"Careful…careful…alright, hold it."

Three young Starfleet officers sweated and strained while they held up the huge chunk of blackened metal. Chief O'Brien stood at a wall console, tapping buttons and adjusting the cargo bay's antigrav loader to hold the piece of Borg debris in place. The Defiant had beamed out six or seven hefty bits of the interceptor, and hundreds of smaller pieces; over in the corner, Dax and another member of the science staff were poking and prodding a former drone's prosthetic arm with their tricorders. O'Brien watched them for a moment, then finished calibrating the loader before shouting, "Okay, let go and we'll see if it holds!" His voice rang tinnily in the cavernous chamber.

Each of the officers backed away from the metal lump, their shoulders sagging in relief as the antigrav fields held it upright. O'Brien grabbed his own tricorder off an equipment locker and ran it over the debris. "We'll need to get this crust off if we're going to get any decent analysis done," he commented to himself. The explosion of the Borg interceptor had covered each item in a thick scab of carbon. He picked up a tool from a bench and started to vapourise the black gunk, careful to avoid bits of Borg technology underneath. This was how he preferred to interact with the Collective — up close and right with the machinery. The drones, while fascinating as technological constructs, were too dangerous for him. Soon he had broken away the obsidian coating and was getting into the dull pewter clump of metal. It turned out that they had rescued a fragment of drone alcove; only two-and-a-half alcoves were intact. The rest must have been burned up by phaser fire. O'Brien reactivated his tricorder and started checking for any undamaged memory nodes, hoping for some modicum of success, anything that would make their search worthwhile.

At last, he found a chain of four, strung up like technological pearls in a necklace. The tiny screen of the tricorder vomited up line after line of green Borg 'text' that, at the moment, was nothing more than gobbledegook to him. He hoped that the duplicates might be able to decipher it. "O'Brien to Sisko," he said to the busy cargo bay.

"Sisko here. What is it, Chief?"

"From initial sweeps, it looks like we didn't grab much debris that'll be of interest, sir." He paused as the tricorder began to wail in his hands. "Hello…what's this, then?"

"Come again, Chief?"

"We got the bigger part of a drone sleeping block, and there's some uncorrupted computer memory I got off the tricorder. It looks like there's a few recognisable star charts here. Shall I save the information to the station computer systems?"

"Yes. Then get one of the alternate replicants to look at it; they may be able to interpret what our computers can't. Did you uncover anything on the passageway and how it works?"

O'Brien sighed. "Not as yet, sir. Well, I can't tell, at this stage." He tapped the controls to transfer the data directly into the space station's memory banks. "I'll keep up the search. Perhaps something else will turn up. O'Brien out." He waited until the communication channel shut off, then let out another breath. Sisko probably wouldn't be happy to know that the alcoves were the biggest thing the Defiant had managed to beam out. Everything else was tiny in comparison; bits of drones, structural supports, light fittings, and the remnant of a transwarp coil housing. O'Brien's keen engineering sense was eager to see if he could integrate the Borg's ultra-advanced transwarp propulsive technology into the Defiant's already-overpowered engines, but that kind of operation would require half the ship's power supply to be rewired. And who knew what it would do to the cloaking device? He would toy with the idea in a simulation later. He closed up the tricorder and wiped the sweat from his face. It was awfully hot in the cargo bay, despite its size and recent exposure to hard vacuum.

He sat back and let a few of his assistants shift the alcove over to one corner. It had been over an hour since the start of the sifting, and his recent discovery had been the total of their success. It felt futile. But then, wasn't that what the Borg were all about? He wished that the Defiant had a bigger cargo bay, rather than the one tiny space aboard the warship. That way, he could have brought more back, and hopefully have made Sisko happy. Silently, O'Brien wondered how Sisko was holding up. After all, the last time he had seen the Borg, they had destroyed his ship and killed his wife. O'Brien had been in the same fight, but was on the Enterprise, which had survived and saved the day.

