ship to a course that would take it close to the Argonaut and match velocity would take precious time. Only by matching velocity and extending shields could counter boarding operations take place without taking the suicidal course of action of dropping the Riskadh's own shields. "Inform the Argonaut we will render assistance when possible."

How much Klingon blood would be spilled because the captain of the Heritage had decided to engage a second Cube facing? How many millions or billions of humans still lived on colonies and border worlds in this sector? And how many handfuls of Klingons? In the end it did not matter. They needed those ships. He would spend that blood.

"Force Leader Menmoth, have your Marines stand by to beam over to allied vessels and begin counter boarding operations."

The Riskadh is loading tricobalts and continuing to fire on tractor and weapon emplacements. They will be fired at close range and then the Riskadh will do an upwards loop away from the Cube. During the loop the Riskadh will fire its ventral disruptors and will then fire aft disruptors and another tricobalt after completing the loop.

[LadyTevar]

Spector

"Ghost Wing reports Frigate destroyed," the CAP reported, and a grim satisfaction swept the cramped confines of the BattleBridge.

"New orders," Kirk replied, sharing the satisfaction, but knowing the battle wasn't over. "Rejoin Wraith and Phantom, initiate Flyswatter Project. Alpha is the Immortal, Beta is the Vigilance, Delta is At Will."

"Understood." The CAP tight-beamed the orders over to the remaining fighters, and the three wings moved in closer to the Borg Cube. But they weren't there to attack it, instead the Peregrines went to work using their phasers to detonate the Borg torpedos before they could reach the Immortal or the Vigilance. The fighters couldn't stop the Borg phasers, but every torpedo they could destroy or knock off-course would protect the Alliance vessels.

"Captain, the Argonaut and Heritage have been released from the tractor beam. Presuming Boarding party in..."

"This is Argonaut to all ships," he said, triggering the wide-band transmission. "Our shields are failing and we are being boarded by Borg drones. We require immediate assistance from all allied vessels. This is Commander Kalpov, USS Argonaut. We require assistance in any form possible. Please - "

The communication cut off with a deadly finality, silencing all. Eoife closed her eyes, her head lowering in a silent prayer for the souls aboard.

"Weapons, firing solution on the Heritage and Argonuat. Hold and update as needed. For now, continue massed fire on that damned Cube." The bridge crew stared in silence at their chosen Captain, their Kirk, who was slowly raising her head to look at the screen again. "Comm, open channel to the Immortal, Riskadh and S'harien."

"This is Kirk. Maintaining firing solution on the infected vessels. If they are Assimilated, the Spector will handle it. End Message."

The mood was grim, yet what else could be done? The Spector was a carrier and missile platform. They had no way to help the stricken vessels, no boarding teams that could beam or ship over to clean the infestation. The only thing the Spector could do to help was to make sure the ships and their crews did not suffer.

To save the ships and their crew -- to save the other Alliance vessels nearby -- Kirk had volunteered to take the dirtiest job and perform the Mercy Kill.

The Peregrines are targeting all Borg torpedoes, with priority on those aimed at the Immortal. The Spector continues the ripple fire on the same facing of the Cube, while tracking the Heritage and Argonaut. First one Assimilated gets everything and the kitchen sink thrown at her.

[SirNitram]

"Combat Teams.. Do it."

The transports on the Vigilance spun up, and the dirtiest secret in the fleet began appearing in the Argonaut and began to fan out. Slugthrowers were far from unknown in the Federation, but the Fletchette Cannon was a rather ancient design. At least the Vigilance had removed the telltale sound of a new round being loaded.

Onboard ship, however, Markson grunted at the consoles. Fire was maintained on the Cube, despite the lack of apparent effectiveness. Plasma torpedos enveloped portions of the shields in emerald fire, and phasers stabbed over and over.

"Suvuc?" A comm was touched.

"Sir. Battle Bridge is operational."

"We may need more than that. You heard the Argonaut. I had to loose them."

A long silence from the secondary bridge. "It is the right choice."

[Charon]

Hizir glared at the Borg cube as The Barbarossa continued to close on her new target all too slowly. He glanced back at Khoal, the implied question easily read between the two long time comrades in arms.

"They'll need a few more minutes to charge up and get ready. At this rate, we'll be in range before they're ready."

Hizir nodded and turned back to the screen as another round of torpedoes launched out to strike at the offending Cube in impotent fury. But soon enough this cube would learn for itself the fury of The Barbarossa

[Marcao]

Alpha Quadrant
Nivoch System, IRW S'harien
Bridge

"Tachyon pulse targeted in our location Riov" The voice of his sensor officer was calm and professional.

He watched as the pulse emitted washed over the S'harien and the empty space that surrounded her. The S'harien took the brunt of the pulse and shrugged, its cloaking systems were not operational and the pulse had no visible effect on the Warbird. The six shuttles that had been launched however, where unable to merely shrug off the tachyon pulse. The tachyon's nearly instantly overwhelmed the far less powerful and far more poorly shielded cloaking systems of the shuttles. Within the span of three and half breaths, all six shuttles had lost their aegis of invulnerability and were revealed to the world. Four of these shuttles had been moving away from the S'harien at high speed and towards the general direction of Nivoch IV. The crews of these shuttles were momentarily stunned before their survival instincts kicked in and they threw themselves into a series of defensive maneuvers with practiced abandon. The final two shuttles had meant to orbit the S'harien until needed, preparing to use their tractor beam emitters to disrupt and attenuate incoming attacks. With their cloaks disabled, they both seemed to reconsider their tasks and immediately sought to land once again within the S'harien. Upon doing so, engineering teams rushed towards the newly arrived shuttles.

