CHAPTER 7

Jim and the rest of the team looked at the scene around them. The security officers were examining their dead comrades to see who was lost in this battle, but Jim was looking for one person specifically; he was looking for Camilla. Her body was nowhere to be found. Maybe the Enterprise beamed her up in time. Maybe she was able to run off and avoid the battle altogether, Jim thought to himself. "Captain," yelled Worf from across the field, "over here." Jim ran over and saw the dying officer lying before him, just barely holding on to his last few moments of life. "What happened here ensign?" asked Jim, crouching by the officer's side and speaking very softly. The officer slowly turned his bloody face to look at Jim. "They-they came out of no-where…Borg and…" he winced in pain trying to gesture to the areas where they came from, "and Romulans. Working…together…agai-" the ensign tried to take a breath but it almost seemed to get caught if his throat as he looked at the sky and went limp, closing his eyes slowly. Jim stood up slowly. "Borg and Romulans together," he said in disbelief, looking out at the bloodied battleground around him, "that hasn't happened since after the Enterprise-D was destroyed." He turned to Worf. "I remember it well," said the Klingon, remembering his time served under Captain Picard. "The incident occurred some time ago, the Romulans retrieved Captain James T. Kirk's dead body from its resting place on Viridian III. Using Borg nanotechnology, they reanimated his body in the hopes that the newfound Borg/Romulan alliance would overthrow the Federation. They failed. We can only presume they are trying a similar approach once more, but I do not know who they could try to use, especially from this timeline." "It's not the overthrow of the Federation from our timeline they're trying to accomplish. They're trying to stop it from ever happening in the first place. The Borg are all but destroyed back in our timeline, they could never amass a force large enough to take Earth and defeat all our ships. The only thing I can think of is the Borg possibly borrowed technology from the Romulans to sneak past Federation sensor outposts and patrols, but why borrow when they could just assimilate them and take the technology. I think it's time we returned to the ship and did a little research," Jim tapped his communicator, "Bullock to Enterprise, three to beam up. Energize." Worf, Data and Jim dematerialized and reformed on the transporter pad on the Enterprise. "Worf, Data meet me in the conference room in two hours with as much information as you can provide from our unexpected time jump after our return to 24th century Earth. And be sure to inform Commander Riker as well." Jim walked out of the transporter room and towards the turbolift. He had research of his own to conduct.

Camilla awoke in a strange place. There were bright lights all around her and the sounds of mechanical whirrings and computers processing surrounded her. She sat up quickly and noticed she was on a bed, a medical one if she knew any better. She jumped down and started toward the door when an invisible barrier in front of her stopped her. She reached out and touched it. The barrier zapped and shocked her hand with a mild electric charge. She quickly withdrew her hand in pain. "I wouldn't do that too much if I were you," came a voice from across the room, near the shadows. A figure with a full silver outfit emerged. He was average height for a male, Camilla thought, and ha short black hair. The figure stepped forward, "The force field is designed to increase intensity every time it is disturbed, a torture method employed by my people," said the man, getting close to the force field but far enough away to not touch it. "And just what are you," asked Camilla, confused at how he said 'my people' almost as if he wasn't human. "I am Centurion Ja'tal of the Romulan Star Empire. I am the one who captured you, along with the rest of my team. We found your Federation camp and knew you were trying to foil our plans, so we wiped you out, except, the Borg wanted you alive for some reason. A drone killed two of my men for trying to kill you. That's when it became clear you were more valuable alive. For what reason, I do not know. But from the looks of it, you're not Starfleet. You're just a human female from this primitive, uncivilized time. If the Borg didn't need you all for their own plans I would have suggested a purge of all human from the planet, that way we are guaranteed success in our endeavors." The Romulan turned to Camilla, who still looked confused. "You cannot understand the magnitude of the situation you're in nor will you understand our workings aboard this ship. Our plans are far too complex; besides, if you escape, we don't want you knowing our plans and then going to whoever this 'Jim' person is and spilling everything." Camilla was taken aback at his comment. Had I said his name while I was unconscious?, she thought to herself. The door opened behind the Ja'tal and in stepped two Borg drones escorting a Romulan officer. The two Romulans spoke while Camilla paced in her 'cell'. There didn't appear to be any means of escape or any way to deactivate the force field. Just then, she noticed the officers kept looking at her, the color draining from Ja'tal's face. He nodded and went over to the console near him. After keying in commands he looked up and Camilla heard a hiss. Looking around she saw there were two vents that slid open from the walls around her. A gas of some kind was filling the cell and she eventually felt herself losing consciousness again, collapsing onto the floor.

