Ron the True Fan: I wanted to wait until November 27th, Star Trek's true birthday, to put this up. …But I couldn't take waiting. For context: TOS' first aired episode, The Man Trap, aired on September 8th, 1966…but the first pilot, The Cage, started filming on November 27th, 1964. Earlier date, true birthday. Just because it didn't go on air until October 4th, 1988 means nothing. Which was filmed first?

Takeshi Yamato: True enough. Anyway, here we go with another Trek fic, and we're being joined by Jorn once again. But this is going to be a fairly different fic.

Ron the True Fan: And Jorn is dealing with Londo's FAVORITE term for Vir, so other then the bottom notes…well, he ain't here. There will be a two-chapter opening, but don't expect that to be the norm. It's only because this prologue is so SHORT.

Stardate 89295.9/April 18th, 2412 - Jenolen Dyson Sphere

The Delta Quadrant: a lawless expanse filled with minor powers, one not-so-minor power and one massive omnipresent and dangerous power that just would not DIE.

And while Task Force 18, unofficially nicknamed Task Force Ra Cailum for the most famous ship in the formation, the Lexington-Class superdreadnought USS Ra Cailum, was there officially to keep the peace between the Kobali Necromancy and the Vaadwaur Supremacy, the massively engorged size of the 261 strong fleet, plus a number of troopships, was mostly because of the latter power.

Because the Borg Collective, even in their weakest state, was STILL the most powerful force in the region. The Voth were second-place, as even the Dominion feared the Borg, something proven by an INCIDENT 11 years prior.

But if anyone could keep the peace between the two idiots - the only reason the Kobali weren't being nuked into oblivion by the rest of the Alliance was because they were part of the Alliance when the Vaadwaur were being grade-A dicks to the ENTIRE quadrant - and handle the Borg, it was Starfleet. No one else had a better track record in dealing with them.

That said…

"Is there a reason I'm being saddled with the admin crap?" asked the captain of the Ra Cailum. "I'm not an Admiral!"

"You're the most senior officer in the task force at the moment, seeing as the actual Admiral is dealing with some last minute issues back home," replied another captain, this one a woman.

"And why ME?" he asked as he filled out another form. "Beyond the fact I fill them faster then anyone else?"

"You know the regs, Ron." she said, smirking. "Regulation 191: 'in a tactical situation involving more than one ship-'"

"Don't. Quote. Regs. to me, Tatsuki." Ronald Pinkerton, ex-drone and commander of the superdreadnought said testily.

"Well, am I wrong?" asked Tatsuki Yamato, captain of the Trailblazer-Class USS Minerva.

"No. You aren't." he said, before returning to his paperwork. "That does not mean, as third-in-command, YOU can avoid this and dump it on ME."

"I'm not avoiding it. I have my own pile as our R&D person, remember?" And it was true. Tatsuki was one of the more skilled engineers in Starfleet with a focus on experimental technology. She was mainly 3IC of the Fleet to give her the authority to perform upgrades on their ships as needed. And the paperwork involved in that was fairly substantial in and of itself.

That did not mean, of course, that she could forward her fleet-paperwork to Ron, Which, contrary to her statements… she did. She thought he wouldn't notice who it was addressed to.

"Once the base is set up, you are going to do your pile." Ron declared. "And your dad's not going to save you-"

"Bridge to Captain Pinkerton." came the call from the Ra Cailum's XO, William Buck, cutting them off.

"Pinkerton." he said, activating the comms.

"We have a problem and-" the call cut due to both red alert klaxons going off and weapons fire slamming into the dreadnought's shields.

"Oh, good. I get to put off YOUR paperwork for a few minutes." Ron said before Tatsuki was fold-spaced off his ship.

One thing to note was that Ron and Tatsuki came as a pair.

Where one was, usually the other wasn't far behind.

That meant they also shared enemies. Including the Temporal Liberation Front, a bunch of idiots that believed they should have the right to rewrite history as they saw fit, not realizing time was NOT something you fucked with without consequences.

To that point, it was a theory - with a great deal of supporting evidence - that time was alive and its' chosen instruments of painful retribution were the Federation Starfleet in all its' incarnations, from Jonathan Archer of the NX-01 Enterprise to the legendary Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise-D and E.

