Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. Not the ships and not the characters. I'm just using them for my enjoyment.
Notes: Sorry about the delay, but sometimes life just gets in the way. As for the story, the idea initially was to just use the Riker and Enterprise from the dimension where the Federation was destroyed by the Borg mentioned in the episode Parallels. Also, this story is a crossover with the B5 universe. It's just taking me a while to set up the first contact between the two groups.
A week before the departure date, all the ships were gathered in the B'hava'el system, most around the planet Bajor waiting for the moment when the wormhole would appear. There were over a thousand ships of various designs. Most were transport ships filled with civilians and refugees of Borg assimilated worlds. The ships capable of fighting a Borg cube were on the fringes of the system in case the Borg decided to crash the large assembly of ships.
It was a good thing the fleet was deployed in such a way because the Borg made their appearance a day before the wormhole was scheduled to appear. Fleet Admiral Shanthi died in the ensuing battle and a hundred other Federation ships were destroyed. The Battle Bridge of the Enterprise was severely damaged in the fight and had to eject her warp core to avoid complete destruction. But in the end, the sheer number of ships overwhelmed the Borg defenses and destroyed the cube. We all knew the Borg would eventually send more cubes into the area and hoped they would arrive after the ships had departed. Unfortunately four Borg cubes arrived hours before the wormhole was scheduled to appear.
Another battle raged on against the four cubes and many more ships were destroyed. Hundreds more ships went down against the combined might of the Borg cubes. The saucer section of the Enterprise was being cut up by a Borg cube when it suddenly stopped. The end, when it came was sudden and unexpected. The four cubes all exploded at once and nobody in the fleet had any idea why that occurred. Commander Shelby took charge in getting the ship repaired while I tried to find out from Command what happened. They were as clueless as I was and they were trying to find out what happened as well. But I found out why the cubes were destroyed when I received an unexpected visitor on the bridge.
FLASHBACK
"Hello, Captain Riker. You finally received a well deserved promotion, I see. And I see the Borg are making their presence felt in this part of the galaxy."
"Q! What the hell are you doing here? This is your fault. If you hadn't introduced the Federation to the Borg, none of this would be happening."
"Au contraire. How limited your understanding of the universe, Riker. It's a shame Picard didn't survive his encounter with the Borg. Or should I say Locutus of the Borg. The Borg had already discovered the existence of the Federation before I introduced you to them. I was actually trying to help you by letting the Federation know of the existence of the Borg. It's not my fault that the Federation were too slow to react to the Borg threat. Had your Federation been more aggressive in developing a strategy or better technology against the Borg threat, this destruction might have been avoidable. Instead, your Federation wasted their resources on minor threats like the Romulans or the primitive Cardassians."
Riker didn't believe Q for a second. He wanted to draw his phaser and shoot him but knew that it wouldn't do any good. Nevertheless he did it anyway. As expected the blast had no effect on Q, but it did make Riker feel slightly better.
Q smiled as the phaser hit him squarely in the chest with no effect. "Now that you've got that out of your system, I'll explain my presence on your ship before your little journey. And yes, I know about your travel plans. In fact, I had a conversation with the Traveler about it and gave him my blessings. However, I'm not here to talk about that. The Continuum has sent me here on an important fact finding mission. I'm here to relieve you of a member of your crew."
"No. We don't want anything to do with you or with the Continuum. Get off my ship and leave my people alone." Riker didn't like the smirk on Q's face. But in reality, there wasn't much he could do about Q. He already tried shooting him with his phaser. If Q wanted to take a member of his crew, he couldn't stop him.
"Please, Riker. At least hear what I have to say and believe me when I say that I'll be doing you a favor. Presently, you have a young woman in the medical bay that is not what she seems." Q then snapped his fingers and Riker and Q both appeared in sick bay, much to the shock of Dr. Crusher and her staff. Q looked around at the gathered individuals and spotted the nervous young woman with blonde hair in the back.
"Ms. Rogers, if you would be so kind to step forward a bit and let me take a good look at you."
"Listen Q, like I said earlier. I won't allow you to take a member of my crew. Now get off my ship." Riker unclenched his fists as he said this. Q really got on his nerves and he was already tense waiting for the wormhole to appear and hoping that more Borg cubes wouldn't suddenly arrive in the system. Another attack by the Borg might wipe them out before they could get a chance to flee. The Enterprise saucer section was in no shape for another battle. And the Battle Bridge was too severely damaged to make the journey or be of much use as salvage.
