We are the Borg...

Posted on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @ 10:16pm by Master Chief Petty Officer Zack Patterson JR. & Senior Chief Petty Officer Isem Mesu & Captain Vott Mrall & Commander Telas (Tel’hasu) Jaxx of the Eighth House of Betazed & Lieutenant Commander Kara Sohn & Lieutenant Mur'trah Gator Sartol'lo & Lieutenant Siatan Grator Taxftu' & Lieutenant JG S'Kles
Edited on on Saturday April 6, 2024 @ 8:14pm

2,482 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Prologue: First Steps
Location: Wolf 359; USS Poseidon
Timeline: 1 Year Ago

”We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.” The robotic voice said over all the speakers throughout the ship.

"All hands to battle stations! Damage control to designated areas." The Captain said over the intercom.

On the bridge of the USS Poseidon, the crew stood frozen looking at the cube shaped ship that stood before them. Who was this enemy? Who had come looking for them. No one knew. The Bolian first officer stood up, "Helm. Attack pattern theta. Ops, transfer auxiliary power to shields." A green energy blast slammed into the shields of the ship as other ships moved along side the New Orleans class.

“Aye sir,” Telas said loudly as his hands flew over the console, instinctively following the XO’s order, drawing power from the auxiliary system to the shields, reinforcing them as soon as the EPS conduits would allow. “Auxiliary power to shields. I don’t know what in the Great Fire they are using, but it’s certainly packing a punch! Shields down to 67?ter one blast. Auxiliary power at…” his hands once again flitting over the console. “Twelve percent! That blast was in excess of a thousand exajoules! We can’t take much more of that!”

Anxiety could easily be heard in his voice as he relayed the information to the XO. Telas was normally able to keep himself very calm using techniques he had learned from both his Vulcan and Betazoid teachers. At the moment it was extremely difficult to keep himself centered, picking up the increased stress and fear from all of his crew mates, and likely that of some of his fellow Starfleet compatriots in the armada.

----

Down in engineering, Chief Petty Officer Mesu held back a shudder at the robotic voice. It was different from the last time he heard it, more than ninty years earlier. But the message was the same. He held back to hopeless feelings that were starting to well up in him. These monsters had killed part of his life once before. He refused to make it twice.

---

In her office, Counsellor Kara Sohn's heart flared in a momentary flash of panic. She kept it from her face, simply flashing a warm, supportive smile at the human patient that sat, half-dressed, on her couch. He looked terrified, clutching a tight fist in the fabric of his uniform trousers.

"We'll need to continue this another time, Ensign Singh. Battlestations. Remember, you can do this. I believe in you." She smiled warmly as she stood and placed a hand on his shoulders. "Now, put your pants back on and report to Engineering."

"Counsellor Sohn?" The man's timid voice trembled.

She turned back on her way to her office door.

He opened his mouth to speak, stopped, then stood, holding his pants. "B-be careful."

"You too, Ravinder. I'll see you next week." She smiled again, hoping and silently praying that they'd both be able to make that appointment.

---

A few beats later, the turbolift doors slid open and the large form of the Aurilaen exchange officer, Lieutenant Sartol'lo, who was filling in as the Chief Tactical/Security officer, while the Poseidon's original chief was serving in the same position on an Aurilaen vessel. Once he reached his station, he called out a status report. "Enemy vessel is attempting to lock on a tractor beam! Our Shields will not last long! Phasers and Torpedoes locked onto source of the tractor beam, Captain!"

"Fire at will, Lieutenant." The woman said from the Captain's chair. She would have stood, but she didn't want to show how scared she was of this enemy.

The science officer spoke up. "Transferring all sensor data to tactical and shutting down all experiments to make sure power is available for transfer to shields." Her Accent was strange but then, Federation Standard was not her native tongue.

The phasers launched from the ship and hit the cube's tractor emitter. The first officer, Commander Vott Mrall, stood in awe of this enemy. Starfleet ships were blinking from existence. Like they were pigs to the slaughter. "Tactical! Status on the cube's tractor emitters!" The Bolian barked.

