"What the hell?"

The words had barely left her mouth when the room began to dissolve into a silvery glare. Connie Laraque had sat in the cramped escape pod for an hour before moving to the door and prising it open, giving her access to the control room: from there, she had spent an irritating forty-five minutes trying to open the blast shields on the porthole, just so she could figure out where she was in space. At that point, she had realised that this was an older-style lifeboat, one of the ex-starship models designed to be piloted manually, unlike the newer pods that were less of a ship in itself and more of a capsule that crashed on the nearest habitable planet. When the metal plates had finally fanned back into the hull, she had been greeted not by a spray of stars, but by darkness. That had thrown her a little. She figured that maybe she had been unconscious until the pod had landed nose-first into the ground, but then she had turned on the forward spotlights, and they had shown her that the only thing in front of the cockpit was a duranium bulkhead. That was even more confusing. Had she been abducted by the Borg? If so, why hadn't she been assimilated? Or…she managed to coerce the control panels into giving her a status check on the docking clamps, and found that they were still in place. So…the escape pod had never left DS-Nine. Which meant that she was possibly the last to leave. Which meant that the station was now under Borg control. Which meant they could be coming soon. Her hands froze just above the controls that would release the clamps: doing so would have dropped the pod belly-first into the bottom of the cavity, damaging her refuge and possibly alerting her captors. And that was when the transporter beam took a hold on her.

After what felt like an eternity, she rematerialised in a well-lit room that was bigger than the entire escape pod itself. She was lying on her back. A large array of lights was positioned over her, part of the ceiling but also serving some kind of purpose. The whole room looked as though it was built before the war, judging by its generally-cushy décor. But one thing that struck her was the general silence. There were no moaning injured…then, a man in a grey-shouldered, blue-collared uniform leant over her with an instrument in hand. "Multiple lacerations, but nothing dreadful," he pronounced. He was British. "How do you feel?"

This is too good to be true. A Federation sickbay that was clean, bright, comfortable, and lacking any patients other than her? There wasn't a ship in the fleet that was this good. And there was no morgue. No groaning officers lying on beds with Borg technology sprouting from their bodies, no charred carpets, no collapsed ceilings, no broken displays, no dim lights, and no chaos. It was like a dream. The doctor asked her again, "How do you feel?" as she sat up. The bed was gloriously comfortable and padded with thick material. No beds on DS-Nine had been that nice to lie on.

"It's…it's all a trick, right?" she asked uncertainly. "Where are the holoprojectors? The switches to…" Connie reached out and brushed the bed, then the man's sleeve, tentatively, as if he would vanish in a puff of smoke if she pressed too hard. The doctor hesitated, then snapped open a medical tricorder and started scanning her. She looked in wonder at the tricorder — even it wasn't scarred or broken with overuse. It looked as good as it would have the day it was replicated. "It's all real? This is a Federation ship…?"

"Yes, the Sarekar, but how do you feel, ensign? Is there any pain?"

She touched her ensign's pip wistfully. "N-no, I'm okay. But…I'm Ensign Connie Laraque, Deep Space Nine. I haven't heard of this ship, and quite frankly, never seen one this clean before."

The doctor placed his instruments back on a trolley. They were all so neat and tidy…there was no place for chaos here. "There's a lot to explain, Ensign Laraque. For now, though, you need to rest. You've been through quite an ordeal."

"Rest? You mean, you don't need me on urgent duty? I mean, I'm fit to work."

"The Sarekar has a full crew complement, ensign." The doctor sounded confused.

A full complement…every ship in the fleet was always short of crew. No exceptions. It was one of the downsides of fighting an enemy that turned your men into theirs. Sure, new vessels started out with a complete crew, but then they would cut their teeth on their first space battle, and then every person would be filling in for someone else, and the engineers would be rigging up terminals to autonomously handle the load that used to be done by So-and-So, who had been captured three weeks previously. Connie slowly reclined again and closed her eyes as the lights dimmed noticeably. It was like she had died and gone to engineering heaven. Had she? She didn't know, and frankly, she couldn't care less. She had been taken from the clutches of the Borg, and she'd be damned if she would head back there again.

"Alright," she admitted finally, eyes closed. "This makes no sense. Deep Space Nine was assimilated, and I'm scooped up by the only Starfleet ship in the galaxy with a full crew complement and an empty sickbay? No. No way is that possible. Either I'm dead, or the Borg have captured me and somehow want to torture me in a holographic nirvana, or…or something really screwy is going on here."

