January, 2381
The Intrepid class U.S.S. Pioneer sped through space at a cruising speed of warp 7. The sleek starship was on a routine patrol near the Orion borderland. The quiet of the bridge was disturbed by an alert tone.
"Captain, we're receiving a distress call from Acamar III," reported the Bolian at the ops station. "They report they're under attack from a Borg cube."
Captain Laura DeBoer stood and turned toward the blue-skinned man. "The Borg?" she asked.
"Yes, Captain."
Laura turned toward the helm, "Lieutenant, lay in a course to Acamar III. Maximum warp."
"Course laid in."
"Execute." Laura turned back toward the Ensign at Ops. "Alert Starfleet Command, they should know that we're facing another Borg attack."
Only the previous year, the Borg had threatened the Federation twice more, first when a Borg cube dormant in Sector 10 had reactivated. That Cube had subsequently run amok later in the year when it succeeded in assimilating Admiral Janeway and the U.S.S. Einstein before attacking Earth. The Cube was destroyed when the Enterprise-E had managed to upload a virus into the cube's collective. The assimilated Einstein had then been found and destroyed as it attempted to assimilate an alien entity whose body was formed by an entire star system.
Laura took her seat once more as the starship changed course and raced away.
Two hours later, the Pioneer dropped out of warp into the Acamar star system.
"Captain, I am detecting multiple vessels engaging the Borg Cube," reported the human woman at tactical.
Laura looked toward her, "Starfleet?"
"One, yes," the junior lieutenant replied. "The Aventine, she's taking heavy fire."
The lieutenant paused. "The remaining vessels are all Acamarian. They're not doing well."
"Lieutenant, take us in, let's see if we can't relieve some of the pressure on the Aventine," Laura said. "Red Alert, shields, charge weapons."
Laura was under no illusions as to her ability to defeat the Borg. She could only hope Captain Picard, with his expertise, could arrive soon. But she was damned if she'd let these cybernetic bastards destroy another Starfleet ship. She'd only been a captain for six months, following her promotion from first officer of the Spec Ops ship, U.S.S. Wraith, but she'd faced worse than the Borg on that assignment.
The ship streaked through space, darting between the Borg cube and the Starfleet ship as it fired at the Vesta class Aventine once more. The Borg vessel's energy beam slammed into the Pioneer's shields. Phaser beams lashed out at the Cube, as the other starship limped clear.
The smaller Acamarian vessels were continuing to dog the Cube, but it easily brushed them aside.
As Laura ordered a strafing run on the Cube, the Bolian ops officer reported, "Incoming hail from the Aventine."
"On screen," Laura replied.
The view of the cube was replaced with the view of a damaged, smoky bridge. Standing behind the helm officer was a young, elfin, Trill female.
"This is Ezri Dax of the Aventine. We've taken a lot of damage, Captain. We need to pull back. I'm sorry."
"Don't sweat it, Captain," Laura answered. "We'll handle it."
A dark look crossed Dax's face at Laura's reference to her rank.
"I'm only the second officer, Captain. My captain's on his way to sickbay. Our first officer's dead."
Laura frowned at the news. "I'm sorry, Commander. Good luck, we'll try to keep them off your back."
Dax nodded and the channel closed.
"Status of the cube?" Laura asked as she turned toward the tactical officer.
"Taken some damage, but it's regenerating. It's destroyed most of the Acamarian craft."
"Fire quantum torpedoes. Keep us between it and the Aventine."
"Firing torpedoes. Aventine is moving off at half impulse. They're heading for one of Acamar III's moons. Torpedoes have no effect. Cube is moving toward Acamar III."
Laura turned back to the screen. "Keep firing."
More torpedoes and phaser beams lashed the Cube, but it ignored the weapons fire as it reached orbit over Acamar. The Cube halted its advance. Then it began firing.
"Cube firing on the surface!" the tactical officer shouted, alarm evident in her voice. "Our weapons have no effect!"
Laura stared at the viewscreen in horror as the Cube spat green bolts of energy at the verdant world below.
"They're not even attempting to assimilate anyone?" she whispered.
"Negative, they're simply firing on the surface."
The first officer entered the bridge. He'd been in Sickbay with a broken leg.
"Oh my God," he muttered.
"Incoming!" the tactical officer shouted.
Ezri Dax watched the rear view on the Aventine's main viewer as a green energy bolt lashed out from the Borg Cube and punched straight through the shields of the starship and blasted it into scrap.
