Chapter 2

Janeway looked up from her desk and realized she had been sleeping. She got up and started to walk towards the door when a com signal came from her desk. Oh great just what I need.She went back to her desk and turned on the terminal. The face of Admiral Karson popped up and the look on his face suggested he wasn't happy. "Hello Admiral."

"Hello Captain.I just heard from the Romulan senate. They said you destroyed two of they're Warbirds in five minutes flat. Now I was skeptical about this until we did a sensor sweep of the area your in and it shows a great deal of debris hanging around. Would you mind explaining this?"

She took a deep breath and started to tell the tale of the previous day's events. "I've got him in the brig right now.He's going to stay there until we reach the nearest starbase. Then we'll let him off there where ever it may be and you can punish him in any way you seem fit."

"That won't be possible Captain. Even if he has disrupted our negotiaions of peace with the Romulans, I need you to do this."

"What do you mean?"

"Right now we have a major problem on our hands that concerns the entire Federation. The Borg are building an army at the edge of the Delta Quadrant."

The words hit her like photon torpedos. Janeway knew what the Borg were and what they were capable of. She had faught more than her share of them and had picked one up and returned her partly back to what she once was. Whenever Janeway heard the word Borg she always demanded that whoever was talking about them to tell her what they were talking about. She was starting to become paranoid about them until one year previous to now. Now all those old fears and dreads resurfaced from the depths of her mind and once again took hold. She sat back in her seat and stared into space beyond her terminal. Why are the Borg building an army now when they could've done it a few years ago?

"Captain?" Startled she looked back at the terminal into the face of the admiral."Is everything OK captain?"

"Everything is fine admiral" In actuality, she wasn't sure if that was true or not but she didn't tell him that. "Ok now listen. I don't have enough troops to send out and your the closest one to the Borg's location and I was wondering if..."

"I could go and investigate.I know."

"Good.I hope to hear from you again after you check it out.Don't try anything stupid ok?"

"I'll try admiral"She said with a smile."Good.Karson out."

And with that the screen went blank.

Tom Paris did not like being in the brig at all. He had been in here before and nearly went crazy. Of course eventually he got used to it. I don't know why the captain was so upset.I saved everyones lives didn't I? He shook his head as he thaught about it. It had been a hair raising event for everyone on the ship. 50 people had come to see him so they could complain about some inconvenionce. Of course Neelix the ship's cook had been the one to really complain. "LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID TO MY BEAUTAFUL PANS PARIS!!" He could still hear Neelix in the room saying that. The memory seemed to just play itself over and over. He remembered the last time a memory had replayed itself in his mind. He had been framed about killing someone and that man's last memory of life was integrated into his own brain where he saw an imposter of himself kill the man through that mans eyes. He felt the pain it had inflicted on him again as he remembered. Of course that wasn't the case this time. Neelix's words of anger always hung around for a while. His thaughts were disturbed as First Officer Commander Chakotay walked in.

"Hello Tom. The captain told me to bring this by."

"What is it?"

"It's a list of all the damage you did."

Chakotay slipped the datapad in through the hole where food trays were given to the prisoner. Tom looked through the list and stopped when he came to the fifth one. "A near warp core brech!?How?"

"Since you had the inertial compensaters down to 95 when you did that roll one of the magnetic constrictors came off line and plasma was flung to the side of the core, and it nearly melted through the duranium. We had to eject the core and repair it in space." He looked at Tom and anger started to build.

"If anything like this happens again Starfleet is going to kick you out Tom."

"Doesn't matter anyway Chakotay. My career in Starfleet ends when we reach the next starbase."

"We won't be at the starbase for a while."

"Why not?"

"We have a mission to perform. I'm not allowed to tell you about it. But if it becomes necessary I'll tell you."

And with that he left. Tom stared at the door until it closed behind Chakotay and started to to read the rest of the damage report.