Mur'trah continued to work his controls, then slammed his fist upon the side of the console in frustration. "Weapons are having zero effect, Sir!"

Suddenly, a new energy beam shot out from the cube, slicing through the Poseidon's failing Shields and striking the hull. In seconds, a section of the ship, five meters wide and three decks deep was surgically removed from the ship.

Holding onto his console as the ship shook violently in protest to this new assault, Mur'trah shouted out above the chaos. "Captain!! The Borg vessel...just cut a chunk out of the ship! Hull breach in section five, Decks three, four and five!! Emergency forcefields are active and holding for now!"

Standing to her feet, the Captain checked the displays as sparks flew, the ship shook, and the alarms blared. "My god! They are completely ignoring our shields!" Just as she said that another blast of energy hit the ship. From the ceiling of the bridge, a beam fell landing on the Captain's head, crushing her.

"Captain!" Commander Mrall called. The Bolian ran over to her, but when he looked down, he knew there was no saving her. Fear, anger, and pain pulsed through his body. The Borg... can they be stopped? He started to channel all these feelings and took command. "Ops! Do we have any remaining power?"

The Vulcan/Betazoid hybrid held on to the console before him as the ship lurched violently, then placed his fingers to see the level of damage and what the ships power levels were. As he did, the console blacked out for two second then can be back on as the lighting on the bridge blinked off then after a brief moment, the red emergency lights turned on, flooding the bridge with its ominous, red glow.

“Main and auxiliary power off line, sir.” Telas said as calmly as he could manage given the circumstances, sparks flying all over the bridge from the damaged areas. “Emergency power at 6 percent. Inertial dampeners are off line. Shields are at five percent. Structural integrity at eight percent. We’ve lost the starboard nacelle, and new breaches on decks eight through ten, sections four and five. Forcefields are holding currently.” Turning to look to the XO, turned CO then spoke, his voice sounding resigned. “One more hit with that laser cutter and we’re done for, sir.”

Zack Patterson stepped out of the lift. It had stopped several times on the way up. Every member of security was armed with a phaser, as was he. His place was now here. Incase someone in command or in security fell.

"Tactical, continue to concentrated fire on the cube!" The barked at the man at the Tactical station.

The Aruilaen nodded angrily. The Borg had killed his shipmates, the people that he had started to think of as friends. Then he paused briefly, as a terrible thought raced through his head. What if they have killed Siatan?!

This thought caused him to growl angrily. He began working the Tactical controls as if he were possessed. Each time he fired a weapon, he would alter its frequency just enough to, hopefully, keep the Borg guessing long enough that he could cause some actual damage. He would also alter his targeting locations randomly. The cube was large enough, that he had his pick of surfaces to strike.

"Lieutenant." He said as he turned to the woman at science, "Keep our shield harmonics rotating, I don't want them getting through them again!"

The Borg were fierce, but he could be too. He was going against every Bolian instinct that was to be bubbly and friendly, but that was bullshit. The Borg wanted to play rough, then he would play rough.

In the area of space outside the Poseidon's hull, a storm of weapons fire and explosions raged out of apparent control. While, at the outset, itseemed that the Fleet had the numbers to win hands down, the losses were piling up quickly. In the first ten minutes of combat, nearly half the fleet was either irreparably damaged, or destroyed, such as the Flag ship was, having just been destroyed a few minutes prior. A few of the crippled ships even attempted kamikaze runs, using the last bits of their ship's lives to stop the enemy.

Nothing stopped the cube's advance. All the while, the modified face of the Enterprise's captured commanding officer continued to drone on. "Resistance is futile."

A voice came through the speakers. "Captain, this is Chief Mesu. warp core is offline. Engineering is in shambles. We have people on keeping the hull intact and others trying to keep the power on, we are doing our best to keep the shields up. They drop...." his voice paused for a moment. When he spoke again, he was fighting fear. He wanted to run. He had met this foe once before. Something that no one else in this taskforce, other then the Enterprise personal could say. Briefly he could sense his wife as her ship neared theirs. He took a breath, just to push everyone's fear away from him "they drop and we'll suffer a fate worse than death."

