Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek Voyager and I do not own Star Trek Online, I do however own this plot and the original characters.

Back in the Delta Quadrant, the Queen of the Borg Collective did nothing to mask her furious agitation and glared at the visual telemetry she had received from the battle, safe in her sphere. She stared at the devastation of the first wave of her force with disbelief. She could understand one or two of her cubes being destroyed, but all fifteen? And so quickly? All with minimal loss to the enemy? Only someone with intimate knowledge of the way they functioned, the way she thought tactically, could have helped them in defeating her so easily. But who was it?

The Queen paced angrily, trying to study the strategies of the elusive leader of the pathetic fleet, the useless resistance. She didn't recognize their attack patterns. They seemed almost chaotic, out of control when you first looked at it, but then followed a logical, precise path. This person, whoever it was, thought like she did, like a Borg, and knew precisely how to fight her. The only conclusion she could come up with was that it was a former drone that had been 'rescued' and removed of their perfection.

Could it be Janeway? She wasn't a former drone, but she had fought with her on many occasions and could think like one in a pinch. The Borg have encountered two versions of Janeway and had been thwarted time and again by each. No, Janeway always seemed to try to limit as much casualties and damage as she could, using only brute force as a last resort. This person was decisive and seemed to not care if their ships got in the way of fire.

Could it be Jean-Luc Picard... Locutus? His time by her side, though limited it had been, before he resisted her and she was forced to turn him into just another drone, had compelled her to feel like he would do whatever it took to remove the threat. No, it wasn't him either, she was intimately familiar with his attack patterns and they didn't match this battle either. Locutus was almost agile in his patterns, an elegance born of many experiences in the battlefield. However this individual had limited personal tactical experience.

Could it possibly be Seven of Nine? At one point, she could almost see her specific pattern, the chaotic attacks had synchronized into a devastating end to the initial cubes she had sent. No, it couldn't be her either though, the way the fleet operated before hadn't seem her style either. So who was it?! No matter, she would discover who it was in due time. She would find who the mysterious leader was and would take the pleasure of assimilating them into her perfection. They would use their tactical prowess to service her. Either way, it was time for more drastic measures. Concentrating her mental link, she sent word to her collective to send the fleet her personal invitation.

Meanwhile, Icheb worked with the rest of the fleet to coordinate a defensive pattern, listening to opinions on his com and adjusting the structure of the fleet according to what seemed the most logical. Icheb's badge went off then, a frantic sounding Naomi reporting what she had seen. "Whatever it is, Captain, it's massive and headed in right now. The dampening field is reengaging too, so I don't know how much more I'll be able to tell you about it, but I'll work with Lieutenant Jeremiah to try and bypass it," she told him rapidly.

Icheb immediately coded into the fleet-wide channel. "Captain Hansen to all units. We have managed to detect readings from the other side. There is an unknown threat of massive dimensions coming through the wormhole. Maintain vigilance and be ready for anything," he said, and at that moment the wormhole gaped open as a ghastly mechanical titan of epic proportions began to emerge. The fleet was silent, staring openly at the strangest most frightening vessel they had ever seen. It was roughly the size of six cubes all lined up and stuck to each other, a cylinder in shape and pulsated a deep green.

The crew aboard Voyager was equally distressed, frozen in place as it finished exiting the singularity. "Icheb, what is that thing?" Tom whispered in horror to the former Borg, hoping he could enlighten them and tell them how to deal with it.

"I-" Icheb cringed, suddenly hearing echoes of Borg chatter in his head, knowing instantly that it wasn't coming from the coms this time. Whispers, beckoning him, clouding his thoughts. Whatever that thing was, was broadcasting a signal, trying to reach him and most likely every other former drone in the fleet. Icheb shook his head, trying to clear it, and employed his resistances, fortune finding him again that he had the ability to hold off technological telepathic links. Blinking away the dizziness from his efforts, Icheb concentrated once again, though he felt as though his focus was slipping every couple of seconds and gazed at the metallic mass in front of the fleet.

