YC 116

Blood Raider Space

Captain Rastan strolled peacefully along the bridge of his Bhaalgorn Battleship. It was bathed in reddish light, with a utilitarian set up. The consoles were arranged in an circle around a main chair, which had it's own control console on it, and a holographic display built in. Rastan himself was a man short in stature, with a curly mustache, and a limp. He was content this day since he had just received his paycheck, and couldn't wait to get home to his wife. Fortunately, it seemed like just boring guards duty for now.

A voice rang out on the command bridge, "Captain, we are detecting a starship within our sector. We cannot identify it."

Rastan walked over and sat down in his command chair. A holographic display of the command systems flicked up in front of him. Tapping on the virtual screen, he brought up the sensor scans of the area. Indeed, there was an unusually ship in the region. Increasing the scan intensity, he could not recognize the shape of the vessel.

"Set an intercept course," he said.

On the orders of Captain Rastan, the Bhaalgorn battleship lumbered into motion, it's fusion engines hurling it towards a distant sector of space. As it moved, the crew began preparing for battle. Laser capacitors were charged up, while missiles were moved into firing positions. As the ship entered the area that the trespasser was in, the ships CPU brought it's shields up to full strength,

When the Bhaalgorn entered visual range of the mysterious vessel, Captain Rastan brought it up on the main viewing screen. There was an audible gasp as the sight of a giant cube appeared in the view screen. Reading the measurements that the ship had calculated, Rastan was amazed.

"What the hell. That thing is bigger than a supercarier." The measurements that the ship had made calculate that the cube had a volume of 28 cubic kilometers, with the width, height, and length being three kilometers.

"We better call for backup," said Rastan nervously. Calling up his communications link, he sent out a request for assistance to several ships nearby. After he was confident that the ships had received his request, he turned to his first officer. "Bring all weapons and shields online. Move to attack."

"Sir, is that a wise decision? Shouldn't we wait for the reinforcements to arrive?"

"No. we need to keep them from moving onwards. That means fighting them until the other ships get here. Yes, that thing is bigger than a supercarrier, but I don't see any weapons on it. We just need to keep it occupied with us. Keep moving, keep shooting, and we should be fine."

"Alright Captain."

"Lets do it," said Rastan calmly as the ship moved into position to begin their attack.

The Borg ship dropped out of warp. It could sense a heavily armed vessel heading towards them. Scanning her newly acquired databanks, the Queen determined the vessel to be a Bhaalgorn class Battleship, used by the Blood Raider faction.

White lasers lanced out from the battleship, impacting on the hull of the Borg Cube. In the Queens mind, the ship reported significant damage to the outer hull of one section of the Cube. Analysis of the attack quickly began as the collective worked to adapt to the attack from the Blood Raiders. Soon, they would learn to join the Collective, or face destruction.

The Raiders managed to get in a few more attacks with what the Collective determined to be multi-frequency lasers that varied between X-Rays, Gamma, Infrared, and other laser types before the Collective finished adapting to their attack. Regeneration of the damaged portions of the Borg ship began almost immediately.

"Deploy shield disruptor missiles," commanded the Queen.

Three glowing missiles flew from the Cube and slammed into the Bhaalgorn battleship. The shields on the battleship flickered and faded away as they were drained by the Borg technology. Aware that their shields had failed, the ship attempted to maneuver away from the Cube.

"Deploy tractor beam, "commanded the Queen.

A green energy beam reached out and grabbed onto the Blood Raider vessel as it tried to flee, preventing it from escaping. The ship stressed itself as it struggled to pull itself out of the tractor beam.

"We must take the ship intact. To rebuild the Collective here here will require the usage of all resources available to us. Deploy soldiers to take the ship, intact," commanded the Queen.

"Yes, my Queen," chorused the soldier drones in her mind.

Rastan was in shock. The enemy ship had been hurt by their weapons, but somehow their weapons had stopped doing damage to them, even though there was no presence of an energy shield at the beginning of the battle. Not only that, the enemy had struck back hard, draining their shields and catching them in some sort of tractor beam that was holding them in place no matter what they did. And now he was getting reports that enemy soldiers were appearing all across the ship, even though they hadn't detected any boarding craft. It was like they were just teleporting on board.

"Damn it," he muttered. He thought for a second, then began barking out orders. "All soldiers report to armory. Make these boarders pay in blood for their transgressions."

Bringing up the interior ship camera's, he watched in apprehension as his soldiers fought valiantly to stop the boarders. These boarders seemed to be human cyborgs, with mechanical parts attached to their bodies. They used peculiar energy weapons against his soldiers, who retaliated in kind with their own laser weapons. They had some early successes, but his smile turned to dismay as the enemy, which appeared to be immune to their weapons now.

"That's impossible," he muttered. He kept issuing orders, even though resistance seemed pointless in the face of this advancing enemy. Level by level fell to their attackers, and soon he realized that he was going to lose the ship."With that tractor beam thing activated, we can't evacuate the ship. Damn it." He rotated his chair to face the rest of the bridge crew. "My brothers, it has been a pleasure serving with you. Initiate the self destruct sequence."

