Encounter in the Typhon Expanse
Twelve years after the triumphant return of the USS Voyager from its journey home from deep within the Delta Quadrant, Captain Harry Kim was eager to see the ship again. The transport vessel dropped out of warp and from the window of his quarters he could see the silver frame of Star Base 718 come into view; and moored to one of its docking arms, Voyager. He had remained with the ship four months after their return from the Delta Quadrant before transferring to shore duty. Three years ago, following his promotion to captain, Harry was assigned his first command aboard the Nova-class starship USS Rhode Island, a very fine vessel indeed, but he knew his heart would always be with Voyager. And that is why he accepted this assignment without hesitation.
As the transport approached the station and awaited docking instructions, Harry requested permission to be beamed aboard Voyager directly. The distortion of the beam cleared, and the old familiar transporter-room came into vision.
"Welcome aboard, sir." an officer said approaching and offering a handshake, "Commander Adam Becker. I'll be your first officer."
"It's nice to meet you, commander." said Harry, shaking the man's hand, "And it's good to be back."
Harry and Becker exited the turbolift and stepped onto the bridge.
"Captain on the bridge!" called the Tactical Officer from his station to their right.
The other officers on the bridge paused from their duties and turned to face their new captain.
"As you were." Harry said, then he walked forwards and rested his hands on the railing behind the captain's chair; and from there he surveyed the bridge, his gaze pausing on his old Operations station to his left.
"I'll be in the ready room." he said to Becker after a brief moment, not realizing his unconscious choice not to call it his ready room.
In the ready room, Harry took another slow moment to approach and examine the desk that was now his. And as he placed his hand on the back of the chair he grinned as he recalled the first time he entered this room, nearly two decades ago, as a squeaky-clean ensign and rigidly addressed Captain Janeway as "sir." But this was his ship and ready room now, and that was his crew out there on the bridge, and he had duties to attend to; one of them being to familiarize himself with the ship's manifest. On the console he reviewed the biographical listing of the senior officers. There was Commander Adam Becker whom he had met, a proven officer and veteran of the Dominion War, and who also saw action against the Borg at the Battle of Sector 001. Chief Engineer, Lieutenant commander Tiel Lodec, a member of the first group of Cardassians to graduate the academy following the war. Chief of Security, Lieutenant Aleksandr Aronian, who had spent the last four years patrolling the Romulan Neutral Zone aboard the USS Sovereign. Operations Officer, Lieutenant junior grade Ariel Larssen. And Helmsman, Ensign Na'tar, a Vulcan one year out of the academy, and at the beginning of what would most likely be a long career in Starfleet. Voyager had no assigned Medical Officer, but was equipped with a Long-term Medical Holographic program, LMH Mk. II; sophisticated Harry was sure, but he knew that nothing could replace the Doctor. Harry would be sure to get to know his officers more personally over the next few days.
"Commander Becker to the captain," came the voice over the comm.
"Go ahead," said Harry.
"Sir, you have a transmission coming in from Starfleet Command."
"Put it through to the ready room."
Harry accepted the incoming transmission from his console. Admiral Janeway appeared on the screen from her office at Starfleet.
"Admiral Janeway," Harry said with a genuine smile.
"Captain Harry Kim," she replied, "I requested to be informed the moment you took command, how's Voyager?"
"As beautiful and trim as ever. It's been a long time, but I'll be glad to see her running deep space missions again, just not too deep."
"I agree completely, she wasn't meant to remain in coastal waters. I understand it that you will be surveying the Typhon Expanse, mapping gravitational and temporal distortions, sounds interesting. It's about time Starfleet got around to doing it, after putting it off for so many years following the incident with the Enterprise."
"Well, we've got better sensors now, and we know what to look for."
"Of course. Oh, and you may run into Tuvok on your way there. He's been given the Essex, a wonderful new ship to my understanding. He's delivering Captain Ramirez the new commanding officer of Deep Space 4 to the station; and it won't hurt to have his presence be known to the Romulans, with the way things have been going after the Zeta Gelis dispute. But I don't need to tell you about that."
"No ma'am. And I'll be careful, with the Romulans and in the Expanse."
"I know you will. Take care of her Harry, and take care of yourself. Janeway out."
The transmission ended. Harry sat back in his chair and took a breath, then he got up and walked out onto the bridge.
