Janeway sighed. It had been days since the fleet had left Kham, and there had been absolutely no sign of the shuttle. Despite their failure, she was impressed with the attitude of the Khamish Colonel. She had, not once, given any indication that Janeway was wasting her time on the search. She eagerly carried out any and all instructions that Janeway suggested.

The fleet was rapidly approaching the final nebula on the Sappho’s flight plan, and Janeway was trying to come to grips with the possibility that the shuttle would not be found.

“Captain, one of the Khamish ships is detecting a vessel, heavily damaged, at oh-two-six mark seven-three-five.”

“I’ll take it that it’s not the shuttle, Mr. Kim?”

“No, Captain. But it isn’t a Borg ship either.”

“Life signs?” she asked.

“Inconclusive,” replied Kim.

Another diversion. “Signal the fleet to stop here, and have them search as much of the area as possible, to keep them busy. Let’s get that ship in the shuttlebay.” Janeway rose to her feet, and tapped her comm-badge.

“Janeway to sickbay. Doctor, could you meet me in the shuttlebay? There may be a couple of people who need your attention.”

“I’ll be right there, Captain,” replied the Doctor.

“Mr. Kim, you have the bridge,” Janeway said as the turbolift doors closed in front of her.

—

The entire world celebrated the victory over the Borg. It had come so much sooner than Bint’Ari expected it, that most thought of it as a miracle. It took a while before word spread about why every Borg on the planet fell once, and to Tuvok’s displeasure, so to speak, that further added to their heroic status.

Tuvok, of course, did not participate in the celebration. He spent his time at the shuttle’s computer console, attempting to sort through some of the information he had downloaded from the Borg relay device.

“Don’t you ever relax?” Oro commented, as he made his way into the shuttle. “We’ve been up since before dawn, and won a great battle. Now you, well after dark, are in here working. Still! Tuvok, I don’t know what to make of you.”

“I am analyzing the data I downloaded from the Borg computer. I need to determine if there are any other Borg ships in orbit, so that Lieutenant Torres and I can be on our way. This information will also be of use to you. The Borg will, in all likelihood, return and attempt to take your planet again. Your people will have to prepare themselves.”

“I think you worry too much, Tuvok,” replied Oro. “I don’t think the Borg will be back for a long time. And we will be ready for them by the time they get here!”

“I would not be so certain,” replied Tuvok. “According to the data fragments I have managed to decode, the Borg have already dispatched a second cube to complete the assimilation of this planet. It is due to arrive in fifteen hours, and the Borg tend to be quite punctual.”

“What?”

“What’s going on?” Torres asked, as she stumbled into the shuttle. The worried look on Oro’s face suggested something was amiss.

“According to your friend here, another Borg cube will be here in less than a day,” Oro said.

“Fifteen hours, twenty three minutes, at their last known heading,” corrected Tuvok. “My decryption may be inaccurate; I will need Seven of Nine’s help to decode the information more precisely.”

“That’s not very good,” slurred Torres, who was more than a little drunk. “What are we going to do?”

“I am attempting to formulate a course of action,” Tuvok replied.

“If we could somehow stop the cube itself,” Torres sighed. “We would not have to deal with anymore drones on the surface.”

“Could we launch missiles at them?” Oro asked. “I mean, we know that they are coming. We should still have some nuclear weapons around from before Unification. But they are buried. It shouldn’t be too hard to dig them up.”

“The Borg vessel would have adequate shielding to withstand a nuclear attack,” Tuvok replied. “In addition, and such projectiles would be destroyed by Borg disrupter before it ever reached the cube.”

“That’s not possible,” Oro murmured.

Torres scratched her head. “Could we beam a couple of the warheads onboard? I mean, if we set off a nuclear reaction inside of the cube, their shielding should be worthless.”

“That would require beaming the warheads from within the shuttle. The transporter system took heavy damage, and would not be able to perform a site to site transport at this range,” replied Tuvok. “It would be a slow process, and the Borg would have landed some soldiers by the time the bombs could be detonated.”

