Both Valdez twins were sat in the garden after Trianna (prime) had put Teanna Jane to bed. "I can see why you chose this place to live, it's nothing but countryside all around" said Trianna (yellow). "And it's peaceful" answered Trianna (prime). "Very" replied Trianna (yellow). "So who is she?" asked Trianna (prime). Trianna (yellow) just smiled and answered "her name is Isoisa, we met at the boxing club in town. One thing led to another and we've been seeing each other since" answered Trianna (yellow). "In the three months you been with us, you've embraced who you are and broken out of that shell" replied Trianna (prime). "Not without help from family" said Trianna (yellow).
"That's what family does" answered Trianna (prime), both twins then went inside. "Very sharp dad" commented Trianna (yellow). "Captain Dawson again Dad?" asked Trianna (prime). "Indeed, date number four" answered Valdez as he finished getting his tie straight. "As in Captain Joanna Dawson, commander of the Cairo?" asked Trianna (prime). "Indeed little one" answered Valdez as he put his jacket on. "Anna, hows things been down at the boxing club?" asked Valdez. "Very good, dad I met someone there" answered Trianna (yellow). "That's good, you've embraced who you are" advised Valdez. "Dad, I've got a girlfriend. Her name is Isoisa" replied Trianna (yellow). "You love her?" asked Valdez. "I do dad" answered Trianna (yellow). "You don't need my approval, just be who you are. I have one rule, keep out of trouble" answered Valdez. "Understood dad" replied Trianna (yellow).
Terra (MU red)
After moving Trianna (red) to the other empire for her own safety, the Brigands left Betazed to return to their reality. Once back through the wormhole, they went to the business of taking down criminal leadership. In Hong Kong, they had taken down the Triads and assisted police in arresting disloyal elements. At his morning meeting with the empress, Smith brought up the subject of ship disappearances along the frontier along with the evidence of nanoprobe weapon development by former emperor Valdez. He even gave the empress the logs of his encounter with the Borg years earlier and raised a disturbing point, the Borg were aware of the Empire's existence quoting some of the stories of whole colonies and ports being scooped out of the ground along the frontier as well as witness accounts of cube and sphere shaped ships taking down Imperial warships.
The Empress listened carefully before dismissing Smith.
Post edited by theraven2378 on
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Trianna (yellow) brought her girlfriend to meet the family, immediately Isoisa Hetal recognized Nathan Valdez and saluted him. "I'm retired, no uniform no rank" said Valdez after shaking her hand. "Sorry sir, I'm used to Starfleet regulations" answered Isoisa. "No need to apologize Miss Hetal" replied Valdez. "We fought side by side at the Battle of Iconia during the war, I was aboard the U.S.S. Kamakura" said Isoisa to Trianna (yellow). "Very few ships made it out of that disaster, Oudenarde, Kamakura and Cairo were among the survivors" chimed in Valdez. "My first battle" said Trianna (prime). "Anna, your dad saved the lives of those crews. He's a hero" said Isoisa. "He's dad to me" answered Trianna (yellow). "A good man" replied Isoisa smiling.
"This is my twin sister Trianna" said Trianna (yellow). "Honor to meet you" said Isoisa kneeling down to Trianna's (prime) level and shaking her hand. "Isoisa, a pleasure to meet you" answered Trianna (prime). "This is my brother in law, Ablim and my little niece Teanna Jane" said Trianna (yellow). "She's adorable, hold on, she's trying to run me over with her walker" replied Isoisa laughing. "She runs rings round us" answered Trianna (prime). "Could explain the extra grey hair on dad" joked Trianna (yellow). Valdez then picked up Teanna Jane to put her in her playpen. All everyone heard was an "OW!! You little menace" from Valdez as she pulled on his beard. It was followed by a "hiya" from Teanna Jane. "That hurt but I can't get mad at my own grand daughter" said Valdez afterwards as he put Teanna Jane into her playpen.
Over family dinner, Isoisa got to know her girlfriend's family. She was accepted by the Valdez family after an enlightening evening. Both Isoisa and Trianna (yellow) smiled later when they got to the barn, it was Trianna's (yellow) room she had selected when she first moved in. "I value my privacy hence why I chose to convert this barn into a home and my inner sanctum" said Trianna (yellow). "Privacy is good" said Isoisa right before she planted a kiss on Trianna (yellow). "I like where this is going" replied Trianna (yellow) afterwards as the doors were locked and the light went out. The next morning, both Trianna (yellow) and Isoisa were at breakfast, both smiling at each other and holding hands. "That was fun he he" said Trianna (yellow). "Indeed that was" answered Isoisa smiling. "Please keep that type of talk private, not something suitable with little ears around" asked Valdez politely. "Oops" chorused Trianna (yellow) and Isoisa once they realized their mistake.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
In the cold dark depths of space, a conduit opened near Ivor IV. Around the world were a squadron of Imperial warships on defense duty, what came through the conduit was a ship that put the fear of god into the Imperial crews. It was a Borg Cube and it was on it's way to Terra. The defenders of Ivor IV were overrun but not before sending out a warning as their ships were disabled and then boarded, The Borg drones then abducted the crews leaving the Imperial ships adrift. Aboard the cube, the captured crews were led to assimilation chambers along with the 1500 colonists on Ivor IV and were helpless to act as they witnessed the assimilation of the prisoners each one knowing they could be next.
After assimilating the colonists of Ivor IV and the defenders, the cube set a course for Terra. The Imperial fleet fought them all the way to Terra as the cube bore down on Sol. At Sol, the Warrior led the defense and engaged the cube. To their horror, the Imperial crews found their weapons ineffective as the Borg adapted. Aboard Warrior, her crew all knew it was time to get desperate and came up with a plan. They laced quantum and photons with Iconian viruses and fired, the cube suddenly came to a stop as door opened to reveal a sphere. The sphere then opened a temporal rift into Terra's past and entered it as the cube exploded with the Warrior and one other ships in hot pursuit into the rift. "Boss, it's Terra. Population is 9 billion, all Borg" reported Wilkinson. "They must have done it in the past, we have to go back and stop them" said Smith. "Athena, did you hear that?" asked Lwasana Pitaskli. "We did, we're the only ones in position to stop them" answered Naytna Lot. "Rift is collapsing" reported Wilkinson. "Sonic, get us through" ordered Smith. The Warrior and Athena exited the rift close behind the sphere and and both ships fired a volley of transphasic torpedoes which obliterated the sphere firing on Terra. "What's the date?" asked Smith. "April 2nd 2063" answered Wilkinson. "They're here to stop the empire from being formed, assemble away teams. Make sure to wear civilian dress of the mid 21st century" ordered Smith, "and why is it so hot?"
