By Nathan Warner
A pack of Defiant class starships hunts down a Borg vessel that has assimilated a terrible weapon. But will they be able to take it down?
"Report!" Captain Benjamin Wellington barked as the deck beneath his feet rocked violently to port. The smell of smoking plasma conduits hung in his nostrils and he could see a slight haze forming near the ceiling of the bridge, bathed in the red glare of Red Alert. He gripped the armrest of his chair as the ship rocked to starboard.
"Hang together, Resy!" he said, patting the armrest. Resy was his affectionate nickname for the U.S.S. Resistance, a refitted Defiant class starship based out of Starbase 31. It had been so christened to teach the Borg that resistance wasn’t futile. "I said report!" Wellington barked again at the helm. Lt. Ashland seemed a bit preoccupied piloting the ship through the cat's cradle of energy beams tearing at the seams of space all around them.
"Ah...they're honing in on our attack pattern...Sir!" she cried, distractedly tapping away at her console. As if to illustrate, the ship rocked forward. Lt. Maj'Vek turned around from his Tactical station.
"Shields are down to 45%" he growled.
"And the Vindication, Redoubt, and Bastion?" Wellington asked.
"Similar straits" came Maj'Vek's analysis of the three other Defiant class starships in their little party.
Wellington nodded to the screen, "and our friend out there?"
"The Borg cube has sustained only moderate damage so far," Maj'Vek reported with a grimace - his Klingon blood was near its boiling point. It was times like this that he hated his captain's infamous patience. Wellington sat back.
"So far, so good," he said. "Open a channel to our pack." Lt. Ashland hesitated, as she dodged another green freeway of energy paved in front of them.
"Channel open...Sir," she just managed to get out before fording a river of death beneath then. The Captain leaned forward.
"This is Wellington to the Wolf Pack," he said, reaching out across the energy-torn surroundings to the three other Federation ships, "set your inertial dampers to maximum, increase your maneuverability index by 300%...Quantum torpedoes to maximum yield...attack pattern at your discretion."
Outside, in the cold light of the Vertian cluster, the sinister geometric cube hummed with unbridled energy, swatting at the Federation vessels out of annoyance more than anything as they "buzzed" around, tickling its defenses. It was fat with new drones, energy, and technology - assimilated across three Federation colonies over the past two days, and it had been making its way back to its Borg stronghold, near the Imperium supernova when these four Federation ships caught up with it.
Yesterday, Captain Wellington and Captain McCray of the Resitance and Redoubt, respectively, had been out on patrol in the Hermes Asteroid field, rooting out Bolian pirates when they received the distress call from their home base, Starbase 31. It was under attack by three Borg cubes. Even at maximum warp, it took an hour to arrive home, but at that point, New Angeles colony had been destroyed and the Starbase in orbit looked like someone had stomped a Shiitake mushroom - the only good news was that it had managed to disable two of the Borg Cubes. But the third had gotten away and with a prize. Admiral Quinzi contacted Wellington from his command center, in total disarray from the attack.
“It is imperative that you catch up and destroy the third Cube,” he coughed. “We believe they assimilated the archival plans for the Genesis Device from the databanks of the New Angeles research facility. You must stop them before they reach their base of operations and have an opportunity to develop this technology!”
With the assurance that the station was managing its situation, Captain Wellington took point with Captain McCray of the Redoubt and they picked up the trail of the Borg cube in the neighboring Bastel System from where they were able to track it through the Argos Nebula, but lost it in the neighboring Pelting asteroid field, affectionately known as "Pong Pong Alley." The dynamic asteroid movements had thoroughly mixed and spread the energy readings into meaningless background radiation.
“Come on, come one,” Wellington tore at his hair. “We’re running out of time, people!”
“I’ll search Beta sector,” Captain McCray interrupted. “You search Alpha and we’ll meet back here.” They were only halfway done “sniffing out” the trail on the other side of the asteroid field, when they were surprised by some unexpected company - the U.S.S. Vindication and the U.S.S. Bastion, two Defiant class ships from Starbase 22. They had been escorting a Nebula class ship with medical supplies when they heard news of the destruction of Starbase 22.
“Let’s teach them the meaning of our ship’s names!” lead Captain Natasha Rachmaninoff declared, thumping her armrest. Captain Wellington had nodded.