"There goes that plan." Riov Galan Cretak muttered as he glanced at his tactical screen. Although the four shuttles that remained in space had drawn a fair amount of fire, none had been hit although given their vectors they would quickly enter extreme range and remain a non-issue on the conflict.

"Riov, communications from Shuttles one through four. The pulse overloaded their cloaking systems, it will take ten minutes or so for repairs to be carried out." His communication officer stated.

"Acknowledge their transmission. Tell them to stay outside of extreme range until their cloaks are re-established and then to carry out their objectives." He responded as his attention focused on the Borg cube.

"Status on the Argonaut and Heritage?" He asked a moment later.

"Both ships have been released from the tractor beam and have been boarded by the Borg. Sensors indicate the Argonaut is still sending out distress signals, the Heritage is quiet." His sensor officer replied.

"Continue to fire on the primary target in conjunction with the Riskadh." He said.

"As ordered." His weapon officer replied, the six type 20 disruptor cannons and four type 16 disruptors releasing pulses of energy aimed to battering the near impervious shields of the Borg cube.

"Riov, incoming communications from the Riskadh." His communication officer stated a moment before a copy of the message was transmitted to the Riov's own data console.

"Tricobalts." He said to no one in particular as a ghost of a smile appeared on his lips. It had been sometime since he had seen such weapons used. He expected the Klingons to being masters in their proper usage.

"Weapons, coordinate our plasma torpedoes with the Riskadh. I want our ordnance to arrive safely after their initial tricobalt strike reaches the Borg shields." Tricobalt weapons would not allow a concurrent strike, the detonation of a tricobalt device would prematurely detonate all ordnance in close proximity to the target. However, the S'harien could not only track the ordnance once it was fired from the Riskadh, but its own computer systems could run simulations regarding past tricobalt usage in the past. With the available data, the S'harien should be able to launch its own plasma torpedoes at a time where they would arrive within seconds of it being safe for ordnance to do so without risking deterioration to the warheads and guidance systems of the Romulan plasma torpedoes.

"It will be done Riov." His weapon officer replied.

Riov Galan Cretak moved his left hand, a glyph pressed followed by another as communications was established between the bridge and two separate locations within the S'harien. "Sindari, Idrakht I want a third of our forces to be prepared to board and repel Borg forces within the Argonaut and Heritage. The Ambassador class is our primary objective, the Prometheus second."

"Understood Riov." Idrakht responded a mere moment after his command. Sindari took longer. "I will make certain that the boarding parties have the necessary information regarding the vessels in question." the voice of the Romulan female was cool. Sindari was not the type to disagree with him directly, but he was certain that she was not pleased that he was placing Romulan lives at risk.

"Message coming in from the Spector." His communication officer said a moment before she transferred it to the speakers.

He arched a brow beneath the words of the human woman that had taken within herself and her ship the responsibility of acting like an executioner. The fire in her words reassured him.

A Kirk indeed.

"Acknowledge receiving the message." He stated. Nothing more needed to be said.

With his orders carried out he sat back against his chair and frowned. The loss of the Ambassador and Prometheus was a multi-faceted problem. One that he was certain every captain in the task force understood. Their unit now had less firepower to bring to bear against the cube, less ships to absorb damage from the Cube and ultimately, would have to sacrifice personnel to liberate the stricken ships. The Riskadh had correctly gauged the ebb and flow of the engagement so far. It was due to the current flow of the battle that the Klingon felt compelled to use his precious tricobalt torpedoes. His left hand moved, a series of keys pressed as a simple encoded and encrypted text only message was sent to the sister ships of the task force.

Time is against us. If any tools are capable of being used to end this battle, now would be a good time to use them.

He took a deep breath and held it, his eyes focusing almost entirely on his tactical console. The vectors of the ships of the task force, their locations, and a veritable host of other bits of information was gathered therein and presented to him. It was always a matter of numbers and unless something momentous occurred, the numbers were not indicating victory. At least, not a victory that he himself would accept. Ultimately, it was out of his hands. It all now depended on how skillfully the other captains maneuvered their vessels and what further secrets the others had managed to keep.

Code: Select all

Combat Summary

Warbird is continuing to move alongside the Riskadh firing its disruptors on targets in conjunction with the Vor'cha. Once the Riskadh fires its initial Tricobalt strike, the S'harie will empty its forward torpedo tubes and fire 12 plasma torpedoes to arrive shortly after the tricobalt impact. Data is being utilized to make the gap between the tricobalt explosion and the arrival of the plasma torpedoes as small as possible with a margin of safety. After the Riskadh fires its aft tricobalt, the Warbird will empty its rear launcher and fire four more torpedos into the facing under the same operating principle. 

[rhoenix]

The messages washed over the bridge amongst the quiet, ordered chaos of the bridge being on full combat alert. How quickly in succession they arrived seemed to almost be as a grinning grim reaper, waving silently.

"This is Argonaut to all ships," he said, triggering the wide-band transmission. "Our shields are failing and we are being boarded by Borg drones. We require immediate assistance from all allied vessels. This is Commander Kalpov, USS Argonaut. We require assistance in any form possible. Please - "

Captain Solheim closed his eyes. The Gilgamesh was originally intended to handle space combat first and foremost; its crew complement of 45 at full staff did not lend itself well toward supporting ground troops as well. Though all the crew by now were highly trained soldiers, the Gilgamesh would not be able to help either of the stricken ships by boarding parties - they simply did not have the crew to spare.

