MEANWHILE…

The Borg queen stood before six large monitors on board a Borg diamond overseeing the assimilation of a densely populated pre-warp system while simultaneously directing the Borg in other sectors with her numerous links attached to her mind. Under normal operating procedures, the queen would have not yet assimilated the system that appeared on her screens as they were technologically inferior and offered little contribution to the Collective. However, the war with Species 8472 had decimated the Borg population. In order to boost their numbers as quickly as possible, the queen had temporarily forgone achieving perfection by assimilating advanced races and instead chose to assimilate practically anyone the Borg encountered. While quality was being sacrificed, the queen's efforts were effectively paying off through quantity. What was once only a mere 100,000 drones in a dozen sectors after the war with Species 8472, now swelled to over 20 million spanning two quadrants of space.

The queen was going to order a pyramid ship to assist in the assimilation of Species 91875 featured on her screens when she received a signal pulse from a cube in the Kalanna System. The cube had pursued a Federation Galaxy-class starship into the system and then engaged in a brief firefight with the vessel before the ship rammed the cube at full impulse. The saucer section was able to penetrate deeply in the cube's hull causing damage to main propulsion before the cube's tractor beams could stop the Federation ship. The remainder of the ship was disabled and assimilation procedures were now under way.

Upon receiving this information, the Borg queen became rather disturbed. In all the battles the Borg have fought against the Federation, there were no instances of this tactic used by the Federation. Their people valued life and should have instead attempted to deploy escape pods before sacrificing their ship in such a manner. Yet scans showed no such pods were used in the encounter. She switched the screens in front of her to the image of the damaged cube. Indeed, the cube was moderately damaged, painfully obvious due to the fact that the Federation ship was still protruding from the cube's hull like a broken bone.

Knowledge and memories of the ship's crew began trickling into her mind as their links with the Collective became active through assimilation. Most of the information, however, was irrelevant to the situation at hand. The queen noted that the assimilated crew was largely unaware of what their mission was or why they provoked the cube. That too was rare for a Federation vessel. She concluded they were deliberately kept uninformed suggesting their superiors expected them to be assimilated.

Suddenly, a key crewman had been assimilated, which pulled the corners of the queen's lips upward. The assimilated crewman was the captain of the ship—a prize in itself as the Collective gained all the secrets and knowledge the captain knew. Furthermore, he was Vulcan. His mental capabilities were of great demand for the Collective. His mind was of course difficult to break upon assimilation, but like all Vulcans that fell before him, he too eventually broke and surrendered his will to the Collective. When that happened, all became clear to the queen and her smirk grew into a devious smile.

"BX-3553," she communicated to a newly created tactical cube, "Alter course to 3125.38, the Kalanna System. Assist Cube 146 in repairs then assimilate the Federation Starship NCC-1701-E Enterprise and their new weapon."

"We will comply," the Borg replied.

She switched her screens back to the original images and waited with great anticipation for the Borg's most powerful ship to assimilate the Federation's flagship and the secrets it had. It would be most ideal for Jean-Luc Picard to return to serve the Collective as Locutus of Borg. Together, Locutus and the queen made a formidable union.

--

"Patch it through, Lieutenant," Picard wearingly said as he walked onto the bridge with Subcommander Torlus following. It had been nearly four hours since the briefing with Kim'Taur and the only thing he had to show for it was a headache after a lengthy meeting with a very-much perturbed Romulan liaison.

"I………Distress………Breaches………….Repeat……The…." The transmission they had received was heavily garbled and filled with static. A few seconds passed before the signal was significantly improved, though still riddled with static and the explosions and klaxons in the background weren't helping.

"I repeat, thi….Commander Pactan of…S.S. Yamato. We have engaged the…In the Kalanna…Multi…Breeches on decks…….Shields down, life support failing. The…Have……Us…This is a general…--ress signal to any…In the area." Phaser fire was suddenly heard in the background. Picard stepped closer to the viewscreen with horror as screams were now heard which were intertwined with mechanical movements. The final moments of the transmission ended with Commander Pactan gasping sharply in pain as though he was choking on something. Picard knew better, it was the Borg. The Yamato had been assimilated. The transmission quickly ended with a chime from the communication system.

"The signal was cut, Sir," Moor solemnly reported.

"Helm, maximum war,." Picard decisively bellowed as he returned to his chair. Even with the change in speed, the Kalanna system was still several hours away. Still, the Enterprise had a duty to search for any survivors and with any luck, the ship would arrive in one piece to rescue them.