But the doctor was gone. Connie cracked open an eyelid and saw that he had retreated to his office, dampening the lights for her comfort. Comfort? Hell, that had been a dirty word on DS-Nine. If you wanted to hang on to your individuality, you gave up your comfort for the good of others, no questions asked. She closed her eye again. But she found that she could not rest. Strange, considering that she had not completely relaxed in her four years of duty. She finally had found a comfortable bed, yet she could not sleep in it. Old habits die hard, she reminded herself as she quietly eased off the biobed and crept towards the large double-doors of the sickbay. Whatever this place was, it looked just like the old starships they used to build before the war started. The doors didn't even have the big security locks on them. Connie stopped just before the hatch had a chance to whoosh open for her. The doctor would undoubtedly hear the noise. She didn't know, but something just wasn't right about him. For one, he was wearing an outdated Starfleet uniform, including the old comm badges. And he was too clean. And he didn't have the harried looks that everyone possessed in her world. Something was just not right about this gilded cage of hers.

Laraque turned and went to the side of one bulkhead. Sure enough, there was a Jefferies tube access panel. It whispered open with a little more noise than the main doors, but not enough to bother the doctor, who was deeply engrossed in some information on a padd. Connie slithered into the tube and closed the hatch behind her. She could access every ship system from here. It was just a matter of making her way to a diagnostic console and checking the real specs for the Sarekar. Something told her that she would find a completely different ship.

She did find a diagnostic screen a few metres down the tunnel. It blinked to life at her touch (another unusual characteristic), and she dialled up the general EPS conduit layout. To her surprise, she found a familiar-looking design rotating slowly on the screen before her, albeit with a few odds and ends that she hadn't seen before. There were allowances to science labs and other non-tactical systems that just weren't seen on starships anymore. The conduits around the weapons and shielding systems were pretty standard as well. An overlay hovered above the layout of the EPS, and Connie realised that she was on an Akira-class ship. The Akira was a good class of vessel, she held, but they were only being produced in limited numbers. The Borg had taken the Utopia Planitia shipyards a long time ago, so parts and construction facilities were becoming increasingly hard to come by. She accessed external visuals and scrolled around the various images of the broad white hull. They weren't in normal space, but in some form of nebula: a chaotic flow of green energy roared by, bouncing off the shields and surrounding the entire vessel.

Then the Jefferies tube disappeared around her.

Connie screamed. This isn't happening!

Diagnostic console 114-B2 still sat impassively before her, but now the hull outside was flickering under a web of emerald strands, and the rest of the tube she was in had vanished. She could feel the padded floor under her legs, but she was floating in space. She opened her eyes for a second and realised that they weren't in a nebula, but a wormhole of some form. The whole ship appeared to be phasing in and out of visibility, and it was scaring the hell out of her. She screamed again. Her voice echoed loudly in the enclosed space, reminding her that she was still inside a metal enclosure and still breathing, and she hadn't been sucked out, so therefore she was still inside. It was just that the wormhole had a very curious effect on optical perception. She focused on that thought until the tunnel gradually replaced her outside view of the universe.

"Computer, what just happened?" she asked.

"Irradiation of unknown particles from the temporal passage caused photonic rebound ratios to become unbalanced," the pleasant voice of the computer replied. At least it was the same voice that she was used to.

The diagnostic screen suddenly changed angle, and the Sarekar was catapulted back into normal space. Connie watched as it shot into warp towards…towards a familiar spider-like construct that hung in the middle of space. "Deep Space Nine is here?" she murmured to herself. "And it's not assimilated?"

"What the hell is going on around here?"

While the voyage of the Sarekar had been a success, the crew of the Defiant were not having as much luck. Almost ten minutes had passed since the two Akira-class vessels had made a break for the passageway. The tension on the bridge was almost palpable to the point where the very air seemed to be spread around them like a blanket. Jadzia Dax forced herself to take slow, deep breaths, then focused on her screens. She had taken them into the shadow of Jeraddo, an M-class moon of Bajor that had, in her reality, been extensively mined for resources to support the flagging Bajoran economy. It seemed as though the Bajorans here had not been allowed that opportunity. The mottled green orb served as a barrier that shielded them from the Borg sensors for now. However, that wasn't an absolute guarantee. The Defiant had a cloaking device, but the Defiant also had an overpowered warp core. It generated enough power to run ships several times larger than the comparatively-small warship, and that made it much easier to detect, even with a Romulan cloaking field that shrouded them from long-range scans. Dax figured that if they waited a while in the frozen cradle of Jeraddo, they could shake Borg suspicion and head for the passageway before they could be attacked. Or, at least, that was her theory.