Since part of his cranial structure was still cybernetic, it allowed Icheb to retain a lot of assimilated data from his time being fed information as a juvenile Borg. Icheb scoured his archives on everything regarding Borg technology, but he couldn't find a single thing that came remotely close to what they were currently seeing. "I... I am unsure," Icheb responded, his eyes glued to the monstrosity. The fleet watched in terror as the cylindrical vessel steadily made its way toward them. It easily dwarfed any of their ships, had a huge weapon port in the front of it, many other ports along its stretch, and jutting spikes along the back.

"It looks like a gigantic torpedo," Kathryn Janeway mumbled distractedly. "Could it be a weapon? A warship? ...Or something equally as terrifying?"

"Unclear, but possibly any of those options." Icheb shook his head, knowing they needed to know more about this new enemy and fast. "Harry, hail the Enterprise."

"Aye sir," Harry initiated the call and soon the face of Picard was on the screen. Having given him the command of his ship, Captain Shon let the Admiral handle communications directed to the Enterprise.

"Captain Hansen. Admirable job so far directing the fleet," Jean-Luc congratulated him, though his tone suggested he was reasonably distracted. "...How can we assist?"

Icheb winced, wondering if the Admiral would have said the same thing if he had known how closely he had been to a nervous breakdown. "Thank you... sir," he answered softly, then cleared his throat and straightened. "Admiral, Seven, do either of you know what sort of vessel that is?" he asked, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

Seven answered before the Admiral had the chance. "I believe I do. I have reason to believe it is a Unimatrix Command Ship. I have once seen plans for something bearing its configuration while as a drone," she answered, doing what she could to assist the Enterprise in preparation. "I assume you've received the transmissions from it? The Admiral and myself have heard the Queen's call," Seven mentioned warily.

"I have. I believe the Queen is trying to find and compromise the fleet's leader," he replied, ignoring the sharp look of concern from his old Captain. "I don't believe she is yet fully aware of me however."

"Let's try to keep it that way," Picard answered.

The fleet chatter suddenly buzzed to life as reading from the command ship indicated heavy activity. A swarm of what appeared to be miniature spheres and mini cylindrical probe crafts flew from the command ship's docking port. The fleet engaged them and it seemed the small probes were capable of using a type of tractoring device to freeze ships, dampen the warp field around their ships and render them incapacitated, allowing the small spheres to swarm and attack. The crackled, distressed and distorted sounds of the fleet battling the new threat burst through the open link. Somehow, the command ship's strange signal was interrupting the communication, making it fizzle and cut out.

"...Freezing our ships..!"

"...Can't escape their... weapon systems... failing..!"

"...Coming from all over..!"

"...Can't... them off..!"

Report after report spoke of difficulty to repel the new threat, swarms of angry probes and spheres clogged the free space around them, tearing through them like a hive of enraged wasps. It was everything they could do to keep up. Cycle the shield frequencies, divert power from this location or that, go in to assist a damaged ship, team up to take down a sphere, eliminate a probe, yet more arrived each time. It was almost like a hydra, each time they destroyed one ship, two new ones seemed to take its place.

"Concentrate fire on the probes for now, remove the obstacle," Icheb suggested. So far the probes where the biggest problem to them, freezing their ships and leaving them helpless to attack. The command ship had been sending simple beam weapons so far, but Icheb could almost hear a deep hum in the back of his head, as though he were somehow in tuned with it and could hear it... what? Powering up?

Another of their ships took a strong hit, but the Enterprise served to be as mighty as ever as it swept through the swarm, raining terrible vengeance on the enemy, like an enraged grizzly bear, mauling viciously at those who dared to threaten its cubs. The powerful dreadnought blasted through, pushing way for the fleet to regroup and finally make a dent on the battlefield. The soft hum in Icheb's head seemed to turn into a furious buzzing, making him dizzy and lose focus every now and then. Whatever the command ship was trying to do, it was increasing in ferocity.

Suddenly, a massive warp signature of combined ships was detected some ways away and the remaining ships watched as the rest of the fleet, including some Klingon and Vulcan ships arrived. A mass of thirty-seven other ships, making their total fleet forty-five. They swept in alongside them, pushing the enemy back, helping to eliminate the current probes and spheres from the area.