"Get us out of here, NOW!" she snapped at the helmsman. The young human looked up at her.
"Do it, Ensign. We need to get back to the Federation and tell them what's happened here. We're in no condition to stop that Cube alone."
Working his console, he laid in a course and executed it. "Aye, sir," he muttered.
The sleek starship sped away from the moon, and then disappeared into warp speed.
Two weeks later
Starbase 378
Red alert sirens screamed as Scott slapped his com-badge, "Freeman to Wraith, beam me aboard."
The station's ops centre dissolved around Captain Scott Freeman and the transporter room of his compact stealth starship resolved in front of him. The Nasat T-8-Red was at the console as Scott stepped down from the small platform and hurried out. The eight-limbed insectoid didn't even get a chance to greet the captain before he'd rushed out.
Scott entered the bridge to see his Vulcan wife, T'lana manning the Combat Information console as usual. The first officer, Commander ch'Haras, stood and faced Scott.
"Ready to depart spacedock, Captain. The Borhyas and the Ghost are already under way."
"Very well, notify traffic control we're departing dock, detach umbilicals and take us out."
"Space doors opening," reported the ops officer, Mareal Antos, a Bajoran male. "Traffic control has cleared us for manoeuvring."
"Taking us out," reported the helmsman, Kela, a Deltan male.
The compact starship sped out of the starbase's spacedock and raced to join formation with its sister ships. The Borg cube continued toward the Starbase, not caring for the three vessels moving to intercept.
Scott turned to Yedrin Serix, the Trill tactical officer. "Hail Robinson and Frost."
"Aye, sir."
The viewscreen split to show the other two captains in the bottom half of the screen, while the top half showed the Cube.
"Captains, how shall we proceed?" Scott asked.
"Hit them and don't stop," Craig Robinson replied in his Australian accent.
"Stay mobile, keep moving," Annabel Frost added, her cut-glass British accent contrasting with both Scott's West Country accent and Craig's.
"And keep rotating frequencies," Scott concluded. "Let's do it."
The three starships opened fire with their pulse phasers before splitting from their triangular formation to loop around the cube, firing phasers and quantum torpedoes into the Cube.
The Cube took hits, but kept remodulating its shields, before firing at the three stealth vessels. All three ships took some damage, but kept pummelling the Cube as it continued its advance on the Starbase.
Finally, with the Cube in weapons range, the Starbase added its own firepower, blazing away with phaser turrets and quantum torpedo batteries.
The Cube kept trying to adapt.
As the Wraith looped away from the Cube, an energy beam slammed into its shields. The ship shook from the impact.
"Status report!" Scott barked as sparks showered from an overhead lighting fixture.
"Shields at 62% and dropping!" Serix hollered.
"Quantum torpedoes down to ten left," T'lana added.
"Hull damage across the rear section," reported ch'Haras. "Warp drive still functional."
"Status of the other two ships?" Scott demanded.
"The Ghost is in a similar state to us," T'lana reported. "The Borhyas is suffering from impaired manoeuvring due to a plasma leak."
"Continue the attacks!" Scott snapped. "Don't let up!"
The Borg Cube hove into view on the main screen as the starship looped back to fire once more. More hits to the Wraith's shields shook the vessel.
The Cube fired four of its torpedoes. Starbase 378 and the thirteen thousand personnel on board were obliterated in a massive fireball, which quickly snuffed out in the vacuum of space.
The Borhyas sped away from the Cube, cutting across the path of the Wraith as the two moved away from their latest strafing runs.
An energy bolt punched straight through the starship. A hole was blown from the top to the bottom of the ship. Seconds later, it exploded.
"Holy Fu..." Scott was cut off as the stealth vessel bucked under him and he flew from his centre seat.
"Borhyas is gone. No escape pods," Serix announced. "No life boats from the Starbase either."
"Incoming hail from the Ghost." Antos looked across at Scott as he clung to his side console for support.
"On screen."
The main viewer dissolved into static briefly before reverting to normal. On the screen, the blonde captain stared back at Scott, blood running from a gash along her cheek.
"Scott," Annabel began, before coughing. "We've taken damage. Our warp core is close to breaching. Get out of here, we're going to kamikaze them."
"Vaya con dios, Captain Frost," Scott answered. "You won't be forgotten."
"After what we shared, I should hope not," Annabel answered, smiling. The channel closed.