Only in this timeline, Miles. Only in this timeline. He reminded himself that the second Dax, Kira, and Worf had come from a universe where the Enterprise had been destroyed. Apparently, he had escaped to serve on DS-Nine, but only to be assimilated.

Assimilated. Incorporated into the hideous whole.

"Get back to work, Miles," he said to himself, shaking his head at how easily he had been drawn in to the daydreaming. He had been assimilated in another universe. It had not happened here. Yet. But he would do everything he could to make sure that it didn't happen to him, or Captain Sisko, or anyone else. And that included getting on with this debris-sifting. He wiped his hands on the sides of his legs and picked up a fried piece of casing: his tricorder told him that it had once housed a part of the shield matrix. Deep down, O'Brien knew that there would be next to nothing of real interest in the debris cloud, because Borg ships were designed to destroy all useful technology when they exploded. But he continued in the off chance that something useful would turn up.

The sound of fabric against the bulkhead was negligible. This part of the habitat ring had walls made of solid duranium, but somehow, voices always managed to carry. In this case, the couple standing in the hall didn't seem interested in whispering anyhow. With arms wrapped around each other, it would have been superfluous. Soon enough, though, the small badge on the woman's arm chirped, and she broke off the contact to answer the call.

"Captain Yates?" came a male voice.

Kasidy Yates sighed and stepped back for a second, her eyes never breaking from her companion's. "Go ahead, Beraal."

"The cargo is all loaded in, and we've got departure clearance. We're ready to cast off, ma'am."

"Be right there. Yates out." She sighed and looked to Benjamin Sisko with a pout on her lips. He brushed a hand across her smooth cheek, drawing her closer. "Mmm," she whispered. "I have a ship waiting for me." The words were hollow — Yates knew that the Xerxes could wait a few more minutes. However, she didn't want to delay the rest of her crew by hanging around with her companion.

"Do you have to go?" Sisko asked, a playful grin beginning to form on his lips. "I could always arrange for an inconvenient accident with the docking clamps…"

"Why, Benjamin, is that a note of pure concern I detect in your voice?" she asked.

"I'm wounded," he replied, in his most un-wounded voice, dark eyes gleaming. "You know, Kasidy, I find you…intoxicating."

Yates returned the grin and pecked Sisko on the cheek. "Alright, I give up. But I had better go now. It's a long run from here to Earth, and my customers are desperate to get this equipment." She scooped up her bag and started down the corridor.

"Okay. I'll be counting the minutes until you get back."

She turned. "Didn't your mother tell you not to lie?"

"My mother never said anything about embellishment."

"Hmmm. So, Jake isn't the only one, eh?" A sweet melody of laughter rang in the hall for a moment before echoing away through the habitat ring. "Goodbye, Benjamin."

The playfulness was gone. "Goodbye, Kasidy." He watched her walk until she reached a turbolift, where she requested the docking ring and promptly vanished. Was this how they were destined to be? Ships that pass in the night? Sisko shook his head slowly. He wished that he had more time. More time for Kasidy, more time for Jake, more time for everything. With the tide of the Dominion stemmed for the moment, it would have been logical for Sisko to have a little time off. But then the Borg from another reality had popped in for a visit. His fist clenched. He wished for the umpteenth time that Borg drones were more vulnerable to hand-to-hand. Then, they would have to answer to Ben Sisko. In person.

It occurred to him that the replicants had been on the station for a day or two now. The computer system they had salvaged from the runabout should have been decoded, so he swung around and followed DS-Nine's network of hallways back up to the central spine of the station. It would have been far quicker to catch a turbolift, but he was never one to shirk exercise, and it made him feel a little better when he burned off some energy. The science labs were only a short hike.

Deep Space Nine's often-used scientific facilities were now rarely occupied. Starfleet's desperate attempts to drive back the Jem'Hadar had resulted in taking as many members of the science division as they could and pressing them into research for newer and more destructive weapons. Dax was now the only regular to the labs, and it was usually to analyse the latest tactical cartography data. Now, though, it had a new and brighter purpose: to save the galaxy from Borg invasion. The primary science laboratory was dominated by a freestanding border of Cardassian-designed consoles, with a multisource analysis device set into the middle. A standard Starfleet runabout computer core hovered above it, suspended in a stasis field that glittered like a swarm of tiny golden dust motes. Various readouts displayed the results of the station's decryption.

