The mouth of the planet killer glowed and fired a bright orange beam full of antiprotons.
"HARD TO PORT!" Allensworth ordered.
The Sovereign class starship moved to the left to avoid the antiproton charged beam. It would've done a quite a bit of damage if that would've hit.
"Get us out of the path of the beam." The dark skinned captain said.
"Aye, sir." Moran said as she pressed the controls that moved the Alexandria slightly out of harm's way.
"The Alexandria slightly moved to keep the planet killer in front of them.
"That thing looks familiar." Sparhawk said.
"It's a planet killer." Zofchak said practically out of turn. "Captain Kirk and his crew encountered one and defeated it."
Allensworth wasn't at all surprised that his chief engineer knew of the planet killer. According to his record, Dustin studied history in the academy and was considered to be the ship's historian aboard the Enterprise.
The word use caused Sparhawk to raise an eyebrow. "Why did you use the word 'defeated' instead of destroyed?"
"Because it wasn't destroyed. The thing itself still floats in space to this day. I guess 'killed' would be a better term if the thing was alive."
That arose more questions.
"Could it be the same one from Kirk's time?" Fulks asked.
"Doubtful." Allensworth said. "Although, we don't know anything about these things and for them to self-regenerate could be an ability they have, I really doubt that this could be the same one that Kirk faced in his day just for the simple fact that we haven't run into it since."
"Where did it come from?" Nycz asked.
"People speculated that it came from another galaxy outside of our own but no one knows for sure." Zofchak replied.
"How do we take it out?" Sparhawk asked.
"If memory serves, Kirk used the nearly destroyed Constellation and sent it down the opening. When the ship blew up, it killed the planet killer as well."
Before anyone could say anything else, Merriell spoke up.
"Sir, it's charging up its main weapon again."
"Evasive maneuvers." The captain ordered.
The Alexandria moved but antiproton beam skimmed the bottom side of the shields. The crew was almost knocked off their feet. Consoles exploded
"Report." Allensworth said.
"Shields down to 47 percent." Fulks replied.
"Just skimming the shields weakened them that much?" Sparhawk asked.
"Lock phasers and return fire." Allensworth said.
The two ends of the phaser array glowed and moved towards each other. Once they met, a phaser beam fired from the bottom section of the Alexandria's saucer section. The phaser beam left a scorch mark across the planet killer's hull. The doomsday machine prepared itself for another attack. Captain Allensworth sat down in his command chair and typed in a few commands into his right arm panel.
"Lieutenant Moran, come about to five three one mark zero one three."
"Aye, sir."
Once the commands were entered, the Alexandria shifted positions. It put the Federation starship above the planet killer.
"Fire ventral phasers." Allensworth said standing up.
Phasers fired from the bottom of the Sovereign class ship, striking the Doomsday machine once again.
"Target hit, sir." Fulks reported.
Before Allensworth could give another attack order, a beeping sound filled the air. The sensors had picked up something. Merriell pressed a few buttons to figure out what the sensors were going on about.
"Captain, sensors are detecting multiple ships entering this system. They are traveling at high warp and on an intercept course."
"I wonder if it could be the fleet that Admiral Dowler was referring to."
"Actually sir, all of the vessels are cubed shaped."
"How many of them are there?" Sparhawk asked.
"Twenty-two." The Lieutenant Commander replied.
The entire bridge was silent and they all froze in mid motion. There was no way that they could stand up to twenty-two Borg ships. Even if they had the entire fleet and brought all of the old ships out of mothballs. Hell, even if they had the entire quadrant helping them, it still wouldn't be enough.
"Twenty-two Borg ships are headed this way?" Sparhawk asked.
Allensworth could hear a slight hint of fear in his first officer's voice. He couldn't say that he blamed him.
"What's their ETA?" Allensworth asked looking to Merriell.
"Seventeen minutes, sir."
"Sir, the object is moving away from us."
Allensworth redirected his attention to the view screen to see the planet killer move its attention away from the Alexandria to something else. It began to move away. His curiosity was now peaked. This thing was in striking range and now it turned away from the Alexandria. Allensworth wasn't complaining but he did want answers.
"Where's it headed?"
"It's on an intercept course with the Borg ships." Merriell replied.
"Looks like it doesn't want to have a party." Sparhawk said.
"Moran, pursue course. Hit it."
"Aye, sir." She said as she entered the commands into her console and followed the planet killer towards the Borg fleet.
Shortly later, the Alexandria came out of warp.
"Sir, I'm not picking up the standard readings that a Borg cube would give off." Merriell said. "According to the sensors, twenty- one of the twenty-two ships are completely destroyed. One of them is a derelict."
"On screen."
Once the image came on the viewer the bridge crew was stunned once again at the sight that lay before them. It was a graveyard for the Borg.
"That thing really gave them a pasting. I do have to admit that I'm will never grow tired of seeing destroyed Borg cubes" Sparhawk said.
"Where is the doomsday machine now?" Allensworth asked practically ignoring his first officer's comment.
Merriell's eyes widened once he read the readouts from his console. "Below us. It's firing."
"Evasive…" Allensworth tried to say.
He was cut off by the antiproton beam slamming into the ship's shields. The ship rocked violently tossing everyone off their feet. Conduits and panels exploded. The red alert claxon went silent, lights went out and the bridge was dark.