Scott saw Serix, T'lana and Antos staring at him.
"We got drunk together once," he answered, before turning to Kela. "Get us out of here, maximum impulse."
On the bridge of the U.S.S. Ghost Annabel Frost watched, as the Borg cube loomed closer.
She remembered her lost fiancé. She remembered that drunken night with Scott. She remembered everything.
"Ahead, full impulse! Keep firing!" she snapped.
The Vulcan helmsman acknowledged even as the Tellarite at tactical replied, "Aye, Captain."
Quantum torpedoes blew apart the Cube's hull. Photon torpedoes followed. Pulse phasers continued to gouge out a hole.
The Ghost smashed into the Cube's flat side, crashing into the hole. Somehow, the ship's hull held together. The small starship crashed through walkways, conduits and walls, throwing aside some drones, whilst others were crushed or pushed forward by its hull.
Finally it wedged itself halfway through the cube. Annabel turned to the engineer at the bridge station.
"Time left?"
"Five seconds," he replied.
"Make your peace with God, crew. We're sending the Borg to Hell."
The warp core detonated, the ship blew apart.
The Cube erupted in a massive explosion as the Ghost blew apart.
A flying chunk of the Cube's hull slammed into the Wraith, just aft of the bridge module.
The collision caused the entire right side of the bridge to explode. Serix and Antos were killed instantly. Flying shrapnel tore Kela to shreds. T'lana managed to dive for cover behind Scott's chair as he threw himself away.
Four pieces of polymer sliced across his face. Pain erupted across his entire left cheek. He lost vision in his left eye as head-splitting agony threatened to make him pass out.
Staggering to his feet, Scott snapped, "Report."
T'lana got to her feet and studied her Combat Information console.
"Shields are down. Hull damage on this deck outside the bridge. Weapons are off-line."
Scott turned toward T'lana and she stifled a gasp. Before he could say anything, she opened an intercom channel.
"Medical team to the bridge!"
"This is Eriksson," came the reply. "Doctor Apanii's dead. So're Shrad and Hagen. I'm up to my elbows in it. Get casualties down here if you can!"
"Acknowledged, Sickbay." T'lana walked over to Scott and grabbed his arm. "Commander ch'Haras, are you able to take the conn?"
"Yes, Commander," the Andorian replied as he moved toward the centre of the bridge, trying not to throw up at the sight of his captain.
T'lana firmly steered Scott off the bridge.
"What's wrong?" Scott asked as they moved along the corridor outside the bridge's left door. "Why'd the Commander look like he was about to lose his lunch?"
"You're a mess, Scott. Your left eye's been ripped apart." T'lana sighed as she guided him into the turbolift. "You're probably lucky you're alive."
Once the couple reached Sickbay, T'lana guided Scott to a vacant biobed.
Eriksson was tending to an engineer Scott didn't recognise. Andreas Van Haasbak, another engineer was standing nearby, using a dermal regenerator on his own arm.
"Chief," Scott said, as he looked at the NCO. "What happened?"
"Hull breach, sir," the German answered. "We lost Ulan. Sucked out before the forcefield snapped on. Three other people killed by the explosion. Harris and I were injured by debris."
Scott muttered an Andorian curse under his breath.
Nurse Eriksson finished tending to the engineer and moved over to Scott.
"Good grief," she murmured. "Lie down, Captain. I need to operate. Your eye needs to be removed and I also need to remove the plastic in your forehead."
Scott did as he was told.
"I don't know what I'm going to do though, I've got no way of replacing your eye."
"Clean the socket and seal my eyelid over it," Scott told her. "T'lana, replicate an eye-patch for me."
Eriksson didn't looked thrilled by the Captain's instructions, but began to do what he said.
The doors to Sickbay slid open and David McKeown, the surviving medic from Scott's Special Ops team staggered in, carrying a badly injured female Andorian in his arms.
T'lana hurried over and helped the young man to carry the patient to another biobed.
"She was burnt by a plasma leak near the torpedo room," McKeown informed the nurse.
"You'll have to treat her, David," Ulrika replied. "I'm busy."
David nodded and pulled a cart toward him and began searching for the tools he needed to treat the Andorian.
As Ulrika worked to remove the chunks of plastic embedded in his face, Scott spoke once more.
"Andreas, what's the status of our engines?"
"The last I heard, the warp core was damaged when we were hit. I'll get a status report."