"Commander Becker," Harry said, "are we ready to disembark?"
"All stations stand ready sir, just awaiting your order."
Harry took his seat in the captain's chair and looking towards the helm gave his orders.
"Decouple docking moors, Helm, take us out."
Voyager pulled away from the station, slowly at first, then picking up speed, on course for the Typhon Expanse.
They did not encounter Tuvok and the Essex on their journey. It was some 40 lightyears to the Expanse, and at a sustained warp factor 8 it took 17 days before they were able to begin their survey.
"Helm, drop to warp 1 and take us in." commanded Harry, "Ops, maintain a continuous scan for graviton emissions and subspace abnormalities."
"Aye sir." Ops replied.
"Kim to Engineering, Lodec, status update on the core."
"All is well down here, captain." replied Lodec, "Our warp field is stable and core efficiency is at 98 percent."
"Very good Mr. Lodec." Harry closed the channel to engineering. "Ms. Na'vea, you may begin conducting search pattern alpha."
"Search pattern alpha aye, sir." Na'vea responded.
"Aronian," Becker said as he turned to Tactical, "notify us when we're about to head out of range of DS4 and our listening posts, I want to keep my eye on the Romulans for as long as possible."
"Yes sir, telemetry is stable for now."
Harry and Becker looked at each other and Harry gave a nod.
"Captain," Larssen said after several minutes, "I'm detecting a subspace anomaly one million kilometers off the starboard bow."
"Helm, drop out of warp," Harry commanded, "and take us to a position 100,000 kilometers from the anomaly; one-quarter impulse."
"Aye sir."
"Larssen, once we're in position, launch the first of the buoys."
"Aye."
They discovered and buoyed two more anomalies by the end of the day. During the placement of the third buoy is when the distortions and background noise of the Expanse became too great to send or receive any telemetry with Federation assets. Five hours into the second day of surveying and they had yet to locate any other anomalies.
"Captain," Larssen said, breaking the silence, "I'm picking up some strange particle emissions."
"Yeah, I see them too." added Aronian, looking down at his console.
"What kind of emissions," asked Harry alertly, "another anomaly?"
"I don't think so," said Larssen, "it looks like…yes, they're neutrino emissions."
"Neutrinos…source?" asked Harry.
Larssen worked the console, "Unknown."
Becker leaned over to Harry from the first officer's chair, "A cloaked vessel passing nearby may give off such readings. Romulan ships have been observed crossing the Neutral Zone recently.
Harry gave him an acknowledging nod.
Larssen and Aronian were working the problem when the ship suddenly shuddered and dropped out of warp.
"Captain," Na'vea said, "our warp field has destabilized and…" she cut herself off when all the command consoles displays on the bridge went blank for a second, then came back displaying a blue horseshoe-like symbol.
Harry stood up from his seat, "Omega."
The Omega Directive had changed somewhat since the last time Harry and Voyager had encountered the molecule fifteen years ago in the Delta Quadrant. Information regarding Omega was still highly classified, and only Starfleet captains were briefed on it. But unlike before, the directive permitted captains to brief their senior officers on Omega on a strict need-to-know basis during an incident. Harry called the senior officers to the briefing room and explained the situation; the immense power and instability of Omega, how an Omega explosion destroys subspace making it impossible to go to warp in effected regions, how the Directive dictates for the containment and destruction of the Omega molecule, and for the utmost suppression of all knowledge regarding the substance. Throughout the brief, Commander Becker maintained a stern and grave expression, Aronian and Larssen seemed concerned, Na'vea was particularly hard to read, and Lodec appeared interested and oddly amused. Harry was still just getting to know his new colleagues, but he was now going to have to trust them fully on this most critical of missions. The Directive must be abided.
"If the Romulans ever wanted to test an Omega-based weapon without our knowing," said Becker, "the Expanse would be a good place for them to try."
"I've thought about that," Harry replied, "and after seeing those neutrino emissions, it does seem possible that the Romulans are involved. But we just don't know yet."
"Aronian," Harry said to the lieutenant, "Have Larssen assist you in modifying a torpedo to contain an 80-isoton gravimetric charge. When we find Omega, this is how we are going to destroy it."
"Yes sir, we'll get right on it." Aronian replied.