“What are you talking about?” Oro asked. “There’s no way we could get on that ship. You think that they will just let us on if we ask nicely? Excuse me, Mr. Borg, can me and my nuclear warhead come aboard please?”

“I’ll explain later,” replied Torres, who was not feeling up to explaining how they were going to get the bombs aboard the cube. “Can you get the warheads?”

“I can’t. I don’t even know where they are.”

“Who does?” Torres asked.

“The First Citizens know, and certainly the Council would know.”

“Well? Where do we find these people?” Torres asked impatiently.

“Let me think. They normally would be in the city, but they go into hiding when there is an emergency, like a war. A Borg invasion certainly qualifies,” Oro explained. “Yipu would know, He’s the minister of the Guard. He is camped not too far from here.”

“Go get him! We don’t have much time!”

Oro ran out the shuttle, and turned down the street. Tuvok returned, undisturbed, to his decoding of the Borg data. B’Elanna began to long even more for the safety of Voyager.

—

Janeway arrived in the shuttlebay to find The Doctor waiting there for her. The small ship was already docked. Janeway glanced over the hull of the ship, noting the heavy collision damage aft. The damage reports she read on her way down said that the ship was not attacked, it was just unlucky. It was probably hit by a stray asteroid, presumably while going through a nearby star system.

“Doctor,” Janeway greeted with a nod. “Are you detecting any life signs aboard the ship?”

“I believe so,” replied the Doctor. “It seems that there is some sort of hibernation unit on board, and the crew-members were all in a state of suspended animation. I do not know if the crew survived the impact. I will have to inspect the passengers to be certain.”

“Lead on, Doctor,” said Janeway, gesturing towards the ship.

The two climbed up the ladder on the side of the ship, and climbed inside the open hatch on the top of it. The ship was quite cramped, Each of the ships internal systems very much larger than their counterparts on Voyager. The air was stale, and Janeway thought that the climate control on the ship was probably damaged as well.

The Doctor lead her to the back of the ship. Janeway was greeted at once by the awful stench of rotting flesh. She steeled herself to cope with the smell and moved forward. The room itself was caved in at the side, due to damage from the collision. Several of the chambers were destroyed entirely, others were cracked open, and their occupants dead because the seal to their pod was broken before they could be revived.

Only one of the chambers was still functioning, and The Doctor’s tricorder suggested that the occupant, a fairly short woman, was still alive. The Doctor adjusted the controls of the pod, and the two waited to see if the woman could be revived. The process was slow, but finally the lid of the pod opened up, and the woman slowly opened her eyes. The Doctor scanned her vital signs, and Janeway moved to accommodate The Doctor.

“I can’t see,” the woman whispered.

“Your sight will return momentarily,” The Doctor explained. “Loss of sight appears to be a minor side-effect of the drug used in the hibernation sequence. It will reverse itself in a couple of minutes.”

“What is your name?” Janeway asked.

“My name? I’m Xytin’Ito,” replied the woman. He face tensed up. “Ito!” she cried, as her whole body began to tremble. The Doctor began frantically scanning her vital signs.

“What is going on?” Janeway asked.

“I don’t really know,” replied The Doctor. “I don’t know very much about her anatomy. Brain-wave activity has heightened dramatically, while other areas seem to be in a state of shock. I can’t explain it.”

“Is there anything you can do?”

“Nothing here. I need to get her to sickbay and run some tests. I need to determine a cause before I can even speculate on the treatment,” the Doctor replied hastily. Almost immediately, his hand was raised to his comm-badge. “Doctor to transporter room, two to beam directly to sickbay.”

“Aye, Doctor,” the chief on duty replied. Barely a second later, the Doctor and Xytin’Ito disappeared in a blue shimmer. Janeway hurried out of the ship, and made her way back to the bridge.

—

Yipu stepped into the shuttle, with a look of disbelief on his face.