Ulrika glowered at Scott as she worked, but said nothing.
A moment later, Andreas reported, "We're limited to warp 5, due to the damage we took. Commander ch'Haras has ordered us to the nearest Starbase-class station for repairs. It'll take two weeks to get there."
Scott sighed, but said nothing as Ulrika removed the last piece of plastic and began repairing the gashes to his face.
"Leave the scars, Nurse."
Again, she frowned, but obeyed her captain. After a few more minutes, she sealed his eyelid over the empty socket and hurried over to the wounded Andorian.
T'lana handed Scott the black eye-patch. He tied it on and turned to Andreas, "Get back to Engineering and tell whoever's in charge to make sure the ship stays together. We'll repair once we get to the base."
Scott frowned. Then he tapped his com-badge. "Bridge, where are we heading, anyway?"
"Starbase 55 at Tellus Prime, sir."
"Very well. I'll be in my ready room."
An hour later, T'lana entered the ready room to find Scott sat behind his desk staring at the photos on the wall. The two-dimensional images showed Scott and the Special Ops team in each line-up the group had gone through since its inception.
T'lana walked over to Scott and leant down to kiss him atop his head and drape her arms around his neck.
"What's wrong, Scott?"
"My best friend is dead, that's what's wrong," he replied. "Shrad is dead. He was my best friend. We fought our way through the Dominion War together. He was the only one left of my original team. We made it through all the rest of our missions since; the Gateways thing, the business on Omega Ronas, the thing with Q on Laramie, the Tholian-Selelvian War and the super-soldier thing and now… Now he gets killed in a fight with the Borg. Grozit."
T'lana embraced Scott tightly as he began to sob. She didn't shy away from such a naked display of emotion like another Vulcan would have. She'd long ago decided that when she and her husband were alone together, she would allow some of her emotions to show, and she would accept his.
As his sobs ended, she quietly asked, "Have you contacted his family?"
Scott shook his head. "He didn't have any family left. He hadn't married and his parents died in the Dominion War. His siblings were killed in an incident on Andor a year later."
Taking a deep breath, Scott said, "But others do have family. I should get in touch with them."
With T'lana's help, Scott compiled a list of the casualties and their families, and began contacting them.
The Intrepid class U.S.S. Pioneer sped through space at a cruising speed of warp 7. The sleek starship was on a routine patrol near the Orion borderland. The quiet of the bridge was disturbed by an alert tone.
"Captain, we're receiving a distress call from Acamar III," reported the Bolian at the ops station. "They report they're under attack from a Borg cube."
Captain Laura DeBoer stood and turned toward the blue-skinned man. "The Borg?" she asked.
"Yes, Captain."
Laura turned toward the helm, "Lieutenant, lay in a course to Acamar III. Maximum warp."
"Course laid in."
"Execute." Laura turned back toward the Ensign at Ops. "Alert Starfleet Command, they should know that we're facing another Borg attack."
Only the previous year, the Borg had threatened the Federation twice more, first when a Borg cube dormant in Sector 10 had reactivated. That Cube had subsequently run amok later in the year when it succeeded in assimilating Admiral Janeway and the U.S.S. Einstein before attacking Earth. The Cube was destroyed when the Enterprise-E had managed to upload a virus into the cube's collective. The assimilated Einstein had then been found and destroyed as it attempted to assimilate an alien entity whose body was formed by an entire star system.
Laura took her seat once more as the starship changed course and raced away.
Two hours later, the Pioneer dropped out of warp into the Acamar star system.
"Captain, I am detecting multiple vessels engaging the Borg Cube," reported the human woman at tactical.
Laura looked toward her, "Starfleet?"
"One, yes," the junior lieutenant replied. "The Aventine, she's taking heavy fire."
The lieutenant paused. "The remaining vessels are all Acamarian. They're not doing well."
"Lieutenant, take us in, let's see if we can't relieve some of the pressure on the Aventine," Laura said. "Red Alert, shields, charge weapons."
Laura was under no illusions as to her ability to defeat the Borg. She could only hope Captain Picard, with his expertise, could arrive soon. But she was damned if she'd let these cybernetic bastards destroy another Starfleet ship. She'd only been a captain for six months, following her promotion from first officer of the Spec Ops ship, U.S.S. Wraith, but she'd faced worse than the Borg on that assignment.
