* Disclaimer. I don't own Star Trek. Although how cool would that be? This is just something I do for fun and not for money. Okay now that's out of the way, on to the nerdy stuff. *
The away team had been escorted to Sickbay by the Doctor with minor cuts and abrasions, nothing too serious. He treated their wounds and discharged them shortly thereafter. Anshar watched like a statue as the Doctor performed his tasks, acting more robotic than organic. It was a refreshing perspective for the Doctor. He enjoyed his company, most of the time, and noticed Anshar was starting to treat him with increasing approbation. Security officers around Sickbay were relieved, but red alert remained active in anticipation of Borg reinforcements.
Voyager held position about a light year from the explosion remnants. All of the sensor data that the away team brought back was analyzed. The Captain and the senior staff assembled together in the Briefing Room. The Doctor had been ordered to remain in Sickbay with Anshar, to determine the effects on him from Seven's nanoprobes.
Seven downloaded her collected data to the monitor while the rest were seating. On the screen appeared an image of the spherical object gathered from Tuvok and Chakotay's tricorders. She recognized the object, using the memory from the Hive mind and the Borg database she'd recovered to help with her presentation.
"That is the chroniton core. Very few Borg vessels are equipped with one of these. Rotating at certain frequencies inside a chroniton infused chamber, it is capable of altering the transwarp conduit to drop at a specified point in a temporal field. The violence from the crash had damaged the chamber, and the chroniton core began to destabilize. The temporal energy released began to sink to the planet's core, causing it to implode."
"And then explode." Harry hinted at a bit of trauma.
"Do you know why they crashed in the first place?" Tom wondered.
Seven inhaled deeply, hesitantly willing to share the bad news. She turned around back to the monitor, and changed it to a video playback. Paused at the beginning was a still image of a blue planet that looked remarkably similar to Earth. "This was the last recorded sensor data from the crashed Borg sphere." She pointed to a region on the grid, zooming in on a specific section, which redirected the staff's attention from the image of Earth. Anshar's ship was zoomed in brighter from the darkness. The computer initiated playback.
"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." The Borg opened fire upon the target's miniscule ship. A thick particle beam bounced off its hull, causing no damage. The Borg sphere began to rotate rapidly. A volley of disproportionally powerful warheads pummeled the tiny vessel. No damage.
"Remodulate weapons. Adaptation in progress."
Anshar's ship glowed ever brighter, appearing to take in the surrounding energy in a maelstrom of light-beams, all focused inward toward the cigar shaped vessel. An unimaginably luminous energy beam began to shoot forward from the ship, encompassing the entire Borg sphere like an oversized flashlight. The beam intensified for three seconds, and then dissipated.
"Structural integrity compromised. We must alter course."
The Borg ship powered its transwarp drive. Earth disappeared as the ship entered a transwarp conduit. But Anshar was in pursuit.
"Gravimetric distortions detected. Unable to compensate. Conduit collapse imminent."
The transwarp tunnel flickered brightly in faster increments until it flashed out of existence.
The Borg dropped out of transwarp at an unstable velocity, traversing erratically through normal space. "Vessel no longer in pursuit. Proximity alert. Collision with planetoid in 17 seconds. Attempts to alter course failed. Initiating suborbital protocols."
The orange planet grew larger at horrifying speeds upon the Borg viewer. Fire enveloped the sphere only moments before impact.
The screen went black as playback ended, leaving the senior staff with little to say.
"Astrometric charts indicate this battle occurred over three centuries ago." Seven said after the senior staff had witnessed the destruction of a Borg vessel, apparently caused by the mysterious grey alien.
"That wasn't a battle, that was a slaughter," Tom said.
Janeway's stern expression connoted executive decisions jolting through her mind. She felt anxiety, apprehension and fear. The Borg were somehow caught back in time, a negligible amount of years before First Contact. Her developed intuition from the many encounters with the Borg was put to the test. She wanted answers, but struggled to infer the right questions to ask. It was obvious to her that Anshar possessed far superior technology than she had previously thought. She realized there was so much about Anshar that left her feeling a little too ignorant.
B'Elanna had been examining Seven's data on a padd provided to each of the senior officers. Her knowledge of temporal mechanics was almost comparable to Seven's, even the Captain had her fair share of paradoxical exercises in recent times. The interesting design of the chroniton-infused chamber had guided her to access a memory from years ago, soon after joining the Maquis. For her own benefits, she was conducting a simulation for detecting cloaked Cardassian ships using a tachyon detection grid, powered by a device that looked similar to the chamber housing the oscillating sphere. She remembered how tachyons had temporal properties, and that gave her an idea. "You said this chamber was infused with chronitons?"
"That is correct." Seven answered.
"If I can find the original resonance frequency of the chroniton emissions, I could probably figure out exactly what caused the Borg's conduit to destabilize." B'Elanna explained.
"That will be difficult without the original chamber."
"The schematic you downloaded should be all I need."
Janeway had heard enough. "You two get on it. Tom, set a course back to the planet remnants, warp 2."
Tom did some mental math, "At that speed we should be back there in three hours."
"That should be more than enough time for Seven and I to finish our analysis." B'Elanna affirmed.
"Tuvok," Janeway turned her attention toward her Chief of Security, "Work with Anshar, see if he can help increase the efficiency of our weapons against the Borg, since he seemed to have no trouble at all against them."
Before Tuvok could respond, Chakotay cut in. "Captain, I'd like to be the one to speak with Anshar."
Tuvok raised his Vulcan brow, surprised at the First Officer's request, but nonetheless yielded his authority quietly.
"Alright, Ambassador, have a report ready before we reach the planet remnants."
He nodded as Seven gazed upon him with curiosity.
Janeway looked around the Briefing Room, "If there is nothing further, dismissed."