Captain Patel awoke to a searing pain in her head and arm. "So this is what
it feels like to be assimilated," she thought. When she was finally able to
open her eyes, she saw the battered bridge of her ship and a frizzling view
screen that indicated that it was either damaged or they made into the
nebula. Considering she didn't have any robotic implants sticking out of
her, she tended to believe the later.
"I've got to secure the ship," she thought. As she looked around, she saw other members of the bridge crew starting to stir. Patel crawled to the helm and saw Ensign Archer on the ground. She turned him around and frantically searched for a pulse, there was none. "Damnit! Report." Toval was the first to respond, "Slipstream is down, impulse is down, we do have emergency thrusters, weapons are down, shields are down, the main computer is offline, main power is down, emergency power has been diverted to life support and the containment fields, our comm system is down, sensors are down, hull breaches all decks, we have heavy casualties and fatalities."
"Captain! Commander Drax is dead," said a shaken ensign who was trying to free Drax from the fallen beam.
"We will have plenty of time to mourn our friends later ensign, right now we need to make sure we stay alive long enough to do so. Get down to engineering and tell Commander Nog that our priorities are main power, the comm system, and shields. After that, I want you to recruit runners on all decks and have them send status reports up to the bridge. I also want updates every thirty minutes."
"Aye, Sir!" The ensign headed toward the bridge jeffries tube.
Patel climbed into the helm chair and fired the thrusters. A moving target would be a lot harder to find in a nebula, "assuming the Borg are still looking for us," she thought.
"Lieutenant Rotak and Ensign Toval head down to engineering. Commander, I hear that you have some medical training."
"I was a cadet field medic during the Dominion War," answered Kotan.
"It'll do, get down to sickbay."
Patel and two ensigns, who were conducting repairs, were the only people left on the bridge. "Ensign Archer had such a bright future ahead of him. Commander Drax was eager to get his own command once we returned to the Alpha Quadrant. He had been an excellent first officer for the last two years. Lt. Persons was an officer who looked like a kid in a candy store the first time he laid eyes on the Astrometrics Lab. Yesterday, they were all laughing, getting ready for a trip to a beautiful planet. Now, they were all dead, killed by a menace that everyone had considered extinct. Who knows how many more of my 293 crew members I lost," thought Patel.
"Eng...errin...to...ridge," crackled Patel's comm panel.
"Engineering to Bridge," came the voice of Patel's Ferengi chief engineer.
"Bridge here, report Mr. Nog," ordered Patel.
"Captain, I've been able to reroute a back up comm system, we will have two way communications from engineering to the bridge. I will need twelve hours for the primary comm system. We are minutes away from getting main power and shields are not far behind. Our long-range sensors are fried; we will have only short-range sensors once we leave the nebula. If I had access to a star base, I might be able to repair the quantum drive. Even then, the slipstream drive wont do us any good until we get those hull breaches fixed, and we can't do that until we leave the nebula..."
"Leaving us vulnerable to another attack."
"Exactly. Weapons and impulse engines shouldn't be too much of a problem, but they are not a high priority right now."
"Whets your personnel status commander?"
"A couple of the casualties have come back on duty, but we suffered four severe injuries and one fatality, Ensign Lomar. Our manpower situation is stable for now."
"Captain, look!" shouted an ensign pointing to the flickering view screen. Patel looked up to see the cube hovering over them.
After two days at slipstream, Admiral Janeway was getting restless. "The fastest interstellar method of propulsion known to exist and its still too slow for me. How did I ever put up with warp?" Thought Janeway.
Janeway's door chimed, "Enter," she called.
In walked Dr. Remor, who was the Romulan representative for the mission.
"Doctor, may I get you something to drink?"
"No thank you Admiral."
"I called you here because I noticed something interesting in your file, you are the daughter of the late Telok Remor, a former science officer in the Romulan military.
Janeway noticed that Dr. Remor tensed at the mention of his name.
"I'm curious, did your father ever mention Voyager to you?"
"He died a few years before Voyager launched, surely your files contain that information."
"Yes they do, but in our first year in the Delta Quadrant, we encountered a micro wormhole. We are able to send a hail through and we raised your father. The wormhole contained a temporal shift, while on our side it was 2371; on his side it was 2351. We were able to send a data chip to your father that contained letters to our families and asked him to deliver it to Starfleet in 2371. After we broke contact, my tactical officer informed me of Dr. Remor's death in 2367."
"This is all fascinating admiral, but I do not see how this concerns me."
"The data chip, I was hoping you knew what your father did with it."
"I do not know Admiral, my father was a traitor to the Romulan Empire and I disowned him."
"A traitor?"
"Yes Admiral. In the Earth year 2364, he deserted his post in the Romulan military and his family to join Spock's reunification movement. He was found three years later and was ceremoniously executed. I see his treachery extended back to when I was just a little child. Our peoples maybe on friendly terms today, but we were not when my father was alive, he had no right to make the decision to conceal information about Voyager or the data chip."