The ship streaked through space, darting between the Borg cube and the Starfleet ship as it fired at the Vesta class Aventine once more. The Borg vessel's energy beam slammed into the Pioneer's shields. Phaser beams lashed out at the Cube, as the other starship limped clear.
The smaller Acamarian vessels were continuing to dog the Cube, but it easily brushed them aside.
As Laura ordered a strafing run on the Cube, the Bolian ops officer reported, "Incoming hail from the Aventine."
"On screen," Laura replied.
The view of the cube was replaced with the view of a damaged, smoky bridge. Standing behind the helm officer was a young, elfin, Trill female.
"This is Ezri Dax of the Aventine. We've taken a lot of damage, Captain. We need to pull back. I'm sorry."
"Don't sweat it, Captain," Laura answered. "We'll handle it."
A dark look crossed Dax's face at Laura's reference to her rank.
"I'm only the second officer, Captain. My captain's on his way to sickbay. Our first officer's dead."
Laura frowned at the news. "I'm sorry, Commander. Good luck, we'll try to keep them off your back."
Dax nodded and the channel closed.
"Status of the cube?" Laura asked as she turned toward the tactical officer.
"Taken some damage, but it's regenerating. It's destroyed most of the Acamarian craft."
"Fire quantum torpedoes. Keep us between it and the Aventine."
"Firing torpedoes. Aventine is moving off at half impulse. They're heading for one of Acamar III's moons. Torpedoes have no effect. Cube is moving toward Acamar III."
Laura turned back to the screen. "Keep firing."
More torpedoes and phaser beams lashed the Cube, but it ignored the weapons fire as it reached orbit over Acamar. The Cube halted its advance. Then it began firing.
"Cube firing on the surface!" the tactical officer shouted, alarm evident in her voice. "Our weapons have no effect!"
Laura stared at the viewscreen in horror as the Cube spat green bolts of energy at the verdant world below.
"They're not even attempting to assimilate anyone?" she whispered.
"Negative, they're simply firing on the surface."
The first officer entered the bridge. He'd been in Sickbay with a broken leg.
"Oh my God," he muttered.
"Incoming!" the tactical officer shouted.
Ezri Dax watched the rear view on the Aventine's main viewer as a green energy bolt lashed out from the Borg Cube and punched straight through the shields of the starship and blasted it into scrap.
"Get us out of here, NOW!" she snapped at the helmsman. The young human looked up at her.
"Do it, Ensign. We need to get back to the Federation and tell them what's happened here. We're in no condition to stop that Cube alone."
Working his console, he laid in a course and executed it. "Aye, sir," he muttered.
The sleek starship sped away from the moon, and then disappeared into warp speed.
Two weeks later
Starbase 378
Red alert sirens screamed as Scott slapped his com-badge, "Freeman to Wraith, beam me aboard."
The station's ops centre dissolved around Captain Scott Freeman and the transporter room of his compact stealth starship resolved in front of him. The Nasat T-8-Red was at the console as Scott stepped down from the small platform and hurried out. The eight-limbed insectoid didn't even get a chance to greet the captain before he'd rushed out.
Scott entered the bridge to see his Vulcan wife, T'lana manning the Combat Information console as usual. The first officer, Commander ch'Haras, stood and faced Scott.
"Ready to depart spacedock, Captain. The Borhyas and the Ghost are already under way."
"Very well, notify traffic control we're departing dock, detach umbilicals and take us out."
"Space doors opening," reported the ops officer, Mareal Antos, a Bajoran male. "Traffic control has cleared us for manoeuvring."
"Taking us out," reported the helmsman, Kela, a Deltan male.
The compact starship sped out of the starbase's spacedock and raced to join formation with its sister ships. The Borg cube continued toward the Starbase, not caring for the three vessels moving to intercept.
Scott turned to Yedrin Serix, the Trill tactical officer. "Hail Robinson and Frost."
"Aye, sir."
The viewscreen split to show the other two captains in the bottom half of the screen, while the top half showed the Cube.
"Captains, how shall we proceed?" Scott asked.
"Hit them and don't stop," Craig Robinson replied in his Australian accent.
"Stay mobile, keep moving," Annabel Frost added, her cut-glass British accent contrasting with both Scott's West Country accent and Craig's.
"And keep rotating frequencies," Scott concluded. "Let's do it."
The three starships opened fire with their pulse phasers before splitting from their triangular formation to loop around the cube, firing phasers and quantum torpedoes into the Cube.