Harry turned to Lodec, "Mr. Lodec, the warp core will need to be protected with multi-phasic shielding as soon as possible."
"I'll have my engineers begin at once."
"Na'vea, maintain a continuous scan for any sign of the Omega molecule, we have to find its location. And backtrack along our course until communication with Starfleet is reestablished."
"Aye sir."
"Bridge to the captain," the officer of the watch's voice came over the comm.
"Go ahead,"
"Sir, two vessels are closing on our position, they're Romulan."
The briefing room cleared out as the officers returned to their posts.
"Red alert!" said Harry stepping onto the bridge.
"The lead Romulan ship is hailing us." said Larssen from ops.
Harry stood facing the viewscreen, "Put them through."
The Romulan captain appeared imposing on the screen.
"This is Captain Batail of the Warbird Nalin, we know that the Federation has been testing Omega-based weapons in this region. You will stand down and be escorted to the Neutral Zone where you will receive further instructions."
"Captain Batail," Harry responded, "the Federation is not behind the Omega shockwave you detected. We are the only Federation vessel in the region and we were on a survey mission when we detected the substance."
"This is not true, before encountering the shockwave our sensors detected another vessel, though they tried to block our scans, the ship presented distinctly Federation features."
Harry and Becker exchanged uncertain glances.
"We do not know anything about the vessel you detected," Harry said to Batail, "but we will follow you to a point just outside of the Expanse where long-range communications can be reestablished."
Batail looked sternly at Harry, "Very well, fall in behind my vessel and match my course and speed. Batail out."
The transmission ended.
"Do it," Harry said to Na'vea, then took his seat.
"If Starfleet had been conducting a secret mission in the Expanse," Said Becker to Harry, "they would have never deployed us here."
Voyager followed the Romulan ship for the next four hours, but it would take at least a day to reach the edge of the Expanse as the damage to subspace prevented them from going to warp.
"Sir!" Aronian called out suddenly, "I'm reading a large energy source; two million kilometers, dead ahead."
"Another anomaly?" Harry replied.
"No, I think it's a ship. My god, it's a Borg cube!"
Commander Becker leapt from his chair, "Bridge to Engineering, Lodec, rout auxiliary power to the ablative generators, we're going to need that armor!"
"The ablative armor?" came the somewhat confused reply, then, just before ending the comm, "shit!"
"Ensign, hard to port!" Harry shouted to the helm, "Full impulse!"
Voyager began its maneuver, and the Romulan ships were responding similarly. But it was too late, the cube was already on top of them. Captain Batail's ship was hit by the first Borg torpedo, then the second impacted Voyager's shields.
"Mr. Aronian, return fire!" Harry ordered.
Voyager's starboard phaser banks came to life, delivering several hits to the cube, but to little effect. The Romulans too were firing on the Borg, inflicting only superficial damage. Voyager was struck by a Borg torpedo, shaking the ship violently.
"Stress fractures to the hull on decks seven and eight," Aronian reported, "Shields down the fifty percent."
"Quantum torpedoes to their shield matrix." Becker said, entering the coordinates into his console, "Fire!"
Voyager's torpedoes hit their marks, but the Borg kept coming. Captain Batail's ship was hit with repeated accurate Borg phaser fire, causing him to breakoff his attack run. Then an intense array of Borg torpedoes struck the second Romulan ship's engineering deck, causing a core breech; the Romulan ship exploded into a field of debris. Batail tried to cloak his vessel, but the Borg fired on his nacelles causing the cloak to fail and disabling his ship. Voyager exchanged phaser fire with the cube, on another run targeting its shield generator.
"The fracture on deck eight is widening into a breech," Aronian said. And Voyager was struck again. "Shields are failing."
Harry opened a channel to engineering, "Lodec, we need that armor!"
"Just one second, sir… ablative armor ready!"
"Deploy!"
The ablative generators on the hull engaged just as the deflector shields failed. The bulky, energy dissipating armor, spawned from the generators first at the bow, rapidly moving to stern progressively encasing the ship section by section. The next Borg torpedo shook the ship, but to a significantly lessoned degree.
"What's the status of Batail's ship?" asked Harry.
"They're dead in the water." Aronian replied.
The cube then locked a tractor-beam onto Batail's ship.
"The Borg have tractored the Romulans," continued Aronian, "they're pulling them in."
