Colonel Kira Nerys hurled herself down the corridor with a newfound urgency. If her internal clock was correct, Borg drones had been chasing her for nearly an hour as she had pushed, shoved, scraped and crawled her way through the darkened corridors of the space station Deep Space Nine. It was starting to show, too; sweat soaked her face and trickled down the front of her crimson uniform. She felt uncomfortable without her small, bronze-coloured communicator badge, but she had been forced to rid herself of it when Captain Sisko had announced that the Borg were using its comm signature to trace her. Kira rounded a corner, and winced as a crash echoed behind her. Borg disruptors, she grimaced mentally. If they were that close, it would almost be too late…and it nearly was, as a pair of drones shimmered into existence a few metres up the corridor. Almost without thinking, she dodged to the left, ducking around the Borg as they materialised. Almost there, Nerys. Almost there.
Finally, she saw her target up ahead: an airlock, shaped like a cog and fashioned of an alloy the colour of dried blood. It rolled back into the wall with a protracted hissing noise, then the upper body of Lieutenant Commander Worf appeared, phaser in hand. "Hurry, Colonel!" he called to her. Kira's legs were powered by adrenaline as they thrust her up and over the lip of their airlock. She was lucky Worf was there to catch her, for she almost tripped and cracked her head on the second heavy doorway; as it was, the Klingon gave her one burly hand for support, then slapped the Cardassian-designed control panel. The airlock closed again, erecting a more solid barrier between them and the Borg. Kira fumbled with her belt, then withdrew her Bajoran hand phaser and fired at the controls for the door, making sure they were thoroughly melted. "It should hold them off for a few more seconds," she murmured by way of explanation. Worf nodded and ushered her through to the cockpit of the small Starfleet vessel that waited.
"How many runabouts have taken off?" Kira asked as she clambered through the hatch.
Worf's expression did not change. "The Orinoco escaped, but the Mekong was shot down. The Rubicon is under Commander Dax's control."
Kira bobbed her head once, and then crossed the runabout's small cabin to the tactical console, pausing only to greet Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax at the helm. The Klingon held the hatch open as citizens and crew of DS-Nine huddled their way into the back rooms. As Nerys dropped into the seat, all she wanted to do was relax. But she couldn't. Not now. She had to be ready and alert until they were safely away from the station.
"How many other senior officers made it?" she asked the Trill seated at the helm.
"Benjamin was caught down in the Last Stand," Dax said, although her voice was without feeling and tears were glazing her eyes. The Last Stand had been a group of almost fifty officers, armed with any form of energy weapon and led by Captain Sisko, that had gathered in the Lower Core to try and stop as many drones as possible. As far as anyone knew, they hadn't managed to achieve any modicum of victory. "And Miles was on the Mekong when it was captured by the Borg ship."
There was a silence in the cockpit that weighed heavily on the three officers. It was clear that Miles O'Brien, formerly Chief Operations Officer of the space station, had now been assimilated into the Borg Collective, physically and mentally violated until the greater whole had absorbed his knowledge and experience. It was enough to make most people sick with worry, but Kira, Worf and Dax had to save as many lives as possible. They could no longer dwell on the loss of O'Brien. They had to escape.
A muted humming noise broke the quiet as Dax powered up the impulse drive and lifted off. Out the windows, they could see the curve of Deep Space Nine's docking ring arching below them, and beyond that, the pewter-lead vessel of the Borg. It was a massive ship, almost thirty cubic kilometres in volume. As the Rubicon started to turn away, a green ray of light lashed out from the cube ship and struck the runabout.
"They're trying to lock on," Kira reported from the tactical console. "Remodulating shields now."
"Laying a course for the Denorios Belt," Dax chorused. "We should be able to lose them in there, if we're lucky. ETA in three minutes. Engaging."
The Rubicon lurched forward as the Borg tractor beam took hold for a second, then was blocked by the new shield frequency. Dax poured as much as she could into the impulse engines and veered around the cube in an attempt to get out of weapons range. It was all Kira could do not to hold onto the console for dear life as their course twisted and turned. All the while, Dax's face was a mask of cold determination — the resemblance to the emotionless countenances of the Borg was frightening. To distract herself, Kira fired off a microtorpedo and a few phaser bursts to distract their opponent's sensors. Her own scans were alive with tiny blips from the station's escape pods: they looked like tiny islands in a sea of obsidian. One by one, the Borg ship was scooping them up and reeling them in for assimilation. If Kira had been completely heartless, she would destroy them were they floated to save those poor individuals onboard…but she had to focus on keeping the runabout safe.
Rapid deceleration shook the ship, and everyone looked up and around to see why. One glance at her screens, and Kira knew instantly. A Borg weapon had drained their shields long enough to establish a tractor beam. They were trapped, with nowhere to run.
It's too late. But, then, it's always been too late, hasn't it? You've only been avoiding the inevitable. And now, they've caught up to you.
Prepare to be assimilated.
"Dax," she said tonelessly. "They've got us."
"Can you break the tractor beam?"
"I can try, but they've busted through our shields. Hang on…remodulations had no effect. Firing phasers…no effect. Dammit! They've adapted to our weapons."
"Try retuning the phasers," Worf rumbled.
"I've tried. We can't break off."
There was a long moment when the rattling of the superstructure was the only sound in the cabin. Then, Dax sighed with a sad resolve and turned in her chair. "Computer, prepare for autodestruct."
"Ready," replied the pleasant voice of the computer.
The Trill tapped her controls for a second, then slid her fingers up the console. "I'm going to try for a warp burst to break us free. It's our only hope. Worf, try to strengthen the structural integrity as much as you can."
"Acknowledged."
"Three…two…one…engage!"
White light poured in the windows, and the stars began to blur. The runabout screamed in protest. Dax's voice struggled to rise above the engines: "Warp point-seven! Point-eight!" It faded off for a moment, and Kira fired off a few more phaser shots in a vain attempt at destroying the Borg's tractor emitter. It actually did better than she expected, for the beams managed to scatter the lock enough for the overpowered warp drive to launch them free. The engines ceased their noise, and they catapulted towards the Denorios belt. "You did it!" Kira shouted.
Dax grinned for a moment, then looked down at her screens and the smile faded. "Worf, is it just me, or are you picking up heightened temporal emissions?"
Worf checked the operations panel in front of him and growled. "Yes. It looks like the Borg are trying to fire on us with some kind of new weapon. A sphere has broken off from the cube and is pursuing, warp four."
"Punch us up to warp five," Kira murmured.
"No can do, Colonel. They're too quick for us," Dax replied. "Thirty seconds to the Denorios Belt. I'll try to evade as much as I can, but — "
Once again, it was too late for the poor crew of the ill-fated Rubicon. A blast of flickering green light hit the runabout, and suddenly they were tumbling off course. The last thing any of them heard was Worf's booming timbre saying, "Tachyon eddy ahead! Brace for impact!" before a roaring explosion overtook them. There was a strange sucking sound, like water going down an old-fashioned plughole, and then silence.
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