The next transmission forced himself to take a slow, deep breath.

"This is Kirk. Maintaining firing solution on the infected vessels. If they are Assimilated, the Spector will handle it."

At this, he smirked darkly. "Like hell they're not related," he said to himself.

"Text-only message from the S'harien," replied Swift, looking unusually somber.

Captain Solheim read it with an equally serious face.

Time is against us. If any tools are capable of being used to end this battle, now would be a good time to use them.

"Captain to Commander Inzeti," said Captain Solheim. "Level out the life support across the ship and get the crew out of suits. We may be attracting attention soon."

"Acknowledged, Captain," Commander Inzeti said, a barely-detectable note of softness within it. Barely a minute later, she spoke up again, this time by striding onto the bridge, her hair looking very matted from its time in a helmet, but she appeared unconcerned with such things as she immediately spoke up. "We are ready," she said with a nod, and a very quick look meant for Captain Solheim alone. With that, she sat at the engineering station, coordinating with the other teams.

"Open a commlink to all ships," ordered Captain Solheim, steepling his fingers in front of his face.

"Channel open, sir," replied Swift, still looking and sounding unusually serious. Normally she would be laughing and making very inappropriate comments as to the Borg's sexual preferences, dietary needs, and medical afflictions - now she was silent.

"This is Captain Solheim. For maximum effect, I suggest you loose the hounds twelve seconds after my mark," he said, ending the transmission. "Swift, open a tight-beam commlink to the Spector."

"Channel is open," replied Swift, though now she had a small smile on her face.

"Spector, this is Captain Solheim. Twelve seconds from my mark, I need you to drop your forward shields for 0.5 seconds," he said, staring at the Borg cube within the viewscreen, still looking implacable. Well, he thought, not for much longer.

"Cometfall status is on hot standby, sir," reported Adranis without being prompted.

This caused Captain Solheim to smirk. "Well played, Adranis," spoke up Captain Solheim once more, his eyebrows narrowing over his artificial blue eyes, "Confirm target lock."

The small escort ship used its maneuvering thrusters only, making very minor adjustments to its bearing, until the nose was pointed directly at the heart of the Borg Cube. "Lock confirmed, Captain," reported Adranis.

"Computer," spoke up Captain Solheim once more, his eyebrows narrowing over his artificial blue eyes, "Prepare for primary ignition. Authorization Solheim Kappa Gamma Omega Eight Niner Niner Seven."

"Captain's code confirmed," replied the calm, female voice of the computer. "Please enter supporting authorization key."

"Confirm primary ignition," said Lieutenant Adranis, his eyes narrowing. "Authorization Adranis Alpha Omega Beta Omega Seven Four Seven Seven."

"Authorization confirmed. Beginning primary ignition upon command," replied the calm voice of the computer, apparently unconcerned with little things like Borg Cubes in light of its tight safeguards against unwise use.

"Swift, send a message to all ships. Single word - Mark," said Captain Solheim, his eyes narrowing as he continued staring at the Borg Cube. "Computer - begin primary ignition."

"Primary ignition confirmed," the calm voice of the computer replied, just as the ship seemed to go dark to external sensors.

The outer lights turned off, the impulse engine shut down, all the weapons systems powered down. It seemed at first as if the small escort ship had gone into hibernation - but for the tell-tale signs that despite not showing any external sign of it, her oversized warp core was operating at maximum power.

The countdown appeared on the bridge, as the crew beheld the Cube through the viewscreen, feeling the vibrations as the shell was loaded via internal tractor beams into the port almost at the very rear of the ship. There was one final shudder as the shell was seated firmly within the firing chamber.

The bridge lights dimmed, as if in requiem as the countdown began.

Twelve... eleven... ten... nine...

Just over 90% of the power from the warp core was being diverted into two immense capacitors, draining terawatts of power per second and storing it in preparation for a massive release of energy. The charge was now building with shocking speed, the two massive capacitors storing and compressing energy on a massive scale.

Eight... seven... six... five...

* * * * *

Five years ago

"Look Nog," said Ops Chief O'Brien through the commlink, "I know that this particular engineer is the best at micronizing mass driver systems, but she is a Romulan. I am begging you to reconsider, alright? Look, between me and your father, I'm sure we could..."

"No," Nog said, already shaking his head with a rueful and somewhat disquietingly toothy grin on his face, a sort of face only a Ferengi (or perhaps a Klingon) could achieve. "She's the best at doing this, and she's only been involved in civilian projects, that I can tell. She..."

This time, Chief O'Brien interrupted Nog, looking increasingly irritated. "Sure Nog, everyone who studies mass accelerator projects should have a completely normal and civilian background! Nog, mass accelerators are used pretty much only when you want to destroy something, there aren't many civilian applications for it. Trust me Nog, I've looked into it."

"I know, Chief," Nog said with another rueful grin. "She seems really nice though, not like most Romulans I've met! She's friendly, and likes to talk about engineering! She..."

"Listen to yourself!" interrupted Chief O'Brien again, his face turning slightly red due to his irritation. "It's not even a little suspicious that you and she are getting along so well? That never crossed your mind? Use the brain that's supposed to sit a meter above your arse!"

"Um, it's about 74 centimeters for me Chief," said Nog apologetically, not wanting to affront the man that had helped both he and his father so much.

Chief O'Brien very obviously stifled a loud and incredibly profane curse, and cut off the commlink. Nog sighed, staring at the wall in front of him without seeing it. Perhaps the Chief was right - he'd found his room slightly out of order a few times since she'd arrived, and she had been asking him a few pointed questions about why a very specific size, length, and design of mass accelerator was needed in his project, or what his project was. Sure, she asked over dinner, and while flirting with him, but... He'd brushed off her seemingly innocuous inquiries as best he could, but now he began to wonder.