"Larssen," Harry said to Ops, "get a lock on the Romulan crew, as many as you can, and start beaming them aboard."
Larssen made no reply as she was fully focused on her console and working the task. Just as the Romulan ship was passing through the cube's hanger bay doors, and beyond the reach of transporters, Larssen called out, "I was able to get about half of their bridge crew and a few from their engineering deck. Captain Batail is aboard."
"Right," said Harry, and he turned to the helm, "Na'vea, set a course out of the Expanse, what ever speed we can muster."
"Aye sir."
Voyager turned away from the cube and accelerated to about two-thirds impulse. The Borg pursued. For the next hour the chase continued, with weapons fire occasionally being exchanged. Voyager had expended four more quantum torpedoes from their aft launchers, and the damage was slowly mounting on both vessels – but mostly on Voyager.
"Engineering to the bridge" Lodec's voice came over the comm.
"Go ahead, Lodec" said Harry.
"Sir, the continued stress on the armor is burning out the generators, they will soon need to be shutdown, cooled, and recharged."
"How long do we have?" asked Harry
"I'd give it another twenty minutes."
"Understood, hold fast and await instructions. Bridge out."
Harry walked over to the helm: "How much longer until we're close enough to get a message to DS4?"
"Unsure," Na'vea replied, "but I calculate it to be no less than three hours at our current speed."
Harry walked slowly back to the center of the bridge, contemplating his options.
"Captain," Becker stood up and said, "we know that the Borg have an impressive ability to repair their vessels on the move. And with our failing armor, now is our last chance to turn and meet them with any chance of winning."
Harry sighed and looked out the viewscreen, then turned to Becker, "I agree."
Harry and Becker took their seats, and Harry called out the orders for the coming engagement.
"Na'vea, on my mark cut the impulse engines and continue on maneuvering thrusters. Take us on one more pass of their shield generator. Aronian, hit that generator with as many torpedoes as you can get off. Then, target phasers on their weapon ports as they bear. Bridge to Engineering, Lodec, put everything we've got into those generators these next few minutes, we're reengaging."
After receiving conformation from each of the stations, Harry looked to the helm, Ensign Na'vea, mark!"
Voyager speed cut hard, and the distance between the vessels vanished before the Borg matched them. Voyager maneuvered fast and close to the cube's hull, taking phaser fire. Rounding the port side of the cube – port of the side that was facing them – Voyager turned and unleashed four torpedoes on the Borg shield generator, three hits one miss, causing substantial damage.
"The Borg's shields are fluctuating." called Aronian.
"Fire phasers!"
Given the lapse in the Borg's shields, Voyager's phasers punched through one torpedo launcher and one phaser bank, but fail to destroy the second.
"Their shields are back up!" Aronian said, "it must be a backup generator."
Harry grimaced and look back towards the viewscreen just as a torpedo and phaser rocked the ship.
"Engineering to the bridge! The generators can't take anymore, armor failure is imminent!"
Seconds later, one of the ablative generators amidship on the starboard side exploded, causing the armor to fail cascadingly across the hull.
"Na'vea, move us away." Harry ordered, "Aronian, everything we've got left."
Before Voyager could respond, they were hit by a barrage of Borg phaser fire.
"Damage report!" cried Harry.
"Forward torpedo launchers disabled, phaser targeting scanners offline, the port nacelle has been damaged, impulse engines are down." Aronian responded.
The ship shuttered, and the bridge crew saw the green glow on the view screen.
"They've got us in a tractor-beam." called out Larssen.
"Modulate the deflector dish," Harry directed, "try to send a feedback pulse to disrupt their admitters."
Larssen worked the control panel, "No effect, sir, they're pulling us in!"
"Na'vea, reverse thrusters, try to slow us down." Harry said, then turning to Tactical, "Aronian, weapons?"
"None operational."
Harry looked at the viewscreen, at their slow, unwilling, approach towards the cube. He tried to conjure up a plan, anything that would save most of the crew – maybe if he gave the order to abandon ship, and the crew were to scatter in shuttles and escape-pods, the Borg might not be able to hunt them all down. There was nothing else left…
"Sir," Aronian's voice interrupted his thought, "there's another vessel approaching."
"Identification?" Asked Harry.
"Unknown, it almost looks Federation."