Ibarid and his engineering crew got to the bridge along with Mereu and her patients with reports that the Borg were overrunning decks 12,13 and 14. Immediately Smith transferred most of the crew including Mereu to Athena and told his officers to meet him in the armory. At the armory, they broke out Trianna's (red) gun collection and equipped the the rest with TR-116 rifles since particle weapons had no effect. On Terra, Lwasana and her teams checked the Phoenix and it was intact, now they had to find Doctor Zefram Cochrane and convince him to carry on with his April 4th launch. At a bar, Isoisa was at down drunk while Cochrane was dancing to some old music. "Sonic, that him?" asked Lwasana. "Took me four drinks of something called moonshine to find out it was him and I've been trying to stop him from chatting me up" answered Isoisa. "You ladies married?" asked Cochrane. "Yes, so we're out of bounds" answered Lwasana. "Shame, you two pretty ladies would make anyone jealous" replied Cochrane. "It's him" said Isoisa right before she passed out followed by a facepalm from Lwasana.
Earth (prime)
It was six weeks to go before Trianna (prime) was due. "Dad, it is normal to feel tired at this stage?" she asked. "It is, your mother was the same at that stage" answered Valdez. "Even down to the ill tempered hormonal part?" asked Trianna (prime). "Yep, let's just say if your mother did not get chocolate she was scary" answered Valdez. "Mom can't have been that scary" replied Trianna (prime). "I still twitch to this day, I was your age at the time and not prepared for this" answered Valdez. "Hi dad" said Trianna (yellow) as she sat down along with Isoisa. "Anna, how was your day?" asked Valdez. "It was great, me and Isoisa have decided to take our relationship to the next level" answered Trianna (yellow). "Congratulations" replied Valdez. "Sir, do I have permission to take your daughter's hand in marriage?" asked Isoisa. "You do" answered Valdez.
Isoisa then got a box and opened it before proposing. "Yes" answered Trianna (yellow). "Thanks dad" said Trianna (yellow) afterwards after giving him a hug. "Isoisa, welcome to the family" said Valdez. "Thanks sir" answered Isoisa shaking Valdez's hand. "A baby on the way and a wedding, this will be eventful" though Valdez with a smile. "Dad, hows things with you and Captain Dawson?" asked Trianna (prime). "We're taking our time over this" answered Valdez. "We certainly made an impression" replied Trianna (yellow). "Why do my children insist on playing matchmaker?" asked Valdez to himself. "Because you need to move on from Mom" chorused the twins. "Need lemon cakes" said Trianna (prime) as her cravings kicked in again.
Post edited by theraven2378 on
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
As Smith and his squad of volunteers moved down into the Borg occupied decks, they were all on edge. Each one of them was armed with a gunpowder firearms and several pistols of different energy types. Instructions were to move carefully, sweep then clear. On the way, they saw what the Borg had done to their crew mates as the drones just ignored them. "Interesting, they don't consider us a threat yet, everyone lower your weapons" ordered Smith. Aboard Athena, Cypher had had remotely transferred command functions of the Warrior to Athena as per her instructions as Naynta watched the footage from Warrior. Even Naynta showed some concern for Smith and his suicide squad and effectively became mission control.
Aboard Warrior, Smith's team edged carefully towards engineering carrying thalaron grenades. They were willing to try everything to save the empire. Suddenly, the drones awoke from their alcoves and moved on Smith's team. "Cypher, they're moving again" reported Smith as he sent Naynta all the data from covert scans of the drones moving on them. "Form a defensive perimeter, one shot one kill and aim for the head" ordered Smith as his suicide squad was surrounded. The drones now attacked as Smith's squad opened fire with their particle weapons dropping several drones but eventually phasers proved ineffective. "They've adapted, don't let them touch you" said T'Pamne as she dropped a drone with a disruptor. Every particle weapon that could be brought to bear was used as the drones just adapted to each energy type. "Break out the guns" ordered Smith to his team, "Naynta, we may need a pick up because we are about to be overrun" he said afterwards.
"Hold out for two minutes, we're deploying shuttles to beam you out. Decks 10 through 4 aboard Warrior have been overrun, the ship is lost" answered Naynta, "Tactical, once Smith and and his squad have been rescued, destroy the Warrior" she ordered afterwards. "Smith to Athena, this will be a long two minutes" said Smith sounding very worried, "Open fire, we do not want to become them" ordered Smith to his team as Naynta heard the sound of gunshots over the channel. Smith and his squad put up a valiant struggle being beamed out as the drones were about to grab them. "Is everyone here?" asked Smith to his squad aboard the shuttle. "We're all here" chorused his squad as they landed aboard Athena. Smith then made his way to the bridge and told Naynta "the Warrior is lost, destroy her" clearly upset his home was lost. "Fire" ordered Naynta. The Athena fired and the Warrior exploded but there was a problem, the Borg had transported dozens of drones down to Terra. "How many MACOs can we deploy to the surface, we know what their target is" asked Smith.
"The Phoenix launch site" answered Naynta. "They cannot be allowed to interfere with that launch" replied Smith. "What about our teams on the surface?" asked Naynta. "Do they have fire arms down there?" asked Smith. "Why?" asked Naynta. "Borg cannot adapt to them, with our particle weapons it was like we were firing blanks at them once they adapted" answered Smith. "Get a message down to the teams, any fire arms are to be commandeered and distributed among anyone who can fight" ordered Naynta. On Terra, Lwasana got the message and prepared her teams for combat. They were soon joined by MACOs armed with primitive assault rifles and light machine guns. The Borg drones that made it to the surface soon overran a large town near the launch site to rebuild their numbers before marching on the Phoenix launch site. On Terra, Smith took command of the ground battle and told his troops the reality of their enemy, "We are the light in the darkness, we succeed here and we save our empire, if we fail none of us will ever be born and our empire will have never existed. Those drones were once our crew mates, Imperial citizens and some were innocent civilians taken not by choice and enslaved with no escape. Every drone we kill is doing them a favor, we're many species all fighting to save our futures and our loved one so let's be the defenders of Mother Terra in her gravest hour."
It was met by cheers as the Athena crew also cheered, this would be a fight to the finish. The empire's future would be decided on the battlefield of Terra as engineering crews worked overtime in getting the Phoenix ready along with Doctor Cochrane.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Everyone took positions and formed a battle line, the Borg attack came at them through the forest as the sounds of gun fire filled the air, approaching the defenders were 1200 drones all marching slowly at the 400-500 defenders. At 1000m the defenders opened fire as hot lead filled the air dropping drone after drone but still the drones carried on into the wall of bullets as civilians were evacuated underground. Aboard Athena, Naynta Lot provided accurate information to Smith where to aim his battle line. However, unexpected help had arrived for the defenders when Terran troops from the US army and Marine Corps on training in the area landed by helicopter. "I don't know who you are but we heard reports of fighting" said Brigadier in command. "If we told you who we were, it would change the future. We're time travelers, that's all you need to know" answered Smith.
