Begin captain's log, stardate 85013.

My name is Natia Arlene. I am an unjoined Trill. I never thought the process of joining to a symbiont was all that great of a thing to have happen to you, so I ran away and joined Starfleet. I was the best in every class I took, which was exceptional (at least for everyone else). I studied across the board, learning a little about everything, although I liked the Command courses the most.

My most proud memory of my time in Starfleet Academy is when I took Advanced Survival. Every Academy senior is required to take this class, and everyone dreads it. Or, more specifically, they dread the final exam. The class is taken to an uninhabited jungle planet where each student is beamed down to a random location, tasked with surviving for one week armed with only a knife, a compass, and their wits. At first I was very squeamish about this; who wouldn't be? But as I took more classes I realized that what I needed to be was prepared. While my fellow cadets were off at the pub boozing, I was in the holodeck practicing my survival skills. In the end my instructor beamed me back to the ship after only four and a half days, saying that I was taking too long and he needed to get a move on so he could submit the grades in time.

After that I became the most popular student at the Academy. Everyone wanted to be my friend. After a while I eventually decided to be friends only with the same group of students I was with since I started the Academy: Elisa Flores, T'Vrell, Morek, Anne Potter, Asher Moss, and Zarva. Morek is Benzite, Zarva Bolian, and T'Vrell Vulcan, although you probably could have guessed that last one. Everyone else was human. (We all met each other when we were assigned the same quarter block.) We used to joke that we were an entire bridge crew all by ourselves: Elisa at tactical, T'Vrell as communications officer, Morek as chief medical officer, Anne Potter at helm, Asher Moss at sciences, Zarva in engineering, and I was the captain. Little did I know, however, that our shared joke would become something that would save the lives of countless Federation citizens. How? Read on…

We all applied to be sent to our training cruise together. Starfleet was kind enough to grant our wish. We were assigned to the USS ShiNarva, a ShiKahr-class light cruiser with a solid but uninteresting service record. A few years ago, her captain, Masc. P. Taggart, requested that they reassign his ship to Starfleet Academy. He was getting old (well, for a Denobulan, that is; he was only thirty-six) and wanted to end his career doing more for the Federation than just hauling cargo back and forth between starbases like he had been doing for his entire command.

Captain Taggart greeted us personally as we beamed aboard the ShiNarva. He was a very happy-go-lucky kind of guy, as Denobulans usually are. He welcomed us aboard his ship and we were sent to unpack our things in our new quarters. Captain Taggart told us that this would not be a stressful mission. How wrong he was…

Vulcan would be our destination, as was tradition on Academy training cruises. However, Captain Taggart wanted to go somewhere a little more "out there" and ordered us to go to the Gamma Antares system instead, close to the frontier. Unusual, but not improper. We set the course and waited. A training cruise would traditionally be done at low warp, so that the starship would be in space for one week. A round trip to Gamma Antares at high warp would take about a week, so no one was that concerned by this unexpected change in plans. However, I saw it as a challenge.

My friends and I were the bridge crew for this voyage. It was an hour before we went off-shift. Everything was quiet… until we picked up an automated distress signal. The source was the S.S. Break Even, a cargo ship working in the Gamma Antares sector. There was no voice message in the signal, and there was no response to our attempt to hail them. Captain Taggart ordered us to investigate, as would be required of any Starfleet captain in this situation.

We were halfway there when we were ambushed by the reason for the distress call: a Borg Sphere. Since we were not expecting a Borg attack, our shields were not set up for rotating modulation, and the Borg shot right through them. The ship took heavy damage. To make matters worse, the ship was then boarded by five Borg drones. Five drones would be more than enough to seize a ship with a crew as inexperienced as ours. Again, since we weren't expecting anything like this to happen, all the weapons were locked in the armory. During the time it took for the bridge staff to get there the five drones turned into six, then seven, then eight as they assimilated my fellow cadets. Equipped with heavy phaser rifles, we started to take back our ship.

The good thing about Starfleet phasers is that they can be set to anti-Borg mode at the press of a button. We shot down several drones. Unfortunately, we were unable to save the assimilated cadets. I wanted to try to isolate them so I could take them down on stun, but I was not granted the chance to do so amidst all the crossfire. It's kill or be killed when fighting the Borg.

By this point the entire boarding party had come to attack us. I and the other bridge crew were able to shoot down all but one of the drones, but that one snuck up behind us and grabbed the captain. By the time I heard him scream, they were already beaming out. It was looking like we would all be destroyed — but the Borg disengaged, vanishing into warp.

It seemed the intent of the Borg coming in was to seize our ship, not destroy it. Zarva created a damage report. Our communications, shield generators and engines had been blasted pretty thoroughly, but the rest of the ship was otherwise more-or-less intact. We couldn't put out a distress call. Zarva said that it was theoretically possible to fix the ship using only the raw materials we had on hand. But our captain, the only commissioned Starfleet officer aboard the ship, was gone.

It is this minute that I first truly took command. If Zarva said repairs were possible, then by God we would fully repair our ship. I took the center seat (and boy, did it feel good to be there), and we started work.