The young woman looked at the strange officer next to the captain. She had just been hoping that the Borg cubes explode a few minutes earlier when the Enterprise was under attack. When the attack suddenly stopped she had breathed a big sigh of relief that she just might live another day. When the stranger singled her out and asked her to go up to him, she was nervous but went up anyway. "Excuse me, but what do you want to see me for?"
"Ah, Ms. Rogers. My name is Q and I am a member of the Q Continuum. In case you don't know who I am or what the Continuum is, let me explain. The Q are a near omnipotent group. We exist outside of space and time and dimensions. We are here, there, everywhere, and every when. As to why I want to see you, let me enlighten you and Captain Riker here."
"No Q, don't enlighten us. Just get off my ship and leave us alone." Riker had had it with Q. They might be a near omnipotent species but they also had an ego bigger than the universe.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you Captain Riker, but Ms. Rogers cannot be allowed to go with you." The group of people around him were surprised by his statement and angry that he made such a threat. They all knew Amanda as a brilliant young girl who had made her way onto the ship only a few months ago. They did not like Q stating that she would not be able to leave with them. Those who knew Q understood that they couldn't do anything about it, but they were going to try to protect their colleague any way they could.
Q snapped his fingers and everybody in the room froze in their place except himself and Ms. Rogers. We could hear the conversation but could not otherwise interfere. Q then went on to explain that Amanda Rogers had been responsible for the destruction of the Borg cubes just minutes ago. She was in fact a Q, she just didn't know it. The Continuum had debated whether or not to let her go since she had not exhibited any Q like powers. But when she destroyed the Borg cubes with her mind just moments ago, they decided that she could not coexist with everyone else until she learned to harness her natural abilities. It would be much too dangerous for everyone since she would be a god amongst mortals. He also explained that such power, in an individual who did not understand how to use it would wreak havoc on all of existence.
Ms. Rogers was left with no choice and departed the ship with Q but promised to visit us in the new universe once she learned how to do so and if the Continuum allowed. Q merely watched but did not comment on her parting words. Before he left, he gave me some words of advice about the new universe and reminded me that while we were escaping the Borg, it did not mean we were out of danger and that we should still be prepared to defend ourselves. Then with a snap of his fingers the two of them disappeared.
END FLASHBACK
A few hours later, a wormhole appeared on schedule and all the ships, shipyards, Starbase 375 and the Cardassian ore processing station the Bajorans renamed the Prophet proceeded to make the journey into the new universe.
What had started out as a fleet of over a thousand ships had been reduced to just over seven hundred. The makeup of the ships had also been drastically altered. Before the Borg attacks, there were almost three hundred combat ready ships all in various states of readiness. After the attacks, the fleet was left with about fifty capital ships. The Enterprise and the Odyssey were the only surviving Galaxy class ships and the Enterprise had to abandon its damaged Battle Bridge. Three Akira class ships survived as well as a dozen Nebula ships. The rest were older generation ships like the Ambassador and Excelsior class ships or smaller vessels. The rest of the fleet was composed of non Starfleet ships and transports. Most were filled to overcapacity with civilians just like the Starbase, shipyards and the Prophet station.
When we emerged from the wormhole, we scanned the system and found it to be similar to the one we had just left. The differences were readily apparent though because there were no Bajorans in the system. In fact, more detailed scans showed a thriving civilization had once existed on the planet but had died out thousands of years ago. It was decided that the fleet would settle on the planet, build up an infrastructure and manufacture more ships before trying to head to Federation space in this universe.
The last two years was dedicated to the building of new ships rather than the refitting of older ones. The fight against the Borg demonstrated that more firepower was needed and the refitting of ships was a waste of resources. The shipyards immediately began the construction of Defiant class ships because the prototype had proved to be more effective in combat against the Borg than any other vessel. They also rushed production of ships that were in the pipeline including the Intrepid class ships and the Sovereign class ships. In addition, plans were already in place for a new ship class currently in development known as the Prometheus class which should greatly enhance the fighting ability of the new Starfleet. But a prototype of that ship was still at least a year away.
In addition to building a new fleet, new weapons technology was developed by a group of teams headed by Admiral Paris. His teams have increased the shields of the new ships to emulate the Borg model. The newer ships are now equipped with a regenerative shield which would make the ship virtually invulnerable to attack from a beam weapon after a couple of blasts. A Ferengi scientist is also heading up the development of a new type of shield called a metaphasic shield which might be even more impressive. Theoretically, a ship with such a shield system could withstand the pressure and energy of a star's corona.