The Cube took hits, but kept remodulating its shields, before firing at the three stealth vessels. All three ships took some damage, but kept pummelling the Cube as it continued its advance on the Starbase.
Finally, with the Cube in weapons range, the Starbase added its own firepower, blazing away with phaser turrets and quantum torpedo batteries.
The Cube kept trying to adapt.
As the Wraith looped away from the Cube, an energy beam slammed into its shields. The ship shook from the impact.
"Status report!" Scott barked as sparks showered from an overhead lighting fixture.
"Shields at 62% and dropping!" Serix hollered.
"Quantum torpedoes down to ten left," T'lana added.
"Hull damage across the rear section," reported ch'Haras. "Warp drive still functional."
"Status of the other two ships?" Scott demanded.
"The Ghost is in a similar state to us," T'lana reported. "The Borhyas is suffering from impaired manoeuvring due to a plasma leak."
"Continue the attacks!" Scott snapped. "Don't let up!"
The Borg Cube hove into view on the main screen as the starship looped back to fire once more. More hits to the Wraith's shields shook the vessel.
The Cube fired four of its torpedoes. Starbase 378 and the thirteen thousand personnel on board were obliterated in a massive fireball, which quickly snuffed out in the vacuum of space.
The Borhyas sped away from the Cube, cutting across the path of the Wraith as the two moved away from their latest strafing runs.
An energy bolt punched straight through the starship. A hole was blown from the top to the bottom of the ship. Seconds later, it exploded.
"Holy Fu..." Scott was cut off as the stealth vessel bucked under him and he flew from his centre seat.
"Borhyas is gone. No escape pods," Serix announced. "No life boats from the Starbase either."
"Incoming hail from the Ghost." Antos looked across at Scott as he clung to his side console for support.
"On screen."
The main viewer dissolved into static briefly before reverting to normal. On the screen, the blonde captain stared back at Scott, blood running from a gash along her cheek.
"Scott," Annabel began, before coughing. "We've taken damage. Our warp core is close to breaching. Get out of here, we're going to kamikaze them."
"Vaya con dios, Captain Frost," Scott answered. "You won't be forgotten."
"After what we shared, I should hope not," Annabel answered, smiling. The channel closed.
Scott saw Serix, T'lana and Antos staring at him.
"We got drunk together once," he answered, before turning to Kela. "Get us out of here, maximum impulse."
On the bridge of the U.S.S. Ghost Annabel Frost watched, as the Borg cube loomed closer.
She remembered her lost fiancé. She remembered that drunken night with Scott. She remembered everything.
"Ahead, full impulse! Keep firing!" she snapped.
The Vulcan helmsman acknowledged even as the Tellarite at tactical replied, "Aye, Captain."
Quantum torpedoes blew apart the Cube's hull. Photon torpedoes followed. Pulse phasers continued to gouge out a hole.
The Ghost smashed into the Cube's flat side, crashing into the hole. Somehow, the ship's hull held together. The small starship crashed through walkways, conduits and walls, throwing aside some drones, whilst others were crushed or pushed forward by its hull.
Finally it wedged itself halfway through the cube. Annabel turned to the engineer at the bridge station.
"Time left?"
"Five seconds," he replied.
"Make your peace with God, crew. We're sending the Borg to Hell."
The warp core detonated, the ship blew apart.
The Cube erupted in a massive explosion as the Ghost blew apart.
A flying chunk of the Cube's hull slammed into the Wraith, just aft of the bridge module.
The collision caused the entire right side of the bridge to explode. Serix and Antos were killed instantly. Flying shrapnel tore Kela to shreds. T'lana managed to dive for cover behind Scott's chair as he threw himself away.
Four pieces of polymer sliced across his face. Pain erupted across his entire left cheek. He lost vision in his left eye as head-splitting agony threatened to make him pass out.
Staggering to his feet, Scott snapped, "Report."
T'lana got to her feet and studied her Combat Information console.
"Shields are down. Hull damage on this deck outside the bridge. Weapons are off-line."
Scott turned toward T'lana and she stifled a gasp. Before he could say anything, she opened an intercom channel.
"Medical team to the bridge!"
"This is Eriksson," came the reply. "Doctor Apanii's dead. So're Shrad and Hagen. I'm up to my elbows in it. Get casualties down here if you can!"
"Acknowledged, Sickbay." T'lana walked over to Scott and grabbed his arm. "Commander ch'Haras, are you able to take the conn?"