"The Captain is dead, chief." The Bolian First Officer turned acting captain, "I am in command now, try to give un impulse power so that we can get out of here! If we can't... we will abandon the ship..." Fear was welling up in soul. He was feeling a hatred that he could never explain. A sadness as thousands of lives perished every second this battle raged on. He had read the report from the Enterprise, but he had never imagined them as powerful as this... He had to hold this all in. He was in command, he needed to show strength to the crew. They were all looking to him for leadership.

"Understood sir. Well focus on impulse for the escape plan." The engineers voice said. "Maybe we can get the warp core going enough to jump us out of this shooting gallery." It was at that moment, he felt his wife get close. Then there was a flash of panic from her.. Then nothing. "Damn it." He muttered to himself. But now was not the time to grieve. They were alive and he had a job to do.

"Do it and do it fast Chief!" The Bolian barked into the comms.

"Sir?" Zack said from a spare panel near the tactical and security chief. "More than three forths of the task group is destroyed." In all his years, he had never seen this. Forty ships to one ship. And the one was getting the upper hand. "We're like lambs to the slaughter."

At the Tactical station, Mur'trah continued trying to fire the ship's weapons, but the torpedo launchers suddenly went down. "Captain!" He called out to the Executive Officer, who was now in charge of the ship. "Torpedo launchers are down! Phaser power is dropping!"

'"Sir, were losing the main computer, life support is failing on decks three through ten." Chief Isem said over the coms. "Impulse is down. Everything is going through emergency power and were losing that. We won't take another hit."

Panic started to feel the acting Captain as he rubbed his bald head. Thoughts of what to do filled his head. Was it time to evacuate? Was it time to keep fighting and go down kicking the asses of these bastards? What would the Captain do? Vott looked down at the lifeless body of the Captain still laying on the floor. He needed to make a decision. What was the right one? The ship shook more and more. Ears ringing, he looked around. "Abandon ship... All hands! Abandon ship!"

Senior chief Zack Patterson hated retreating. It went against every fiber of him. In ten years as a marine, he always pushed forward. He advanced ranks fast, making an NCO quickly. After the accidental death of his only love it changed. Then the next 4 years he poured his career into a toilet, as he poured booze down his throat. After that his career was in such a shambles, to go up, he had to go sideways. He transfered to starfleet, at the rank of Chief Petty Officer. In four years he had done so much damage to his work, it took nearly eight years to get to senior chief. He could have retired. But he hated to quit. He hated to runaway.

This was a slaughter. Zack knew if they stayed, they would die. He pulled an unlit cigar out of a pocket and stuck it in his mouth. He rarely let it burn. But he lived the smell of the leaves. He scanned the bridge. "You heard the man." He said to a pair of enlisted. Get going and pick up stragglers. No one left behind."

"Yes chief." The men said before turning and running out the door.

----

Down in engineering, the only lights they had were emergency lights. "Move out. Everyone head for escape pods. Do it in orderly fashion." Chief Mesu ordered.

He took a moment to look at his engines. Then to think of his wife and their unborn child. Then he sighed and headed for the door. He felt like a failure. His first run as chief engineer and they had to leave it. A part of him felt like he failed.

Mur'trah tapped his commbadge. "Siatan! Get to an escape pod now! I will meet you once we get to safety. Stay safe, my love!"

"Already on our way, Science has evacuated." Came the reply. "See you soon."

Once the channel was closed, Mur'trah moved over to Mrall. "Captain!" He shouted over the explosions that were shaking the ship around them. "It is time to go, Sir!"

Vott looked around the bridge. The Borg cube pounded the ship. The screen and system displays showed that. The stomach hurt. His head hurt. The Bolian turned and followed Mur'trah off the bridge and to the nearest escape pod. After the hatch shut, it jerked as it launched into the vacuum of space. Through the porthole he say at least a dozen escape pods launch. His heart hurt for those that didn't make it. He wondered how many were lost.

The ship exploded. Chunks of hull started flying in all directions as the force from the explosion sent them flying. Holding back tears, the escape pods moved away from the battlefield. It was only then they saw the carnage. All the ships... lives lost. It was horrible. These Borg... how will we ever stop them...

 

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