"Speed increase laid in, Captain."

With a nod, Picard boldly uttered, "Engage."

--

Through a hazy fog, Renny Kim'Taur of the Imperial Breen Marines watched the man with absolute hatred as a hypospray pierced his frost-blue skin, injecting him with who knows what. He snarled in protest. The serum burned his blood, changing him—changing him into a monster. It was the first of many such injections yet to come.

The beast within him tried with every shred of strength Kim'Taur had to free himself, vowing to kill every so-called doctor in this room as well as every so'paa responsible for his capture. His efforts were futile and only met with failure. The bindings that imprisoned him were invisible yet they were far stronger than he was and kept him firmly in place. His skin tingled whenever he attempted to escape and the more he resisted, the more drained he felt from the magic that bound him. All the while, he was in agonizing pain not only from the poisons he was being injected with but also from the torture of being imprisoned against his will like a caged animal.

Indeed, he was infuriated with the Federation pink skins but he was also enraged with himself. He was a soldier in the Imperial Marines. He was trained to avoid capture at all costs, trained to fight, trained to die. Yet the pink skins abducted him without even much of a fight. He failed his training, he failed the emperor and worse yet, he failed his family. He roared his children's names in anguish,

"Di'Ta! Po'Kya'Larp!"

He roared again as he summoned every drop of determination he had and again tried to free himself. To his surprise, his wrists had moved several centimeters above the table on which he lay restrained. He was doing it! He was breaking the invisible chains! Sparks erupted from the control panel above his head and the sizzle of the invisible chains grew louder and into a high-pitched whine as they strained to contain their prisoner. The pink skins became frantic and Kim'Taur fed on the increasing chaos of his environment. He gave another desperate push on his restrains before a blue light appeared around his wrists before quickly disappearing again. This time, his arms sprang free at last! One of the pink skins approached him with another hypospray in his hand, no doubt more poison to end his life; the elite soldier concluded that he must be too much trouble to keep. They should have killed him when they had the chance. Now that freedom was possible, Kim'Taur's love for his children only fueled his determination for escape. He grabbed the so'paa with the device and tossed him into a bulkhead, knocking him out.

He had just freed his legs after smashing a nearby console when three Federation soldiers wearing green trim poured into the room. He never felt so alive before! This was what he was bred for, this is what he lived for—for battle! One of the enemy soldiers fired his phaser at the Imperial Marine. Despite being restrained in place for several weeks, his body easily dodged the orange energy beam. He immediately closed in and dispatched the soldier just as a second beam was fired and struck him. He was dazed but Kim'Taur quickly shook it off and struck the other soldier with a stiff blow across his jaw. The third soldier grappled him from behind so Kim'Taur launched himself backwards, hard into the bulkhead. Kim'Taur broke the loosened grip and spun around with a bone crunching kick to the soldier's ribs. Fury and rage had devoured him at that point and he brutally wretched the pink skin's neck before he threw the lifeless body across the room.

The alien Marine stumbled into the corridor and noticed something was moving inside his body; moving systematically from one system to another, as if it had an intelligence of its own. More soldiers appeared down the hall and he brazenly charged them with a fearless battle cry, attempting to push the terrifying feeling within him away. He dodged a few energy beams before he lost concentration and dropped to the deck, writhing in pain. He wasn't shot though. The pain was emanating from within him, betraying him to his captors. What had the pink skins done to him? What was happening in his body? Why was it moving so much? Nothing in the body moves like that! Then whatever it was reached his brain,

And the real pain began.

Kim'Taur gargled a bloodcurdling scream of agony, desperately wanting to be put out of his misery. His brain felt like it was a chew toy of a Klingon Targ—it was being stabbed, twisted, pulled, devoured, or so it felt. Suddenly his body couldn't take it anymore and it began to convulse as his heart beat faster and faster with every passing second.

"He's going into cardiac arrest!" One of the pink skins shouted behind him. Kim'Taur recognized the voice as the same voice that belonged to the deranged scientist that started all of this. "Twenty CCs of Cordrazine!" He added.

Before they could inject him with yet another toxin, Kim'Taur suddenly found himself looking down at his own body that lay before him. The soldiers had turned him over to his back so that he could see his face. His skin, he noted, had changed from a healthy blue to a corpse-like off-white. His once silky silver hair had long since fallen out. His eyes were dark and sunken. As a final observation during his out-of-body experience, the left side of his skull was twitching beyond his comprehension. Soon, a spike-like metallic object shot through his skull where it was once twitching and spread itself out into a starburst pattern flat against his head.