“It’s true!” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe it, the stories are true!” He moved forward, and looked up at Torres. “Are you really Ti’Hat?”

Torres rolled her eyes. “Call me B’Elanna.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Yipu replied. “I wouldn’t want to be named after that filthy animal, myself. Is it true that there is another cube on its way?”

“It is,” Tuvok replied. “We require several nuclear warheads. An effective countermeasure must be ready for use before the cube arrives.”

Yipu laughed. “Your crazy! Do you know what it is going to take to get any of them dug up? I don’t have the authority to order their excavation. Even if I did, it would take weeks to dig up them all.”

“Who has the authority?” Tuvok asked.

“Only the First Citizens do,” Yipu replied.

“Where can we find the First Citizens?” Tuvok asked, patiently.

“I can’t tell you that. They are in a secure area, and the location is classified.”

Torres grabbed Yipu by the collar, and lifted him to her height. “Look you little weasel. If you don’t tell us, you aren’t going to have a world left to defend!”

Yipu, to his credit, remained stoic. “Put me down, If you please. Fighting with me is not going to solve our problem.”

Torres grunted, then dropped the Bint’Ari.

“I don’t know where Yavitz is. I don’t handle her evacuation arrangements,” Yipu began. “But Ira, his sanctuary is just outside of Xenin.”

The shuttle silently lifted off of the ground.

“We will be outside of Xenin momentarily,” Tuvok reported. “Could you please indicate a more specific location?”

“What do you mean we will be there momentarily? We’re not going now?” Yipu was visible flustered.

“The Borg vessel will arrive in less than fifteen hours. We do not have the luxury of waiting until morning,” replied Tuvok.

“As a boy, it was always my dream to meet the legends of old,” Yipu muttered. “I wonder if they, too are as frustrating as you are turning out to be.” Oro chuckled behind him.

“Trust them Yipu, they know what they are doing,” he reassured.

“Easy for you to say,” replied Yipu. “I can only imagine what Ira is going to say. And when you ask him to dig up the warheads? I really like my job, you know? I don’t want to lose it.”

—

“Report,” Janeway requested, as she returned to the bridge. She noticed the wear on Chakotay’s face as he rose, and realized how long it had been since she herself had gotten some rest.

“The Fleet is still in their search pattern,” reported Chakotay. “Still nothing, though.”

“What about that ship, do we have any idea where it came from?” she asked.

“According to their last known heading, it seems to have come right out of the last nebula that Tuvok and B’Elanna were scheduled to harvest,” Kim reported. “Sensors can’t penetrate the nebula, so I haven’t been able to determine a starting point for the ship.”

“How long ago did they pass through that nebula?” Chakotay asked.

“It’s been over a week,” Kim replied. “It is hard to give an exact time.”

“Could the shuttle have been damaged the same way?” Janeway asked.

“Maybe there is some kind of solid bodies inside the nebula, like an asteroid field,” Chakotay suggested. “Sensors would have a hard time picking up an asteroid on a collision course until it was too late to move.”

“Is there anyway we can go inside and check?” Janeway asked.

“I suppose I could boost the navigational deflectors, to protect Voyager, but I’m not certain I could boost the sensors enough to detect the shuttle,” Kim reported.

“Captain, there’s a problem,” Paris interrupted. “I’m detecting a Borg Scout ship, just exiting the nebula.”

Janeway walked up behind Paris, and leaned over the console. “Have the Khamish seen it yet?”

“No, it is holding position outside of the nebula, and is out of range of each of the Khamish motherships. One is heading towards the cube now, and should pick it up momentarily,” Paris replied.

“Looks like they’ve got it now,” Kim reported from his console. “We are being hailed by the Khamish Commander. They are requesting permission to, well, ‘rid the self-righteous Borg bastards of their worthless existence,’ I believe the translation went.”

“What is the Borg ship doing?” Chakotay asked. “It can’t possibly believe that it can take on Voyager, let alone the five Khamish ships.”

