Chapter 2: First Contact

Nine Days Later

Edge Of Andromeda Galaxy

Borealis

Daniel and the whole gang walked into the control room after hearing in the intercom that they were about to come out of hyperspace.

"What´s the word Erin", asked a very excited Daniel.

"We just came out of hyperspace Sir, all ships present and accounted for and the board is clear, no problems reported, we are ready to start operations Sir", answered a very enthused Erin.

"Jack tell me again why we´re at the edge of the galaxy, and not IN the galaxy that we are supposed to be exploring", an irritated Daniel asked.

"How many times do I have to explain this to you, this time we´re going to do this right, we park here for a few days while the 304´S go in under cloak to get us some intelligence, and find us a place to land the city, preferable with the kind of resources we need, even though we can stay in space indefinitely with the new reactors that Sam and McKay cooked up, I rather not go in blind like we did in Pegasus, better to have a base of operations where we can use the gate without having to re-calibrate the damn thing every time we want to use it while we are in space, wouldn't you agree Daniel" explained Jack, amused at seeing Daniel pouting, Daniel just huffed, "fine but I´m going in one of the ships" he said.

"Are you crazy", screamed Jack "you´re like a lightning rod for trouble, no you´re not getting into those ships until we have a safe place to land".

"Oh! Come, you're like Murphy´s favorite son, I´m going Jack I´m the leader of the expedition and senior diplomat".

Just as they were arguing Sam and Teal´c walked into the control room, "be that as it may Danny those ships are military and I´m the commanding officer and I say you can´t go" Jack was getting irritated "Military or not they are attached to the expedition to which I am leader of, and I say I can go" retorted Daniel, and just as Jack was going to say something else Sam interrupted him, "why don't we all go it´ll be like old times SG1 together again", they all stood quiet for a minute until Jack spoke, "fine but if we find shape shifting aliens or cyborgs I´m blaming Daniel" and he took off.

Three Days Later

Somewhere in the Delta Quadrant

TAS Enterprise

"I´m bored" said Jack walking into the bridge of the ship, it had been three days since they got to this new galaxy and they've hadn't seen anything interesting yet.

"Can´t be helped Sir we are in a new neighborhood we are making micro jumps to drop sensor buoys every few light years to see what we can find in this part of the galaxy, maybe we get lucky and find a planet for Borealis", explained Colonel Hailey commander of the Enterprise from her command chair.

There was no other officer in the fleet Jack would trust his baby to other than Sam´s protégé.

"Actually Sir we are about to jump again", she then turned to the helm officer, "Major Adams next jump if you will".

"Aye ma'am executing jump now", a few seconds later the ship exited hyperspace and then all hell broke loose, at the point of exit a few kilometers in front of them were two ships coming right at them. Jennifer wasted no time and started yelling instructions to Adams, "helm thirty degree down angle right full all ahead".

"Thirty degree down aye ma'am" repeated Adams, as the Enterprise passed by the ship at the front it shook a little just as the rest of SG1 entered the bridge, Jennifer kept giving orders, "yellow alert rise shields and prime weapons but keep them in stand by let´s see what we have here.

"Tactical what do you have", "two ships ma'am 359 mark 060, they seem to be shooting at each other", Jennifer thought for a second before giving more orders, "ok Adams come about get behind and above them, close enough to get a good visual but leave a little wiggle room to maneuver just to be safe".

"Aye aye Ma'am" answered the helm officer. "Lt. Sanchez, do you have a visual", "aye ma'am putting it in the main screen now" said the tactical officer. There were two ships on the screen, one looked like a black box with green lights, it had weird readings as if there were replicators on the ship but not quite the same, while the other one looked more refined, it had an elegant oval shape elongated towards the back, where it had two nacelles and what it looked like a hangar bay.

Daniel came closer to the screen and notice the writing in the front of the ship, "Jennifer can we get a close up of the writing"

"Yes Sir" she answered, and the screen focused on the writing, it read U.S.S. Voyager, to which Daniel just said "well I´ll be damn that's English, shouldn't we I don't know help them they´re taking a pounding", but before anyone could say anything else the boxy ship exploded.

"What the hell" screamed Jennifer, "tactical what happened I didn't see the Voyager fire anything before the other ship exploded", Lt. Sanchez was looking at the information on his screen after it finish compiling he responded.

"Well ma'am the other ship was trying to lock some kind of gravitic beam on the Voyager, most likely a tractor beam and the Voyager was able to use the fluctuation on the shield created by the beam to transport what looks like an antimatter bomb, comparable to a mark VI into the ship and destroyed it but not before taking a pounding I´m reading power fluctuations and decompression all over the ship.