Kira, Worf, and Dax, dimension-wandering parallels of the crew, wandered between the different terminals, prodding screens. Sisko walked in and they all looked upwards at once. "At ease," he said with a wave. "I was just checking up on your progress."

Colonel Kira seemed to have become the spokesperson of the trio, so she stepped away from the display and nodded. "We've done it, sir. The encryption codes are broken, and Dax has managed to reconstruct some of the corrupted data. The results will doubtlessly prove useful. We've got star charts, tactical downloads, ship profiles, access codes, Borg outpost deployments…everything we need to conduct a rescue operation."

"A rescue operation?" Sisko echoed.

"Of course. I…" Kira suddenly realised that she had overstepped her authority. "I'm sorry, Captain. I guess…I guess I got used to command after you were…" she stopped when tears began to run hot in her eyes, blinking them away angrily. "I assumed that we would be making a run through the passageway and reclaiming Deep Space Nine. The Alliance is losing right now, and what we need is a bastion, a statement that says that we're willing to fight. I believe that DS-Nine is that bastion, and I am ready and able to lead a strike force against the Borg."

Benjamin was slightly taken aback at the fiery determination that burned in her eyes. She's had a long fight, he told himself. And she's quite possibly lost Bajor in that fight. But if Bajor was gone, that would mean a whole planetful of Borg nearby, just waiting to ambush any ship that dared violate the Borg sovereignty. Was a strike going to be wise? On one hand, DS-Nine would hold valuable information, and would aid in the Alliance's fight against the Collective. But then, anything short of hundreds of ships would likely be overwhelmed. Sisko decided to be diplomatic. "I don't know if that's such a good idea yet, Colonel. Our first priority is to identify what opened that rift, and see if we can close it." He held up a hand when a protest began to form on her lips. "But, if we can take back DS-Nine, all the better. Now, show me what you've got."

A holographic screen popped into existence at eye level, and a thousand pictures began to play across its surface. They were Borg ships. Each one was a different shape, but each had a kind of geometrical efficiency and simplicity that was the trademark of their hideous fleet. Leaden cubes, pewter-coloured spheres, frame-like diamonds that cradled a cobalt sphere, interceptors that resembled torpedoes, comet-like lumps of metal, and several other designs that flashed by too quickly to make out. Lieutenant Dax studiously pressed a few controls. "Our schematics of Borg vessel interiors are fairly sketchy; most away teams that manage to get in don't get out. But we've got plenty of scans of the outsides." She sighed. "I have to admire their determination. They've made ships far bigger than anything we've built, and yet they still manage to beat us to a bloody pulp. They have a kind of…mathematical precision and purity." When she caught the glare Worf was giving her, she shook her head. "Don't get me wrong," she said, voice beginning to flare. "I'm not a collaborator. But from a scientific point of view, it's amazing that they've made such decentralised and ungainly-looking things actually work."

"There are collaborators?" Sisko asked.

Now Kira jumped back into the conversation. "Oh, yes." Those two words were brimming with malice. "A few individuals see the Borg's quest for 'perfection' as some kind of…of…holy crusade. We don't know how they did it, but they were able to bargain with the drones and transmit vessel deployments, schematics, astrogation data, the works. Because of them, we've lost hundreds of ships, thousands of lives. The collaborators are sick, sick people, sir. We've adopted a policy where if we find one, we kill them." Sisko's eyes widened. "There has to be concrete proof, of course, but these are desperate times. We can't afford to have spies for the Collective amongst our own."

Sisko nodded soberly. He hadn't realised that things had deteriorated that far in this alternate version of the Alpha Quadrant. Were they destined to end up the same way? He wasn't sure. Before he could descend further into reverie, he was interrupted by Dax changing the holographic display to show a familiar map of the Bajor system.