Harry turned to the viewscreen in time to see a streak of white light, perhaps a torpedo of some kind, come from port and strike the cube. Then a terrific, blinding, light as the cube explosively disintegrated. The shockwave hurled Voyager aside, tossing equipment and crew. The lights and consoles flickered for a few seconds before restoring partial functionality. Some of the consoles were displaying the blue Omega symbol. The bridge crew labored slowly to pick themselves up and assume their positions.
"Restore the viewscreen," said Harry, "where's that ship?"
The viewscreen came back online, and Larssen brought up a view of the ship. The vessel displayed characteristics similar of classic Federation ships – she had a distinct saucer section, a round deflector dish on her main body, and large elevated nacelles; but her lines were sleeker, and she had no recognizable hull markings.
"She almost looks like an old Constitution-class," Becker said, "maybe a refit."
"Hail them," said Harry.
"They're not responding." Larssen replied.
"What a weapon," Aronian said, still in shock.
"What do our sensors say about them?" asked Harry.
Aronian looked back to his controls, "Not much, our sensors are only partly functional. But the computer doesn't recognize her, she's unknown to our database."
"She's moving off." interrupted Larssen.
The unidentified vessel turned away from Voyager and streaked out of sight, and very soon out of sensor range.
"We've got to get moving and back in comms range with Starfleet." Harry said, and he opened a channel to engineering, "Bridge to Engineering, Lodec, how are things down there?"
"Oh, well enough I'd say," Lodec responded while working a console in the midst of the borderline chaos that was engineering – smoke hanging in the air, crewmen rushing about extinguishing small fires, conduits, wires, and other debris hanging from the ceiling and all over the deck – "everyone who was alive in here this morning is still alive now, I think."
"Good," said Harry, "how long before we can restore impulse power?"
Lodec began with something that could have been mistaken for a laugh, then he said more clearly, "An hour," fully prepared to give the same answer the next hour if need be, or until the task was finished.
It took only 90 minutes before Voyager was on course towards the edge of the Expanse, travelling at one-quarter impulse.
"Vessel detected sir." said Larssen, after they had been moving for a couple of hours.
"Friendly?" inquired Harry.
After a brief pause in which Larssen check the readings she responded, "Yes sir, it's the Essex."
"Tuvok!" exclaimed Harry.
"They will be in communications range in about five minutes." Larssen continued.
Two days later, in the briefing room aboard Deep Space 4, Captain Ramirez was joined by captains Tuvok and Kim, as well as Captain Batail and ambassador Jila of the Romulan Star Empire.
Captain Ramirez began the brief: "Both Starfleet Intelligence and agents of the Tal Shiar agree that the vessel encountered by Captains Batail and Kim in the Typhon Expanse was not, despite its resemblance to a discontinued class of Federation ships, built nor operated by the Federation. Nor do they believe it's being here was in any way similar to the case of the USS Bozeman 22 years ago. Yesterday, the long-range sensors of the Vulcan science ship Sailu detected a vessel leaving the Typhon Expanse and going to warp, we believe this to be the vessel that destroyed the Borg cube. In keeping with the utmost priorities as set by the Omega Directive, and due to our mutually vested interests, Starfleet Command and The Romulan Star Empire have agreed to collaborate in this task and form a joint squadron to track down the unidentified vessel along its last known course. Tuvok has been assigned to lead the squadron from the Essex and assume the rank of commodore. Captain Kim and Voyager will be the second Federation component. Captain Vacon of the Warbird Rolek, en route now, and the Warbird Vonsor of which Captain Batail will command will be the squadron's two Romulan components. In the mean time we will also be assessing the new Borg threat; given their quest to harness the power of Omega, they are no doubt interested as well in that ship."
After the brief, Harry stopped Tuvok in the corridor.
"Commodore Tuvok, congratulations."
"Thank you captain." Tuvok replied.
"Well," Harry continued, "it will be nice working together again, even under the circumstances."
"Indeed, and it is good to have Voyager back in the family as Janeway would say." Tuvok said.
Harry smiled, "Right you are. Well, I'd better get back, Voyager still needs much care before we launch tomorrow."
At 0900 the next morning, the four ships of the Federation-Romulan squadron departed from Deep Space 4, and proceeded on a course towards the boundaries of the Delta Quadrant.