Ma'am they´re changing course, they're coming right at us, they stopped five kilometers dead ahead they´re scanning us".

"Ok Lieutenant ease a little the ECM let them take a small peak and open a channel let´s say hello". Meanwhile SG1 was just looking at the image on the screen letting Jennifer do her job, over the years they learned to trust their people specially if said people was one of their protégés.

Same Time

U.S.S. Voyager

"Captain the Borg ship is catching up we´re starting to take damage I don't know how much more of this we can take" said Tuvok the tactical officer when all of a sudden a ship appeared right in front of them, "evasive maneuvers Mr. Paris" screamed Cap. Janeway, as they were passing by each other Janeway noticed the lettering on the side of the suddenly appearing ship and notice the name Enterprise, she was intrigued but right now they had other things to worry about, like surviving the Borg attack.

"What the hell was that, it came out of nowhere" said Paris as he was maneuvering the ship out of a collision with the new ship, "we'll worry about that when and if we get out of this Mr. Paris" said Janeway then they felt the ship jerk, "what was that Mr. Tuvok" asked Janeway, "the Borg just lock unto us with a tractor beam they are pulling us towards them Captain".

"Chakotay see if you can piggy back a tachyion beam through their tractor beam to try and disrupt their shield modulation, Mr. Tuvok as soon as you get a lock beam a photon torpedo to the Borg ship, Mr. Paris get ready to go to full impulse" ordered Janeway hoping her idea wold work, "aye ma'am".

"Torpedo away Captain detonation in ten seconds, nine, eight.." Tuvok continued with the countdown, "Mr. Kim sound collision, Tom go to full impulse" "yes Captain" both answered at the same time.

At the end of the countdown the ship shudder with the explosion of the Borg ship, they got away but due to how close they were they took some serious damage, the bridge was filled with smoke and there were sparks coming from some of consoles, Captain Janeway got up from where she was thrown by the explosion and pressed her communicator.

"B'Elanna damage report", "Captain we have damage to the primary power conduits, multiple hull breaches but the worst is the damage we got to the number two warp nacelle, I can pretty much fix most of the damage while in space, but to fix the nacelle we're goingto have to put down somewhere.

"Damn" said Janeway "can we go to warp if we need to" asked the Captain, "I can maybe give you warp two Captain but I wouldn't recommend it", "thank you B'Elanna we'll look for a place to land to affect repairs in the meantime do what you can", "yes ma'am".

"Mr. Tuvok is the other ship still around" asked a worried Janeway, "yes Captain five hundred kilometers dead astern", "what are they doing", "nothing Captain they're just standing there", she was pensive for a while then spoke, "Mr. Paris turn us around and get us close enough for a clear visual", "aye Captain" answered Tom, "Mr. Tuvok keep the shields up and the weapons powered but in standby, as soon as we are at optimal distance I want a detail scan of that ship, let's hope they're friendly".

As the Voyager close the distance Tom spoke, "unknown ship dead ahead Captain ten kilometers, they're just standing there", "ok Mr. Paris all stop let's take a peak but keep your foot on the pedal in case we have to get out of here fast", "aye Captain all stop foot on the pedal".

"What do you have Mr. Tuvok" asked Janeway, "the ship is slightly smaller than the Voyager three hundred meters long, but I have some strange readings Captain, their power output is slightly higher than ours but the ship doesn't seem to have a warp drive, they seem to have an Ion propulsion system, according to power readings seems to be fast but not fast enough for FTL, they also have a lot of weapons I'm reading twelve energy weapons that I can't identify twenty missile bays and a large number of projectile weapons, whatever that ship is we can assume that it is a war ship, I can't get more than that they appear to be running a very powerful ECM field, hold on they seem to be lessening their ECM field I'm reading life signs now most of them are human but there are others the computer don't recognize, also Captain the name of the ship seems to be in English TAS Enterprise".

"Chakotay what do you make of this, they don't seem to have warp drive yet they are human, a long lost colony or maybe abducted people from the past" asked the Captain, "I don't know Captain but if it doesn't have a warp drive how did it just appear out of nowhere a cloak maybe", it was Ensign Kim who answered, "I don't think so Sir there was some kind of sub space disturbance just before the ship appeared".

"Alternate universe, or time travel I mean they do have projectile weapons after all", said Tom Paris, everyone looked at him, he just looked sheepish and said, "what just look at it doesn't it remind you of the old battleships of Earth, well whatever they are we are about to find out they're hailing us".

