Summary: This short story takes place during the first Interlude, during the Federation attack on the transwarp hub.
Author's Notes: This has been written for one very specific reason: to introduce a new character, one who might feature in my still-in-the-drawing-phases "The Kraken." She definitely would feature in a potential story following "The Kraken," but that's getting ahead of myself. When I eventually do start posting "The Kraken," it'll probably be in the TNG section, not the VOY section.
Acceptable Losses
Lisa Neeley hated the Borg. Hated them with a passion that she once reserved for the Jem'Hadar and (especially) the Vorta. But the Jem'Hadar had a code of honor, of loyalty, that they followed. The Jem'Hadar did not steal your soul if you lost. The Jem'Hadar did not turn you against your closest allies, you friends. The Jem'Hadar did not steal the deepest secrets of your mind.
Lisa Neeley hated the Borg.
Her phaser rifle was a comforting presence, her dominant, right hand resting carefully at the base of the customized compression rifle, her forefinger curled around the trigger. Her left hand gripped the barrel, controlling the aim, and the light resting atop the barrel lit up the darkened corridor.
Five quick steps. Stop. Behind her left shoulder she felt the comforting presence of Commander James Barnaby, her second – chief tactical officer of the now-destroyed USS Indefatigable. The Indefatigable had been lost in the opening moments of the engagement over the regrettably named Galahad Point, caught almost immediately in a devastating crossfire that left the Sovereign-class Indefatigable crippled. She had, however, broken a hole in the Borg defenses that allowed Neeley to get her team down onto the hub, within striking distance of the all-important central plexus.
There were ten other men and women behind him – veteran soldiers. The best of the best of the ships that had been sent to destroy Galahad Point's transwarp hub. Each of them gripped customized weapons of their choosing. Mostly phaser compression rifles, although Barnaby himself held an older type-3 model, the same kind Neeley herself had used during the Dominion War. Most of her men carried hand-to-hand weapons – a few Klingon swords of varying sizes. A Jem'Hadar kar'takin. Two of the rifles had bayonets attached, just in case.
There were no words exchanged between them, Neeley's expert hand motions directing the team forward. On the small screen, affixed in front of her left eye by a metal band that curled around her ear, she tracked the motion of the team's scout down the corridors. They'd avoided confrontation as of yet, but that would not last. The Borg had long since learned to see through the bio-dampener technology that had been so effective at hiding soldiers from their sensors in the past.
On the small screen, the green dot that signaled the position of the scout stopped. For an instant, it bounced around the small corridor ahead and Neeley knew that the scout had been compromised. With a single gesture she set her team in motion, quick but quiet footsteps clinking along the Borg-style metal floor plating, the only light in the room from her team's weapons and the sickly green and red glows of Borg control panels.
She spun into the corridor, her rifle pointing down towards where the green dot had stopped moving. Her team filed in behind her, weapons bristling with restrained firepower.
At the end of the corridor, Commander Reginleif Doran straightened up. Her rifle, also a customized compression rifle, was tightly attached to her back on a diagonal. In her hands she held a long, mean-looking sword.
Four Borg drones, and components that had once belonged to those drones, littered the floor at her feet.
"Come on, Lisa," she hissed, and then Doran was gone down the corridor, her feet almost as silent as they were swift. Neeley waved her men forwards. Ahead of her, Doran's uniform seemed to slip in and out of the shadows as the expert commando, veteran of far worse than even Neeley had known, dispatched the solo drones with little more than a slash and a cut.
Borg drones didn't do ranged combat.
Reginleif Doran much preferred melee anyway.
Neeley saw little more than an echo of her long-time friend, only a flash of short black hair, or the soft glint of her blade. Finally, on the viewer positioned in front of her left eye, the green dot stopped moving altogether, coming to a dead stop down the first corridor that each of them had known without a doubt would be… a nuisance.
"Now it gets interesting," Doran whispered as the team took up positions around her. Neeley nodded, but she didn't bother to respond with words. Reaching down to her belt, she loosed a pair of grenades and motioned the rest of the team to take cover. Barnaby, gripping both handles of his type-3 rifle, pushed his back up against the side of the opening.
Neeley pulled back and whipped both grenades down the corridor. One flashed, a powerful blast of energy that probably wouldn't knock out the drones, but should disorient them. The second was pure explosive power.
Barnaby was the first in, his phaser firing in short, expert bursts as he tracked from drone to drone. Doran followed him, staying in his shadow – her phaser had miraculously appeared in her hands, the sword carefully sheathed across her back – she targeted the drones next to computer consoles. Anything to slow down the security response.
The alarms sounding went unheeded by the platoon of Starfleet officers as they swept like waves down the corridor, phaser bursts catching each drone as it activated. Short bursts of sound signified grenades as other members of Neeley's team tossed them into groups of drones and down corridors.