"Your father was protecting temporal integrity, if we knew that the wormhole lead into the past, we would of never contacted him in the first place."
"Admiral, I have also read your personal file. It indicated that your father served Starfleet."
"Yes, he was also an Admiral. He worked primarily on Federation - Cardassian relations."
"Did you look up to him?"
"Yes, he was my hero. I wanted to be just like him when I grew up."
"Now imagine how you would feel if a Starfleet officer came to your home to tell you that your father had defected to the Cardassians."
Janeway thought about this for a moment, "I can't," she said, "its unfathomable."
"If you asked me that question twenty-five years ago, I would have said the same thing. My father's love of the sciences infected me as a little girl and I idolized him. I looked up to him as the perfect father and the perfect Romulan. When I was fifteen years old, a woman who identified herself as being with the Tal Shiar came to our home to inform us of our father's desertion. She interrogated my mother, my younger brother, and myself for three days. He abandoned his duty, his family, and he threw us to the wolves. When they finally found him three years later, we were all given a chance to speak to him, my mother and brother refused, but I had to know why. You know what he said, he said he was truly sorry that he had to hurt us, but it was his duty to his family to assist in the creation of a better Romulus."
"My husband believes that people should consider intentions equally with actions when passing judgment. I can't condone your fathers actions, but his intentions were noble."
"Your husband had noble intentions when he defected to the Maquis, to protect his home and avenge the death of his family. My father was spewing propaganda fed to him by the Vulcans. I'm sorry I can't help you Admiral, but I have no father."
"I'm sorry doctor, thank you for your time."
Captains Log, Stardate 64304
We have been playing cat and mouse with the cube for the last four days. While we have avoided any contact, the Borg are draining our resources and moral is low. Commander Nog has restored our primary systems, but our slipstream drive is a lost cause. The doctor has informed me of the final casualties reports from the attack. Overall, we suffered hundreds of casualties and twelve fatalities.
"Engineering to bridge."
"Patel here."
"Captain, we think we found a way to track the cube. Since conventional sensors are useless in a mutura class nebula, we had to come up with an entire new approach. Early Ferengi businessmen were able to estimate a metals quality and composition by throwing a stone against it and listening to the pitch it reverberated. Using that idea, we could modify the main deflector to emit sonic pulses that will be reverted back to the ship at a certain frequency when they hit a tritanium alloy."
"Will the Borg be able to trace the pulses back to our ship?"
"I'm not sure captain, but this technology may be too archaic for them to notice."
"Right now, I'll take any advantage we can get. How soon will you have this ready?"
"We're ready now captain."
"All right Commander, start sending out the pulses."
"I've got to secure the ship," she thought. As she looked around, she saw other members of the bridge crew starting to stir. Patel crawled to the helm and saw Ensign Archer on the ground. She turned him around and frantically searched for a pulse, there was none. "Damnit! Report." Toval was the first to respond, "Slipstream is down, impulse is down, we do have emergency thrusters, weapons are down, shields are down, the main computer is offline, main power is down, emergency power has been diverted to life support and the containment fields, our comm system is down, sensors are down, hull breaches all decks, we have heavy casualties and fatalities."
"Captain! Commander Drax is dead," said a shaken ensign who was trying to free Drax from the fallen beam.
"We will have plenty of time to mourn our friends later ensign, right now we need to make sure we stay alive long enough to do so. Get down to engineering and tell Commander Nog that our priorities are main power, the comm system, and shields. After that, I want you to recruit runners on all decks and have them send status reports up to the bridge. I also want updates every thirty minutes."
"Aye, Sir!" The ensign headed toward the bridge jeffries tube.
Patel climbed into the helm chair and fired the thrusters. A moving target would be a lot harder to find in a nebula, "assuming the Borg are still looking for us," she thought.
"Lieutenant Rotak and Ensign Toval head down to engineering. Commander, I hear that you have some medical training."
"I was a cadet field medic during the Dominion War," answered Kotan.
"It'll do, get down to sickbay."
Patel and two ensigns, who were conducting repairs, were the only people left on the bridge. "Ensign Archer had such a bright future ahead of him. Commander Drax was eager to get his own command once we returned to the Alpha Quadrant. He had been an excellent first officer for the last two years. Lt. Persons was an officer who looked like a kid in a candy store the first time he laid eyes on the Astrometrics Lab. Yesterday, they were all laughing, getting ready for a trip to a beautiful planet. Now, they were all dead, killed by a menace that everyone had considered extinct. Who knows how many more of my 293 crew members I lost," thought Patel.
"Eng...errin...to...ridge," crackled Patel's comm panel.
"Engineering to Bridge," came the voice of Patel's Ferengi chief engineer.
"Bridge here, report Mr. Nog," ordered Patel.