Problem was, the Borg were looking very inquisitive at this point. They had seen something very interesting. Dax watched as a sphere blinked up on her Ops monitor and began a standard search plot. It was so far constricting itself to the space around DS-Nine, but if it strayed too far in their direction, they would be discovered, and then there would be nothing left but to fight. The Defiant was fast, but Borg ships were faster. She started to slow her breathing again and wiped some sweat off her brow. What was happening? She had faced far more deadly threats than the Borg before, such as the Dominion. But what she hated was the uncertainty. For a race that adhered to a central goal of advancement, the Borg could be pretty damn illogical and unpredictable. Dax wondered if she would still be an individual at this time the next day.

"One sphere is running a search pattern, sir," she said between breaths.

"Anywhere near us?" Sisko asked in return.

"Not yet. I can't tell too much with passive scans, but I'll see what comes up in the next sweep. We're all anxious to get out of here, Benjamin, and I'll make sure we do." That was what he wanted to hear. A can-do attitude and an optimism that lay in hope. Dax just wanted to know if they would survive the next hour of their lives.

Her eyes began to hurt from staring at her control boards, so she gave herself a break and looked at the viewscreen. The last time she had seen Jeraddo, it had been a dull grey moon with patches of vivid molten rock where the mines had cut into the surface, but now it was a lush green sphere with a small sea stretching over the horizon point. Their first scan had shown no humanoid life signs. Perhaps the resistance movement had an automated outpost or something? She didn't really know, and right at this moment, she didn't care too much. Her entire mindset was orbiting around the Borg ship that was working it's way outwards towards their position. Benjamin's probably panicking right now, she reflected, but a quick glance at the reflection in her panels showed his impassive face set like stone towards the screen. Yep, and he's still good at hiding it. Dax turned her attention to the grey blob of the sphere on her readouts and tried to bury the fear. Now that she thought about it, the tiny image was less of a sphere than…than a metallic leaden ball on a string, or an antiquated clock pendulum, swinging around the central hub of Deep Space Nine in a constantly-widening orbit. Yes. Now that she saw it that way, it didn't seem so bad. She forced a little smile on herself and settled back in her chair. It felt oddly uncomfortable, even though it was well-padded, albeit slightly less so than other Starfleet vessels. And the air on the bridge was stifling. She was sure the environmental systems were set to conserve power, so in practice, the bridge should be a lot cooler than this. She and Chief O'Brien had reconfigured the EPS distribution so that the skin of the Defiant would be exactly as cold as the space around it, and when her eyes flicked to the thermal gauge, she saw that it was still so. She also noted that only twelve seconds had elapsed since she last checked the chronometer. Time wasn't meant to move this slowly. Perhaps it was an after-effect of the passageway's bizarre temporal properties…she allowed her mind to submerge in these details, and soon she had let her attention wander sufficiently to miss a blip on her screen. It was then accompanied by a triple beep noise to make sure she saw it.

The sphere. It had stopped it's search pattern and was now heading towards Jeraddo.

Towards them.

"We've got company," she announced abruptly. "Borg sphere on an intercept course."

Somewhere behind her, Captain Sisko stirred like a stone man coming alive. "How can they see us?"

"I'm not sure. Cloak and all stealth systems are running normally."

Colonel Kira pounced on her Tactical controls. "Captain, we've got our first readings, and it looks like they're coming in hot. Raise shields?"

He waited. "Not yet. Perhaps they'll miss us again."

Dax noted that all the heat was gone. She shivered once. "Sphere now one million kilometres and closing. They must be able to see us."

"Sir," Worf rumbled from his chair. "if the Borg fire on us while the shields are down, they might disable weapons or another vital system. We should engage them now, while we still have the advantage!" He clearly disapproved of waiting, and Dax knew that the Klingon had encountered the Borg several times before. This would be a chance for even more payback. "Captain! We must raise shields now if we are to avoid damage!"

"Sphere now five hundred thousand kilometres and closing," Jadzia tossed in.

Sisko did not move. "Hold position."

"Captain!" Worf exclaimed, exasperated.

"Belay that, Mister Worf, or I'll have you escorted from the bridge."

"Four hundred thousand kilometres."

Now Kira wheeled around. "Hostile will be in weapons range in fifteen seconds. Sir…"

"Hold position."

