Author's Note: I do not own Star Trek Voyager or it's characters I simply love the show and enjoy putting my own spin on things. This is a repost of a story I'd posted years ago under the ResseM pen name. Because it's the first in a series of stories I'd taken it down to work out all the continuity issues, I hope I've managed that. I've also changed a few things up since my writing has, I hope, improved since my first posting.
The eerie images of two lifeless ships filled the view screen of Voyager's bridge. The larger of the two ships had set off an automatic alert as soon as it had appeared on long-range sensors. It was a large sphere of twisted dark metal that sent shivers down the spins of the crew aboard any ship that came across it's path. Captain Kathryn Janeway ordered her helmsmen, Lieutenant Tom Paris, to carefully stay their course when the alert was sounded despite the fact that the Borg ship was directly in their path. As they approached the scene before them became more and more horrific. An unknown vessel and a Borg sphere drifted dark and lifeless in space. Both ships showed signs of weapons fire, both looked as if they'd taken heavy damage, but not the kind that would have left the ships in their current state, especially the Borg ship.
"Both ships appear to be running on auxiliary power." Tuvok reported from his position at the tactical station. His stoic, seemingly cold, Vulcan voice betrayed nothing of what the dark skinned man might have been thinking. It had been a long time since the crew of Voyager had come across anything Borg and most of the crew was feeling a mix of fear and intrigue as they glazed out at the wreck.
"No life signs from either one of them." Harry Kim added. Unlike Tuvok, Harry's mixed emotions lightly laced his voice.
"No further sign of Borg activity in the area." Tuvok continued.
From the command chair in the center of the bridge Captain Janeway listened to her officers give their reports. Her own thoughts already playing around with different scenarios as she did so. She relaxed just the smallest bit when Tuvok said there was no other activity in the area, but that didn't mean the situation couldn't change at a moments notice. "Stand down red alert and go to yellow, Mr. Tuvok." The fair skinned, alburn haired captain ordered. A million questions popped into Janeway's head as she looked out at the scene before her. Why was a single sphere out here so far from normal Borg space? To whom did the other ship belong? What the hell had happened that caused both ships to shut down? The unknown vessel didn't look like it could take on Voyager in a fight with it's torpedoes tied behind it's back let alone a Borg sphere, and yet here they both were, crippled and adrift. That sphere should have had at least five hundred drones, and Harry couldn't find a single life sign? The Captain's musing were cut short by a sudden voice of her comm. badge.
"Seven to the Captain."
It took a moment to clear her head of the questions dancing around her thoughts before Janeway replied to her Astrometrics Officer, "Go ahead, Seven."
Seven of Nine was a former Borg drone that Janeway had liberated from the Collective during the fourth year of Voyager's journey home through the Delta Quadrant. Seven, born Annika Hanson, had been assimilated when she was six years old so all she'd ever known was her life as a Borg. In her years aboard Voyager the young woman seemed to go through an entire life cycle as she learned to reengage with her individually and humanity. From a lost, terrified child, to a rebellious adolescent searching for who she was, to the brilliant young woman she was now, and through out it all Janeway had been a mentor to her. Then, suddenly, everything changed. Seven pulled away from Janeway's mentorship as she began having experiences that made her more and more grown up, only to reconnect with the other woman in a far more intimate way. "Captain," The blonde woman said over the comms. in her cool almost Vulcan like tone, "I am picking up a distress signal."
Janeway looked first at Tuvok who shook his head and then at Harry who did the same. There was no reason for her to distrust what Seven was telling her so Janeway didn't question the validly of the woman's report, but she did need it to be clarified. "We're not receiving anything up here, Seven."
There was no hint of emotion in Seven's voice. She knew the Captain trusted her so she had no issues with being questioned. Nor did she feel any real fear about what was happening. "You would not be Captain. I am receiving the message through my proximity transceiver."
Janeway blinked in surprise as she sat up in her chair, her hands gripping a little tighter to the arm rests. "Where is the signal coming from, Seven?"
"The Borg sphere." Came the reply.
"Scans report there is no activity on the Borg sphere, Captain. Minimal power, no life signs, no distress calls, no nothing." Harry said as he looked down at Janeway after rereading the scan outputs at his station.
"Apparently Ensign Kim, there is indeed something." Seven replied. If anyone had said it the comment would have seemed snarky, but that was just how Seven spoke. The crew had long since grown use to her seemingly superior way of speaking to others, though it wasn't nearly as bad as it use to be.
"How is it possible for Seven to be detecting a transmission from a ship with no operating systems but minimal life support?" Tuvok asked, his voice composed and calm. His scans all showed weapons, shields, commutations, and the transwrap drive were all disabled on the sphere.
"It is not from the ship it's self, Commander, but a weak signal from within." Seven replied as she listened to the conversation on the bridge from her station in Astrometrics.
Janeway leaned over the arm of her chair with her hand at her chin as she looked at her first office, Commander Chakotay, who sat to her right. Of course she was formulating her own plans but she always tried to get the input of her officers before following through on anything. "What do you think?"
"I think some how someone managed to take out a Borg sphere and I think we should know how." The broad shouldered man with the tribal face tattoo replied as he finally took his eyes off the screen to look at her. "As long as it's safe I say lets have a look."
Janeway rewarded her first officer with a crooked grin. "I was hoping you'd say that." She nodded once as she stood up, handing her coffee mug to an ensign as she made her way towards the turbolift. "Seven and Lieutenant Torres report to the transporter room. Tuvok you're with me." Janeway ordered before looking at her first officer from inside the lift. "You have the bridge, Commander."
Chakotay nodded and as soon as the turbolift doors closed the bridge fell into an all to familiar routine. This wasn't after all the first time they'd boarded a Borg ship. Nor was it the first time Janeway broke the rule about captain's not leading away missions. They tried to follow Starfleet rules and regulations and for the most part they did, despite a good portion of the crew being ex-Marquis, but being seventy thousand light years from home gave them a little wiggle room.
Seven of Nine and B'Elanna Torres were already in the transporter room when Janeway and Tuvok arrived. Both women wore a phaser on their hips, Seven carried her tri-corder, and B'Elanna had her engineering kit slung over her shoulder. Seven was a tall, slender blonde with brilliant blue eyes who wore her hair in a tight knot atop her head. She had a mental arch above left eyebrow, a mental starbrust just under her right ear, and a mental mesh on her left hand; all remnants of her time as Brog drone. B'Elanna was Seven's physical opposite. The half Klingon-half Human was darker in completion, shorter, with dark hair and eyes and rather gentle looking cranial ridges. They were both in contasrt with Janeway's very Celtic appearance of pale skin, red hair and popping blue-gray eyes.
As soon as Janeway, Tuvok, and two of Tuvok's security officers were armed with phasers and tri-corders, they all stepped onto the transporter pad. After explaining that this was a recon mission and their goal was to gather as much information as they could as quickly as they could, Janeway looked at the young crewmen behind the transporter controls. "Energize."