The alarms continued, but the short bursts of sound that came from phasers stopped shortly after the grenades did. Doran didn't wait, her feet effortlessly carrying her down the path they had decided upon, headed towards the next problem corridor. Again she had switched weapons – despite having known her for almost a decade, Neeley was still astonished at her ability to move without being noticed, almost as if she were a shadow. Silent. There one moment, gone the next.
Effortless.
Effortlessly lethal, too.
Neeley's team pulled up as more drones started to file in to stop their advance towards the plexus. Phaser bursts lashed out – controlled, short bursts. Maximize time before the drones adapted enough to slow them down, although Reg had assured her they would never adapt entirely.
They reached and passed a second spot they had known would be trouble. That cost them Lieutenant (J.G.) Jack Carter. At only twenty-three years of age, he'd been eight when the Borg invaded. Young. Smart. Wise beyond his years. That's why Neeley had picked him.
Dead now. A crippled drone, stopped up in an alcove had been more dangerous than it appeared to be. Simple mistake.
Neeley would mourn later.
They lost three more in the next two minutes, but the team didn't slow down. Their footsteps weren't as quiet anymore – no real need to worry about getting detected – although Doran was as silent as ever.
Still leading, Doran's quiet footsteps carried her into a four way corridor they had to pass through to get to the plexus. The corridor beyond was their last trouble spot. The trouble spot. They were getting close to the plexus.
In the junction between the corridors, Neeley suddenly saw an explosion of movement. Doran's sword flashed three times, then she stepped carefully forward, not bothering to look back. Neeley passed through behind her, stepping over the drone Doran had sliced neatly in half. The remains of two others were strewn on both the left and the right.
Phasers firing, the officers abandoned silence as they advanced slowly down the corridor, their advance slowed to a halt against a sudden storm of drones, marching forward against Neeley's team. The eight remaining officers shouldered their phasers, the bursts lancing down the corridor against the swarm of Borg drones.
Neeley's combadge chattered. "DeSoto to Neeley. We can't hold the Borg off for much longer. How long until you reach the target?" DeSoto's voice was surprisingly steady.
Neeley responded quickly, breathlessly, an edge creeping into her tone as she slid her back against one of the walls, putting herself out of the combat for just an instant. "We're fighting our way through these drones one at a time, Admiral, but they're more resistant to the new phaser calibrations than they were back in the Alpha Quadrant." Neeley paused as she saw two drones come from the back, homing in towards the unsuspecting Commander Barnaby. Her rifle dropped smoothly into her hands and she fired twice, expertly. Both died. "You've got to give us another ten minutes, sir." God, she hoped it wouldn't take ten minutes.
"Acknowledged, Commander. Hurry, Lisa, we're down to six ships."
Six ships. That meant twenty-five ships were gone. Mourn later, Lisa. Later. "Yes, sir. Neeley out." She terminated the communication and flung herself back into the fray wholeheartedly. For a fraction of a second, she contemplated yelling something to kick her team into motion. She disregarded the thought immediately. They all knew what was at stake.
Reginleif had lost her phaser rifle somewhere in the fray. How she'd lost it, Neeley didn't really want to know, but Doran had gone back to using her sword. Quick slashes, thrusts, Drones died ahead of her as she fought towards the door, the rest of the team backing her up with expert phaser fire.
Doran ducked and Neeley put a phaser blast through the space her head had been an instant before, taking out a drone that Doran hadn't been able to move fast enough to get to.
The tide of drones stopped as it sputtered, dead on the ground. Doran disappeared down the next doorway, and on Neeley's screen a mass of red dots blinked into existence at the end of the long corridor. A wall of drones, blocking the entrance to the central plexus.
Doran appeared in front of Neeley. "We don't have time for this," she said. Without asking for a response, she dropped to her knees, reaching to a pack she'd grabbed after Jack Carter had died. Demolitions. She pulled out a bomb – trilithium. Very, very dangerous. Also very, very illegal. Neeley hovered over her as she set the timer to five seconds.
"What are you planning on doing with that, Commander?" Neeley asked formally.
"Blowing up Borg," Reginleif responded, offhand.
"On a five second timer?" Neeley asked. "Doesn't give them time to disarm it, but it doesn't give you time to get it to them. You're talking a big blast radius with that thing."
"I'm going to take it to them," her friend responded. Neeley froze. Reginleif looked up. "I've been planning this since we got the mission plan. We knew we'd get stopped up here, Lisa. We knew we would. So here's a better alternative than your absurd grenade plan."
Neeley shook her head slowly. She blinked twice. "Reginleif…"
Doran laughed shortly. "You know the big problem I always had with the Federation? With Starfleet? None of you ever understood the concept of acceptable losses." She paused, blue eyes cold in the relative darkness of the Borg-designed corridor. For an instant, Neeley saw something other than cold determination. "Tell him I'm sorry," Reginleif murmured.
Then she was gone, the motion so quick – so like her – that Neeley almost didn't register her absence until she was missing. Neeley paused for an instant, then turned to her team. She held up a hand, fingers out, and flashed it twice. Ten seconds.
Mourn later, Lisa. Later.