The crew of Voyager watched as a Vulcan ship near them used a gravity well device on a few probe ships, following close by a couple spheres. It created a small vortex that drew in surrounding vessels into an event horizon, though it used only a minute fraction of the devastating power of a blackhole. This was one such weapon that Icheb had original thought of earlier. The well drew in what looked like a lot of very small spheres in as well, crushing them before dissipating. Feeling for the first time that they may yet stand a chance at winning, Icheb whirled around to his tactical officer. "Have our cannons had a chance to recharge?"

"Yes sir, they are primed," Tuvok replied.

"Good," Icheb turned back to the screen and scrutinized the battlefield.

The Enterprise was fighting alongside a Klingon Battlecruiser bearing the name IKS Koraga. Icheb was under the understanding that a ship bearing that name had gone down in the Dominion war against the Jem'hadar. Now that he thought of it, he had heard from B'elanna that Ambassador Worf had seen personally to its reconstruction. Perhaps he was commanding the vessel? Looking to the other side, he noticed the USS Aventine frozen in place, sustaining heavy damage. "Ensign Flores, take us to the Aventine. Tuvok, fire cannons in modulated short successions. Remove those probes."

"Aye sir," was the response from both officers. Voyager flew in, bombarding the probes with short bursts of concentrated cannon fire, first removing the shields and then puncturing through the small Borg ships until they exploded, nothing but debris remaining of them.

"Captain, we are being hailed by the Aventine," Harry told him, keeping his eyes on his console, monitoring the chatter and shipwide operations.

"On screen," Icheb ordered and the face of Ezri Dax greeted them. Having studied Admiral Sisko's career led Icheb to know a bit about the Trill Dax and was honored to be of assistant to, at the moment, her.

"Thanks for that, Captain Hansen," Ezri smiled tiredly, her visage bloodied and fatigued, but otherwise alert and willing to keep fighting.

"Any time, Captain Dax," Icheb nodded. "Would you 'lend us a hand' cleaning up the rest?" he asked, figuring teaming up would be a relevant strategy.

"Absolutely!" Ezri grinned.

Together Voyager and Aventine swept in, aiding others in removing more probes, doing what they could to disrupt their tractor beams and avoiding fire from the massive command ship at the same time. Spheres swarmed the fleet, stinging them like angry bees. There must have been hundreds of those little ships, making friendly fire a very real possibility. The battlefield was lit up like a laser show, flashes from most colors of the spectrum brilliantly lit up the screens, often times blinding them and forcing them to use their sensors to detect where they even were.

Elsewhere, in Astrometrics, Naomi Wildman struggled to work, but tried to keep it to herself, unwilling to alert Jeremiah or anyone else of her weakened condition. Naomi felt her heart at a constant tachycardic state, but did all she could to adapt to the dampening field, trying to trace the pattern and compensate, find a way to disable it permanently. She blinked rapidly, trying to refocus her eyes, to discreetly wipe the sweat from her hands on her uniform. Gary Jeremiah on the other hand, had noticed how sickly Naomi appeared. He had been doing what he could to block the invasive signals from the command ship at his Captain's orders, but was distracted by his colleague. "Naomi, you don't have to be here, I can handle this and trying to crack the dampening field issue.

"I'm fine, Gary," Naomi wheezed, struggling to roll her eyes as her body betrayed her anyway. Seeing that rolling her eyes had made her unbelievably dizzy, she decided maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all. Instead, she leveled her supervisor with a tolerant look. "Besides, I'm close to adapting to the dampening signal. Do you think a modulated graviton pulse would disable the dampener completely?" she asked, knowing the answer but wanting to distract him from her condition.

The Lieutenant studied her, noting her sickly pale skin, shadows under her eyes, and slight tremble. She looked about ready to pass out any second. "...The Borg would probably find a way to repair it again, but it wouldn't hurt to try and take a peek," he answered reluctantly. When the ship took another hit, making them roll against their consoles again, gripping them tightly, he heard Naomi gasp and saw her wince, saw her eyes become clouded over. "Cadet, please don't make me pull rank. Forgive me for saying this, but you look like shit. You need to rest," he said worriedly.

Naomi would have smiled at his friendly jab, if she weren't in fact feeling like he called it. "Please don't do that," she instead sighed wearily, forcing herself to concentrate. "That would hurt me more than help me, wouldn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

Naomi looked back at him. "Battles and injuries are a part of Starfleet life, aren't they?"

