The Barak meets up with six refugee ships. The race aboard is the Talus-Qual and they are the last of the free species in this part of space, they explain the situation of the invasion by an enemy called The Borg. The same race which has plans to invade the Alpha Quadrant.
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Thelev is sat at the ready room table back on the USS Barak with his department heads. He is just finishing up his debrief of what he learnt over on the Talus-Qual ship.
"…the planet we are in orbit around was the staging ground for the refugee armada. After abandoning it, they nuked it from space to eradicate any evidence of what they had planed so the Borg couldn't track them as they go through the gate". Thelev switches the view monitor to show a blue print of a reinforced bunker that would still be on the planets surface. "This would contain a subspace relay that would transmit a self destruct signal to the Gate after they passed through it. However, because of a malfunction, the signal was sent only after the Barack and Q'Nar came through. They don't know why it had such a large delay".
Commander Tilko raises his hand to ask a question. Thelev gives him the nod of approval. "So what happened, how come they didn't go through"?
"Basically the Borg caught wind of it and sent four ships to intercept". The Captain replied "In the battle they destroyed all but six of the Talus-Qual ships and in turn lost three of their own. The fourth went through the gate and ended up in the Alpha Quadrant".
Lt Milne raises his hand this time. "I suppose the Borg were interested to see where the conduit would lead".
"After they tested the Alpha Quadrant they simply returned to report, judging by their previous MO they would have defiantly used the Gate to invade our space", Thelev continues, "but Kellzy's ships were waiting and destroyed it as it came through the gate.
Smithy had this entire time been stood taking a closer look at the view screen, "It says here that the Borg can adapt their shielding to any frequency of energy weapons. So how did the Talus-Qual take out so many ships"?
The captain switches the screen to show a detailed cross section of Talus-Qual torpedo. Smithy could see that it was a basic hardened carbon fibre shell packed with high explosives and a timer. The idea was so simple it was genius, because the Borg's shields are designed to scan and repel any energy signature they were useless against what can only be described as cannon shells. Looking at the stats closer the chief could see they are launched via a rail gun system and would dig the shells into the armour of the enemy's hull then explode.
"Fascinating" he finally said, "I can retro fit the current stock of Photon torpedoes to do something similar. I can negatively magnetise the launches to spit out the Torpedoes then the sensors can activate them as they pass the Borg shield. Not perfect but may do the job"?
"Good stuff chief. Get your men starting on it now," Thelev answers.
"Do we have a plan Captain"? Lt Bristow asks.
The captain smiles as he looks at his Helmsman, "Don't we always"?
Within no time, the crew were running from department to department readying the ship for their upcoming mission. Kellzy had come aboard with around sixty Talus-Qual children that had been rescued form the armada before it was destroyed. Kellzy had made Thelev aware that a second gate was hidden in a nebular not far form here. This was the prototype gate but was only able to transport one ship before burning out.
The captain had agreed to take the children so that their race could continue in the Alpha quadrant. Because of this, the Barak would be the one allowed to return and the remaining Talus-Qual ships would hold off the Borg while they escaped.
Kellzy had uploaded all the security and activation codes for the Gate. The nebular lay across from a Borg sentry base on a nearby Moon. Together both she and Thelev tried to work out a plan to sneak across without the Borg detecting them.
"I just don't see how we can get to the Nebular without the Borg picking us up" Thelev mumbled to himself. They were now located in the Astro-Metric lab aboard Kellzy's ship. The electronic map stretched out across the surface of the table.
"The best course of action is that you simply make a run for it at maximum warp" Kellzy muses, "When you get close enough activate the Gate and go straight through. We will hold off the one Borg ship that is in that sector".
"But once the Borg know the prototype Gates location what's stopping them from just back engineering the technology"?
"Quite simply Captain their will be no Sulgate to study. A conduit can be opened in the nebula but once it closes it creates a negative pressure so strong the Sulgat will be crushed to the size of this table" she replied.
Thelev turns to look at her. In the short time they had spent together, he had grown to have much affection for her bravery. "And what about you"? he asks.
"It's a standard Borg destroyer in that sector; between the six of us we should be able to cripple it. Once we know you're through the gate we'll go to high warp and try to hide as long as we can". Her head drops and she tries to remain calm and not give away her true feelings of fear. "As long as the children go with you then our race will continue. Our sacrifice will not be for nothing".
"Leader Kellzy" the intercom interrupted the silence, "long range scanners have picked up a new ship by the Moon"
"Patch the data to Astro-Metrics" she orders.
On the screen in front of them is a blow up of the moon and a Borg station in orbit. Attached to the station is an unknown class of Borg ship.
"I'll reroute some more power to the scanners to get a better look" Kellzy says as she types in some commands
The image becomes clearer and they finally see it for what it is. In front of them is a ship never before recorded by the Talus-Qual. The ship was four times the size of a normal Borg vessel.
Its shape is a perfect cube.
End of Part 7. Part 8 is the Final Chapter.