"Friend or enemy?" asked the brigadier. "Friend, you have to trust us on this. Those things marching on us intend to destroy youR way of life and freedom, we're here to stop them" answered Smith. "Well you look friendlier than those things and you are are fighting them, where do you need my men?" asked the Brigadier. "Our right needs more guns" answered Smith. "Alpha, Golf and Broavo companies, take position on the right of our allies" ordered the Brigadier to the US army troops. The Marines reinforced the left as the drones kept moving forward as bullets dropped dozens of drones. "How Doctor Cochrane doing?" asked Smith to Ibarid Pitaskli. "The Pheonix is nearly ready, just hold them off" answered Ibarid. "This will be the longest fight of my life" joked Smith afterwards. As the drones got closer, the battle line pulled back to the top of the hill keeping up a wall of lead. After 20 hour, it was over, the Terran line had held as 1200 drones lay dead in front of their lines. Terran losses were 300 dead out of the original 400-500 Imperial MACOs as well as at least 200 US dead.
"Athena here, all drones destroyed. Athena has been checked and no intruders" reported Naynta Lot. "Now let's make sure the Phoenix launches" answered Smith as he went down to see the Phoenix after saluting the US soldiers and Marines. "Brigadier, I would prefer if this becomes secret. Even though we made sacrifices, no one must know of this battle" said Smith as Naynta got rid of the Borg bodies by beaming them into the Sol star. "The people of his world will forever be in your debt, your secret is safe" said the Brigadier. "Good, there's only one way to be sure" answered Smith as the US soldiers and marines' minds were wiped of the whole battle and they went back to barracks with no memory of what happened. On April 4th, Isoisa and Ibarid took their crew positions on the Phoenix along with Cochrane as the countdown to launch started. After a slight panic, Cochrane put his music on as the Phoenix launched. "We've just passed the atmosphere" reported Isoisa. "Prepare separation couplings" ordered Cochrane. Ibarid activated the coupling separation and the nacelles deployed. "That your ship?" asked Cochrane. "That's what your engine will lead to" answered Ibarid as Cochrane ordered "engage!". The Phoenix jumped to warp one before turning around and Cochrane was awed at how beautiful Terra looked. "This engine is the future of the Terran people, we can expand our people's reach throughout the stars" said Isoisa.
Later that day a light was seen in the Terran sky as a Vulcan shuttle came down to land, they had detected the warp flight and investigated. Smith had a gift for Cochrane, he handed Cochrane a shotgun. After beaming all Imperial troops up to the Athena, the Athena broke orbit and prepared to return to the 25th century. On Terra, history played out exactly how it happened with Cochrane shooting the Vulcans and a Terran mob ransacked the Vulcan shuttle. "Naynta, lets go home" said Smith as the Athena entered the rift and arrived only to be greeted by the Los Lobos and the Terran fleet, they were given an honor guard all the way to Space dock. "The empress won't be happy, I lost my ship" said Smith. "We prevented it from falling into enemy hands, I've got your back" answered Naynta. "At least my team made it out, we were pushed to the brink of total defeat but we won in the end" replied Smith. "At what cost?" asked Naynta. "At too high a cost" answered Smith.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
"You're almost there. Less than two months to go," Naynta said.
"Thank the Prophets."
Layress lay on the examine bed in Sickbay. Naynta has just finished her monthly check up.
"Tell me, after she has them will her bust still be like this?" Thay asked
"Childbirth does tend to cause a permanent increase in size."
"Oh good."
"Your priorities amaze me sometimes Thay," Layress sighed. "Like I need them to get any bigger."
"There are options for reducing..." Naynta started.
"You come near them, I'll break your hands." Layress said perhaps a little too forcefully.
"Oh my Sounds like someone secretly enjoys her enhancements."
"You know Thay I can have you beaten."
"Promises, promises you tease."
"Before things veer into R'shee territory, you need to read this."
Naynta handed Thay a PADD.
"Bajoran Birthing Techniques?"
"Bajoran births are about creating a calm mood to relax the mother."
"No problem. I can do calm."
They just looked at her.
"What? I can."
The stares continued.
"Alright, so what if I can't?"
"Without the proper calm atmosphere, the mother can't give birth.."
"So she'll be pregnant forever?"
"Thay, I love you dearly. But I will tear off your boo.bs, beat you with them, and then ram them down your throat if that happens."
"I think I have some reading to do."
"Yes, you do."
USS Constellation
Bajor orbit prime
"And finally tell the chef I want nothing but oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the rest of the week."
"Yes Captain. Was it really that bad?"
"Hasperath should be considered a bioweapon. I've finished kegs of bloodwine, bottles of Saurian Brandy, and more things than I can count. But none of them hit me like that. I think when I'm President I'll have it outlawed."
"I don't think your fiancée would like that. Doesn't she cook that regularly for her crew?"
"She does it to keep them in line. She threatens to make them eat it if they..."
"Something wrong?"
"I... I just had a mental image of Layress wearing an apron."
"That's not so bad..."
"Just the apron."
"I see... Exactly what happened last night?"
"I think... I may have proposed to her."
"Well she is your fiancée as far as the Galaxy is concerned."
"No D, I told her... I wanted to marry her."
"..."
"I know. I run from the idea of marriage. But..."
"Sir, is it possible that you might have actual feelings for her that you've been ignoring?"
"What? No. She's always just been a friend."
"I have noticed that whenever she is in Close proximity to you act differently. When did this 'proposal' happen?"
"She had my head in her lap... Am I really attracted to her?"
"Only you know the answer to that."
"..."
"Yes?"
He hit the comm panel.
"Contact the Los Lobos. Tell the Admiral a need to speak to her."
"I'll leave you to it."
"No stay. You'll keep me honest."
The screen lit up.
"Hello. Feeling better?"
"Yes. Tell me, last night. Did I..."
"Throw up on me? Yes."
"Sorry. But what I wanted to know is..."
"Yes, you did ask me to marry you."
"I see. I don't remember your reply..."
"I didn't say no."
"So you..."
"You tried to kiss me, then threw up on me and passed out."
"Not my best night."
"We're you serious? Do you really want to marry me?"
"In the light of day...yes."
"..."
"Layress?"
"I will be over there in five minutes. When I get there... You will kiss me properly. That's an order."
He smiled.
"Yes ma'am."