* * * * *

Four... three... two... one...

As the countdown hit one, the two massive capacitors at the rear of the ship released all their accumulated energy at once into the mass accelerator assembly, and a low vibrating hum made itself known throughout the small escort ship. The bridge began to shake slightly.

Zero

As the count reached zero, the vibrating of the ship suddenly stopped as a bolt shot from the front of the small escort-class ship. This bolt read on sensors as solid iridium, now a molten mass due to the speed at which it travelled - which was somewhere between 40% and 41% of the speed of light itself. The small ship hurtled backwards nearly half a kilometer at high speed due to the raw force with which the shell was fired, enough to graze the Spector's rear shields, though Swift maneuvered the now fully active ship back to its original position just above the Spector's saucer section quickly enough to avoid being shoved out of the shield envelope entirely. All eyes on the bridge were on the viewscreen and holodisplay, watching the molten bolt of iridium streaking toward the Borg Cube nearly faster than the eye could track, despite the distances involved.

"Let's see what you think of that," said Captain Solheim, with a small smile as he tracked the motion of the shell their little ship had fired.

=====

Action: Sending coordinated fire message to all ships, taking into account distance and explosive potential of tricobalts and mass accelerator for maximum damage effect to Borg Cube, as well as minimizing the time the Spector would be necessarily vulnerable. Firing main cannon.

[frigidmagi]

Captain Anderson winced and took a breath. It was his fault that this happened to the Argo. His alone.

"Comm the Vigilance, tell them to cover us. Helm, get us into tractor range of the Argo, we need to pull them out. Make it fast. Tactical, we're gonna need to hammer the cube as we close. Engineering stand by to extend our shields over the Argo" He ordered quietly. The bridge crew grit it's teeth as the ship moved into action.

[Hotfoot]

Alpha Quadrant
Nivoch System
Empyrean Bridge

“Sir, the Heritage and the Argonaut’s shields are down, I’m detecting Borg boarding parties on both ships,â€

[General Havoc]

Aboard Heritage, aboard Argonaut, the lights began to go out.

Like ballet dancers, the two ships floated dead in space, literally bouncing softly off of one another, ignored by Borg and other ships alike, as battle raged around them, beams criss-crossing the intervening space in verdant green and orange and animated grey. Only the tiniest flashes, erupting periodically from within one of the windows on the darkened ships, yielded any sign of what horrors might be transpiring within. Like the corpses of fallen giants, they floated in the ethereal twilight, as weapons of incalculable power flew past them.

But their respite was not to last, for Immortal had ideas of her own.

The stately Starfleet Battlecruiser was once more the target of the Borg 's violent assault, but far from trying to avoid the fire, she positively dove through it, slamming headfirst through a wedge of plasma torpedoes that burst against her straining shields and briefly blocked her from vision behind a cloak of searing plasma. A second later, she tore the shroud aside, her phasers boiling the residual plasma to nothingness, tracing fiery lines against the Cube's own shields, as her torpedoes rained down against the implacable Borg dreadnought.

Brushing disruptor fire aside with her flickering shields, Immortal closed to danger range with the stricken warships, and moments later, locked onto Argonaut with a tractor beam, before firing her engines, physically dragging the Argonaut away from the cube, her impulse engines struggling to haul an inert ship nearly the same mass as Immortal herself.

Unfortunately, the Borg were watching, and they had no intention of allowing the Argonaut or the Immortal to escape.

From the depths of the Cube's latticework facing, a tractor beam lanced out and speared Immortal like a fish on a trident, striking her dorsal side and locking on like a chain of iron. Strain though she might, fight and buck though she would, Immortal could not break the hold of a Cube fifty times her size, not with Argonaut lashed to her aft by another tractor, not without. And as Immortal's battered shields began to drain, the Cube imperturbably launched sixteen more plasma torpedoes at the Battlecruiser.

Alone, Immortal would surely have been pulverized, but she was not alone. Spector's fighters buzzed about her like warrior wasps, and they turned on the incoming projectiles with a vengeance, discharging streams of phaser fire that criss-crossed the attack vectors of the torpedoes. Smaller than the fighters, the torpedoes were spectacularly difficult to target with anything, yet try the fighters did, and with some success. Of the sixteen torpedoes, the fighters downed six. One became confused by the targeting vectors of so many mobile and immobile ships, and managed to miss, regardless of the tractor. Another clipped Argonaut's starboard nacelle, cutting what little engine speed she could still manage. The remaining eight hit Immortal's shields, exploding them like a balloon, the torpedoes' charges taking them through the collapsing shields and pelting the hull with waves of concussive force, enough to overload Immortal's phasers and shut them down, breach the hull on two decks, and otherwise lay the ship bare.

Much could have happened in the seconds that followed these events, for with Immortal immobile, stripped of her arms, and shieldless, shackled to another ship more disabled even than she, the Borg could have their way with her. They could pound her to inert wreckage, or transport a thousand drones over to her. As it happened, they elected to do both, arming and deploying another sixteen heavy plasma torpedoes to smash Immortal apart, prior to sending drones to pick over the remains. Even if Spector and her fighters had fought like Valkyries, it would not be enough to stop this from happening, not with all the firepower the motley fleet of Federation and allied warships could deploy, or so the Cube's collective calculated.

