Three of Ten – Two: Khitomer

“This is the U.S.S. Khitomer. We are in need of urgent help: we are being boarded by the Borg. I repeat, we are being boarded by the Borg. We require immediate assistance!”

Captain Qat’Anmek’s eyes fell on the smoking vessel floundering among the fleet of opposing cubes floating in front of us on the viewscreen. What were the Borg doing back in this quadrant? Was this another attempt to assimilate the Federation after the massacre in the Wolf 359 system over three decades ago? Why were they back so soon? Was their desire to integrate humanity into their collective that strong? Had they amassed new technologies that will make achieving such a goal easier this time around?

My mind processed these thoughts as I can scanned the bridge crew, who looked on with the shock, horror and fear the sudden resurgence of one of the greatest threats to the galaxy brought with it. I surveyed the captain again, still gazing at the Borg Cubes floating freely in space. Despite the stoicism he attempted to display at the threat to ease the nerves of his crew, I detected the small signatures — a quick twitch of his staring eyes, a sudden, nearly imperceptible shiver through his body — that betrayed his demeanour, making evident the terror that he truly felt within his heart.

Rather than seeing them as instruments of terror, I saw them as something different, almost as a thing of beauty: harsh, geometric shapes drifting in the vastness of space, their angular innards playing host to thousands of assimilated individuals. They were an exercise of efficiency over design: these cubes were an engineering marvel, no matter your viewpoint of the species stored inside…

“Three, take an away team over to the Khitomer. We’re taking that vessel back and helping those people.” I followed the captain’s order and made my way to the transporter room, requesting Ensigns Kozam, Marishka and Tal’Aura meet me there. Lieutenant Commander McMary suited us up with phasers that randomly rotated frequency every few seconds to overcome Borg shields, wished us luck and engaged the transporter.

We materialised shortly afterwards in the corridor leading to the engine room on the engineering deck, noticing the countless Borg and Starfleet bodies strewn around the passageway as we did so,  and immediately engaged our enemy.

Tal’Aura went down in the initial volley, slumping to the floor as the beam hit him in the chest, evidently instantly killing him, with Kozam falling as well during the following engagement. Something seemed strange: why were these individuals not being stunned for assimilation and killed outright instead? Marishka and I cleared the area and headed for the engine room, leaving our fallen comrades behind.

It was a scene of pure chaos: behind the crude barricade the surviving crew had erected as a last-stand against the invasion force sat a severe hull breach sealed off by a forcefield, the red alert siren blaring all the while as the computer repeatedly announced a warp core breach in progress. Phaser fire was going off everywhere, with personnel and drones falling everywhere. We sprinted down the stairs and took cover with our allies.

“Something’s up with the Borg”, a Lieutenant shouted over the weapons fire. “They seem… different somehow, almost like they’re malfunctioning. They’re making no effort to assimilate us and their shields aren’t adapting to our phaser fire.” He jumped out of cover to demonstrate, immediately being hit in the shoulder. He collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony. He was one of the lucky ones: he was still alive.

The siren re-entered my conscious and decisive action had to be taken. I broke cover as Marishka lay down fire for me, sprinting for the warp core computer console, diving beside it as a Borg laser hit me in the face, directly on the metal plate above my left eye. I felt an intense heat which dissipated as quickly as it came: if that plate had not been there to absorb the impact, I would not have survived.

I accessed the computer and rerouted all engineering and command subsystems to the console. By bypassing the security encryptions via the key stored within my neural implants, I rerouted transporter function to the engine room and got a lock on the group of Borg rapidly encroaching upon my position. I set the coordinates to just outside the hull breach and engaged the system. The Borg disappeared, materialising in the destroyed corridor, being sucked impotently into space shortly thereafter.

As the exhausted crew breathed sighs of relief and went to check on the wounded, I checked the engine status to see that warp core breach was inevitable, so I took the only possible course of action possible to avoid the complete destruction of the ship: jettisoning the warp core completely. I activated the procedure and the engine ejected violently into space, pulsing blue as it reached critical mass. Through the hull breach, we saw the engine slam forcefully into the side of one of the Borg cubes, detonating shortly afterwards and tearing a huge hole in the vessel. The green illumination of the cube faded to nothing as it began to drift raggedly away from the Khitomer. We were out of danger… for now.

My combadge chirped. “Three of Ten, this is Sherman, Chief Transport Engineer. You did a fine job defending the ship, but we’re not out of this yet. The Kicking Horse has been boarded. All the senior officers are dead…”