“On our way to Troyius, da Vinci came across a convoy of Elasian ships. Might have been every single ship they had that was warp capable. They were fleeing the Borg, who were supposed to be hours away. We were still working the bugs out of a phase-shifting matrix we thought we could use to hide both of the inhabited planets in the system. Troyius was to be our first effort.”Her eyes began to glisten as she continued, “But the Borg showed up a little early. We were in range of Troyius, although we could have come to the aid of the Elasian convoy. We couldn’t, however, save both. So we chose the planet. The matrix worked. We made Troyius seem to disappear, and the Borg moved on. But they made short work of the convoy on their way out of the system. It was only after the fact, as we were going over our scans, that we realized that the Elasians had packed as many children on those vessels as they could hold. The Elasians sent their future out on those ships, hoping against hope it would survive. Eight hundred thousand children gone in the blink of an eye. Those children were helpless, defenseless. We could have saved them. And we didn’t.”
