A/N: Happy reading!
Captain Kathryn Janeway, Lieutenant Tuvok and Seven of Nine stood in the transporter room checking their phaser settings, tucking tricorders onto their belts, and adjusting the harness on their personal protection fields. Finally, they were ready. While Tuvok was ever stoic and the captain wore a neutral expression, Seven was growing agitated.
"Where is the Doctor?" she said finally with impatience strong in her voice. "I told him to meet us here at fifteen hundred hours."
"Relax, Seven," Kathryn smiled at Seven's obsession with promptness, "it's only one minute past."
Seven raised her hand to tap on her communicator when the door slid open and the Doctor entered carrying the sonic in one hand held up to a phaser in the other hand. He was not wearing his overcoat, but he was wearing a protection field over his suit jacket.
"Sorry, I'm late," he said as he rushed up to the transporter pad. "But I figured out I could convert these to sonic too." With a smile, he aimed the phaser at the wall and fired. A barely visible wave of distortion rippled through the air and dissipated after only a couple of feet.
He handed the modified phaser to Seven. "That was the lowest setting," he said as she took the phaser and examined it. "They should reach about twenty feet. Oh and I have one for each of you."
The Time Lord reached into his front jacket pocket, impossibly produced a second phaser and gave it to Kathryn. The Doctor did not notice the bewildered expression the captain wore as he pulled yet another phaser from the same pocket for Tuvok.
"Explain." Seven demanded with scrutinizing curiosity.
"It was simple really. I rewired a couple pathways to accept a new frequency," he said happily holding a finger over the phaser in Seven's hand demonstrating where he did the work. "Then I used the sonic to store that energy into the phaser and viola! A non-lethal, sonic phaser that Dalek shields are powerless to stop." The Doctor popped the 'p' and grinned.
"I meant your pocket," the ex-Borg said flatly.
"Oh! I didn't tell you about dimensionally transcendental pockets?" He paused as both Seven and Kathryn shook their heads and Tuvok raised an eyebrow of curiosity.
"Well then! Dimensionally transcendental pockets," he held a pocket open and took a step closer so his audience could see inside, "are bigger on the inside then the outside. Like the rooms in the TARDIS. You see, the TARDIS produces my clothes for me, and she's kind enough to include dimensionally transcendental pockets otherwise I have no idea how I would carry around all the things that might be in these pockets."
"Fascinating." Tuvok commented with about as much interest as possible for a Vulcan.
Seven nodded with a slight frown though she seemed genuinely impressed.
"Well," Kathryn drew in a deep breath, "unless there's anything else, Doctor, I think we're ready to engage the Borg."
The Doctor shook his head and moved into place on the transporter with the other three.
Kathryn glanced up to the ceiling out of habit. "Janeway to the Bridge. We're ready."
"Alright, captain," said Chakotay's voice. "As soon as we've disabled their shields, we'll beam you over."
"Understood." Kathryn nodded.
"Good luck. Chakotay out."
The transporter room fell silent as the team mentally prepared for the confrontation just minutes away. Tuvok, Seven and Kathryn wore solemn expressions as they stood with the modified phasers in hand. The Doctor casually shoved his hands in his trouser pockets looking thoughtful.
"Engage," he said breaking the silence. "Funny term that is, when you think about it. I mean, we're not getting married to them, are we? We're just launching the greatest rescue plan in all the galaxies. Can we say 'we're ready to rescue the Borg' instead?"
.
.
Voyager dropped out of warp a short distance away from the Borg cube that still had not moved from its position. Quickly, the ship approached the cube. Sensors revealed that the cube's shields were raised, but it was not charging weapons. So far, so good.
The Federation ship came to a full stop a couple hundred meters away from the Borg vessel and activated the sonically modified deflector dish. A narrow beam of rippled distortion travelled through space and quickly reached the shields of the Borg ship. A field of green light sparkled briefly then vanished.
In immediate response, the cube opened fire and struck Voyager on the tip of its saucer section, a direct hit on the hull. The starship returned phaser fire and managed to destroy the enemy's phaser bank. But the Borg cube fired a phaser blast from a secondary source, only this time the attack dissipated harmlessly off an invisible barrier that rippled like water from the strike. The cube fired a second time with the same result. There was not a third assault, and both ships held their positions in silence.
