Chapter 2
Deep Space
The USS Minsk is a Sabre Class starship preforming deep space scan in the Alonious VII sector of Federation space near the Federation-Romulan Neutral Zone.
Relations between the Federation-Klingon Alliance and the Romulan Star Empire had grown sour after the ending of the Dominion War. While the Federation and the Klingon Empire shared a more than friendly relationship with one another, almost instantly after the surrender agreement was signed on Caradssia the Romulans returned to normalcy and again became very reclusive. The newly selected Senate Members on Romulus were not open for alliances with the Federation or the Klingons. The alliance asked for Romulus to join in and completely open their boarders and help remove any hostility each empire had for each other, but the Romulans who enjoy their extreme privacy declined the offer and re-asserted their boarders.
Since the start of the Dominion War the Federation-Klingon boarders have been open and free to cross for either military or non military vessels, the culmination of the efforts of peace was the creation of the Unity One Starbase, a joint Federation and Klingon build. Shortly after the creation of Unity One the Tal Shiar, an elite intelligence gathering agency with in the Romulan Star Empire set out and destroyed Unity One in an effort to plunge the Federation and Klingon Empires back into war with each other. They almost achieved this by using a new style of cloaking device called a "Halo-Cloak", this cloak allows a ship to visually appear as any ship it wanted to. In the case of Unity One the Romulans attacked under the images of Klingon battle Cruisers. Unfortunately there was no evidence to support this theory at the former site of Unity One, but a shipment of experimental Federation Halo-Cloaks did come up missing.
"Sir, I am picking up strange electromagnetic readings directly in front of us." Announced the Science Officer on board the Minsk.
The Captain of the Minsk stood up from his seat in the middle of the bridge and walked over to the science station where the young officer was clearly working hard to identify the unusual readings. The Captain looked down at the station's console and watched with the science officer as the electromagnetic spikes osculated up and down on the display screen.
"What have you got Lieutenant?" Asked the Captain who was still looking over the read outs along side the Lieutenant.
"Unknown sir, but the electromagnetic disturbance is visible."
"On screen Lieutenant." The Captain ordered walking back to his chair.
The Captain paused and held on to the left side of his chair with his right hand as the main viewer blinked from normal space to a thunderstorm of white and blue light dancing around what seemed to be a very large gray/green cloud.
"Lieutenant I want you to start an uplink with Starfleet Command, maybe their science department can help us identify this usual electromagnetic anomaly."
"Aye sir." The Lieutenant said as he started pushing on the console in front of him. The science officer typed with dizzying speed and accuracy, "Uplink started Captain, we should be in contact with Starfleet in 30 seconds." Announced the Lieutenant.
All eyes now turned towards the mysterious cloud that now filled the main viewer. Each officer on the bridge seemed to perceive the anomaly differently, some feared it, some were intrigued by it, and some simply wanted to just move along and let it be. The Captain was interested in the sudden formation of the anomaly, but it was also this sudden formation that also bothered him. The sudden appearance of an electromagnetic storm was almost unheard of.
"Sir! The anomaly is moving, it is now on a course heading directly for us." Announced the helmsman.
The Captain's face began to show more signs of worry, he now thought it might be best to just leave this strange cloud of energy alone. He walked closer to the main view screen and stopped next to the young Ensign who piloted the Minsk.
"Go to yellow alert." Ordered the Second Officer who was still sitting in his own chair.
After hearing the order from the Commander the Captain turned from the main view screen, adjusted his uniform and sat back down in his chair expecting a rough ride if they had to fly through the cloud.
"Uplink complete with Starfleet, they are receiving this feed live sir. They seem to be just as stunned by its sudden appearance as we are. Admiral Johnson wants us to stay and observe this unusual anomaly." Reported the Science Officer.
"Thank you Lieutenant."
"Sir, it's getting too close. Shields are starting to take light damage, front shields down to 97." Announced the Tactical Officer.
"Evasive maneuver Mr. Lee." Ordered the Commander.
The helmsman started plotting a new course but his controls met with some resistance.
"Evasive maneuvers Ensign!" Again ordered the Commander, this time raising his voice with a slight sound of urgency in it.
"I'm sorry sir, the controls, they're not responding."
"Engineering, this is the Captain, move this ship out of the way of that anomaly!"