TAS Enterprise

Same Time

Jennifer was looking at the ship in the screen it had a beautiful design and if the name was anything to go by it was more than likely human, as she was looking at it on the screen the ship turned around to face them and stopped about ten kilometers out, "Sanchez what do you have", the tactical officer started tapping at his controls, "they're scanning us Ma'am" he answered and kept looking at the screen.

"Their shields are up and weapons are hot but in standby, they took a beating Ma'am, I'm reading damage to their primary power conduits, multiple hull breaches and some serious damage to one of the nacelles unless they have a way to make repairs in space they're going to have to land somewhere", "thank you lieutenant keep an eye on them, but if they do anything suspicious don't wait for my order just blow them out of my space", "aye aye Ma'am".

Jennifer turned to look at Dr. Jackson and spoke, "well Dr. Jackson this is your show what do you want me to do", Daniel thought for a moment then looked at the rest of SG1 expecting them to say something, but they didn't not even Jack, it was a silent vote of confidence, this was his show, then he turned to Hailey and spoke, "hail them and offer assistance, maybe in return for assistance they can give us information about the state of the galaxy, and we dont have to continue going in blind", "yes Sir" answered Jennifer and walked back to her command chair.

"Lieutenant Kat'ar open a channel", "aye Sir channel open", LT. Kat'ar was a female Serrakin-Hebridian hybrid, she was one of the first Hebridians serving in the Alliance fleet, she looked almost completely human with long red hair and slim figure the only differences were her red eyes and the small dotted ridges surrounding her eyes and on her forehead.

"U.S.S. Voyager this is Colonel Jennifer Hailey of the Tau'ri Alliance Ship Enterprise acknowledge", no answer, "what are they doing Mr. Sanchez", "they're still scanning us Ma'am, it appears that they don't know what to make of us", "ok lower the ECM a little let them take a small peek and hail them again all known languages and interlac just to be sure", "aye Ma'am, it seems to have worked Ma'am they are responding" said LT. Kat'ar.

U.S.S. Voyager

Same Time

"Tau'ri ship Enterprise this is Captain Janeway of the U.S.S. Voyager, don't take this the wrong way, but just where the hell did you came from, we almost had a collision back there Colonel, a few more meters and we would've been space dust".

"Yeah sorry about that Captain we are new to the neighborhood and we are making a number of automatic micro jumps to drop sensor buoys, we weren't expecting anybody to be at the end of our jump our sensors didn't show any ships, but apparently we didn't calibrate them to account for ships with superluminal capabilities, we are not used to it".

"What do you mean superluminal" asked Cap. Janeway not familiar with the term. "Faster than light travel captain from where we are from no space fearing race uses that method of travel".

"But that's beside the point" continued Jennifer, "our sensors are telling me that you have sustained a lot of damage to your primary power distribution grid, your hull shows multiple breaches and your port nacelle seems to be too damaged to repair while in space without the assistance of a shipyard so we are ready to render any assistance you may need, for a small price of course".

At this sentence Cap. Janeway started to get suspicious if this Colonel were to be believed they didn't have warp capability, but if they didn't then how did they just appear out of nowhere a cloak maybe, and then the offer of assistance for a price maybe the price was their warp technology, but according to the prime directive they couldn't give that kind of technology to a more primitive species space fearing or not, but in this moment she didn't have much of a choice they needed help.

"Colonel if we agree to your help what kind of price are we talking about" asked Janeway. "That's not my department Captain that's up to the leader of our expedition".

"What if the price is something we can't pay, or in the case of technology something we can't exchange as per our rules" asked Janeway.

"Listen I don't think you have much of a choice Captain, look my people tell me you are in pretty bad shape, we've scanned your ship, and as a token of good will we are beaming some supplies and food to your cargo hold, according to our scans it should be more than enough to get you well under way of your repairs, feel free to scan them for any contaminants before using them, talk to your people and give us a call when you're ready, and if you decide to accept our help we'll beam our leader to your ship or you can beam to our ship so you can get the details of the agreement ironed out, if you don't want our help you can keep the supplies we are sending right now and we go our separate ways, no harm no foul, Hailey out".

"Well that was just rude" said Tom Paris. B'Lanna was in the hangar bay taking stock of what she had on hand to start repairs when there was a strange sound and a flash of light and a lot of crates appeared in front of her, panicking she took out her tricorder as fast as she could and started to take readings tapping her communicator at the same time.