After arriving at Betazed aboard the Athena, Smith was still irate about the Borg attack, "I bloody well warned them this would happen and our empire's Starfleet ignored the warnings" said Smith to Naynta (red). "Maybe when we get back to our reality, we need to have a little chat with them about this. We were on the brink of defeat due to the arrogance of Fleet command in our empire and heads need to roll about this" answered Naynta (red) in agreement. "Thousands lost and hundreds of ships destroyed not to mention colonies along that cube's path, we were lucky this time round" replied Smith letting his feeling be known about the attack. "Agreed, this must not happen again. Maybe command needs to be replaced in our reality and those responsible must be held to account" answered Naynta (red).
"Well at least the empire is saved, I've got a friend to see" replied Smith. "I've got crew to attend to, send my regards to Mereu. She's been a great help with my medical staff" answered Naynta (red). "I will do" replied Smith. Smith then paid Trianna (red) a visit along with Isoisa (red). Trianna (red) was finishing her little project when Smith knock on the door at the palace. "Boss, how bad?" asked Trianna (red). "We lost Warrior and two thirds of the crew but stopped them from wiping the empire out" answered Smith. "I heard about the attack, understandable why you're angry, the Borg dismissed as a smuggler's tale. Some even called them a myth" replied Trianna (red). "Victory at too high a cost, a Pyrrhic victory at best. One more like that and we're finished" answered Smith still annoyed about it. "One good thing came of it, my father's old empire has been kicked out of their myth of invincibility. His legacy of total war against other governments and non-imperial races destroyed by the Borg. I've just finished hammering in the final nail into the coffin of his legacy" answered Trianna (red). "How?" asked Smith. "I written a history of his crimes against sentience, I want people to question how a warlord like that was allowed power" answered Trianna (red) passing Smith her first draft of her book.
After reading the first few chapters, Smith smiled before "you are not holding back. Hell hath no fury like a daughter scorned." "That's the intention" answered Trianna (red). "I'll leave you and Isoisa to it, you two have a lot to talk about" said Smith. "When you see our empire's command, give them hell" answered Trianna (red) after saluting.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
It had begun, the Enteri'Is had been ordered into Borg controlled territory. Shade didn't look forward to this. There were to any unknowns in her opinion, assuming the Federation tech even worked.
"Activate multiphasic shields, and take us closer to the sphere." Emma kept her eyes trained on the object on her view screen- the thing was ugly on the outer hull, hopefully finding her way through the interior wouldn't be to difficult.
After beaming onboard the sphere Emma and her small team began making their way to the viriculum hoping to hack into the enemy communication network and learn their plans. Everything seemed to be fine, the crew of cyborgs wasn't reacting to their movements, the shields seemed to be working.
Vanguard station (prime)
Soreth looked up at her advisor from the report on her desk. "I want you to begin combat drills on the Borg tomorrow- and put the fleet on alert just in case. I'll discuss the situation with our 'guests'." She ordered.
She activated her communications, "Please have Mr. Drake brought to my office."
Fifteen minutes later, Franklin Drake entered the room. "I hope you and your compatriots have found the accommodations acceptable?"
"Yes, thank you High protector. Your people are quite hospitable." Drake responded, as he took a seat at the desk.
"I'm still unsure if having you all here is a security risk sir, I've no guarantee you're not involved with this assassination business. Coupled with the fact that you were smuggled in using a disguised transporter buffer."
"The deception was a necessary precaution, I'm sure you understand."
"Yes... But that's not why I've asked you here: the Empire is apparently being attacked by what you called the Borg." Soreth began.
"While I don't wish assimilation on anyone, they're our enemy... What's your concern?"
"I've read the reports provided by the Federation on them; including Voyagers encounters. I think they may have entered the mirror universe at Hobus sometime after its destruction in this reality the debris match your quantum signature. We barely survived that encounter, the RDW Kalamos entered warp and detonated its singularity core inside the cube."
"The Borg have been seen to operate like an insect colony, my question and concern is the following- aside from the Empire reverse engineering their technology... What happens when the Bog in the Mirror universe (if these are from the mirror universe) become are of and contact the Borg in this universe? Do the two hives fight each other, or do they merge and become a super colony?"
Why do I still play and put money into STO?
The Foundry, and my love of Star Trek
Smith was finishing up his report along with Naynta (red) on the Borg attack for their meeting with the empress. "There are elements who are interested in reverse engineering Borg technology" said Naynta. "I would not go near that technology even with a ten foot barge pole" answered Smith. "Ten foot barge pole?" asked Naynta as she refilled both their coffees. "It's a figure of speech Naynta" answered Smith. "Our weapons were useless against that cube, at first we were damaging it then suddenly it's like we're firing blanks" replied Naynta. "They adapt, that what makes them frightening" answered Smith. "So instead of a high tech solution you chose a low tech solution using firearms instead when engaging drones once your particle weapons were made useless" replied Naynta.
"No frequency, no adaptation" answered Smith. "Indeed" replied Naynta. "The empress has assured me that command will take the Borg threat seriously instead of dismissing it as myth" answered Smith. "If command will not listen to reason, then they need to be removed and replaced with more competent leadership at Starfleet command in our reality" replied Naynta putting together the scan logs. "I've got my logs of my first encounter with them as well as the other stories from the fringes of the empire. This may be the beginning, they know about us and they'll be back. Our empire has been given a very bloody nose and I hope and pray that we're prepared the next time" answered Smith. "And I thought the Dominion was dangerous" sighed Naynta. "They were nothing compared to the Borg" answered Smith.
Borg controlled space, Alpha quadrant (MU red)
The Shadows after downloading the viriculum made a hasty retreat and beamed back to the Enteri'ls before jumping to warp. For now, they were on high alert as they made their way back to Imperial space. What they found was enough to send shivers down Shade's spine, the Borg had a transwarp corridor all the way to the Delta Quadrant with a transwarp hub on the other end. From now on the empire would not sleep easy knowing the enemy were at their gates.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Both Smith and Nayta (red) was escorted to the empress after surrendering their weapons. "Ma'am" chorused both officers to Thay. "Mr Smith, Naynta, good job" said Thay smiling. "A Pyrrhic victory at best ma'am, we got lucky" answered Smith. "We had to destroy one of our own ships when it was clear there was no recovering it" added Naynta. "The empress read the report, she agrees with that assessment. The Borg are a threat to all life" answered Thay. "If the other empire Starfleet command did not have their heads up their proverbial backsides and listened to the warnings, this would not have happened" replied Smith with brutal honesty.
"When they did get the warning, we were already under attack and they did not even bother informing the empress due to their arrogance citing the Borg as being an old smuggler's tale and myth" added Naynta. "The Borg have to be taken seriously, this was something that should not have happened and those idiots in the other empire's Starfleet command need to be replaced with officers who can actually do their jobs" said Smith. "Too many loyal crews lost, thousands of collateral casualties and we were nearly erased from history. Those in command over in the other empire must be held to account" added Naynta. "I lost my ship and two thirds of my crew because of those idiots, I saw what the Borg did to them and I'm damn angry about it" said Smith.