Jeremiah shifted. "...Well, yes, but-"

"-Especially on a warship like Voyager. I have to learn to adapt to any situation, especially during a battle. No matter how injured an officer is, they have a moral duty to the ship and its crew, right? I'm not mentally incapable of offering assistance. If it will make you feel better, I'll try to take it easy though, okay? But I still would very much like to be as useful as I can," she finished with a pleading look.

The Lieutenant rubbed the back of his neck and sighed in defeat. She was right, and he would have acted the same way, wanting to be as useful as he could until the very end. "Alright, Naomi, you win." Not for the first time, Gary Jeremiah regretted what he had thought of the Cadet when he first learned of his assignment and then met the willful student. She turned out to be every bit as valuable as any ranking officer on the ship. "Okay Cadet. Let's see what you got, what can we do with this signal?"

Meanwhile, Icheb had his hands full coordinating the attack on the command ship, but more spheres poured out of it, regenerating its shields as quickly as they whittled them down. "They're adapting too fast," Tom growled, glaring at the screen. "Ensign Flores, try not to collide with any of our allies, please," he said then, wincing as Voyager narrowly missed a Klingon bird-of-prey. Not for the first time did he itch to take the pilot's seat. He didn't fault the young Ensign, knew she was turning out to be a brilliant pilot and could see himself in her quick reaction time and fancy piloting skills, but at times like this, he missed the adrenaline rush and controls at his whim.

"Sorry Commander!" Flores flushed in embarrassment.

They were taking a beating from the command ship and Icheb felt substandard again, unable to help them defeat a foe with unfamiliar designs to him. But then he noticed a pattern, every time they got the command ship's shields down to fifty percent, the spheres would stop attacking them and concentrate on rapidly raising the command ship's shields again. That was the key, that was the edge they needed.

"Hansen to fleet. Repair spheres stop attacking at fifty percent shield drop from the command ship. As soon as they focus on repairing the shields, concentrate fire on those spheres!" the former drone told them, glancing wordlessly to Tuvok, who nodded in understanding. As the fleet did their best to withstand repeated attacks, they managed to hold themselves together, and when they saw their chance, they grouped together and began their synchronized attack, blasting the spheres away. "Attack the command ship!" Icheb ordered, bracing himself as Voyager and the rest of the fleet swept in, bombarding the ship with everything they had.

"It's working!" Harry cheered.

They watched as the brilliant spectrum of weapons fire rained on the cylindrical menace... but something was wrong. Icheb heard the buzz in his head louder than ever, forcing him to collapse into his seat. "Icheb?" Tom questioned in concern, seeing the ghostly pale and horrified look on his Captain's face. Icheb gasped, feeling as though his mechanical cranium was growing in size and about to burst his head in two. It was not working!

"What's that!?" Flores gawked in shock. They all looked over and saw the command ship beginning to glow a bright green and now they could all hear a strange hum.

"Ensign back us away-!" Icheb suddenly stood, gripping his seat. "All ships, get away from the command ship!" he said to the fleet as he got to his feet again. However, the Borg ship had already finished charging and then released a massive discharge from its enormous weapon port, the gigantic ball of pure energy sizzling as it headed right for the fleet. They had given the Borg the advantage again, grouping together in a pack like they had made it easy for them to attack multiple ships at once. "Break formation! Scatter your ships!" Icheb cried frantically, but the slow moving ball of death was already on them. "All hands, brace yourselves for-" his words were cut off as he and the rest of the crew was thrown from the violent attack.

"...Warp core breach..!"

"...Mayday... ...can't... overload..!"

"...-ing them... on board..!"

"...L...st all control of... ship..!"

The fleet was in disarray, panic and distress evident in the frantic voices over the channel. Icheb angrily wipes the blood from his face and struggled to get up, look up at the screen and saw bright orange explosions in the distance, other ships colliding with each other and the crackle and sizzle of continued weapons fire from the command ship. "No!" Icheb yelled at the sight in rage, seeing many of their allies die. "Status on its shields," Icheb asked with a groan, blinking past the smoke and darkness of the room.

"It is... back at full strength," Tuvok answered as he straightened himself.