The bridge officers sat in the conference room awaiting the arrival of Captain Bullock. The door slid open and in stepped the captain, taking his chair at the head of the table. "So far, the situation does not look good for us. We've lost about fifteen good officers to the Borg and now we've discovered the Romulans are involved too. Seeing that we have taken a few steps back in time we have an idea of what their intentions are, to stop the human race from becoming the power they are in the 24th century, thereby preventing the creation of the Federation and destroying the lasting peace that existed between the hundreds of races involved in the Federation. However, questions surround this whole situation. Why are the Romulans and Borg working together? What do they have to gain from each other? Is this a representation of the Romulan Empire's view or just one group of radicals who want power? But most importantly, I think, is how did we get here? There's too many things unanswered and we need to get to the bottom of it all. Lets start with you, Mr. Data, what have you put together?" Jim and the crew around the table turned to Data awaiting his report, "Reviewing the sensor scans from one hour before we jumped back to the point of the jump, I see only explanation as to how we came here, there was a residual temporal singularity left by most assuredly the Borg, a tactic used once before when they attempted to prevent first contact following their attack on Sector 001. It appears that using cloaking technology acquired from the Romulans, the Borg slipped by undetected and formed a singularity without it being visible to any scans. Seeing as how the Romulans are now involved, I believe they used the same singularity to travel back in time to 21st century Earth. We were the only ship that was unfortunate to pass through it, although getting pulled into the singularity has helped save humanity to a point." "Thank you Mr. Data. Mr. Worf, any findings to add to Data's report?" "The one thing I did come across was about thirty minutes before we passed through the singularity, the communication system picked up part of a conversation between the USS Boeing and Starfleet HQ. The Boeing was in Romulan space at the time, helping to survey planets in the area for the Romulans to repopulate since Remus had just been destroyed by the supernova. The captain of the Boeing reported a temporal rift but it disappeared after a few seconds, not leaving behind any traces of temporal energy or any disturbances." Jim, Riker, Data, Worf, and LaForge all sat and let the information sink in. Jim rose and walked to the window, looking out at the stars and the planet before him. He suddenly spun around quickly and faced his crew, a look of enlightenment across his face. "Wait a minute," he said, running though he facts in his mind, "the Borg are close to extinction, as are the Romulans. Neither one has a home planet any more; the ships are spaced out and have no leader to unify them. There's the reason for the alliance, they both have the same issues plaguing them. The Borg are gaining resources and technology from the Romulans to build their fleets back up and the Romulans must be getting a similar benefit. Which proceeds to explain how the Borg slipped past Earth's defenses undetected; they cloaked and entered orbit around Earth, as you said Data. However, they didn't open the singularity, they closed it, or tried to. The singularity the Boeing picked up was the opening, thus allowing any cloaked Romulan ships to pass through. Once in 21st century space, they made it to Earth, opened the singularity for a split second and allowed the Borg in, not realizing that we would pass through the event horizon almost at the same time. And the reason we didn't pick anything up was because A) we lost sensor capability due to the singularity and B) since we were jus entering warp speed, our forward motion carried over to this timeline, putting us out of visual range of anything happening around Earth. That's why we found New York in the condition we did, the Borg had time to make a foothold without us knowing it. Now the only step is to find out where their base of operations is and stop them." Not ten seconds after the words left Jim's mouth did the Red Alert lights start flashing and alarm blaring. The officers rose and dashed to the bridge. "Report," Jim ordered, storming towards his chair. "Two Borg spheres and two Romulan D'deridex class warbirds, and one Borg cube approaching, weapons and shields fully charged," replied Worf, taking the tactical position. "Looks like they found us," Jim said under his breath. "Open a hailing frequency to the lead ship." The viewscreen showed the interior of the Borg cube, but Jim wasn't focused on which ship it was, he was more concentrated on who was on the screen. "No," was all he could utter, while slowly rising from his chair, eyes glued to the screen the whole time.