"The empress will get a brutally honest assessment, every bit of information on the Borg we've got as well as our scans of the drones and our logs are in this case" added Naynta. "The enemy are at our gates, we cannot deny they exist now" said Smith. "That cube just shrugged off everything we fired at it like we were firing blanks, we had to infect the cube with viral laced torpedoes just to stop it" added Naynta. "The drones have a shield that adapts to particle weapons so we decided on good old fashioned firearms and they are most effective" said Smith. "My sister and her gun collection, I'll have to thank her when I see her next" added Nanyta. "The Borg personal shield cannot stop bullets so we'll have to come up with new armor piercing ammunition for maximum effect on them" said Smith. "A low tech solution?" asked Thay. "Indeed, simple and it works" answered Thay. "They were dropping those drones quickly" replied Naynta. "Thanks for being my eyes in the sky" said Smith. "Your ground troops performed very well but they took heavy losses and carried on fighting because their survival depended on it, great speech by the way. I recorded it" replied Naynta smiling.
"I'll take you both to the empress. The empire owes you both a great debt for your quick thinking and actions" said Thay. "It's the troops who deserve the credit, their sacrifices must be honored" countered Smith. "We only led them, they did the rest" added Nanyta. "This should be an interesting meeting, in the wake of this tragedy the empress has something you both need to hear" said Thay.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Smith and Naynta (red) were led to the a room with a screen. "This is how the meeting will be conducted, more secure" said Thay. Both Smith and Naynta took their seats and opened their cases and prepared their evidence. Heath's face appeared and the screen and the meeting had started. "General, Admiral. In wake of the Borg invasion, I've asked you both for your assessments of their attack, you both faced them and survived" said Heath reading through their reports and evidence after it was transmitted to her. "It was a close run thing with respect ma'am. When they traveled back, we were the only two who's ships followed them. You should be seeing our view now of Terra as we passed through the temporal tunnel" said Smith. "We've also sent you our readings as well" added Naynta.
"They pulled a similar move on the Federation in 2373 by attempting to stop first contact. They were followed by the Enterprise E and her crew" said Heath. "It's a damn insidious move, why attack your enemy in the present when you can attack them in the past" answered Smith. "How bad was it for the Enterprise crew?" asked Naynta. "Most of the ship assimilated with the crew fighting back desperately, the Borg were led by a queen. Luckily, the fighting was contained on the ship and Captain Picard and Lt Cmdr Data managed to destroy the queen killing the other drones on the ship, history carried on as normal" answered Heath. "Like an ant colony, you have the drones which are your worker ants with others acting as soldiers to protect the hive with a queen at the heart of the hive using pheromones to control the hive" replied Smith. "It's exactly that, but instead of pheromones, the Borg queen controls the hive via subspace sent by neural signals. There two main types of drones, medical and tactical. Both are equally dangerous, the queen does not reveal herself directly unless her presence is required" answered Heath.
"Our particle weapons were next to useless on the drones, their personal shields adapt to particle weapons very quickly. You can drop a few but then it's like you're firing blanks" replied Smith. "What we did find effective were firearms, no particle frequency means no adaptation. Kinetic energy seems to be their weakness" said Naynta transmitting the footage of Smith's attempt to retake the Warrior and the ground battle on Terra. "The Federation never considered firearms, hence their high losses to the Borg. You two may be onto something here so I'm building a anti-Borg task force to work with our allies against the Borg. Naynta, you will command the space elements and General, you're in charge of the ground units. Since the Warrior was destroyed, I'm releasing the captured U.S.S. Lexington to you. I've also authorized the design and construction of Kinetic Impact ships for use on Borg ships, they will ram the ships at warp in swarms, rather than waste crews in manning these ships, a remote control system will be employed. This information will be shared with our allies even the Federation Alliance. I'll send a message to the Federation to tell them to expect a visitor. That visitor is you General, one ship only will go through and your job is to speak with the Federation government about how to deal with the Borg" said Heath.
"What's to be done about those idiots in the other Imperial Starfleet Command? Their arrogance caused this near disaster when they had the warnings of something like this happening" asked Naynta. "They dismissed the Borg as a frontier myth, my first meeting with the Borg was on a smuggling run, me and my crew at the time had to hide in the cargo bay with bio dampners and play dead in a debris field. We hid for 12 hours and once that cube moved out of the area we were not going to hang around to find out if they had seen us so we left in the opposite direction. We also found colonies with all settlements seemingly just scooped up out of the ground as well. That was five years ago" added Smith. "General Smith did try and warn them using his logs but no one listened" said Naynta. "They had their heads up their proverbial backsides in denial" added Smith. "They need replacing with officers who can listen and do their jobs, the idiots in charge in the other Imperial Starfleet Command must be held accountable for the loss of several colonies, hundreds of ships and thousands of lives. They're incompetent bigots who care only for their personal advancements rather than the people of the empire" said Naynta.
"I will take that under advisement" answered Heath. "I lost my ship and two thirds of my crew because of them, the Admiral lost a third of her crew. Mission parameters call 10% an acceptable loss rate, we both lost more than that and that is unacceptable" replied Smith. "Admiral Barclay did the best she could but it was a near impossible situation given that she fought that cube all the way from the Typhon Sector to Terra, we had to infect that cube with a virus just to stop it" added Naynta. "Thay, you agree on their assessment?" asked Heath. "100%, I will see that the other Imperial Starfleet Command is changed, I want Barclay in charge of the other Imperial Starfleet" answered Thay. "Thank you for your brutal honesty both of you, General, the Lexington will arrive in two hours with your crew. Until then, you will work with Admiral Lot aboard the Athena. Send this to Betazed, since Colonel Bray is not cleared for field operations she will remain on Betazed but I have a job for her. She's to design a remote control programme and a virus to disrupt the collective. In the Federation, she has two counterparts, if you have to ask them to help do so. They are experts in the field of computer warfare and remote control systems" said Heath. "Gods help the Borg, three Triannas should have an interesting invention or few. My sister will have work via subspace though" answered Naynta. "Admiral Valdez is a good man, I'd like to hear his assessment on our anti-Borg ideas" said Smith. "He's retired now but I trust him and you worked under him during the Dominion War so if you can get in contact with him about asking his daughters for help do so, I'll ask my counterpart if she can arrange a meeting with him and his daughters for you" answered Heath. "Thank you Ma'am" said Smith. "Dismissed, may the Prophets guide your way" said Heath. Both Smith and Naynta left the room and retrieved their weapons before beaming back to Athena.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The Lexington arrived and General Smith took a look at the ship noting the new paint scheme, it has yellow markings on the edges of the saucer with a red inner design around the bridge going down to the deflector, Smith smiled when he saw a Jolly Roger with Imperial dagger painted onto the upper saucer. After beaming aboard, he was met by his crew. Since Trianna (red) was on maternity, Lwasana Pitaskli was his acting first officer. On the bridge, Smith took his seat with the rest of the crew at their usual posts, Mereu Smith had decided to remain on Betazed as midwife for Trianna (red). What really impressed Smith was that his new enlisted and junior officers were all volunteers from both empires, they all understood the job was high risk before they had signed up, Smith then left the bridge to inspect the ship and speak to his crew.