But as they were preparing to do these things, the fabric of space-time itself tore apart, and a flash like the dawning of a sun blinded all sensors, for at that very instant, the first Tricobalt torpedo exploded.

It was as though the void of space had opened up a hellmouth, which vomited ruin and damnation upon all who stood against it. The single torpedo, lost within the maelstrom of combat that was flailing about it, struck the Borg's shields, and in a split second, erased every other thing from contention. With a horrid, guttural roar, the torpedo exploded like a stellar nova, blinding every sensor within a hundred thousand kilometers, sending shock waves through the loose debris and dust that ringed the area, and vaporizing, on the spot, every single torpedo that the Borg had just launched. The shock wave from the titanic blast hit Argonaut on her dorsal facing and shoved the ship, Tractor beam and all, into Immortal like a toy ship riding the waves of a stormy sea. Spector's fighters were hurled through space end over end, the pilots struggling to regain control of their craft. Most succeeded, but one unlucky pilot found his fighter smashed to pieces against the hull of the Argonaut like a mosquito, though the pilot's compartment survived the impact and floated off into deep space.

Into the suddenly-emptied space dove a Romulan battlecruiser, alive and angry and bristling with armaments, spitting fire like a primordial beast let loose against those who had violated its sanctum, bombarding the Cube with a dozen plasma torpedoes and rivers of disruptor fire. The Cube's own disruptors fired back, but the S'harien swatted aside the counterattack almost contemptuously, her shields barely singed, and as she turned her rear facing to the Cube, her Klingon counterpart let fly a second Tricobalt torpedo. By now the Borg were alerted to the danger, and their disruptors sought a target, too late. The torpedo struck just where the first one had, and if anything struck harder, the blast managing to partially penetrate the flickering shields and crush the tractor emitter that was holding Immortal in thrall. Like a released spring, Immortal sprang away, dragging helpless Argonaut in tow. But as the Cube began shifting, trying to either re-acquire Immortal or target her new attackers, S'harien's second wave struck, spoiling whatever aim the Cube had pretensions of, and straining its dorsal shields to the breaking point..

And then, moments later, Gilgamesh fired.

It was an oblique shot, but one that against a target the size of the Cube, could not possibly miss, and in seven millionths of a second, it crossed the intervening distance. The Cube's dorsal shields, reeling under the hammer blows they had just been dealt, protested for a fraction of a milisecond, providing just enough resistance to flash-convert half the kinetic energy of the shell into heat before the shield collapsed entirely and the super-heated blob of relativistic plasma slammed into the Cube's hull at eighty five thousand miles per second.

The flash from the impact blotted out everything, blinding every ship in the system, to such effect that not a few onlookers thought that the Cube had spontaneously detonated. It had not, but the oblique impact gouged a cone-shaped furrow through the latticework hull of the Cube. Bad as that was however, what followed was worse. The next another round of torpedoes, sixteen in all, had just been loaded into the Cube's torpedo tubes when the shell struck, and in blasting a widening channel through the outer layers of the cube, the shell struck half a dozen of them. All sixteen torpedoes exploded at once inside their tubes, seconds before the molten shell blew out the far side of the Cube. In a flash, the entire dorsal facing of the Cube was blown to pieces, sending a hail of assorted Borg debris out to ping off of the assembled Starfleet ships.

As the thunder died away, and the flashes of the explosions faded, permitting sensors to take stock, an eerie silence fell over the wreckage-strewn battlefield, permitting the crews of a dozen ships to see just what their exertions had wrought. The entire facing of the Borg Cube had been torn off as if by a can opener, revealing internal structures half-melted and mangled by the repeated explosions. Vents of hot gas, plasma, and open flames issued from dozens of points, supplemented by the mangled bodies of some thousand heavy assault drones that had been marshaled in preparation for boarding Immortal when the cataclysm overtook them. Its weapons disintegrated, smashed, or otherwise ruined, the Cube sat in what might have been some kind of collective shock, like an organism stunned to motionlessness by some horrid trauma inflicted on its person. Floating in space, silent as a tomb, the Cube seemed to hesitate, trying to decide what now it could do about these smaller ships that had wounded it so sorely.

Not for the first time, but potentially for the last, the Borg had found themselves facing something they had not anticipated.

[SirNitram]

The Tricobalt detonation rocked the Vigilance, causing electrical failures and bursts of steam as the sensors overloaded. "Visual! I need visual!" Shouted Markson over the screaming computers fighting to get back to work.

As the screen came on, it revealed the carnage, and the Vigilance moved to shield the Immortal, Heritage, and Argonaut. Not by extending it's shield or else, but by physically interposing itself between the Borg's weapon emittors and the targets.

"Hit them! Before they react and pivot facing! Target all reactor signatures with plasma torpedos and BURN IT! Phasers, lock onto transporters, maximum refire! Cripple it before it can react!"

---------

Aboard the Argonaut, the few survivors reported the same impossibility: The Borg were fighting each other. The corruption of a single drone can bring down a whole ship, and now nearly twelve of them walked the halls, open to any inquisitive drone of the Collective. Hugh had been one of Picard's peace-offerings. These, however, were angry and violent. Shotgun blasts rang out, smashing drones to peices after several shots, while the Drones attempted to inject nanotubes into already-converted attackers.

[Cynical Cat]

Victory shouts rocked the bridge of the Riskadh as the Borg Cube's shield failed the hammer blows from the Gilgamesh and the S'harien struck home. Debris and bodies tumbled from the ravaged dorsal facing, accompanied by plumes of gas and molten metal.