“It is holding position,” Kim replied. “Wait, Three more ships are coming out of the nebula. Two scouts and a larger ship.”

“A cube?” Janeway asked.

“Yes, but I haven’t seen a cube of that dimension. It is a lot smaller than a normal cube,” Kim replied.

“Signal the Khamish commander. Give them the OK to attack,” Janeway ordered. “And get Seven of Nine up here. I want intel on those ship designs.”

—

“You want what?” cried Ira. “You want me to give you our nuclear warheads? Why should I trust you?”

“Usum, there is a Borg cube approaching as we speak. We need those warheads to attack the cube itself,” Yipu pleaded. “We may have beaten the Borg this time, but we are in no shape to ward off another invasion!”

“How do you know they are coming again?” Ira shot back. “Our planetary scanners show nothing. How can you trust two aliens! How do you know that they do not want to use the warheads on us?”

“How can you say that?” Oro asked, angrily. “I have known these two since they arrived, and they have done nothing except support us against the Borg. Why would they, so suddenly, decide that they are our enemies?”

“Even if I tell you the location, it will take a too long to dig them up. There is no way we could have them ready by the time the Borg got here! These aliens must know this!”

“Sir, I know it seems a little hard to believe, but they say that they just need to know the location, and that they can retrieve the warheads without digging,” Yipu explained.

“This is just too much!” Ira almost burst into laughter. “Very well, bring them in. I should like to meet the fools that would be our saviors.”

Yipu rushed from the room, and Oro stood back, worried. He thought that this, his first meeting with the First Citizen, could not possibly go worse. It was one thing that the leader of your world knew your name, it was quite another that he thought of you as an imbecile.

Shortly, Yipu returned with Tuvok, and Torres, and Oro could not help but smile. B’Elanna stomped in, very much annoyed at being kept waiting. She looked as she often did, about ready to explode into a fit of rage. Tuvok, on the other hand, looked as if he could spend another year or so waiting for Ira to make up his mind. Total calm.

Ira, on the other hand, was not prepared for the imposing aliens. Ira awed at the height of Tuvok and B’Elanna, and it took a moment for him to gather his wits enough to open his mouth.

“Well,” Ira began nervously. He could not take his eyes off of B’Elanna’s angry face. “How, may I ask, do you expect to dig up any warheads before that cube you are babbling about arrives?”

Torres scowled, and Ira moved his seat back, unconsciously.

“We have the technology to transport the warheads directly to the surface, without having to unearth them,” Tuvok replied.

“How long will it be, before that cube you are talking about arrives?”

“It will be here in approximately thirteen hours,” Tuvok replied.

“That’s about fifteen cycles, Usum,” Yipu added.

“Yes, then, fifteen cycles. I will tell you the locations of the warheads. If what you say is true, we should detect the cube in about ten cycles. If we have not detected it in twelve, each of you will be arrested and executed for treason.” Yipu stepped foreword, in protest. Ira held up his hand, stopping Yipu in his tracks.

“If the location of those warheads became public knowledge, it would be a disaster for this world. Already there are those who believe if they were running things, we would have been much better prepared to fight the Borg. With so much of our military in shambles, civil war for control of this world is a very real possibility. If any of those opposition groups got hold of a warhead, it would destroy any hope of stability that Bint’Ari has. Laws have to be enforced, now more than ever, if we have any hope of keeping this world together. Yipu, it troubles me to do this to you, but you are a part of this. I hope for your sake that there is a cube coming.” Ira pulled a data chip from the computer on his desk. “Here are the locations of twenty of the warheads that we buried. Please do not be too troublesome about your apprehension should the cube not arrive as you claim it will.”

“Thank you, Usum,” Yipu replied, before he followed Oro, Tuvok, and B’Elanna out the door.

“I can’t believe I’m hoping for another invasion,” Yipu muttered. Oro chuckled, lightly, in agreement.

Star Trek, Voyager, and related properties are © Paramount Studio, and the author makes no claim towards them.

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