There was a brief moment of silence before the Chief Engineer responded from Main Engineering, "I am sorry sir but the controls are not responding down here. Impulse engines just went off line, our warp cores efficiency is down to 73, and the maneuvering thrusters are unresponsive. I believe we can get impulse engines back online, but the electromagnetic radiation has messed up the matter-antimatter injector pulses."
"How do you think it will take to fix?" Asked the Captain.
"Sir the anomaly is almost on top of us." Yelled the science officer who was clearly a bit too excited by what was going on.
"Based on the current state of the engines I would say thirty minutes, fifteen tops if everybody in engineering stopped what they were doing to help out."
"Chief, you have ten minutes. I suggest you do whatever you need and use as many people it will take to get impulse engines back online."
The Chief Engineer replied with a straight forward tone, "Aye Sir." He knew on the other hand that he could not have every single engineer in engineering drop what they were doing to come get the engines back online.
Captains ask the impossible too often. The Chief thought to himself, pointing to a few crewmen working in engineering and motioning towards the warp core. The engineers did not need to be told twice, they knew they had new orders.
Back on the bridge the Captain watched the main view screen as bolts of electricity snaked their way out of the cloud in front of them and made contact with the shields, causing the bridge to shake hard, and sending bridge crew members who were standing to the nearest wall.
"Suggestions?" Asked the Captain who was now all out of ideas on how to move the ship out of danger.
"It's an electromagnetic sir, we could use the deflector dish to try and push us away. We would have to figure out the polarity and the frequency opposite of the storm for it to work." Suggested the First Officer who shifted his weight to face the Captain while trying to keep from being forced from his seat by the impacts from the lightning strikes.
"Make it so." Ordered the Captain.
"Lieutenant, how much time do we have until that thing is on top of us?"
"About three minutes at its current velocity." Answered the Science Officer.
The Captain now turning back to face the Commander reached out and grabbed the Commander by his left arm.
"You have two minutes Commander!"
"Yes sir," The Commander said getting up from his seat and stumbled across to the science station joining the Lieutenant. The Commander steadied himself against the wall with his right hand and typed with his left hand.
Striking his COM Badge the Commander opened a channel with engineering, "Chief, I need you to boost as much power as you can to the Deflector Array."
"Sir, I am sorry I can't do that right now. You can access power distribution controls from the engineering station on the bridge."
The Commander pounded his fist again the wall and started walking over to the engineering station. He was thrown to the floor when another surge from the storm out front of the ship struck the bridge causing sparks and explosions all around him. Now crawling on his knees he pulled himself up to the station and stat down in the chair. The lights on the bridge had shorted out with the last strike from the storm. Pushing on the controls the Commander brightened up the backlighting and make the controls more visible. Pushing with fury on the controls he adjusted the alignment of the Deflector Dish and matched the frequency that he and the Science Officer had agreed upon.
"Deflector Dish is ready Captain." Yelled the Commander from the back of the bridge.
"Fire!" Ordered the Captain.
Outside the ship a brilliant red beam shot out from the Deflector Dish and struck the storms center. The two polarities struck each other and caused more bolts of electricity to jump from the cloud and smash into the Minsk tossing the crew with each strike.
The Science Officer pulled himself off the floor and back up to his station, blood running down his forehead. He studied the readings at his station and turned to look at the image on the view screen.
"Sir, it appears to be working."
The Captain watched as the red beam started to push the ship back away from the cloud of wild electricity. He watched with child like intrigue as the beam caused surges of electricity through out the cloud. The Captain again looked more closely, the beam did not appear to look correct to him. The beam emitted from the Deflector Dish appeared to be striking again a solid object with in the cloud. If this is indeed a storm how could the beam flatten out like that, and if something was in the middle of the storm what is it?
"Sir, the polarity of the storm has changed! I don't know how that is possible, but we are now being pulled into the storm." Yelled the Science Officer trying to figure how it could possibly change polarity all of the sudden.
"Sir, we have lost connection with Starfleet." Informed the OPS officer who was a bit more composed than the Science Officer.
"Shut down the Main Deflector Dish!"
"Controls are not responding again sir."
The ship began to shake violently as it was pulled closer to the eye of the storm. More bolts of electricity struck the ship, tearing at the ships shields with an almost animal like ferocity. The green and gray cloud began to slowly dissipate and was replaced by a large black and green solid face of never ending metal. A look of shock appeared on the face of the Captain as well as all of the crew members on board the bridge.
"We are the Borg..." Rang out over the entire ships communications system.