In the mess hall, Smith noticed the unit flag. It had been recovered from the debris of the Warrior and remounted on the wall of the mess hall. Smith smiled as he continued his inspection, in engineering reinforced bulkhead doors had been installed as well as hidden sentry guns in the ceilings of the corridors to defend against any intruders, they were armed with 50 cal bullets. In sickbay, Tommen Paris was acting medical officer. Smith noted the new medical equipment as he spoke to his medical staff. Once his inspection was finished, he was given a message from the empress giving him permission to rename the ship. Smith had the ship renamed to I.S.S. Denorios after the Battle of the Denorios during the war. Meanwhile on the bridge, Lwasana gave the order to follow the Athena to the wormhole after the ship name and registry number of ICC-81603 was repainted in place of the original name and number.
The Denorios and and Athena entered the wormhole and re-entered their empire. The ships then parted ways as the Athena went to Terra and the Denorios went to the border. After arriving at the Badlands 18 hours after leaving the other empire's Betazed, Smith sent a signal to TF-113 and waited.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
"You picked a bad day to call," Admiral Heath said, looking at the screen in her office. "The Empress wishes to speak with you." "I'm sure she does. Alright put her through." The image on the screen changed. "And what can I do for you today?" "The Borg attacked us." "How bad?" "It was the first contact invasion all over again." "I see." "They didn't believe in the stories about them. They do now." "So why the call?" "We expect them to return at some point. We want to have an information exchange. We'd like everything you have on them, including talking with Admiral Janeway. In exchange we'll give you all our data, plus our design for our Anti-Borg ships." "Your version of the Defiant class?" "No, these ships inflict pure kinetic damage." "I see. And your giving us these designs why?" "The Borg is everyone's problem. They are a threat to all live." She smiled. "Nice to see I'm still me." "Somethings will never change. So the ship at the border has all the information. Will you let it through?" "Like I told him, this is a bad time." "Why?" "It's election day. For the next thirty six hours everyone is voting for the new president." "I see. Escorting us through would be bad." "But seeing how it's about the Borg, I'm very certain that they'll come out here to talk." "Thank you." "Your welcome, Empress." "The pleasure is all mine, soon to be first lady of the Federation."
General Smith came aboard by Federation shuttle with a small team given the political situation. "Admiral Heath, my name is General Dexter Smith. We have a mutual enemy" said Smith after saluting Heath as an ally. "The Borg, I heard" answered Heath. "I'm providing all imperial logs of all encounters with them including the last invasion, we will also provide the specifications for a Kinetic Impact ship in exchange for Federation data on the collective. Speaking to Admiral Janeway and Seven of Nine would help us immensely" replied Smith giving Heath the Imperial data. "General, how bad was it?" asked R'Shee. "Cmdr, a bloody close run thing. We went low tech and grabbed any firearm we could find, bullets work very well" answered Smith. "Firearms, they're barbaric" replied R'Shee.
"They do the job, just aim for the head because when your fancy advanced particle weapons cease being effective you are in trouble, with respect Cmdr" answered Smith. "These impact ships, how will they operated?" asked Heath. "Remote control which brings me to my next point, I may require the help of a Trianna Valdez. From what I understand, her technical skills are vital to us in creating a remote control programme that is secure, robust and accurate on the guidance, in fact all three Triannas working together, one via subspace would be more helpful" answered Smith. "She's retired, I don't think she'll be best pleased having that disturbed" replied Heath. "I fought alongside her father during the Dominion War, the empress trusts him. I've been authorized to enlist the help of his daughters if required to, it's nothing dangerous" answered Smith. Meanwhile R'Shee was reading the Imperial logs and was shocked at the level of denial before the invasion. "The General may need to speak with Admiral Riker, he was Captain Picard's first officer when first contact happened with the Borg in 2365" she said afterwards.
"How bad did it go?" asked Smith noting all this down. "18 crew missing and a very narrow escape for the Enterprise D, we should provide the General with the logs of Wolf 359 and Sector 001 as well" suggested R'Shee. "Thank you, any co-operation will be good for both our governments on this matter" said Smith. The meeting lasted for three hours before Smith returned to his ship armed with the new intel. He had 36 hours to work it all out with his officers then the I.S.S. Denorios would be escorted to Earth. Aboard Los Lobos, Heath had 36 hours to study the Kinetic Impact ship designs.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The Valdez family were sat at home awaiting the results of the election. For Trianna (yellow) it was a new experience voting and she was smiling. Then the results came through, Captain Micheal Ford had been elected President by landslide victory. "Dad, does that mean, Captain Ford has to step down from Starfleet by law?" asked Trianna (yellow). "Since he's now leader of the Federation, one would presume so" answered Valdez. "Captain Dawson, you and dad understand each other clearly" said Trianna (prime). "Call me Joanna, captain is only for my crew and Starfleet. No uniform, no rank Trianna" answered Dawson. "I'm used to Starfleet regulations, still not used to being a civilian" answered Trianna (prime) before she called Ablim over, "He's moving again." Ablim put his hand on Trianna's (prime) stomach and smiled with joy right up to when the baby kicked, "right you little menace, less of that kicking" he said afterwards laughing.
A call then came through from Admiral Heath. "Have I caught you at a bad time Nathan?" asked Heath. "No not at all Layress" answered Valdez. "There's an Imperial officer who wishes to meet with you somewhere secure when he gets to Earth. He claims to have fought alongside you during the Dominion War" replied Heath. "Name?" asked Valdez. "A Dexter Smith" answered Heath. "I know him, I worked alongside his unit during the war, complete lunatic and totally unorthodox but in a good way" replied Valdez. "Well, he requested politely the technical assistance of both your daughters. The request comes from the empress" answered Heath. "I'll speak with him face to face here at home, rules are only one aide" replied Valdez. "Nathan, thanks. We'll be at Earth in 12 hours" answered Heath. "Layress, congratulations on the big promotion to First Lady of the Federation" said Valdez. "Thank you Nathan, Heath out" replied Heath and the screen went blank.