Dax felt that she should say something, and every fibre of her being longed to fire up the Defiant's engines and fly them away. But she knew Benjamin Lafayette Sisko, and she trusted him with her life. He had lost his wife and crew to the Borg once before. This was his opportunity for revenge. The only thing was, she didn't know if it was right to let him have that kind of power. She sat, torn, for five more seconds before turning around. "Captain, the Borg cube is out of sensor range, but they can be here before we escape. Is combat wise?"

"At this stage, Dax," Sisko said calmly. "it looks to be the best thing."

"The best thing?" she echoed. "Okay, Ben, don't go nuts on us now. Please." Her voice was even and serious. "Don't you remember the fight with the Borg? We can take the sphere, but the cube will outgun us a million to one…" She stopped, and her console chirruped again. "We're being scanned," she reported. Then, quietly, to herself, she added, "I guess there's no way out now."

"Shields ready," Worf suggested.

There was a moment of silence that was punctuated by the warning bleeps. The sphere lay inert in space. Dax pressed her teeth together and felt her toes tighten in her boots. It was right there, less than five hundred kilometres away! At that kind of proximity, it was a wonder that the Defiant wasn't lighting up like a neon glowtube on their sensor screens. But there it hovered, unmoving, unwilling to reveal itself. It had defensive screens up, and while they were powerful and multi-adaptive, Dax was keenly aware that, at this range, the Defiant's pulse phasers could tear the sphere apart. They just needed one second of surprise.

"Remodulate phasers to the upper EM band," Sisko ordered, and Jadzia sighed in relief. "On my command, Worf, I want the shields up and cloak down. Fire on my mark."

The Klingon tapped his controls and grinned fiercely.

"Ready…mark!"

A thousand things happened at once. The bridge lighting went from non-existent to dim, and accompanying this was the hum of fresh plasma surging through the EPS conduits. That meant that the cloaking device was down. A nanosecond after the cloaking field had dissipated, Worf had the powerful shield envelope forming around them. Lastly, Kira stabbed her controls, and the Defiant opened up with all the fires of hell. A stream of succinct phaser fire linked the Starfleet vessel and the leaden sphere in space. But the golden pulses of light splashed harmlessly over the Borg shielding; Sisko pushed himself upright as their opponent returned fire. The Defiant rocked.

"Retune phasers, fire again!" he shouted.

Kira complied, and the sphere was assaulted with a blast of nadion energy that rippled violently against the invisible barrier between the two ships. The bridge crew noted with satisfaction that Kira's modifications had struck much closer to their target. She began toying with new phaser frequencies when a ray of sickly-green power struck the Defiant once, twice, thrice. Something below decks rumbled unsettlingly. "They've punched through our shields!" Worf called out unnecessarily. "Modifying nutation: I'll try bolstering them with auxiliary power."

A bloom of fire broke out across the surface of the sphere. "I've broken through, continuing fire," Kira said. "Captain, suggest we get moving. The cube can't be too far away."

Sisko bobbed his head once and walked closer to the viewscreen, placing one hand on Dax's shoulder. She wasn't sure whether he was trying to comfort her, or deriving comfort from her stability. It didn't seem to matter at this point: she felt that it was a little of both. His touch was cool on her collarbone. "Evasive manoeuvres. Keep us in the moon's shadow. If we come under heavy fire, I want you to take us into one of the magnetic poles — it might scramble their sensors and buy us some time." The deck trembled until Dax put the ship into a lurching spin. The inertial dampeners were obviously a little sluggish. She kicked the impulse drive once or twice until the feeling of movement became little more than a notion. She knew that the Defiant had a fair bit of grunt and agility, moreso than their enemy, but she was also aware that they couldn't go on forever in combat, especially since the cube could arrive any minute.

"Direct hit!" Kira shouted as the sphere seemed to list slightly, as much as a geometrically-symmetrical object can list. "I think we knocked something out."

"Again!" Sisko replied.

A geyser of white-hot plasma spouted from a rupture in the hull. This seemed too easy.

"Again!"

A cobalt-blue quantum torpedo managed to slip through the sphere's shielding, and it ignited inside the vessel, spreading fractures along the hull and blowing some of it clear from the superstructure. Dax shook her head slightly. Way too easy. Borg vessels were renowned for their near-invincibility. This sphere was only a little smaller than the Defiant, and while spheres (and all other Borg ships) came in varying sizes for each 'class', the Starfleet craft had only suffered minor damage. She didn't feel vindicated at all as the sphere began to pirouette down towards Jeraddo's surface, caught in the gravity well and unable to escape the frozen fingers of the moon. Something was definitely amiss.

"They're self-destructing," Worf announced.

Then the doors to the bridge hissed open.

Everyone turned.