Icheb slammed his fist against the floor before standing to his feet shakily. "Damage report?" he said, turning painfully to look over at Harry.

"We've lost most of our armor and our shields are down to forty-two percent. The... the Archer shielded us from most of the blast. They didn't make it," Harry reported quietly, clutching his tender side. "Decks two and twelve report massive damage... fourteen MIA's reported," he said dimly, blinking away dizziness.

"Harry... send repair teams to help them," Tom ordered in a painfully thrashed voice, whiplash from the brutal attack having injured his neck, eyes staring blankly into the grisly battlefield on the screen. The fact that those crew members were reported missing only meant that when the hull ruptured in those decks... they were in all probability flushed out of the ship.

"Aye," Harry replied morosely, handling the operations staff as quickly as his painful reflexes would let him maneuver, directing repair teams to the damaged areas and coordinating with B'elanna to seal off the decks venting into space.

Enraged at their defeat and the, in his mind, massive casualties of the catastrophic failure because of his ineptitude, Icheb struggled to keep his lack of self-worth from clouding his thoughts. Instead, his mind raced to find alternate solutions. After their commanding officer had yet to move, let along say anything, Tuvok looked over at him with concern. "Your orders, sir?" the security chief asked their silent Captain. The fleet still needed to be told what to do to recover from the devastating attack.

Icheb's jaw tightened, his teeth clenching painfully as he struggling to come up with an idea. Why had they chosen him? So far he'd brought more destruction on the fleet than the Borg had. Then, he saw at the corner of his eye another Vulcan ship using their gravity well attack again on more spheres and an idea occurred to him. "Icheb to Engineering," he suddenly said.

"B'elanna here, Captain," the half Klingon responded.

"Status on our wormhole generator?" Icheb questioned.

B'elanna frowned thoughtfully and checked the readings on the device. "It had added shielding to it. Most of the attacks were reflected off of it, so it's still fully operational," she answered quickly.

Icheb sighed in relief, then racked his brain, trying to come up with an alternate solution to what he was currently thinking, even as he spoke his next orders to her. "Power it to maximum output," he told her. If this didn't work as planned, the consequences...

"Sir?" B'elanna questioned, wondering why he would want a wormhole during a battle.

"There's no time to explain. Just trust me!" Icheb snapped, wincing at how rough his command had been, but couldn't keep the stress out of his voice any longer.

B'elanna started in surprise at the savageness of his tone, never having heard him sound so aggressive before... but she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't order something of her without a good reason. "Yes sir," she obeyed without further question. "Powering it up."

Icheb regretted his tone, feeling like he had disrespected her, but he couldn't worry about that right now. He turned to Tuvok then. "Tuvok, as soon as a singularity registers on the sensors, and I mean the second it does, make sure you have a high-yield tricobalt torpedo ready to launch at it. I want it detonated as soon as the wormhole begins to form," he told him, fiery determination clear in his eyes.

"Captain, I'm sure I do not have to remind you of the repercussions of that course of action?" Tuvok warned him.

Icheb held himself straight, trying to appear as collected as he could, despite the distracting pain and self-doubt he was feeling. "I will take full responsibility for any fallout," he assured him, then turned to Tom. "Take over helms control, Commander. I need your quick reflexes and years of experience to help us avoid whatever problems this could cause," he told him.

"Aye sir," Tom gently nudged Flores out of the seat and she went over the the auxiliary controls, ready to aid him in case something went wrong.

"Icheb, is there no other solution?" Kathryn questioned, fearing the worst. She knew what would happen if you introduced a subspace splitting element into a singularity. There had only been a single case of it, but the spatial rupture one had caused was so great it had swallowed an entire system out of existence. One wrong move, and they could all be annihilated off the face of the galaxy.

"No, Admiral, I'm afraid not," Icheb answered without sparing her a glance. There were a few other options, but they would take too long and too many lives could be lost with them. No, they needed something quick and dirty. "Hansen to all ship," Icheb addressed the Fleet. "This last attack has crippled us, but we are still strong. Let's show these monsters that we have what it takes to resist them!" Icheb said, not seeing the approving looks from his officers on the bridge. "We are going to attempt a singularity cascade. Move away from the command ship, stay clear and brace yourselves." When he registered a fleet-wide acknowledgment, he set his plan in motion, directing Tom to a specific spot and sent word to launch the wormhole directly behind the stationary command ship. They were still under heavy fire, but most of the ships were now using diverted shields to block the attacks, even going as far as overlapping shields with other ships.