"B'Lanna to bridge", "bridge here" answered Janeway, "Captain something weird just happened there was a sound and a bright flash of white light and then a whole lot of crates just appeared, according to the tricorder there's about two metric tons of food water and", she paused for a second, "and what B'Lanna" asked a panicking Janeway, "duranium panels Captain there's more than enough material here to repair all the hull breaches in the ship" answered an amazed B'Lanna, "anything harmful or suspicious" asked Chakotay, "no Commander tricorder readings are clear", "ok B'Lanna go through every crate, but make sure everything is safe before using anything and keep us posted" said Chakotay.

"Captain", called a very concerned Tuvok, "yes Mr. Tuvok", "Captain the shields were active at the time they transported those supplies to the hangar bay, they could've transported or taken anything they wanted at any time, more over if what LT. Torres said is true they have given us the majority of what we need to effect repairs before asking for anything, and according to the computer they didn't take anything, which by the look of their capabilities to beam through our shields they could've done at any time they wanted, at this point you might want to consider their offer we have nothing to lose.

"You've been quiet Chakotay", "well Captain that ship is a conundrum, by looks alone it doesn't seem that advance, it doesn't even have a warp drive, yet they seem to have better shields and sensors than us, not to mention their ability to beam through our shields weakened or not, and what I can't wrap my mind around is, where did they get duranium from, sensors say they don't use it in their hull so where did they get it from, and from what Tuvok said they could've taken anything they wanted, and there is nothing that we could have done to stop them, yet they've given us what we need to make repairs, it could be all an act to get what they want, but at this point I agree with Tuvok Captain we have nothing to lose".

Janeway was thinking about everything her officers were telling her, on one hand they were right, they needed help, but could she take the risk, they didn't know anything about this Tau'ri or their intentions, they were too well armed for her taste, and their ability to get through their shields worried her to no end, they could have taken anything they wanted without so much as a thank you if they so wished, on the other hand they could just leave right now, they have what they needed for repairs, but they still needed a place to land to make repairs on the nacelle maybe their planet was close enough because at warp two it will take them a long time to get anywhere.

Captain Janeway sat at her chair and pressed the communicator on it, "Seven have you been monitoring the situation", "I have Captain, they seem to possess technology even the Borg don't have".

"In your time with the collective have you ever heard of a race call Tau'ri" asked Janeway, "I have not Captain, however there is a possibility that these Tau'ri are not from around here Captain".

"What do you mean not from around here Seven" asked Janeway, "well Captain what Mr. Kim described as a subspace anomaly was closer to a dimensional rift, there is a possibility that these people are either from a parallel universe or displaced in time".

"Well either way It's not just my decision to make, I want everyone's opinion, seeing as they don't appear to have warp capabilities doing this deal might mean breaking the prime directive, space fearing or not they don't have warp if we follow the prime directive we shouldn't interact with them, but we are here now, we can risk it and go it alone but thanks to the damage we took it'll take us a long time to reach a planet suitable for us to land and make the repairs we need to make, adding to the already long time that will take us to reach the alpha quadrant, or we can make this deal ignoring the prime directive, and make the repairs we need as fast as possible".

They all stood there silent for a moment deciding what to do until Chakotay broke the silence, "well Captain I think I speak for all of us here saying that adding more time to our journey is not an option, not only because of the time but because of our situation, at this moment the Voyager is operating at less than forty percent efficiency, not only are we slow but we are easy prey for anyone that comes looking for a fight, I don't think we have much of a choice Captain", Janeway looked around the bridge receiving nods from everyone.

"Well I guess that's it then, Mr. Kim if you'd be so kind as to open a channel to the Enterprise", "yes Captain, channel open".

Some Time Later

TAS Enterprise

The whole gang was in the bridge talking and laughing, they were ready and waiting for Captain's Janeway response when Lt. Kat'ar interrupted them "excuse me Sirs but I have Captain Janeway on the line", "patch it to the main screen lieutenant" said Jennifer.

"Captain have you made a decision" asked Jennifer, "yes, well before we agree to anything we would like for your delegation to come aboard the Voyager to finalize an agreement".

"That can be arranged, the leaders of our expedition can beam or if you prefer shuttle to your ship anytime you deem fit" said Jennifer.

"Well no time like the present Colonel, my communications officer is sending you the co-ordinates to our conference room as we speak, we'll be waiting for them in ten minutes is that acceptable".

"Yes Captain Doctor Jackson and his party will be there in ten minutes, in the meantime is there anything else that we can help you with for your repairs".

"No thank you Colonel you have done more than enough with all the supplies that you sent, all we need now is a place where we can land to repair the nacelle so we can get the ship back to a hundred percent efficiency".