The first officer replied with a sad look in his eye. "Yes, Captain." Together, he and Rastan entered the command codes necessary to tell the engines to begin as dangerous overload sequence. As the timer counted down, the bridge crew resigned themselves to the void.

Suddenly the countdown stopped. Rastan opened his eyes from his meditation and shouted, "What happened?" Motion resumed on the bridge as the crew checked the status of the engines, which had just failed them. It wasn't long before a response came back.

"Captain, it appears the boarders have infiltrated our computer network and disabled the self destruct sequence."

"Well, then initiate it manually," shouted Rastan.

"We can't. They've hijacked our systems and have locked us out. Our standard weapons aren't strong enough to break the shield surrounding the plasma. And the heretics are drawing closer to our engine room all the time."

"Damn it," muttered Rastan. He closed his eyes, and knew what he had to do. Opening his eyes and resigning himself to his next actions, he stepped out of his chair, pulled out his laser pistol, and fired into the control panel on the side.

"Captain, what are you doing," exclaimed the First Officer.

"Wreck everything. Do not leave anything intact for the heretics. And do not let them take prisoners."

"Yes Captain." The bridge crew began destroying their consoles and trying to delete any data they could get their hands on. Tears came to Rastan's eyes as he and his crew destroyed what they could of their beloved ship. When they were finished, they locked the doors to the bridge, and after intoning prayers to their supreme deity, the crew fired their pistols at the bridge window. The combined fire against the window cracked a hole in the window, which buckled under the resulting strain and released the atmosphere in a flood of air.

Rastan didn't feel a thing as he froze in the vacuum of space.

The Queen watched through the Collective as her soldiers beamed over to the enemy vessel. The humanoids fought fiercely and managed to kill some of her soldiers, but were overwhelmed as the Borg attained invulnerability to their weapons. The queen felt her sight growing as her soldiers seized the ship. An attempt by the captain to destroy his ship was thwarted by assimilation of the computer network.

Finally, the remaining humanoids were holed up on the bridge. The Borg soldiers were about to force their way onto the bridge when the window on the front of the ship exploded in a rush of escaping air, catapulting everyone on it into space. It was evident that the crew had decided to take their own lives rather than join the collective. The Queen could not fathom why they would do such a thing, but in the end it did not make a difference.

"Assimilation the ship and the remaining crew," said the Queen, "Then resume our travel towards Sansha's Nation."

While the Borg were engaged in the assimilation of the Bhaalgorn battleship that they had seized, a force of Blood Raider vessels, made up of one Bhaalgorn battleship, two Ashimmu Cruisers, and one Cruor Frigate, entered the area and moved to attack the Borg Cube floating motionlessly in space.

Commodore Durock moved forward as he surveyed the situation that he had arrived in. "Damn it Rastan," he muttered as he saw that the heretic's vessel had survived. He was also surprised by what looked like another ship bearing resemblance to a Bhaalgorn, but it couldn't be Rastan's ship, could it?

"Orders sir," asked his trusted first officer.

"Let's go to it," replied Durock. "Have the Cruor drain it's energy, while the Ashimmu's back me up. Fire all laser and launch all drones. Let's bring this sucker down."

Out in the vacuum of space, the Blood Raider fleet begin firing their weapons at the Borg Cube. White lasers flitted through space, impacting on the hull of the Borg Cube, while tiny drones exited the hangars of the Bhaalgorn and began firing at the Cube.

Over the frequencies attained during the assimilation, the Borg Queen listened as the Blood Raider leader ordered his fleet to attack. The ships began shooting at the Borg Cube, only for their fire to fail against the Cube's shields.

"Move in and attack," commanded the Borg Queen, "Assimilate them if possible. If not, destroy them."

Silently, the Borg Cube and the partially assimilated Bhaalgorn battleship moved in to attack the Blood Raider fleet. As the Blood Raider weapons fire impacted on the hull of the Cube, some drones noticed that power seemed to be leaching from the ship. The amount of power lost was insignificant, barely enough to affect operational performance at all, but this was an ability that other ships might use in the future. The process that was being employed on them was analyzed, and a prototype for a generator was designated for fabrication once this battle was over.

The Cube lashed out with it's green cutting beam at the Bhaalgorn while shield disruptor missiles fired at the two Ashimmu Cruisers. The partly assimilated Bhaalgorn attacked the drones that were flying around the Cube. The first Ashimmu cruiser vanished in a ball of flames as one of the Borg's cutting lasers sliced through it's engine core, destroying the electrical bottle that held the plasma core in place.

"Damn it," muttered Durock as one of his Ashimmu Cruisers vanished in a ball of flames. This battle was not going at all like planned. This mysterious ship seemed to have developed countermeasures to the Cruor's energy draining technology in a matter of minutes. But that was impossible, wasn't it? Not only that, but it also fired missiles which could take down a ship's shields in no time at all. And they had already seen how effective that green laser was. It was definitely not the standard X-Ray laser.