"Helm!" shouted Kadon. "Continue evasive." Maneuvering thrusters pushed the Riskadh's nose up and away from the Cube. Her ventral disruptors had spent the entire battle charging, but were yet to fire and the Riskadh had been built with extra capacity. They made up for lost time, burning up as much of the stored charge as possible in the limited window available to them as fired at full power into the Cube's ravaged hull.

Velocity brought the Riskadh closer to Cube as ship completed its loop, aft now towards the Cube while the front pointed away. Engines roared to full power, braking the Riskadh's approach and beginning to widen the distance between the battlecruiser and Cube. Power shifted to the aft shields as Kallor touched the gunnery controls.

The fully charged aft disruptors opened up and a moment later a third tricobalt left the aft launcher of the Vor'cha and drove towards the Borg Cube. "Die," snarled Kadon as the Riskadh accelerated away from the wounded Cube. "Die in pain."

[Charon]

The crew of the Barbarossa cheered as the cube began to take a pounding. Even Hizir let himself grin in excitement as his ship finally finished closing the distance. The cube was wounded, but this was far from over. They needed to capitalize immediately.

"Ereiss," his order was sharp. "Bring us about, put us between the cube and the Immortal and the other downed ships. They'll find it a great deal harder to throw us around than they did the others." He paused and turned to Khoal. "How are we looking?"

Khoal glanced up from the scrolling reports. "Weapons are ready, shields holding steady, that sphere barely clipped us before it got turned to debris. Lasers are fully charged, but they could use some more cooling."

Hizir nodded and looked back as the Barbarossa finished positioning herself. She was slow, and she turned like a fat turtle, but there was a certain elegance and terror in a ship that seemed to know that it didn't need to hurry in order to kill you.

Hizir's eyes flashed and he stood up from his captain's chair, staring defiantly at the wounded but still deadly Borg Cube that sat in front of him.

"Carve it to pieces! Fire at will!"

There was one place that it was never good to be when facing a D'deridex. That is facing the front of the ship. The D'deridex class is immensely front heavy and is built to crush anything and everything that stands before it. It had likely been several years since a Borg cube had faced off against a D'deridex, and if they had forgotten the lesson they were about to re-learn it. Banks of Disruptors fired non-stop at the injured and shieldless section of the cube, as full compliments torpedos sped out of their tubes, aiming for specific and more vital targets where they could, seeking to just cause general death and mayhem where they could not. But that was the least of the cube's problems, for the mighty lasers that had wounded her child sphere so greatly after only a glancing shot were brought to bear again against the mothership, they seemed fully intent on carving down to the heart of the ship and tearing it out.

[rhoenix]

Grim smiles and chuckles greeted the sight of the multiple impacts upon the Cube on the bridge of the Gilgamesh. Swift however was not quite as taciturn - Captain Solheim was thankful she did not have comm channels open. "Take that, you useless, port-molesting, kidnapping pieces of shit!" she yelled at the viewscreen.

Despite the momentary exuberance of a few on the bridge, all of them were already working on their next task. Captain Solheim brought this to bear immediately. "Lieutenant Adranis, what ships are within optimal firing range of the Cube's weak facing?"

"The S'harien, Riskhadh, Immortal, and the Barbarossa, sir," reported Lieutenant Adranis. "The Riskhadh and Barbarossa are setting up attack runs, the Immortal is covering the recovery of the Argonaut and the Heritage, and the S'harien appears to be changing course to assist."

Rapidly cycling through the allied ships' statuses, Captain Solheim spoke up again a moment later, confirming his own findings. "Would the S'harien still be in optimal firing range after they rendezvous with the Immortal?"

"Yes, sir," replied Lieutenant Adranis with a small smile. "Cometfall status is cycling to hot standby - it should be ready in thirty seconds."

"Captain," reported Commander Inzeti with a warning note in her voice, as she worked with the engineering controls on the bridge, "Given the damage to the relays, the Cometfall can provide one more shot without endangering the ship, and will take fifteen seconds to charge."

After nodding at this for a moment, Captain Solheim spoke up once more. "Swift, send a tight-beam message to the S'harien, and ask them if they'd mind sharing shield space in exchange for a front-row seat at a fireworks show."

"Message sent, Captain," replied Swift, a smirk on her face from the question, and from the answer she'd likely receive.

"And now, the pieces set up from check to checkmate," mused Captain Solheim. "It is time to topple the king."

[LadyTevar]

Spector

The multiple blasts blinded the sensors, leaving the BattleBridge momentarily helpless and Kirk snapping orders. "Serin, get that cleared! Torpedos on hold until we can see what we're shooting at!"

"Captain, one fighter destroyed, Phantom pilot ejected safely. Tracking for recovery."

Kirk grimaced, that was three down, with only one pilot surviving. The only good news was when the screen cleared and revealed the results of the barrage. There was a moment of stunned silence at the hole in the Borg cube.

Before the first cheer broke out, Serin spoke clearly. "As ordered, Captain, top third destroyed. We still have two-thirds of our original stockpile remaining."

Laughter broke out. It was one of the first true moment of joy on that bridge in far too long. "Then let's see what we can do with the next third, Serin!" Kirk crowed. "ALL TUBES! Dig that hole deeper!" A sudden thought hit Kirk, and she added another order. "The first Fighter to try diving into that hole gets busted back to Ensign. I do NOT want them hit by our allies."

"Captain, Gilgamesh wishes to leave shields."

"If they're going to fire another one of those blasts, let them," Kirk replied. The recoil from whatever they'd fired had nearly bumped them out the aft side of Spector's shields.

"Hold fire." Serin warned, drawing everyone to look his way. "Another Tricobalt has been launched."