"Yes, Commander," the Andorian replied as he moved toward the centre of the bridge, trying not to throw up at the sight of his captain.
T'lana firmly steered Scott off the bridge.
"What's wrong?" Scott asked as they moved along the corridor outside the bridge's left door. "Why'd the Commander look like he was about to lose his lunch?"
"You're a mess, Scott. Your left eye's been ripped apart." T'lana sighed as she guided him into the turbolift. "You're probably lucky you're alive."
Once the couple reached Sickbay, T'lana guided Scott to a vacant biobed.
Eriksson was tending to an engineer Scott didn't recognise. Andreas Van Haasbak, another engineer was standing nearby, using a dermal regenerator on his own arm.
"Chief," Scott said, as he looked at the NCO. "What happened?"
"Hull breach, sir," the German answered. "We lost Ulan. Sucked out before the forcefield snapped on. Three other people killed by the explosion. Harris and I were injured by debris."
Scott muttered an Andorian curse under his breath.
Nurse Eriksson finished tending to the engineer and moved over to Scott.
"Good grief," she murmured. "Lie down, Captain. I need to operate. Your eye needs to be removed and I also need to remove the plastic in your forehead."
Scott did as he was told.
"I don't know what I'm going to do though, I've got no way of replacing your eye."
"Clean the socket and seal my eyelid over it," Scott told her. "T'lana, replicate an eye-patch for me."
Eriksson didn't looked thrilled by the Captain's instructions, but began to do what he said.
The doors to Sickbay slid open and David McKeown, the surviving medic from Scott's Special Ops team staggered in, carrying a badly injured female Andorian in his arms.
T'lana hurried over and helped the young man to carry the patient to another biobed.
"She was burnt by a plasma leak near the torpedo room," McKeown informed the nurse.
"You'll have to treat her, David," Ulrika replied. "I'm busy."
David nodded and pulled a cart toward him and began searching for the tools he needed to treat the Andorian.
As Ulrika worked to remove the chunks of plastic embedded in his face, Scott spoke once more.
"Andreas, what's the status of our engines?"
"The last I heard, the warp core was damaged when we were hit. I'll get a status report."
Ulrika glowered at Scott as she worked, but said nothing.
A moment later, Andreas reported, "We're limited to warp 5, due to the damage we took. Commander ch'Haras has ordered us to the nearest Starbase-class station for repairs. It'll take two weeks to get there."
Scott sighed, but said nothing as Ulrika removed the last piece of plastic and began repairing the gashes to his face.
"Leave the scars, Nurse."
Again, she frowned, but obeyed her captain. After a few more minutes, she sealed his eyelid over the empty socket and hurried over to the wounded Andorian.
T'lana handed Scott the black eye-patch. He tied it on and turned to Andreas, "Get back to Engineering and tell whoever's in charge to make sure the ship stays together. We'll repair once we get to the base."
Scott frowned. Then he tapped his com-badge. "Bridge, where are we heading, anyway?"
"Starbase 55 at Tellus Prime, sir."
"Very well. I'll be in my ready room."
An hour later, T'lana entered the ready room to find Scott sat behind his desk staring at the photos on the wall. The two-dimensional images showed Scott and the Special Ops team in each line-up the group had gone through since its inception.
T'lana walked over to Scott and leant down to kiss him atop his head and drape her arms around his neck.
"What's wrong, Scott?"
"My best friend is dead, that's what's wrong," he replied. "Shrad is dead. He was my best friend. We fought our way through the Dominion War together. He was the only one left of my original team. We made it through all the rest of our missions since; the Gateways thing, the business on Omega Ronas, the thing with Q on Laramie, the Tholian-Selelvian War and the super-soldier thing and now… Now he gets killed in a fight with the Borg. Grozit."
T'lana embraced Scott tightly as he began to sob. She didn't shy away from such a naked display of emotion like another Vulcan would have. She'd long ago decided that when she and her husband were alone together, she would allow some of her emotions to show, and she would accept his.
As his sobs ended, she quietly asked, "Have you contacted his family?"
Scott shook his head. "He didn't have any family left. He hadn't married and his parents died in the Dominion War. His siblings were killed in an incident on Andor a year later."
Taking a deep breath, Scott said, "But others do have family. I should get in touch with them."
With T'lana's help, Scott compiled a list of the casualties and their families, and began contacting them.