Kim'Taur abruptly woke from his regeneration cycle on board the Enterprise and casually stepped out of his alcove. Perhaps in another life, he would have considered those events as a horrifying nightmare of a traumatic past. In the now, however, they were only irrelevant images. The Starfleet drone referenced his internal chronometer with the ship's itinerary and concluded his presence would not be required for another two days assuming the Enterprise maintained course and speed. To better himself for his upcoming task, he decided to make use of the ship's acclaimed holodeck.

When he left Cargo Bay Two, two security officers followed Kim'Taur down the corridor. They were unnecessary as he contained both the schematics of the Enterprise and the composure of a Starfleet officer but he tolerated their presence in the interest of completing his mission as designated. He suspected the officers were mostly there to bring personal assurance to the other members of the crew. Nearly every crewmember Kim'Taur passed, scans of their bodies indicated high levels of fear, anger and anxiety in his presence.

After a brief march to the turbolift and then through additional corridors on a different deck, the drone arrived at Holodeck One but found a program was already running. He considered trying one of the other rooms but observed the current program running was entitled 'Worf's Callisthetics-1-Alpha.' Kim'Taur cocked his head slightly before issuing the command to open the doorway.

Once the jigsaw doors opened, Kim'Taur stepped inside while the pair of security officers remained in the corridor. The doors closed and the arch disappeared. What now surrounded Kim'Taur was a dimly lit, dense jungle environment that smelled of decaying flesh, which was amplified by the suffocating humidity. The drone stood in place scanning the area, unsure what was expected of him. Some birds above him high in the leafy canopy were startled and quickly flew away, squawking and cawing all the way. His proximity alarm alerted him to a large object approaching him from behind sparing no haste. Kim'Taur remained in place like a statue while he continued to monitor the object's progress.

50 meters…

40 meters…

30...20…10 meters…

He waited one more moment before he sliced his arm behind him, the motion triggering a scythe-like blade to spring from his forearm. Something jolted his arm but Kim'Taur stood firmly and didn't budge. When he glanced behind him, he saw an unknown, large, bi-pedal creature with an oily white skin and drool dribbling from its numerous fangs impaled onto his blade. He retracted the blade and stepped forward while the creature fell to the ground with a hefty thump. Kim'Taur had expected a greater challenge from his former teacher, Worf, if he had truly built this simulation. After hearing metal weapons clamoring in the distance, Kim'Taur grabbed his Tetryon rifle from his shoulder and hurried to the scene of the battle.

By the time he closed in, he heard a female voice utter incoherent strings of coarse and vulgar vocabulary. He determined they were dialects native to Earth and Bajor. Instead of rushing blindly into battle, Kim'Taur holstered his rifle and remained hidden behind some shrubbery while he continued to assess the situation.

He saw two vicious-looking aliens, each armed with Klingon weaponry, engaging an equally armed, albeit fatigued, Sharra Bii. She was surprisingly holding her own despite her opponents' distinct advantages over her. She growled a hellish battle cry while unleashing a potent blow to one of the alien's torso, forcing him to double-over. She finished him off after connecting with a violent knee to the creature's face. When she focused on the remaining enemy, a third opponent darted out of the forest behind Sharra. She cursed at the sight of yet another being to fight and continued to tap into her Bajoran rage. She clanked blades with the dueling alien as the other closed in.

Kim'Taur observed her stance was inefficient—it was off balanced and her blows were fueled by raw power instead of grace; it was no wonder why she had become so tired as she was not only fighting the aliens but also her own body. Suddenly, one of the beings kicked her hard, causing her to stumble backwards before she tripped on a surfaced tree root. The creature responsible for this took the opportunity to end her life by raising his weapon high above his head.

Before the creature could carry out his deathblow, Kim'Taur sprang into action by popping out of the bushes and after detaching a dagger-like blade from a hip compartment, he threw the knife at the one threatening Sharra. With no effort at all, the overly sharpened blade impacted the back of the alien's fury head, killing him. Before its body could fall, Kim'Taur had already lunged for the other opponent, applying a deadly Vulcan nerve pinch. Both bodies fell in unison as Commander Sharra blinked wildly at the aliens as they fell, unable to understand what just happened.