"These were the last long-range scans taken by the Rubicon," she commented. The tiny double-ring of DS-Nine was being encroached upon by a trio of Borg symbols, which Sisko knew to be one cube and two spheres. "If memory serves, the attack force will assimilate the station and establish an outpost. Then, they'll start taking the planet with a combination of beaming up targets and sending down groups of drones." She tapped the board once, then nodded as a figure came up in a small window. Sisko noted that it was a very small figure. "If our rough estimates are anywhere near accurate, it'll only take them four days to completely take over Bajor and begin to fortify Deep Space Nine as a permanent fixture."

"Damn," said Sisko.

"If we're going to strike, it'll have to be before then," Kira remarked with certainty. "One cube probably won't be able to handle that many new candidates for assimilation. They'll either bring in more ships, or they'll make the station as impregnable as they can. My suggestion is that we leave immediately, sir."

The captain waved a hand at the display. "What about the Defiant? Does she still exist in your reality?"

Kira bobbed her head once, causing her earring to jangle. "Yep. She was on the other side of the wormhole when the Borg attacked. If they've come back before now, the cube would surely have overwhelmed them. The Defiant's tough, but not enough against that kind of firepower." Her voice soured. "Not when it's being commanded by Odo. He doesn't think like the rest of us: he takes the most obvious course of action, the most honourable course of action, and the Borg will be ready for that. If he's popped back through the wormhole, he's going to greet us with 'lower your shields and surrender your ships'."

Sisko had to agree. Constable Odo was an alien in a strange quadrant, a Founder, a member of an elite race of shapeshifters who ruled the all-mighty Dominion. He was intelligent and logical, but that was exactly what the Borg would be ready for. If the choice was between luring the enemy into a volatile gas cloud or a long retreat which would likely see their destruction, Odo would choose the second option, simply because it was not a deception. Odo despised lawless deception, and in a wartorn reality where individuality was a precious commodity, he would not last long if he was in command. Sisko made an executive decision and nodded at Kira.

"Alright, you've convinced me. We'll do a reconnaissance run through the passageway once the Thunderchild and the Sarekar get here. Have the Borg managed to find a way through conventional cloaking technology?" he asked.

"That depends; your cloaking device may be different to ours. We'll have a look at the specs. How many ships will we be taking?"

"Only the Defiant. We can't risk discovery just yet."

"One?" Kira fumed. "Sir, if the Borg see you, even if it's only for a second, they'll find a way to scan through the cloaking field. That's when it's all over for you. If we have any chance of survival — "

Sisko glowered at her. "If we have any chance of survival, Colonel, we'll be safer in one ship, rather than three. The Defiant is the only ship in the fleet with a cloak installed permanently, and I intend to press that advantage until the Borg pick up on it." He leaned down and pressed a few keys on one of the consoles. "This terminal is now configured to display the cloaking device files. Once you're finished, close it down and reset the interface. Do you have any basic strategy we should follow?"

A low rumble from Worf indicated that he had an idea. He was less of a tactical thinker than Kira, but he probably had more experience with fighting the Borg, both in hand-to-hand and ship-to-ship. "If the Borg suspect the presence of a cloaked ship, they will try and adapt their sensors to detect it. It would be best if you kept a distance of at least twenty-five thousand kilometres. Operating the impulse engines in short bursts wouldn't leave a continuous impulse trail. Does your ship have a silent-running status?"

"No," Sisko said thoughtfully. "But Mister O'Brien can probably rig one up."

"Good. Low power and thermal emissions could mean the difference between detection and a successful run. Shutting down the weapons systems would also be wise." He frowned for a moment. "We've found that jumping to high warp from a standstill while cloaked leaves a residual energy reading that Borg sensors can track. If it's necessary to travel at anything higher than warp four, it is better to work up the scale incrementally."

The captain returned the grimace. "I'll keep that in mind. I can't believe I'm doing this, but we leave in three hours."