As the ship rocked from another strong attack, Icheb saw his window of opportunity. "Now Tuvok!"

"Torpedo away," Tuvok announced. He waited a few seconds as the wormhole began to open and then commanded the warhead to detonate.

The blast of the high-yield detonation, as was prone for tricobaltic warheads, split the wormhole apart, forcibly converting its event horizon and engulfing it, ripping into subspace and turning it into a massive gravitational singularity, the black appearance making it look very much like a blackhole. The mammoth phenomenon grew in size, swallowing the command ship, but thanks to whatever deity protected them, did not extend further than how already behemoth it was. The fleet watched in morbid fascination as the rupture encapsulated the ship, forcing it to crumble under the intense gravity.

"All ships, reroute as much power to your propulsion and shields as you can. Get as far away from it as you can and then put everything into your shields," Icheb ordered hastily and turned to Lieutenant Williams, ordering the same. The fleet swarmed out of the way and once they got far enough away, quickly set out to diverting all of their reservations to their shields, some forced to use life-support. They watched as the rupture distorted the massive ship, ripping to pieces as it collapsed in on itself.

Soon its implosion was so severe that it ceased to register on their screens. As it disappeared from existence, pulling in probes and spheres along with it, the singularity began to violently collapse. "Brace yourselves!" Icheb ordered the fleet, sitting quickly and clutching the seat. Suddenly the singularity exploded into a massive shockwave, sending the feedback to hurtle toward the ships, forcing them to roll several miles and take expected kinetic damage.

Fortunately, this time, though very heavily damaged, no ship was lost and the fleet reorganized, facing the still open Delta Quadrant wormhole once again. The formidable command ship and its probes and spheres were nowhere to be seen. The fleet channel suddenly burst into activity, cheering at their victory. Icheb, slumped over on his seat, his head falling into his hands. "Icheb? Why are you so upset?" Tom asked in a raspy voice next to him, having allowed Flores to take the piloting seat again.

"I failed to keep a lot of the fleet alive," the young Captain muttered morosely. "I could have wiped us all out with that subspace rupture..."

"Be that as it may, Captain, your quick thinking and solution, while as irrationally planned as any idea I have ever heard from any Captain I have served under, worked and had positive results," Tuvok interjected, hoping to appeal to the former drone's rationality.

"Maybe..." Icheb sighed, taking a shuddering breath before standing again. "Ensign, while we have the chance, maneuver us toward the main cluster of the fleet. We should at least offer aid to those we can before it gets bad again."

"It's... not over, is it, sir?" Flores asked the Captain in a shaky voice.

Icheb looked over at his frightened helmsman, not too much older than he had been, years ago on the old Voyager. "I'm afraid not, Ensign," he said softly, shaking his head slowly, ignoring the painful ringing in his ears. He still heard the continuous whispering of the hive mind trying to reach him, the horrifying images of death and assimilation of his past taunting him mercilessly.

No, this was most definitely not over yet.

Back at the Delta Quadrant, the Borg Queen raged over the loss of her command ship. The epitome of her perfection had been dispatched in a defeat she had to admit was chaotically brilliant. Even so, she would not lose again to them!

TBC...

End A/N: I didn't intend on updating this so quickly, but I got excited to share it lol! I couldn't pass up using the Borg stuff from Star Trek Online, despite the command ship looking like an octopus shaped phallus. The Queen has issues, I swear. One of my favorite things to do in that game is the massive battles with a fleet of other ships helping you. And of course fighting Unimatrix 0047! I hadn't actually planned on writing this chapter, but I figured an extension of sexy space battles would only enhance the story! This chapter influenced by "Breathe" and "Narayan" by The Prodigy.

Shout-Outs

MissSarahG1: Thank you! I wanted to make sure the point was that the Borg were scary as hell and Icheb had suffered a lot in his past due to them. I think anyone who faced them would suffer the same. Picard frequently had nightmares, after all. I hope I get that across.