Attributing the kills to some hotshot security officer, she grunted angrily and pulled herself up. With her back towards Kim'Taur, she doubled over and wiped some perspiration off her forehead before she grabbed her knees to catch her breath. Between huffs, she managed to get out, "What the hell are you doing, crewman?"

"You required assistance in this simulation, Commander Bii."

The mechanical echo of that voice startled her but she quickly realized it was Kim'Taur standing before her. She rigidly straightened up and bitterly spat, "Like hell I did. And it's Sharra, Commander Sharra, Bajoran surnames come first in our culture. You should have your memory checked for bugs."

"This program is not adequate for training purposes," Kim'Taur pointed out, ignoring the goading behavior of the agitated female officer.

"Yeah? Well who invited you?"

Kim'Taur considered the question before responding. "No one invited me. I was…Curious."

Sharra bellied an uneasy laugh, unsure of how exactly to behave. "I thought the Borg aren't curious."

"I am not entirely Borg, Commander Sharra," Kim'Taur countered.

Perhaps with a glimmer of understanding, Sharra slowly nodded and grudgingly said, "So it's a fight you want?" She pulled the knife out of the creature's head and tossed it to Kim'Taur. "Fine. Computer, restart program, level two."

The computer chirped in compliance before the creatures were resurrected with a second wind. Before combat could ensure, however, the ship entered Red Alert, automatically pausing the holodeck program. Around them boomed a voice that might have well been God Himself speaking.

"All hands, Red Alert! Senior staff to the bridge." It was Captain Picard and judging from the urgency of his voice, something was seriously wrong.

"Computer, end program," Sharra clipped and the jungle disappeared with her command leaving behind a black and yellow grid, "Looks like we'll need to take a rain check on this for a while."

She hurried towards the exit with Kim'Taur keeping close behind her.

Once they boarded the turbolift along with Kim'Taur's escorts, they arrived at the bridge within moments. Sharra wanted to assess the situation first before she changed her tattered uniform. She moved to her station as Picard acknowledged her presence. Upon noting that his entire staff had now been assembled, Picard coolly explained the situation to them.

"After receiving a distress signal from the Yamato, we increased speed and arrived in the Kalanna System, the origin of the transmission, ahead of schedule only to find the Yamato heavily damaged—most of her saucer section has been destroyed—with evidence of the Borg onboard."

"Captain," Moor at Ops said as his fingers raced over his console, "I briefly detected what seemed to be a Borg ship leaving the sector but before I could establish a sensor lock, the ship just disappeared."

Picard crossed his legs at his command chair and brought a hooked finger to his chin in puzzlement before his asked, "You mean the ship jumped to warp?"

"No Sir," Moor's fingers stopped momentarily, "Long range sensors would still be picking up a warp trail and there's no sign of a trans-warp conduit being used either. It just…disappeared."

"Uh, Captain," Kardaz quietly added from Tactical, "Maybe they have a c-cloaking device."

Picard slowly pulled his hand away and stared at the view screen in silence, searching for an answer. It was unlikely the Borg would use stealth technology but still possible. The Borg could have adapted a cloaking device since their last confrontation with the Federation a few years ago.

"Scan for spatial distortions and ion trails common to known cloak technology," Picard immediately ordered even though to him, it seemed eons had passed before he voiced his order.

"Aye Captain," Moor acknowledged.

"Mister Kardaz, any survivors on the Yamato?" Picard asked, already knowing the answer from the faint Borg Collective he could hear.

"Well, ah, more or less, Sir," Kardaz explained as he quickly glanced up from Tactical, "I'm reading 775 life forms on-on board—all Borg."

"Escape pods?" Picard just had to be sure.

Kardaz sighed, greatly demoralized by his findings, "All…All pods are accounted for, Sir, um, none of them left the ship."

"There were over a thousand crewmen on board," Sharra somberly said in shock as she gazed at the saucer-less Galaxy-class ship.

Before Picard could refocus his crew, Kardaz shouted, "Ah Sir, the Yamato is powering up weapons and engines!"

Picard gritted his teeth and ordered evasive maneuvers. A salvo of photon torpedoes missed the Enterprise thanks to the fast response of her Helm officer. Picard regretted not having the time to meet the new officer at Helm. He was a very young ensign that couldn't have been much older than Wesley Crusher when he piloted the Enterprise-D. Before Picard could mull too much about that, Picard calmly ordered, "Lock onto her weapons and fire."