"Joanna, Admiral Heath was my commanding officer and she's godmother to Teanna Jane" said Trianna (prime). "Trianna, I've heard about your work on cyber-warfare, very impressive work" said Dawson smiling, she then asked "Nathan, Dominion War?" "The Terran Empire was invaded by the Dominion, Leeta was with them hence why the Federation and her allies put aside centuries of mistrust to aid them, not all of them are bad people, some of them are quite reasonable and decent people" answered Valdez. "Always the knight, a man of honor and integrity given what happened to this family" replied Dawson. "It made us stronger" said Trianna (prime). "Dad's a good man and excellent teacher, he's been tutoring me in ethics and morals. My father was his counterpart, he was a murderous warlord held my adoptive sister hostage after forcing her to watch the murders of her mother and crew mates. When my mother died after taking a shot aimed at the empress, I chose to take dad's offer of a fresh start, he encouraged me to find who I really am and be my own person" said Trianna (yellow). "Nathan Valdez, charitable and kind. That's why I fell in love with him, Anna follow his example" said Dawson. Isoisa just smiled as Teanna Jane threw a stuffed toy at her grand father. "Looks like I'm needed" said Valdez as he picked up Teanna Jane.
"She tired, bed time for my little one" said Trianna (prime). Ablim then picked Teanna Jane up and took her to her cot before coming back into the room. "Nathan, I'm on duty in 10 minutes, hopefully the Cairo is intact after those engineers have finished" said Dawson. "She then gave Valdez a kiss then beamed up to her ship. "Dad, it's official, you and Joanna are a couple" joked the twins. "Very funny girls" answered Valdez. "Anna, human or Betazoid wedding?" asked Isoisa. "Human I think, I draw the line at being in my birthday suit at my wedding" answered Trianna (yellow). "Too old fashioned" replied Isoisa. "Indeed" answered Trianna (yellow). "My parents wanted me to marry someone respectable and they did not approve of us. Both of them are in prison for armed robbery and several counts of first degree murder" replied Isoisa. "Welcome to the having bad fathers club Iso" answered Trianna (yellow).
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"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
"Eta to Earth" asked General Smith. "Entering Sol now General" answered Ensign Tucker. "Excellent, they're trusting us so we'll have to trust them" replied Smith. "Message from Los Lobos boss, we cleared for standard orbit around Earth. You're to beam down to Starfleet headquarters with one aide only" reported Wilkinson. "Mario, you're with me. Lwasana, keep things running smoothly while I'm gone" said Smith. "Just like the old days on the Bounty" joked Lwasana Pitaskli. Smith and Petrofski left the bridge and beamed down to Starfleet Command, they were met by Admiral Heath and Admiral Riker. "General" said Riker. "Admirals, this is my data analysis officer, Lt Petrofski" answered Smith. "Admiral Heath told me about what happened and how your command dismissed the Borg as a myth" replied Riker. "The Borg are a threat to all life, we have a mutual enemy Admiral" answered Smith.
"The General here led a creative defense when the Borg traveled into the Empire's past to wipe them out, his solution was low tech to say the least" said Heath. "Firearms" added Smith. "Very low tech" answered Riker. "But very effective, we're developing new weapons and tactics to deal with the Borg. Our particle weapons were next to useless, we had to infect the cube with a virus just to destroy it after several colonies, hundreds of ships and thousands of casualties. When we followed them into the past, they boarded my ship and assimilated two-thirds of my crew, I had to evacuate the rest to the only other Imperial ship that came with us before I took a small team armed with every weapon we could carry, it was futile so we had to abandon my ship and order it's destruction to prevent it from falling into enemy hands" replied Smith. "I was on the Enterprise at System J-25 when the Federation made first contact with the collective, 18 crew were lost. I was made Captain of the Enterprise when they took Captain Picard and used his knowledge to wipe out 39 Federation ships at Wolf 359 out of a fleet of 40. We had to be creative to stop that cube" answered Riker.
"How?" asked Smith. "We rescued Captain Picard and used his connection to put the Borg to sleep, the cube blew up shortly afterwards" answered Riker. "We observed rapid regeneration on the surface of the cube that attacked the Empire, we fought a running battle at the cost of too many ships and lives" replied Smith. "The Borg ability to adapt and repair makes them very dangerous, we calculated that a cube can still be operational even if 78% of it is destroyed making it very resilient. At Sector 001, Captain Picard used his knowledge of the Borg to find a weak point in the cube leading to it's destruction" answered Riker. "The empress told me about the first contact invasion in your universe, it's insidious to say the least" replied Smith. "Very, in all my years in Starfleet, I've never met a more ruthless opponent than the Borg. Your government will get our data files on the Borg, your logs were very thorough even down your encounter five years ago" answered Riker. "Can we get General Smith a meeting with Admiral Janeway and Seven of Nine?" asked Heath. "I'll schedule it for today. General, I hear you want a meeting with Admiral (ret) Valdez about asking his daughters for their technical assistance" said Riker. "It's for this, Kinetic Impact ships, remote controlled to ram Borg vessels at warp speeds. Admiral Valdez's daughters are experts in their field of computer warfare and remote control systems, they're collective expertise will be helpful, their counterpart will be working with them via subspace. It's nothing dangerous" answered Smith. "After your meeting with Starfleet Command and our new president" replied Riker. "Thank you Admiral, we're better as allies than enemies" answered Smith.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Naynta Lot walked in with her guards and had the doors locked. "All of you are guilty of negligence and failure, those officers who did the best they could given a near impossible situation will be demoted and given a chance to regain your ranks, those who are arrogant and incompetent, well the empress has plans for you. You will stripped of your commissions and reassigned to ship repair, before that however, you will make a statement on INN detailing your failures to the people. You put them at risk" she said to Starfleet Command. "Why should we listen to tiny Betazoid piece of trash? We're Terran, we're above all other species even that Bajoran usurper" asked Admiral Riker.
"That's the kind of attitude that led to this crisis, you all had the warnings and none of you listened. We were nearly wiped out" answered Naynta noting down Riker's name. "Those 'warnings' were from a former criminal covering up his own past. He was panic mongering" answered Admiral Nogata. "General Smith's character is not at question. He tried to warn you and you called the Borg a myth, it's the decision of the empress that this command will be reformed with officers from different species who can do their jobs and work for the people of the empire. The old guard will be removed and younger more talented officers put in your place" replied Naynta.