"Captain, I've been able to reroute a back up comm system, we will have two way communications from engineering to the bridge. I will need twelve hours for the primary comm system. We are minutes away from getting main power and shields are not far behind. Our long-range sensors are fried; we will have only short-range sensors once we leave the nebula. If I had access to a star base, I might be able to repair the quantum drive. Even then, the slipstream drive wont do us any good until we get those hull breaches fixed, and we can't do that until we leave the nebula..."
"Leaving us vulnerable to another attack."
"Exactly. Weapons and impulse engines shouldn't be too much of a problem, but they are not a high priority right now."
"Whets your personnel status commander?"
"A couple of the casualties have come back on duty, but we suffered four severe injuries and one fatality, Ensign Lomar. Our manpower situation is stable for now."
"Captain, look!" shouted an ensign pointing to the flickering view screen. Patel looked up to see the cube hovering over them.
After two days at slipstream, Admiral Janeway was getting restless. "The fastest interstellar method of propulsion known to exist and its still too slow for me. How did I ever put up with warp?" Thought Janeway.
Janeway's door chimed, "Enter," she called.
In walked Dr. Remor, who was the Romulan representative for the mission.
"Doctor, may I get you something to drink?"
"No thank you Admiral."
"I called you here because I noticed something interesting in your file, you are the daughter of the late Telok Remor, a former science officer in the Romulan military.
Janeway noticed that Dr. Remor tensed at the mention of his name.
"I'm curious, did your father ever mention Voyager to you?"
"He died a few years before Voyager launched, surely your files contain that information."
"Yes they do, but in our first year in the Delta Quadrant, we encountered a micro wormhole. We are able to send a hail through and we raised your father. The wormhole contained a temporal shift, while on our side it was 2371; on his side it was 2351. We were able to send a data chip to your father that contained letters to our families and asked him to deliver it to Starfleet in 2371. After we broke contact, my tactical officer informed me of Dr. Remor's death in 2367."
"This is all fascinating admiral, but I do not see how this concerns me."
"The data chip, I was hoping you knew what your father did with it."
"I do not know Admiral, my father was a traitor to the Romulan Empire and I disowned him."
"A traitor?"
"Yes Admiral. In the Earth year 2364, he deserted his post in the Romulan military and his family to join Spock's reunification movement. He was found three years later and was ceremoniously executed. I see his treachery extended back to when I was just a little child. Our peoples maybe on friendly terms today, but we were not when my father was alive, he had no right to make the decision to conceal information about Voyager or the data chip."
"Your father was protecting temporal integrity, if we knew that the wormhole lead into the past, we would of never contacted him in the first place."
"Admiral, I have also read your personal file. It indicated that your father served Starfleet."
"Yes, he was also an Admiral. He worked primarily on Federation - Cardassian relations."
"Did you look up to him?"
"Yes, he was my hero. I wanted to be just like him when I grew up."
"Now imagine how you would feel if a Starfleet officer came to your home to tell you that your father had defected to the Cardassians."
Janeway thought about this for a moment, "I can't," she said, "its unfathomable."
"If you asked me that question twenty-five years ago, I would have said the same thing. My father's love of the sciences infected me as a little girl and I idolized him. I looked up to him as the perfect father and the perfect Romulan. When I was fifteen years old, a woman who identified herself as being with the Tal Shiar came to our home to inform us of our father's desertion. She interrogated my mother, my younger brother, and myself for three days. He abandoned his duty, his family, and he threw us to the wolves. When they finally found him three years later, we were all given a chance to speak to him, my mother and brother refused, but I had to know why. You know what he said, he said he was truly sorry that he had to hurt us, but it was his duty to his family to assist in the creation of a better Romulus."
"My husband believes that people should consider intentions equally with actions when passing judgment. I can't condone your fathers actions, but his intentions were noble."
"Your husband had noble intentions when he defected to the Maquis, to protect his home and avenge the death of his family. My father was spewing propaganda fed to him by the Vulcans. I'm sorry I can't help you Admiral, but I have no father."
"I'm sorry doctor, thank you for your time."
Captains Log, Stardate 64304
We have been playing cat and mouse with the cube for the last four days. While we have avoided any contact, the Borg are draining our resources and moral is low. Commander Nog has restored our primary systems, but our slipstream drive is a lost cause. The doctor has informed me of the final casualties reports from the attack. Overall, we suffered hundreds of casualties and twelve fatalities.
"Engineering to bridge."
"Patel here."
"Captain, we think we found a way to track the cube. Since conventional sensors are useless in a mutura class nebula, we had to come up with an entire new approach. Early Ferengi businessmen were able to estimate a metals quality and composition by throwing a stone against it and listening to the pitch it reverberated. Using that idea, we could modify the main deflector to emit sonic pulses that will be reverted back to the ship at a certain frequency when they hit a tritanium alloy."
"Will the Borg be able to trace the pulses back to our ship?"
"I'm not sure captain, but this technology may be too archaic for them to notice."
"Right now, I'll take any advantage we can get. How soon will you have this ready?"
"We're ready now captain."
"All right Commander, start sending out the pulses."