Punishment
A normally boring night shift becomes almost deadly and they meet a man with nothing lose and nothing to gain by what he does.
Authors Note: I know my story is riddled with potential or very actual plot holes, as I have no beta reader. So you can either take the story as what it is, a story and therefore with a pinch of salt or you can point out the big ones and I will adapt the story accordingly.
Just so you know I own none of the Voyager characters, the ship or any of the ideas put forth in the series I am just borrowing them for the purpose of this story.
Chapter 1: Boredom
"Computer state the time"
"The time is 0100 hours" Harry Kim stared at the star field before him on the view screen the night watch the most boring watch of them all, the command chair just requiring a warm body in the chair rather than anyone with any great experience or knowledge.
That's why the captain so often give the night watch to the junior members of her crew for them gain valuable tactical and command experience for when they move up the ranks when they got home and they all got re-assigned to different ships.
Harry personally didn't want to think about that last bit, reassigned to different ships meant the breaking of this family they had come to develop and they had already lost some really good people Starfleet and Maquis.
At the moment Harry had the habit of badgering the junior officers at there stations with reports every 10 minutes or so because it was so boring, but then something was about to happen to alleviate that boredom quite considerably
"Sir, I think you should take a look at these readings there are kind of strange"
Harry crossed over to his familiar ops station and punched at the controls a look of horror rapt his face as his cross referenced the readings with other findings he had gathered, he wanted to liven things up but not this way! He stood up straight with young crewman looking oddly back at him before Harry shouted at the top of his lungs
"RED ALERT ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS" and then in a slightly quieter voice to the comm system "all senior officers to the bridge" he don't know why he said it, it was a red alert situation all senior officers would have come to the bridge immediately anyway but he felt the need to say it. Harry started barking out orders until the other senior officers arrived "Crewman Jones raise shields all phaser banks and torpedo bays at the ready, Crewman Benitez push us up to maximum warp, how long will it take them to intercept us."
"About two minutes sir Benitez reported back" two minutes before all hell broke loose Harry thought, although with all the crewmembers on the bridge rushing around maybe it had come early.
A female voice came over the comm system
"What is it Harry?" it was the captain she sounded like she was bounding down the hallway towards the turbo lift as Commander Tuvok and Chakotay stepped onto the bridge in their night attire. It was a red alert situation no time to dance about jumping into your Starfleet uniform and all that.
"There is a transwarp signature on sensors captain heading on a intercept course" Harry relinquished control of the bridge to Commander Chakotay
"Confirmed Captain" Chakotay jumped in as Harry moved back to ops "Intercept in 1 minute"
The rest of the bridge officers appeared all their night attire except for the captain who couldn't really walk onto her bridge in a nightgown so had thrown on just a pair of trousers and a shirt she was still barefoot though. Also Seven of Nine crossed to the secondary engineering station in her normal dress after all she didn't sleep so she had no night attire
"Have we determined the class of vessel Seven" the Captain sat in the command chair
"The signature is consistent with that of a sphere Captain" Seven replied
The captain knew it could be worse it could have been a cube or even a diamond class vessel but she knew a sphere is just as dangerous as any Borg ship. Suddenly they were rocked by a shot.
"Shields down to 80 percent, I have modified phasers for rotating modulation" Tuvok shouted
"Incoming transmission" Harry reported they all knew what they were going to hear but the Captain nodded for Harry to open a channel maybe the Borg have come up with something new she thought.
"Starfleet vessel we are the Borg, lower your shields and surrender your ship …" at that point Janeway made the cut sign she sighed the Borg obviously haven't come up with anything new to say.
"Return fire" she ordered
"Direct hit, no effect" Another hit rocked the ship blowing out consoles and throwing people around
"Shields down to 40"
"Fire at will Mr. Tuvok" Tuvok punched the controls as all phasers fired and a volley of torpedoes launched themselves from the aft bay.
"The sphere has taken minor damage" another hit rocked the ship "Shields down to 10, we have lost both phasers and torpedo launchers"
"Warp and impulse is offline"
"Evasive manoeuvres get those weapons back!" Harry stared at consternation at his console before shouting his findings
"Captain another ship is coming in, the warp signature reads Federation"
"What! That's not possible, what class of ship is it" she turned her head with everyone but Tom who was really concentrating on keeping them alive
"Defiant Captain, Starfleet registry identifies it as the USS Sword."
The new vessel entered the fray immediately taking what could have been a killing blow for Voyager on its own shields before opening up its pulse cannons onto the ship. The ship launched as single torpedo, which ripped into the sphere causing a massive explosion. The Voyager crew stared at amazement at what was transpiring on the bridge as this little ship was tearing the Borg sphere a new hull.
"Open a hailing channel to the ship"
"This Captain Kathryn Janeway to the Starfleet vessel please respond"
"No response Captain" Harry reported
They watched on the view screen as another volley of pulse phaser rounds ripped into the torpedo wound on the hull of the sphere.
"The Borg vessel has suffered massive damage they are retreating but the Starfleet vessel is pursuing it" Tuvok reported quietly surprised
Tom turned and smiled "The Borg turning tail and running from a little ship like that, you never would have thought it" As Tom uttered those words the "little ship" launched another one of what it looks like specially made torpedoes into the already gaping wound which set off a chain reaction of explosions which destroyed the sphere. The Starfleet vessel whipped round and doubled back to Voyager
"The vessel is hailing"
"Open a channel" a man came on the screen in his late thirties with slight beard growing under his chin, hair all unkempt and not brushed at all. He was missing his right eye and he carried various holsters with weapons in them. He wore a Starfleet uniform one of the older kinds but over that was beaten up old leather jacket that went all the way down to his feet.
"Sorry about before I don't like to talk during a fight, detracts from the ass kicking I have to be dishing out, this is Lieutenant Hartstone of the USS Sword"
"Mr Hartstone first I have to thank you for your gallantry but what is a vessel of that nature doing out this far"
"I could toss that question back at you, propulsion must have made staggering leaps since I have been gone"
"Not really" she replied "I think it would be best served for both of us if you transported aboard our vessel I am thinking we would have a lot to tell each other"
"I agree Captain ……" he was fishing for a name
"Janeway" she filled in the gap for all her questions and amazement she had forgotten her to introduce herself "and this my ship the USS Voyager"
"She looks a fine ship but she could use a bit of a boost in the ass kicking department it seems if I wasn't around then you would have been drone's by now, or if you were lucky you would have been dead" He said the word dead with an unusual tone. Janeway turned to her other officers before turning back she didn't know what to make of a man that would choose death rather than assimilation.
"I'll beam aboard in 5 hours it looks like most of you were asleep or are ready for bed"
"The Borg have to attack at unsociable hours but we are all up now"
"That's the combat high all that adrenaline pumping through your veins, you'll all be up for hours now but I need a little sleep as well as you do probably, see you then" the view screen clicked off back to star field. The man carried himself like a Starfleet officer, although brash and arrogant Captain Janeway thought and obviously personal hygiene was lost on the man, he looked like a true solider but what was he fighting for or against.