That said…

Ron usually pissed off everyone. So Tatsuki blamed him.

As she was blaming him now as they all regained consciousness after something happened during the TLF attack on the fleet. "Where the hell are we?" she asked.

"Sector 001." came a quick answer from T'vrell. "Readings indicate we are 7.86 lightyears from Sol and-"

"Wolf 359." Tatsuki cut off. "All you needed to say was we're at Wolf 359."

Wolf 359. While the Dominion War was more devastating, while Frontier Day 2401 was more traumatizing, no event signaled the end of an era and triggered the imagination more then January 2nd, 2367 at the doorstep of Earth.

Forty starships, led by Admiral Hanson aboard the USS Melbourne, then Captain Amazov on the Endeavour when the Melbourne was blasted apart, making a fighting retreat that slowed the cube down just enough for the Enterprise-D to make a risky rescue of Jean-Luc Picard.

But not before eleven thousand Starfleet personnel were killed or worse, assimilated, followed closely by the disappearance of several civilian ships. It didn't take a genius to figure out what happened there.

It left scars. Starfleet and the Klingons tossed out the arms reduction clauses in the Khitomer Accords because the Borg didn't care. It led to the Federation Council, under Admiral Necheychev's guidance, to practically sign away their colonies to the Cardassians to focus more closely on dealing with an existential threat, leading to the rise of the Maquis and eventually one of the causes of the Dominion War.

11 years later, the dead were avenged by a time-travelling Admiral Janeway, who, in Ron's words, fucked the Collective with a neurogenic virus so hard that the first real contact with Borg was from the Cooperative in 2401, a mix of refugees from the Delta Quadrant who escaped the collective and an alternate Collective that had the same general ideals.

Picard blamed Q for that last one. Something about teaching a lesson.

Then April 16th happened. The Borg, in league with a group of rogue Changelings, stealth assimilated the First Fleet and laid siege to Earth. Only thanks to the efforts of Commander Ro Laren, Captain Worf - who later returned to the Empire after relations soured - and Commodore Geordi La Forge, who discovered the changeling infiltration and provided the means to end the crisis respectively, with the latter providing the ship that started it all after restoring her.

The Enterprise-D's victory at Jupiter ended the threat… for another eight years. But that was a story for another time.

That said… Tatsuki had been to the Wolf 359 Memorial. The graveyard of the destroyed ships, though a few were salvaged. And as she looked at the viewscreen…

"There's no debris," she realized. "And… the stars are off." She turned to T'vrell. "Advise all ships to cloak, and see if you can access a timebase beacon!"

Before anyone could do as she asked, a hail from the Ra Cailum came in, Ron automatically appearing on screen.

The ex-drone was worse affected by being here. As a former Borg, he remembered the events as clearly as they were.

But his Borg augmentations made him process it more quickly. Tatsuki knew that.

"Stardate 43999.9." he said hauntingly, answering all of their questions.

December 31st, 2366. The eve of the end of an era.

Where 40 starships, led by a man who believed that Picard would never help their enemy, never realizing he had zero say in the matter, would be walked into a slaughter.

A battle that changed history and led to the deaths of trillions over the next 45 years.

A battle that was a mere 18 hours away.

As much as Tatsuki wanted to DO something about it, she knew better at the moment. "All ships are to cloak at once. We can't let anyone see us."

Proximity alarms went off. "Captain, long range sensors are picking up twelve vessels, including USS Constance, Melbourne and Saratoga at 5 lightyears approaching at high warp speed." T'vrell reported. "ETA, 3 hours."

"And 30 minutes before their long range sensors can pick us up!" Tatsuki snapped. "All ships, this is the Minerva: group up around the largest ships in the fleet and cloak! Ra Cailum, you're the biggest, so you get the lion's share of the ships!"

"Merge your shield grids to increase the effectiveness of the cloak." Ron advised. "You have 15 minutes. Get into positions." with that, the link cut out.

DTI would have their HEADS later.

117Jorn: …well, this could prove… interesting…

Takeshi Yamato: Yep. There's gonna be a few changes around here… The title of the fic might give a bit of a hint as to what's going on.

Ron the True Fan: Fun, indeed. Here we go.

Ja Ne!