Picard wasn't new to combat and took the battle in perfect stride. He instilled this veteran confidence into his officers all of whom had little or no experience in ship combat. Since the Dominion War ended, the Federation has enjoyed a relatively peaceful quadrant, which unfortunately meant new officers were not gaining much battle experience.

"Ha-ha! Direct hit, Captain!" Kardaz proudly declared, his skill with weapons pushed him beyond his social awkwardness. "The Yamato's weapons are offline!"

"Sir, the ship's making a run for it," the unknown ensign stated.

"Pursuit course, match their speed," Picard uncrossed his legs and punched a few commands on his chair, updating the ship's record of the battle unfolding.

"Captain Picard," Kim'Taur resonated, "Discontinue pursuit. It is a trap."

"How—" was all that Picard could say before an explosion rattled the Enterprise.

"Report!" Sharra demanded after the shockwave subsided.

"We struck some sort of cloaked mine, Sir!" Kardaz replied, "Shields holding at 90%."

"All stop," Picard beckoned.

"Sounding all stop, Captain."

After standing up and pulling hard on his tunic, Picard walked over to Ops manned by Moor. "Can you detect these mines, Lieutenant?"

"I think so, Sir, it might take some time though."

"Make it so," Picard nodded and watched the Yamato on the viewscreen. It was holding position as well, almost daring the Enterprise to continue to follow her deeper into the minefield.

"Uh-oh," Kardaz muttered, prompting an ominous stare from Picard.

"Commander?" He asked, implying Kardaz to elaborate.

"Ah…T-two Borg cubes have appeared off our port and-and starboard side of the saucer section."

"Whaddya mean appeared!?" Sharra questioned in disbelief with a glint of fear in her eyes.

"It um, gets worse," Kardaz added, "Sir, one of them is a-a tactical cube."

Picard snapped his head to face the viewscreen and demanded, "On screen."

With a blink of light as the viewscreen changed, there they were; two Borg cubes displayed side-by side, dwarfing Picard.

One of them was a standard black cube with green highlights but the other, the tactical cube, had an additional layer of a silver-colored armor added to its hull. With the exception of Voyager's brief encounter with one such ship in the Delta Quadrant, the tactical cube variant would have never been known to exist at all.

"We are the Borg," the voice of the Collective blared.

"Captain Picard," Kim'Taur bellowed above the other Borg voice as it continued its declaration of assimilation, "You will carry out your mission."

Picard's jaw began to hurt as he realized it had been clenched tightly since the Enterprise's arrival in the Kalanna system. Upon a determined glace back to the viewscreen, Picard defiantly marched to his chair and sat down. In those brief moments, he had decided on a course of action.

"Helm, get us out of here, maximum warp," Picard said as soon as the Borg ended their transmission, "Engineering, this is the captain, give us as much power to the shields and engines as possible. Mister Kardaz, full tactical analysis of both cubes."

Various Yes Sirs and Aye Captains were heard as his crew carried out his orders.

"Captain Picard," Kim'Taur sounded more forceful than before, "Lower your shields and transport me to one of the cubes. Comply."

"Commander Kim'Taur," Picard countered with an authoritative voice his own, "The mission is over. Starfleet couldn't have anticipated two Borg ships here, let alone a tactical cube. They've already got the Yamato and I will not allow the Enterprise to fall to them as well in such a manner. It's far too great of a risk now. We must regroup and reconsider our options."

At that moment, Kim'Taur's mission sub-routine kicked in. He abruptly struck the security officers behind him with two closed firsts, instantly knocking them both out. Before Kardaz could react, he was being thrown over his station by the Borg commando. Kim'Taur immediately circumvented the security measures at Tactical as several oranges beams of phaser fire erupted around him. Even though most of the barrages were hitting their marks, his personal shield was able to absorb the bursts of energy. Just before he could lower the Enterprise's shields, he was struck by a remodulated phaser. The shot passed through his shield and struck his left shoulder, propelling him back a few steps. Kim'Taur acquired the shooter based on trajectory of the blast. It was Captain Picard. Showing no mercy for the veteran captain, Kim'Taur shot Picard with his wrist-mounted weapon. He quickly stepped back to Tactical as Picard collapsed to the deck and then lowered the ship's shields. Kim'Taur locked on to the closest Borg ship and just as additional security arrived on the bridge, beamed himself over.