.
.
When Kathryn, Tuvok, Seven and the Doctor materialized in a hallway on the Borg ship, Kathryn and Tuvok raised their hand phasers defensively and quickly took in their immediate surroundings, there appeared to be no Borg nearby.
The Doctor activated his sonic and quickly waved it around in all directions as the device softly squealed scanning for the TARDIS.
Seven made for a computer panel on the wall and reached out to touch it when the circular patterns flashed randomly. She paused and realized her protection field was causing interference, so she turned the field off and began tapping the circular buttons.
After a moment, she stepped away from the panel, switched her field back on and returned to the group. "Lieutenant Carey and Crewman Dalby have been assimilated," she said in a grim tone. "They are currently in adjunct four which is-"
"This way." The Doctor finished aiming the sonic down the menacing corridor. "The TARDIS is down there too."
"Correct." Seven agreed.
"Alright." The captain gritted her teeth. "Let's go."
Quickly but quietly, Kathryn led them down the hose-covered corridor, her phaser in front of her and her senses on high alert. They came to a four way intersection and the Doctor quickly scanned all the options. After a brief moment, he side stepped the captain and headed down the corridor to the right.
They were making good time, and there was no sign of any drones. Then the Doctor abruptly stopped and examined a drone he found regenerating in an alcove. He scanned the drone with his sonic and looked back to Kathryn. "Definitely asleep," he said quietly.
She nodded and the team moved on.
"We are almost at adjunct four," Seven said from behind the captain.
The four slowed to a walk in unison and crept down the corridor. The Doctor tensed and stopped. He waved a hand behind him telling those following him to be quiet as he focused on the hallway before him.
At first there only thing to hear was the monotone sounds common of the Borg ship. Then there was no mistaking it, the sounds of heavy booted feet stomping on the metal grate floor grew louder as at least one drone was heading toward them from around the corner of another corridor junction.
Tuvok moved from the rear of the group and stood in front of the Doctor aiming his phaser in the direction of the oncoming footsteps. Finally the drone appeared. It stepped into the corridor, turned toward the group, and resumed its march, walking right past the intruders as if they weren't there.
The Vulcan nodded his head toward their destination and continued down the corridor. The Doctor, Kathryn and Seven followed behind him. At the junction, the Doctor did a quick scan and motioned to continue forward. As they moved along, they were passed by several other Borg drones that paid them no attention at all.
Finally, the foursome reached adjunct four. Sounds echoing from the further down the corridor spoke of some sort of machinery grinding into something metal. The Doctor frowned as his imagination painted a grim picture he didn't like at all.
Tuvok moved slightly ahead and pressed himself to the wall stepping up to the side of an entry way. He quickly turned and peeked around the corner, then flattened himself back against the wall. A drone stepped out of the entry way and walked away down the corridor. The Vulcan motioned the rest of his team over.
"Your ship is in there, Doctor," Tuvok whispered as the Time Lord approached.
Curiosity danced in the Doctor's eyes, he had to see his TARDIS. He stepped past the security chief and looked into the room where his ship was being kept, his eyes widened. There was nothing he could do but stand there in awe at the massive operation the Borg constructed just to break into the time ship.
The TARDIS stood in the middle of a large area and at first glance, appeared to be broken. The rotating light on her roof had been removed and lay discarded off to the side of the room. Where the light used to be was instead a connected thick, black hose that ran up disappearing into the nest of hoses and wires drooping from the ceiling. The police box signs on all the sides the Doctor could see had also been removed and were now laying on the floor occasionally getting stepped on by the drones as they moved around. The light bulbs inside the sign fixtures were discarded and a wire bundle was connected to each socket, the cables draping down the sides of the TARDIS.
All around the blue box were drones. Some stood at the TARDIS door tirelessly attempting to crack the innocent looking brass lock. Others used tools to try to pry out the window panes that still glowed with a soft yellow light. Still more drones wandered the room checking various readouts on panels or making seemingly random adjustments. One drone in particular operated a large robotic arm extended from a wall. The arm was tipped with a spinning metal drill bit that the drone used to grind into the side of the TARDIS sending wood chips and dust flying into the air.