"That we can help you withso let's hope that your talks with Dr. Jackson prove fruitful Captain. For both our benefit Hailey out".

Ten Minutes Later

U.S.S. Voyager

Conference Room

Captain Janeway, Commanders Chakotey and Tuvok along with the Doctor and Seven of Nine were waiting for the arrival of their guests anxiously, when suddenly there was a chiming sound and a bright flash of white light and when it was gone there were four people standing there, there were three males and a female, one of them was wearing what it looked like a twentieth century three piece dark blue suit and viewing glasses, the other one was wearing what appeared to be long tan and brown ceremonial robes he was big build like a Klingon dark skin with a strange gold symbol on his forehead, the last two a man and a woman were wearing military uniforms black with silver trimming the woman had two stars on her shoulders and the man had three.

The man in the suit walked towards Janeway extending his hand he spoke "Hello my name is Dr. Daniel Jackson I'm the leader of the Borealis expedition, let me introduce you to Major General Samantha Carter leader of the scientific department, Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill, representative of the Tau'ri Alliance council and leader of the military contingent of the expedition and Teal'c ambassador and representative of the Free Jaffa Nation".

"Welcome aboard Dr. Jackson as you already know I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship U.S.S. Voyager, this is my second in command Commander Chakotey, my tactical officer Commander Tuvok, my science officer Seven of Nine and this is the Doctor".

"Now that introductions are out of the way, why don't we sit down and get down to business" said Janeway motioning everyone to sit down at the conference table.

Once everyone was in their seats Cap. Janeway spoke again, "before we start I have to ask, we couldn't help but notice that your ship doesn't have a warp drive, so we are assuming that since you offered a safe place to land to make repairs, your planet must be close by", Janeway asked fishing for information.

Daniel was about to answer when Sam beat him to it, "If you mean our method of FTL, we use something call Hyperdrive it's a completely different principle it allows to open a window into subspace allowing us to travel vast distances relatively fast, if I'm correct what you call warp drive we know as Alcubierre drive proposed by a Mexican physicist some twenty five years ago that works by creating a bubble around a ship expanding space behind it and compressing in front thus creating faster than light travel, we experimented with it but found it to be too slow for our purposes, am I correct in my assumptions"

Captain Janeway was stunned hearing that these people considered Warp speed to be slow, she started thinking about the possibilities and asked "yes, you are correct, so you mean to tell me that warp speed is too slow for you, just how fast is your ship".

"Well if we don't push the drive we can cross a galaxy this size in about a day, but if we are in hurry we can probably do it in half that time", answered Sam as if talking about the weather.

"Wait a minute, are you telling us that you can go from here to the Alpha quadrant in a matter of hours, that's unbelievable, it would take us close to seventy years at maximum Warp to reach home", said Chakotey forgetting decorum excited about the possibility of reaching home almost immediately with the help of the Tau'ri.

Just as Cap. Janeway was going to ask what they wanted in exchange for help to get them home, alarms started blearing all over the ship, and a voice camo over the communicator, "Captain a Borg cube just drop out of Warp one thousand kilometers from us, and is closing fast", said an alarmed Ensign Kim.

With the conference room being beside the bridge it took no tine at all for all the people occupying it to get there, everyone took their stations and Cap. Janeway asked about the situation, "what do you have Mr. Kim" "a Borg cube one thousand kilometers and closing fast Captain they'll be here in ninety seconds", answered Kim.

Janeway took a second to think, if these people were telling the truth they couldn't allow that kind of technology to fall into the Borg's hands, but in their condition they couldn't out run the Borg let alone fight them, so she made a decision, as she was about to start talking the image of the Borg Cube came on the screen, "Dr. Jackson I suggest you return to your ship and get out of here, we'll try to buy you as much time as we can so you can scape".

Instead of Jackson answering it was Jack who spoke, "are you kidding, in the condition your ship's in you wouldn't last more than a few seconds, besides we don't have the costume of running away and leave people behind", he turn towards Sam and started giving orders, "Sam how long would it take for the Thor to get here", Sam made some quick calculations on her head and answered, "about ten minutes Sir" she answered, "ok contact Hailey and tell her to get the Thor here as soon as possible weapons hot, in the meantime she's going to have to cover the voyager".

Just as he was giving orders, there was a sound and a voice sounded in all speakers, "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile." then the screen changed to show some kind of cyborg.

Jack just turned to give a very annoyed look at Daniel and said, "FOR CYING OUT LOUD, what's next shape shifters.