Durock looked over his tactical options quickly. The damage they had been able to inflict on that giant...Cube, didn't seem to have affected it in the least. It had already proven it could take a Bhaalgorn intact, so they had less options that he would have liked. His heart sank as he knew what he needed to do. "Sound the retreat," he ordered.

"Yes commodore," said his first officer.

Durock sighed to himself, then said a blessing for those who had been lost as the remaining ships fled for the area's gate.

The Queen watched as the remaining ships fled the battle. They had gained some useful tactical information, and their escape would be no major loss. The databanks said that this group was a pirate organization, who probably wouldn't be listened to even if they were telling the truth.

"Do not pursue," she ordered. "Finish assimilation of the battleship, recover anything we can from the wreckage, then resume our travel to Sansha's Nation. This time, we will bode no interference, but they should have learned their lesson by now."

The Borg ships sat motionless in space, cold, calculating, planning, as the drones continued their activity.

Gallente-Caldaran DMZ

"Engines are ready to begin chronometric particle emission on your mark Captain," said Geordi over the inter-ship communications.

The Enterprise sat floating in the Gallente-Caldaran demilitarized zone as they prepared to create a temporal vortex that they hoped would return them home. They had returned to the place of their arrival in the hopes that the space-time fabric in this region would be weaker due to the previous warping, making it easier for them to create a stable vortex. Two concord vessels floated a safe distance away from the area that was going to be bombarded with chronometric particles, as they observed the proceedings.

"Mr La Forge, you may begin particle discharge," said Picard.

"Aye Captain." Geordi pushed the activation buttons on the datapad that he held. The hum of the engines changed pitch and the air near the engine began tingling as it discharged chronometric particles at an area away from the ship.

"Particle discharge has been successfully initiated. We should see results in about five minutes," said Geordi as he read some measurements on the datapad.

Worf anxiously paced the bridge. He was tired of being in this universe, and he wanted to get back to the Defiant. "Why will it take so long? It took the Borg mere seconds to create their own vortex."

"Yeah, well, we aren't the Borg. We've modified our engines to emit chronometric particles which will create a wormhole that punches through the fabric of spacetime. It needs time to work, since we 're doing this for the first time," explained Geordi.

"Well, at least we're almost home free," commented Riker. "You know, they probably wont believe what happened here."

"I don't know," said Picard, "This is the Enterprise after all."

"True," conceded Riker.

As they waited, it became obvious that something was wrong. Despite the concentration of chronometric particles in one area, the fabric of spacetime was not bending or ripping as Geordi predicted. In fact, it seemed to be doing nothing at all.

"Um, I don't think it's working," said Riker.

"Hold on, hold on," replied Geordi as he dashed across the engine room to another console. "Why isn't this working? The generator is showing adequate output and the antennae are showing directed discharge, but the rift isn't opening."

Picard glanced at Riker. Something going wrong was a situation they were used to. "So why aren't we seeing anything happen?"

"I don't know," said Geordi. "It should be working but it isn't. Give me five minutes to figure it out."

The engine room was bustling with activity as the Enterprise engine crew tried to solve the problem. They tried altering frequencies, dilating the output, and other various methods to create a rift, but the region stayed as unchanged as before. Geordi wouldn't concede deaft though, and kept working as hard as ever.

Finally, Picard bowed to the inevitable. "Geordi, shut it down. It isn't working."

"I can't explain it Captain. Maybe it's the qualities of this region of space. Or maybe we're just going at this whole thing wrong," said Geordi as he worked on the generator diagnostics.

Picard knew that Geordi had done his best to try and get the generator to work, and that any rreason for it;s failure could not be because of him. "We aren't blaming you Geordi. Maybe we just need to accept that this universe doesn't work like ours. Maybe chronometric particles don't work the same way in this universe as they do in ours."

Data turned around in his chair and replied in a scientific , "It is possible captain. But I would not believe that the properties of one specific particle would change in a different reality."

"I agree it is strange Mr Data, but there isn't much we can do about it at this point," said Picard. "Mr La Forge, please deactivate the generator."

"Aye captain," said Geordi as he pushed a few buttons on the engines control console.

The hum from the engine returned to normal and some of the engineers standing around flexed their fingers as the tingling left them.

"Generator is offline, normal operations have been restored captain," said Geordi as he tapped off his datapad.

"Very good Mr La Forge, you may return to normal duties," said Picard.

"So what do we do next," asked Worf as he started pacing again.

"Well, unless Geordi can come up with something else or we get the Borg vortex generator, we have to face the fact that we are stuck in this universe. And as much as you may not like it, we can't go alone here. If the Borg rear their head, then we will need allies. And the best nation I can see to help us is Concord. We don't want to get involved in the factional infighting that takes place here." Picard thought for a minute, and then knew what they were going to do. "Helm, set a course for Concord Command. Warp 5."

Worf muttered to himself as he left the bridge "Excellent. Let us join an organization which merely wants to control us and the technology that we possess."

The stars turned blue around them as the Enterprise leapt into hyperspace.