"More the merrier," Kirk said. "Target now, fire as soon as the sensors clear. The more damage we do now, the less it can do later. Helm, keep relative position. When that Cube tries to move, I want us glued to that facing."

[Marcao]

Alpha Quadrant
Nivoch System, IRW S'harien
Torpedo Rooms 1,2,3 and 4

As the S'harien emptied its torpedo launchers in coordinated fire alongside its sister ships, the heavily armored torpedo rooms moved into action. While many space faring races had chosen to maintain a level of manual control over this process, the Romulan Star Empire had moved to a heavily automated system. Four large mechanical became animated, each maneuvering into position from ceiling mounts and extending to grab an individual plasma torpedo. The torpedoes themselves were stored in heavily armored cocoons which were sealed off until the reloading process was initiated. Each cocoon had been manufactured to attempt to prevent a premature explosion in the rare but possible circumstance that the torpedo room itself were breached in the middle of combat.

As the four arms began the process of re-arming the Warbirds multi-launch tubes, four Romulans oversaw the process from an adjacent room. The first flight of Valdore class warbirds had been relied completely on automation, and this reliance on technology had proven to be flawed. The IRW Dominus had been forced to withdraw from an engagement against the Orion syndicate when two of its torpedo launchers had been damaged and the Warbird had been unable to reload its ordnance. While no Romulan wanted to be posted to such an assignment, it was a necessary one and the crew of the S'harien had come to appreciate the necessity of it all. The automated system generally worked well. While it did not do its task as quickly as the best loading crews in the galaxy could, it did so in a manner that was far better than most others and it was exceedingly reliable.

Each armed reached out, secured a single plasma torpedo and carried it gracefully into its assigned tube. The S'harien tube configuration was unusual, a diamond like pattern around one large central tube. The torpedoes were loaded from the top in a clockwise manner. The arrangement had been a meticulous one as the Star Empire had begun the process of developing a far larger and heavier version of its venerable plasma torpedo. This new ordnance would have been roughly four times the size of a standard torpedo. As such, modifying the S'harien's torpedo tube system to accommodate the new ordnance would have been relatively straight forward. Unfortunately, the Star Empire had fallen before a working prototype had been developed.

The automated arms worked diligently in their assigned tasks until all four torpedo tubes were loaded. Torpedo room one was the first to fire and was the first to signal to the bridge that it was ready to fire once more. Within a handful of seconds, torpedo rooms two and three reported their readiness. Torpedo room four was the last to report due to its having accelerated its deadly cargo significantly after its peers.

Alpha Quadrant
Nivoch System, IRW S'harien

As the ordnance from the Riskadh, the S'harien and other ships of the task force converged on their target the Cube seemed to be engulfed in light. The crucible of fire which was unleashed should not have surprised the crew of the S'harien with its intensity but for a moment, the bridge of the Warbird went silent beneath the hammer blows of the tricobalt torpedoes and the eventual firing of Solheim's cometfall. The power unleashed would have destroyed just about anything in the galaxy. Anything but a Borg cube. As the primary screen of the S'harien depolarized and returned to its usual configuration, the state of the Borg cube could be properly appreciated. The target facing had seen better days and the rest of the task force wasted little time in trying to capitalize on the loss of shields and exposure to the Borg's armored core.

Unfortunately, the S'harien was not in a position to add its greatest asset into the struggle. Its aft firepower with its aft torpedo in the reloading process was simply four type 16 disruptor cannons. These weapons fired as often as they could as the Warbird gained distance between its target seeking to cause as much damage as possible targeting points of opportunity and add to the plasma fires which were alive in the Borg's currently unprotected structure. Another tricobalt torpedo was launched from the Riskadh as the Barbarossa began to fire with its unusual weapon system. The S'harien did not hesitate continuing on a course that would take close enough to the Argonaut and Heritage to allow for a boarding action to occur. With the Federation vessels relatively freed but seeming without power, it was a priority to save as many lives as possible.

The Warbird slowed as it approached the stricken Federation warships in order to minimize the likelyhood of difficulties with the transporting process. Its sensors lashed out, performing a deep scan of the stricken vessels in order to ascertain locations of survivors and the Borg within. After that information was analyzed, thirteen squads of ten were transported into the Federation warships. Nine squads were transported into the Argonaut while the remaining four squads were transported to the USS Heritage. Two shuttles joined them under cloak each federation vessel assigned one. The shuttles were repurposed to function as a momentary command post and support system for the Romulan forces within the target vessels. After the transports had been completed and the shuttles had left the shuttle bay, the S'harien accelerated and began a turn that would end with the Warbird facing the Borg Cube once more and the Gilgamesh beneath the protection of its own shields.

Alpha Quadrant
Nivoch System, USS Argonaut
Sev Squad

Immediately upon their arrival on the Federation warship the squad began to act. Arrain Toxali took a moment to gather her thoughts. The establishment of communications between other squads was of paramount concern and the squad's communication officer quickly managed to do so. A moment later, communication with the shuttle assigned to the Argonaut was also established. Five squads had been tasked as rover units, designed to move through the vessel and function as both hunter killer squads and search and rescue units. Sev squad had been tasked with securing one of the primary access points towards Engineering. She reached for her portable sensor device, the federation tricorder was a generalized all-purpose tool that was more flexible than her own system but less capable of carrying out the specific tasks which she desired. Her own device had been pre-loaded before the mission with information pertaining specifically to the Ambassador class by Riov Sindari N'vek.