A team headed by Lieutenant Crusher recently came up with ablative hull armor generators which would wrap a ship with a secondary layer of protection if weapons got through the shields. This new technology was amazing because a ship like the Defiant with ablative armor could survive several phaser blasts from a Galaxy class ship without the use of its shields. The new ablative hull armor was even better because it was far stronger than the regular ablative armor.
Another team was working on improving on the newer torpedoes. Already, all new ships being built are armed with the quantum torpedoes that had been somewhat successful against the Borg ships. Currently, they were the deadliest weapon in the arsenal. But a new team is working on an improved torpedo known as a transphasic torpedo. However, this development is in its earliest stages and a working prototype might not be ready for another decade.
In addition to these new weapons, all capital ships would be installed with the new interphase cloaking device. The only reason Starfleet ships were not equipped with a cloak was because of the Treaty of Algernon it signed with the Romulan Star Empire decades ago. But that treaty no longer applies in this new universe. The Federation version of the cloak not only prevents other ships from detecting a cloaked ship, but would allow the cloaked ship to pass through solid matter.
The past two years also saw a radical change in the culture of the people who fled from the Borg. The term "civilian" can no longer be applied to anyone since everyone was sent to the new Starfleet Academy for training. Since our population had been reduced drastically from the hundreds of billions, even possibly over a trillion sentient beings in the Federation to just slightly over one and a half million, everyone had to adjust to the new reality. The Bajorans who were not a part of the Federation before our journey into this universe are now a member race. Because of the presence of the wormhole in their system, they were able to evacuate thousands of people in the few ships they had and they also put thousands more into the abandoned Cardassian ore processing station.
The last two years also saw us slowly exploring the space around us. We knew that this was a different universe because of the lack of life on Bajor and a close examination of the stellar charts showed that there was a small difference in the location of the stars in this universe. The exploration however was limited to only five light years or so because we because we did not want our presence to be known until a new fleet of ships could be built to defend the new home world that we have settled on. After our encounter with the Borg, we became a lot more aware of the possibility of a hostile first contact. That and the fact that most systems we came across contained no sentient life. Or civilizations that were in the pre-industrial development age.
Because most of the Federation leaders had been assimilated or killed in the years of combat against the Borg, a new Federation council was elected and the first President of this new Federation was none other than a former Captain of the Enterprise, Ambassador Spock. Surprisingly, only three admirals had made the journey into the new universe. In addition to the death of Fleet Admiral Shanthi, three other Admirals had died in the Bajoran system. Currently Starfleet Command was headed by a committee of three Admirals. The highest ranked officer alive in the fleet is Admiral Alynna Nechayev. She would be in overall charge of the new fleet of ships and responsible for the new Academy. Vice Admiral Ross remained commander of Starbase 375 and was put in charge of the shipyards as well as the Prophet ore processing station. Rear Admiral Paris was in charge of Starfleet Engineering and Intelligence.
President Spock and Starfleet Command gave me command of a new mission to head up a task force for the exploration of space in this universe that had been Federation space in our universe. This task force is comprised of five ships. My old ship, the Enterprise D, or rather the saucer section is now being used as a transport vessel in system since it lost its warp engines when the Battle Bridge was destroyed. I have been given the command of a new ship, the Sovereign class USS Enterprise E, the second Sovereign class ship built. The first would remain behind to guard the new Federation. In addition to the Enterprise, my task force also includes one Intrepid class ship, the USS Voyager under the command of Captain Janeway. Her strong science background would be useful in the exploration of this new universe. The third ship of my task force is an Akira class ship under the command of Captain Maxwell and is also equipped with a dozen Peregrine fighters. His aggressive style of command would be needed if the task force encountered a dangerous race. The last two ships of my task force would be two Defiant class vessels, the Defiant and the Valiant. The Defiant is under the command of Commander Sisko who helped in the development of the ship. Newly promoted Commander Shelby, formerly the first officer of the Enterprise would command the Valiant. In addition to the exploration of Federation space, our other duty is to establish a subspace communications network. This network would be composed of subspace relays equipped with cloaks and a passive defense network.
It's amazing to see the changes that have occurred in our way of thinking. Before our fight against the Borg, it was rare that five ships would travel together as part of a task force. Before the Borg, it was almost unthinkable for Federation ships to have ships equipped with a cloaking device. And the ships were almost like nothing the Federation had seen. His small task force was armed to the teeth and would be more than a match for any ship up to and probably including a Borg cube. But of course, the people in this universe might be more deadly than the Borg as Q had mentioned.