Once the Doctor absorbed the sight of his ship under such assault in this house of horrors, he fought back the rage that threatened to boil over and instead did something wholly unexpected. Ignoring the whispered protests from Kathryn, the Time Lord walked up to the Borg drones at the TARDIS door and tapped on them on the shoulder.
"You'll never get in there without this?" He gave his best cheeky grin and held up a chain with a sparkling key dangling at the end.
The drone looked at the key and reached out to take it when the Doctor held his sonic to the drone's head. The sonic screeched to life and the drone shuddered as it fell to the floor.
Chaos erupted. The Doctor shoved the key back in his pocket and pulled out a modified phaser. Armed with two sonic devices, he quickly disabled the two drones standing right next to him. Jumping over their unconscious bodies, he made for the drone operating the robotic arm.
Meanwhile, Tuvok leapt into action disabling a drone and dodging a white beam of light that flew by just missing his head. He realized he'd momentarily forgotten about his protective field. The Vulcan pinpointed the source of the white laser, a Borg drone with a whisk-like attachment on the end of its right arm. He fired a sonic wave at the drone who responded by falling clumsily to the floor.
Kathryn was right behind Tuvok disabling a couple of drones as she moved closer to the TARDIS. She was hit by the white laser beam and flinched as the beam hit her personal force field. The beam dissipated harmlessly, but with an unnerving sizzling crackle. She glanced on a row of six green lights on the side of the force field disc and noted that all but one was lit.
Seven of Nine held back in the corridor as drones in the immediate area made their way to the room as reinforcements.
The Borg voice of thousands echoed from everywhere in the ship. "Your biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."
"They don't seem to be adapting to our weapons!" The captain called out to Tuvok as she disabled another two drones.
He was about to answer her when he noticed a drone reaching for his shoulder. The Vulcan spun on his heel and watched in minor fascination as the Borg's fingers touched the protection field causing ripples in the air, but couldn't reach through it. "Nor our shields," Tuvok said as he casually disabled the drone. "But my protective field is almost out of power."
The grinding sound from the robotic arm suddenly went silent. Tuvok and Kathryn paused to see that the Doctor had disabled the drone operator and shoved the arm away from his ship. He moved on, disappearing around the back of the TARDIS.
Seven ran into the room and reported that there no more drones in the hall. She ducked just in time to avoid a white beam. She tucked and rolled landing on her feet and firing her sonic phaser at the drone that dropped to its knees.
In just a few minutes, it was over. All the Borg drones in the room lay on the floor throughout the room completely immobilized. "Seven, locate the main link to the Collective off this ship," Kathryn said issuing orders. "And Tuvok, help me look for Lieutenant Carey and Crewman Dalby."
"I'll just be fixing up the ol' girl here." The Doctor tossed a relieved smile at the captain as he ran his fingers lovingly across the time ship's side.
Kathryn returned her smile and watched him a moment while he examined the extent of the damage from the drill, which didn't appear to be much more then minor hole in the wood.
By the time Carey and Dalby where located, Seven had the coordinates, and the Doctor removed all the Borg cables and replaced the police box signs. He held the roof light in his hand and let out a sigh. He didn't have time to fix it right then, and a part of him hoped it wasn't a vital part of the TARDIS.
Seven and the Doctor gave Tuvok and Kathryn a hand in carrying the unconscious assimilated crewmen to the door of the TARDIS. Setting them down a moment, the Doctor dug out his key and opened the door. The Doctor shrieked in surprise as a Borg drone materialized inside the TARDIS right in front of him. He quickly used the sonic and disabled the drone.
"Oh, of course! How could I be so thick!" He hissed more at himself then anyone around him. "Hurry!" The Time Lord grabbed Dalby by the arms and started to drag him inside. "The shields keeping them out of the TARDIS are down while the doors are open!"
Understanding immediately, Kathryn and Tuvok moved Carey inside while Seven quickly disabled another drone that transported inside a bit further up the ramp.
The Doctor dropped Dalby then ran to the drone laying half way out of the TARDIS. He jumped outside and picked up the Borg's legs, pulling it out of the way of the doors. "Sorry, friend," he said. "You have to catch the next flight." He was about to leap back in to the TARDIS when he heard a voice that made him stop in his tracks.
"Doc-tor," said the Dalek.
to be continued