Even though I, theoretically, could stay on the bridge and monitor progress from there, I decided to go down to Engineering and help out. Turned out to be highly useful, as Zarva said the cadets he had in engineering could not wrap their heads around the repair procedures. None of them had been expecting anything like this, and so no one was prepared to do the kind of work we had to. I gave a short inspirational speech, and then picked up a padd and started explaining what we had to do in terms everyone would understand.

I ended up doing the rounds of the starship, but I was really only needed in main engineering. The cadets who were skilled in Engineering were indeed working to fix the ship, and doing a quite a good job; they all just went to places other than main engineering. Within a few hours, our ship was fixed.

We now had to consider what to do about the Borg sphere. Sensors indicated that it had fled deeper into Federation space, which meant we had to chase after it and destroy it to prevent it from doing any more damage. Elise said the only reason we were hurt so bad is because the Borg launched a surprise attack. This class starship has enough firepower to fight a Borg sphere that size, and in fact probably destroy it. We trained our sensors on the location of the Break Even, and found only empty space. Seeing as there was no one to rescue, we followed the Borg ship on red alert.

When we engaged the Borg ship, I delegated command to Elise. She, being the tactical officer, knew how to fight starship-to-starship like this. To be honest, Borg studies was the one class at the Academy I could not take because I could not fit it into my schedule. Everyone else probably knew far more about the Borg than I did. That being said, Elise was able to back up her statement about the capabilities of this ship. It really did pack a punch.

In the end, we reduced the Borg cube to chunks of floating rubble. I was prepared to leave so I could report all this, but Elise insisted that I stay. She was unwilling to explain why, but after a performance like that, I was willing to indulge her. She immediately put together a boarding party and beamed into one of the pieces of rubble.

Exasperated, I could not understand what was going on, until Elise got on the com saying she was ready to be beamed back, and that two people would need to be beamed directly to sickbay. I communicated such to the transporter officer, and then went to sickbay myself. Had someone gotten hurt? As commanding officer, I would be held responsible for that. And, speaking of which, there were the three cadets who were assimilated and then killed. I would be held responsible for them, too. I was not looking forward to returning to Earth.

But when I reached Sickbay, I was surprised to see a Borg drone lying limp on the biobed. Elise explained that this was't just any Borg drone — this was our captain. Apparently, the current Borg studies textbook included a whole chapter on how to resist assimilation. Our captain's individuality was very much intact once we set up a jamming field to cut off his connection to the collective. And I missed this during my studies? I was floored.

Now understanding why Elise wanted to stay, I thanked her for thinking about it. I then returned to the bridge and ordered a return course to Earth, at maximum warp. It would take about three days to get there, as it took us two days to get out here in the first place, and we were a bit slower owing to the damage we took.

But after only twenty-nine hours the sensors picked up another incoming vessel: the USS Mayflower. This was the personal command of Admiral Kathryn Janeway. I hailed her, not knowing what to say. She insisted on beaming over, as I thought she would. I met her in the transporter room, and she wanted a tour of the ship. I showed her everything. I went to the bridge so I could show her the records of our fight against the Borg. I took her on a rather circuitous route so she could inspect every single location where we repaired our ship, and I explained to her how we had done it. I took her on a tour of main engineering. Zarva was very flustered when she saw the admiral walk in. I didn't blame her.

I saved the three dead cadets for second to last. They, along with the Borg drones who had beamed aboard our ship, were still lying in the corridor outside the mess hall where the fight took place. The admiral said nothing. For the conclusion of our tour I asked that she come to sickbay, where she saw our captain, still full of Borg implants but quite lucid, lying there on the biobed. I told her how I wanted to leave after the fight, but Elise insisted that she stay long enough for them to find their captain and beam him back, and that I trusted her to do this even though she didn't fully explain what she was doing ahead of time.

At the end of all this, Admiral Janeway just stood there and stared. She turned to me, and I was ready for the dressing-down I was expecting. But Admiral Janeway said to me, "What you and your crew have done here today, is exceptional. I would never have expected a ship full of cadets on their first voyage off of Earth to do all this. Everyone on this ship deserves a medal — including our three dead crewmen — and I am going to see to it that they get one." She smiled and asked to return to the transporter room so she could beam back to the Mayflower. We were to continue to Earth just as we were doing before she arrived.

Once she left, I went to my quarters and collapsed on my bed. I was speechless. A medal? Decorations for valor were unusual in Starfleet, and we weren't even commissioned officers yet. But a medal?

I quickly composed myself and returned to the bridge. I had a job to do, after all. We set in the course for Earth. Nothing strange happened to us on the way there. We returned to Starfleet Academy in triumph.

At the conclusion of the award ceremony, the Commandant of the Academy took us aside. He said that the rest of our studies would be waived; we were to be commissioned immediately. He also told me that because we had done such a good job with it, and because the ship now lacks a captain as he needs extended medical leave, that Starfleet Command has given the ShiNarva to my friends and I, and that everyone in the crew — my crew — during the training voyage was granted permission to come with me if they wished. Most of them had.

To admit it, I was not very surprised by this news. The rest of my bridge crew was, however. The Commandant asked us to take a night out on the town; the ShiNarva would depart in the morning.

And now I sit on my bed here, in the captain's cabin, as everyone moves in. I don't know what will come tomorrow, but whatever it is, it's going to be good.

Computer, end recording.