“I agree,” he said, “but if we catch them up, we’ll need a plan and coordination – I’m sending you my approach now.” As the information came up on her screen, Natasha’s eyebrows nearly reached her hairline.
“Basically, hold our punches while winding up for a knockdown?” she asked. Wellington smiled.
“I prefer to think of it as holding your tongue till you have a really good come-back,” he said.
“Alright,” she nodded, “it will take all my will power not to immediately pump them full of phaser fire – we lost a lot of good people yesterday.”
“As did we,” Wellington sighed.
With their “wolf pack” hunting together, they picked up the trail of the Borg cube again. It had unwisely halted its flight to attack a mining operation on the third moon of Endorite before heading towards the Vertian Cluster.
“There!” Wellington had cried, pointing to the faint speck on the viewscreen. “Let’s corner them in there! We’ll use the powerful stellar radiation to mask their tactical sensors. We won’t need help in that department - it should be like hitting the broad side of a barn standing ten feet away with a bazooka.” Maj’Vek furrowed his brow.
“Sir?” he asked.
“Ah…never mind,” Wellington smiled, “it’s an old Earth reference.” As they neared the cube, Lt-Commander Sanchez turned from her science station with alarm.
“Captain, I’m reading the Genesis wave…it appears to be emanating from the Borg vessel.
“What!” Wellington bolted out of his chair to her station. Sure enough, the sensors were picking up a working Genesis device inside the belly of the beast. Wellington paced back to his chair, “If they get that abomination back to Borg space, the Federation is done for,” he cried. “They could re-engineer its matrix to assimilate whole planets with the push of a button!” He looked to the screen and sat back down. “We can’t wait any longer,” he said, “Wellington to the Pack, engage the Borg.”
Several noted Bolian astronomers logged unusual energy distortions for that day in the Vertian cluster around the same time the Borg Cube greeted the arrival of the four Defiant class starships. Its sustained phaser fire energized space, lighting it up like a Christmas tree. According to Wellington’s plan, the Wolf Pack pulled its punches for the first ten minutes of the engagement, only firing at strategic targets, circling the beast, calming its defenses into thinking they were an annoyance only.
And then, finally, Wellington’s order came. Maj’Vek literally pounded his tactical consol in response, and a stream of quantum torpedoes rippled out of the torpedo ports, followed shortly by sustained pulsed phaser blasts that beat the torpedoes to their target and softened up the exterior hull for entry. Wellington could see the rest of the pack had followed suit, as rivers of deadly energy and latent power streamed into the underbelly of the Borg Cube. The light show was amazing as the torpedoes found their home.
“Don’t let up!” Wellington commanded. “Empty our magazines if you have to – just breach that hull!” With inertial dampers maxed out, and the full potential of the Defiant class’ maneuverability on hand, Lt. Ashland piloted the Resistance like a feather in a hurricane. Following her lead, the other three ships deftly negotiated the Borg response without a single hit, while unceasingly pelting the monster with waves of deadly energy. It only took thirty seconds of this onslaught before a massive explosion blew out the bottom of the Cube.
“Now!” Wellington commanded. The Resistance and the other three ships pulsed forward towards the Borg vessel, lining up like a firing squad, angling their trajectory to deliver their ordinance deep inside the hull breach, maximizing internal damage.
“Fire!” Wellington barked. The last of their torpedoes rippled out, and the ships arched away, making a bee-line for safe distance. Wellington leaned forward. “Warp three - punch it!” he commanded. The four ships blinked away just as an enormous explosion atomized the Borg Cube in a wall of energy and Genesis wavelets rippled at warp velocity through the Vertian cluster. Wellington breathed a sigh of relief – they had stopped the Borg from holding onto the Genesis device, and that was worth celebrating! But when he looked back at the screen, his jaw dropped. In the Vertian Cluster, an eerie black sphere was forming, illuminated within by a foreboding green radiance.
Wellington turned to Sanchez, “Report!”
“I…I don’t know, Captain,” she stammered, “It… appears to be some sort of biogenesis effect, but the matrix is registering as…cybernetic.” All the blood drained out of Wellington’s face and he sank into his seat.
“They managed to adapt the matrix to suit assimilation,” he whispered, before the reality of what he was saying caught up with him and he bolted to his feet. “Quarantine this space immediately, and get me Starfleet Command!” he ordered, wiping the back of his hand across his brow, “I think we just created a primordial Borg planet.”
What that meant, he didn’t know. But it probably wasn’t anything good.