As she moved her device around the darkened hallway before them, a three dimensional overlay was presented to her of all the ducts, power relays and other relevant information around her squad. It was as if she had the mind of one of the Argonaut's lead designers and construction specialists. Her attention focused on the nearest power relay that would likely still be powered. Federation system designed tended to be quite good at securing their primary and secondary systems. Information provided by the Tal'Shiar had indicated that when faced with the Borg queen itself, the Federation flagship had been able to set up an encrypted barrier between primary and secondary systems that had withstood the full might of Borg attempts to overcome it. Tertiary systems however was a different matter altogether. Arrain Toxali had a simple mission. She needed to turn this entire hallway and adjacent rooms into her battlefield and in order to do so, she began to wrestle control over them from the stricken ships main computer.

The entire process did not take long. Within two and half minutes a defensive screen had been generated that rose up to three feet from the ground by plugging a small generator into the Argonaut's power relay sub-systems. The force field rose three feet from the ground, projected out six and half feet and was tuned to be more effective at contending with disruptor fire than any other weapon systems. She had gained access to the doors leading to all adjacent rooms in the corridor for half the deck as well as tapped into internal sensors in those rooms she now had control over. A moment later, she felt a familiar hand on her shoulder.

"Squads Vet and Tie have made contact with the Borg." her communications specialist stated.

"We will make contact soon enough." She responded.

"Sooner than you think Arrain." Her remain weapon officer said. His exographic sensor allowed the Reman a significant advantage in matters of perceiving and detecting enemies.

"How far and how many?"

"A group of Borg assault drones, they are chasing a federation group which is involved in a fighting retreat. Assuming that they resist the urge to take to the jeffrey tubes they should be here momentarily assuming their bravery does not get the best of them."

"Communications, try to make contact with that group and tell them that support can be gained here." She stated.

"On it." the communications specialist responded.

"They have received the message Arrain. They are heading in our direction." The reman stated a moment before he gripped his weapon more tightly and brought its brace to his shoulder. The weapon system was massive, incorporating a micro-transporter for added tactical flexibility.

The federation survivors arrived first, turning a corner that had separated them from the eyes of most of the Romulan squadron. Only the Remans possessed exographic sensors at this time. Arrain Toxali was informed by her efforts at wresting control over the immediately battlefield from the Federation main computer. Eight men and women of various races and disparate uniforms appeared to their immediate line of sights their faces a mixture of fear, horror and relief. The Borg always had the ability to bring out the worst in people and there was doubt as if that would ever change. A ninth humanoid form appeared as she began to turn the corner, safety within her grasp she allowed herself a small smile before it twisted into pain. She grunted, screamed and fell her blue shirt the most dominant feature as she laid on the floor. The disruptor had caught her in her leg and had nearly boiled her entire calf away. This betazed would not be running anytime soon. The federation survivors had made it over ten meters away from the juncture point when the betazed female had fallen and to their credit, four of the survivors actually stopped and looked back.

"Leave her!" Arrain Toxali called out in near perfect English.

Her words seemed to shatter the trance of three of the men and women that had stopped and they resumed their approach to the Romulan lines. The final human a red shirt, ensign by his rank ensignia seemed to hesitate but instead he bolted towards his fallen comrade after glancing in the direction of the Romulan line and the backs of the seven humanoids quickly approaching them.

Had that been contempt I saw in his eyes?

The human red shirt managed to make it to the side of the sobbing betazed, he kneeled next to her, fired a handful of rounds in the direction where the borg were undoubtedly approaching and reached for the blue clad betazed. A volley of disruptor fire danced around them and missed. For a brief moment, the blue clad betazed was over the shoulder of the ensign, his body was straightening and it seemed as if they could make it out of that junction alive. The moment was fleeting, the second volley was far more precise than the first. The red shirt was hit in two locations and toppled over. Unlike the betazed, the red shirt laid still.

The first borg that appeared was the familiar mass of an assault drone, it hesitated for a moment glancing down at the motionless red shirt before its attention focused on the still moving betazed. Arrain Toxali could have given the order to fire then, but she did not. Instead, she watched as the first drone was joined by another and then another. As the first drone bent and seemed to touch the prone betazed, she emitted a pained hiss and then began to thrash on the floor. It was only then that Arrain Toxali herself fired.

Her weapon was an unusual one, popular amongst officers of the S'harien if limited in numbers and ammunition. It looked akin to a cut down photon grenade launcher, although it no longer fired photon grenades. The weapon revolved around a large four shot magazine. As Arrain Toxali pointed the weapon and fired, a 45mm "shot" was accelerated down the corridor towards its intended target. Half way down the corridor, the casing of the shot fell away and the "net" manifested itself. The tendrils of the net as it flew extended over a meter and were designed to snare even the largest borg assault drone. As the weapon made contact with the very drone that had assimilated the fallen betazed female, it snared it, wrapping itself around the drone in over half a dozen places before these individual wires joined with their brothers and sisters and set. Half a second later, an electric charge was transmitted through these wires and they reached explosively. Each wire was composed of eighty percent explosive laced with ultritium. The implosion tore the Borg drone asunder, its head ripped straight from its armored shoulders and accelerated down the hallway trailing green blood and gore.

When the head stopped rolling, it came to rest halfway down the corridor between the Romulan line and the Borg assault drones. It was only then that Arrain Toxali noticed the trail of green blood as the head bounced no less than half a dozen times before it came to a stop. Even from her location, she could see the head had been that of a Romulan male.

"Take them." She hissed.

The entire Romulan line began to fire, utilizing the force screen, floor and opened doors which led to side rooms as cover from retaliating fire.