p class="p1"Chapter 2:/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1""em5 of 10, proceed to subsection 4 and assist in alterations to engine assembly./em"/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1"5 of 10 awoke from her regeneration cycle, and stepped down from her alcove. Her former identity, Lt. Shriar of Starfleet, officer onboard the emUSS/em emNorthern Lights/em, has been buried by her new link to the Collective, lost among the trillions of others all thinking and acting as one. 5 was still onboard what had been the Starfleet ship, but what was now a Borg vessel, its hallways lit by dim green lights, metallic walls altered to resemble a Borg craft. All around her, drones went about their work, most of them the assimilated crew of the ship. All had implants covering most of their bodies, grey hairless skin buried under metal and blinking lights. 5's own body was the same: her antennae protruded from a metal casing around the back of her now bald head, her left eye covered by a circular implant, her right arm now a blocky tool with a rounded tip, pipes emitting from the tip to scan and interface with unfamiliar class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1"The year was 2370, two days after the Borg assimilated 5 and her ship. They had gone to warp shortly afterwards, arriving on the far end of the Alpha Quadrant. The Borg were adapting the ship's engines to allow them to go to transwarp, a process used by the Borg to travel vast distances of space in a short period of time by using specialized conduits. Sphere 1313 was two light years away, assimilating an Oberth-class science vessel and its crew, but still well within range to assist if Starfleet came to investigate the whereabouts of its missing class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1"5 entered what had been main Engineering, now altered by the Borg, and silently worked alongside 4 of 12, a Bolian who had been the Chief Engineer. They shared information with each other and all other drones, rerouting power to engines while the nanites the Borg used to assimilate ships and organic beings microscopically worked on the components of the warp nacelles. At the same time, 5's knowledge of the ships weaponry, gained from her experience as a Starfleet security officer, was drawn on by other drones to alter the ship's phaser weaponry to Borg technology class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1"As the drones finalized their modifications, a separate team finished their analysis of the ship's systems, including the large sensor dish on the exterior superstructure. The powerful device was capable of scanning for a multitude of criteria, and it was decided to return to Borg space so the technology could be assessed and integrated into other Borg class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1"Sphere 1313 soon returned, the crew of the Oberth-class now a part of the Collective, their ship scuttled of any useful technology and abandoned. The two ships set course for Borg space, and moved away, building up speed until they reached transwarp speed. Green light washed over the ships as they entered a transwarp conduit, entering a tunnel of green energy. In the span of 15 minutes, they had traveled to the far side of the Delta Quadrent, deep into Borg territory. Before them was a massive space station, metallic objects of all shapes and sizes linked together to form one unit: the structural equivalent of the Borg, the class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1""em5 of 10, proceed to subsection 4 and assist in alterations to engine assembly./em"/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1"5 of 10 awoke from her regeneration cycle, and stepped down from her alcove. Her former identity, Lt. Shriar of Starfleet, officer onboard the emUSS/em emNorthern Lights/em, has been buried by her new link to the Collective, lost among the trillions of others all thinking and acting as one. 5 was still onboard what had been the Starfleet ship, but what was now a Borg vessel, its hallways lit by dim green lights, metallic walls altered to resemble a Borg craft. All around her, drones went about their work, most of them the assimilated crew of the ship. All had implants covering most of their bodies, grey hairless skin buried under metal and blinking lights. 5's own body was the same: her antennae protruded from a metal casing around the back of her now bald head, her left eye covered by a circular implant, her right arm now a blocky tool with a rounded tip, pipes emitting from the tip to scan and interface with unfamiliar class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1"The year was 2370, two days after the Borg assimilated 5 and her ship. They had gone to warp shortly afterwards, arriving on the far end of the Alpha Quadrant. The Borg were adapting the ship's engines to allow them to go to transwarp, a process used by the Borg to travel vast distances of space in a short period of time by using specialized conduits. Sphere 1313 was two light years away, assimilating an Oberth-class science vessel and its crew, but still well within range to assist if Starfleet came to investigate the whereabouts of its missing class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1"5 entered what had been main Engineering, now altered by the Borg, and silently worked alongside 4 of 12, a Bolian who had been the Chief Engineer. They shared information with each other and all other drones, rerouting power to engines while the nanites the Borg used to assimilate ships and organic beings microscopically worked on the components of the warp nacelles. At the same time, 5's knowledge of the ships weaponry, gained from her experience as a Starfleet security officer, was drawn on by other drones to alter the ship's phaser weaponry to Borg technology class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1"As the drones finalized their modifications, a separate team finished their analysis of the ship's systems, including the large sensor dish on the exterior superstructure. The powerful device was capable of scanning for a multitude of criteria, and it was decided to return to Borg space so the technology could be assessed and integrated into other Borg class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1"Sphere 1313 soon returned, the crew of the Oberth-class now a part of the Collective, their ship scuttled of any useful technology and abandoned. The two ships set course for Borg space, and moved away, building up speed until they reached transwarp speed. Green light washed over the ships as they entered a transwarp conduit, entering a tunnel of green energy. In the span of 15 minutes, they had traveled to the far side of the Delta Quadrent, deep into Borg territory. Before them was a massive space station, metallic objects of all shapes and sizes linked together to form one unit: the structural equivalent of the Borg, the class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p
