First, the boilerplate disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect or Star Trek, just playing in the sandbox…

USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E
Stardate 50890.2
Somewhere in the Beta Quadrant

Captain Jean-Luc Picard had just taken his seat on the bridge when a wave of unease came over him. At first, he dismissed the idea as the usual jitters from a shakedown run of a new ship. When the feeling wouldn't dissipate, he sighed.

Commander Deanna Troi, the ship's counselor, whom had served under Picard for many years, sensed something was troubling her captain. Seated at the station to Picard's left, she asked, "Is everything all right, sir?"

As Picard turned to reply, he froze. The unease he had felt earlier was justified when he heard the whispers. Voices he had hoped to never hear again. The whispers simultaneously became louder and more garbled, as if many people were attempting to talk to each other at the same time. A couple seconds later, they ceased.

Wasting no time, Picard barked out, "Mister Data, scan the area for Borg ships."

Lieutenant-Commander Data, stationed at Operations on the port side of the bridge in front of the main viewscreen, acknowledged the order and set about his task. Troi had a very good idea what she was sensing earlier, but Commander William Riker, the ship's first officer whom Picard often referred to as 'Number One', asked, "Sir, what's happening?"

Looking haunted, Picard answered, "I heard them, just now. I couldn't get many details, but they're moving-".

Data interrupted with, "Sir, there is a Borg cube on an intercept course."

Picard ordered, "Red alert! All hands to battle stations!" At Picard's order, the main lighting dimmed, the alert lighting started to strobe, and the alarm klaxons blared. He turned to the helm and said, "Lieutenant Hawk, get us out of here, maximum-"

At that moment, the cube returned to normal space and locked on to the Enterprise with four tractor beams. The shields would prevent one beam from locking on, maybe two, but not four. Picard ordered the Tactical officer, "Target the emitters, keep the frequencies changing, and fire at will!"

At the same time, Riker moved to open the weapons locker on the bridge and barked out, "All hands, prepare to repel boarders!"

Picard ordered Operations, "Data, alert Starfleet Command!"

The android replied, "Aye, sir." As his fingers flew over the console, he noted that nothing was happening. He informed Picard, "Sir, our communications are being disrupted."

Picard cursed, "Dammit!" He turned to the Counselor and ordered, "Deanna, take a shuttlecraft, SOMEONE must warn them!"

She replied, "Aye, sir." She rose and left the bridge to carry out her orders.

As the Enterprise kept firing, one of the tractor beam emitters exploded. At that moment, the cube fired several pulses at the smaller vessel. The effects were immediate.

The Tactical officer reported, "Sir, shields have failed!" Before he could attempt to remedy the situation, he was engulfed in a Borg transporter beam, as were the rest of the bridge crew.

On the Borg cube

Captain Picard's vision slowly came back to him, but the scene was one from both memories and nightmares. He saw a surgical table, a drone that had had both arms removed to make room for tools, and green lighting. Before he could move, two drones on either side of him grabbed his arms and pinned him to the wall by his shoulders, while another drone took hold of his jaw with it's right hand.

This drone's left hand stopped mere centimeters from his neck, and two tubules shot out of it. They found their mark in Picard's neck, piercing it to reach his carotid artery. Their payload, millions of extremely tiny machines known as nanoprobes, went on their way from their previous host into Picard, with a course set for his brain.

As his skin started to turn a deathly gray, and his veins started to become blackened and mottled, his last thought as an individual was of Deanna Troi, desperately hoping she had escaped to warn Starfleet. Then he heard the voices of the Collective again, including hers, and the will of Jean-Luc Picard was no more. The drones restraining his body let go, and he laid down on the surgical table to receive the implants the Collective had already decided upon for him.

As he would soon learn, similar scenes were playing out in assimilation chambers throughout the cube for almost every member of the Enterprise crew. Their last free thoughts varied, but in the end, the results were the same. Whomever they were before, was now irrelevant. Eight hundred and fifty-four new drones had been added to the Collective, eight hundred and fifty-four new voices in all their heads.

Elsewhere on the Borg cube

The first thing Data saw when he rematerialized was a pair of drones that appeared to be armed with shoulder-mounted weapons. He made to escape, and the drones fired. Data sensed his mobility systems being disrupted, and landed on the floor face first. Another drone pressed his deactivation switch, and Data briefly felt the emptiness of cybernetic oblivion before his systems shut off.

A drone whose left forearm had been replaced by a sizable claw assembly took hold of the android's cranium while another drone used the saw assembly on its right arm to sever Data's head. The clawed drone took the head to another chamber, while the armed drones picked up the rest of the android's body and hauled it away.

USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E
Computer Core

The room was silent, except for the hum of the life support systems and alert klaxons. The machines continued to work, even though there was no longer a crew to attend to. Then a Borg drone appeared from a transporter beam.

The computer tonelessly repeated, "Intruder alert – main computer core." The drone, with no will of it's own, ignored that, as well as the klaxons. It lumbered over to the nearest terminal, raised its right arm, and injected the computer with nanoprobes.

Within seconds, everything in the ship's databases was known to the Collective, including the fact that the Federation had no clue about the existence of the transwarp conduit within one light year of their capital, Earth. Armed with this knowledge, the drone was returned to the cube.

Six missiles lanced out from the cube to strike their targets throughout the Enterprise. They struck, and the majestic ship exploded. The cube then departed from the wreckage and entered transwarp.