"This is an outrage, what gives alien filth the right to remove us, you're killing our political power" demanded Riker. "You failed the empire, now face the consequences" answered Naynta. The admirals were led out to face INN cameras and reporters.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
"Have you ever met a Borg and spoken to them?" asked Heath. "Can't say I have, the only Borg I've met tried to wipe out the empire" answered Smith. "You'll find this Borg to be very enlightening, be to the point and listen to what she has to say" advised Heath. "Noted, given the recent crisis, hearing things from a Borg point of view will be most helpful" replied Smith. "Indeed, Admiral Janeway was commander of U.S.S. Voyager during their trip through the Delta Quadrant, she's an expert on the Borg given the amount of damage she caused the collective when she met them, the Admiral is always on point" answered Heath. "Thanks for the heads up" replied Smith as both officers entered Admiral Janeway's office.
"Admiral, Miss Hanson" said Smith. "The name of Annika Hanson died when I was assimilated, my designation is Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01. But you may call me Seven of Nine" answered Seven. "My apologies, I did not mean to cause offense, is Seven acceptable?" replied Smith. "Seven will do General Dexter Smith" answered Seven. "Admiral Janeway, your logs of your encounters with the Borg have been very enlightening. The Borg are everyone's problem, they recently tried a first contact invasion of the empire. The empire was lucky this time, the empire has been looking at new methods of defending themselves since the attack" said Smith handing Janeway his logs of the Borg and the Kinetic Impact designs. "Seven, how effective would these measures be?" asked Janeway. "Efficient, the Borg will eventually adapt to these measures. General, in your report, you think you've found the Collective's weakness. Most races try to fight back by improving technology, you used technology that is obsolete by Borg standards" answered Seven. "Since the drones can deal with particle weapons by adaptation, we found firearms and bullets were effective every time. We're developing new ammunition types with increased armor piercing capability which explode inside the target, the Impact ships will ram Borg ships at warp in swarms. What we are also looking at is a guidance system to pilot them by remote control" replied Smith.
"Ramming Borg ships has proven effective, the Borg assimilate cultures on their technology and distinctiveness. They also control large sections of the Delta Quadrant. There is resistance to them with the Borg cooperative" said Seven. "Cooperative?" asked Smith. "Drone separated from the hive mind and liberated, Seven was liberated from the collective in 2374" answered Janeway. "Interesting, there are ways to save people assimilated by the Borg" thought Smith noting this down. "Any other species stood up to the collective and proved impossible to assimilate?" asked Smith. "Species 8472, they caused the collective a great deal of damage. They are hostile to anyone who trespasses in their realm as the collective discovered when they started a war with them" answered Seven. "So they are off the table" thought Smith noting it down. "Any way of attacking the collective with something like a computer virus to disrupt the collective?" asked Smith. "A neurolytic pathogen, something to bring chaos to order works" answered Janeway. "I know someone who understands computer viruses, which brings me to my next point. I need the help of Admiral Valdez's daughters to help us create a remote control program for our Impact ship designs as well as a neurolytic pathogen to infect the collective with, they'll be asked to work with their counterpart who will be on subspace from the empire. It's nothing dangerous for them" replied Smith.
"You have permission to visit them and ask them, Admiral Heath will go with you" said Janeway. "Thank you Admiral, thank you Seven for your advice on this matter" said Smith.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Heath's shuttle landed in a field outside the Valdez farm. "Word of warning, Trianna does not like the empire. Watch what you say around her, be polite and she'll be polite to you" advised Heath. "You know her?" asked Smith. "I was her commanding officer, certain subjects are considered taboo to her so don't go there" replied Heath. "Noted" answered Smith. "Come on" replied Heath and both officers knocked on the door to the main house. It was answered by Trianna (yellow). "Dad, Admiral Heath is at the door with a Terran officer" shouted Trianna (yellow). "Layress, this must be Captain Smith" said Valdez. "It's General these days sir" answered Smith. "Ah, so they had sense to promote you. Layress, this man led a suicidal mission to rescue innocents from genocide. He earned my trust and respect" said Valdez. "Sir, I've been asked to request the help of your daughters in some programming work for the empire, the Borg tried to wipe us out" replied Smith.
That got Valdez's attention straight away, "come on in. Let's just say we have a mutual loathing of the Borg" he said afterwards. Smith and Heath entered the lounge only for Smith to do a double take when he saw the Valdez twins. "You look like you've seen a ghost" said Ablim to Smith. "I knew your counterpart, he saved my life on more than one occasion and was a good friend" answered Smith. "You're telling the truth" replied Ablim. Both Valdez twins just looked at Smith. "Something spooked him, why else would he be here asking for our help" said Trianna (yellow) to her twin. "I know your counterpart, she's like a little sister to me. You were both asked for by name by the empress" replied Smith. "What's the job?" asked Trianna (yellow). "Something that hurts the Borg?" asked Trianna (prime). "You could say that Miss Valdez, what kind of programme could three of you come up with for guiding an Impact ship at warp?" replied Smith. "And the other part?" asked Trianna (prime). "A computer virus that could disrupt the Borg hive mind" answered Smith.
"Since it's the Borg, we'll help you on two condition. Certain subjects are no go zones and two, don't call me a Spitfire again" replied Trianna (prime). "Deal" answered Smith. "How will our counterpart be working with us?" asked Trianna (yellow). "Secure subspace, she's not cleared for field duty" answered Smith. "Good to see you're looking out for her safety, if anything happens to her, I'll hold you responsible" replied Trianna (prime). "Fair enough, how do I tell the difference between you two voice wise?" asked Smith. "I go by Anna and my sister goes by Trianna" answered Trianna (yellow). "Let's have a look at your designs and get our counterpart onscreen" said Trianna (prime). Smith put the call through to the empire over a secure channel and Trianna (red) appeared onscreen. "Boss, leave the designs with us for a couple of days. We'll have something for the empress that is secure, robust and accurate, a collective disrupting virus may take a bit longer. How is the fact finding going?" said Trianna (red). "Very enlightening, let's just say the empress will get a very detailed report when I get back. How's Admiral Lot doing at Terra with those idiots?" replied Smith.
"She shamed them on INN and had them all replaced, it was amusing to say the least" answered Trianna (red). "They reaped what they sowed, they deserve the humiliation" replied Smith. "New instructions from the empress, you are to stay on the ship until the programme and virus are ready. Once they are done, you will be escorted back to the border and will be sent new instructions" said Trianna (red). "Understood number one" replied Smith. Smith beamed back to the Denorios as the three Triannas started work, they were finished four days later and the programme sent to Smith. The Denorios were then escorted back to the Terran border crossing it 36 hours after leaving Sol. In Imperial Space, the Denorio was then sent to meet up with the Los Lobos-A at a undisclosed location in the Terran Empire (yellow).
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
In the Valdez twins' lab, they got to work as all three Triannas started passing ideas on a remote control programme. "Ladies, first problem. How do we link up to a command vessel where the pilot will be?" asked Trianna (red) via the screen. "A drone type guidance system but we upscale it" answered Trianna (prime). "Keep it simple" added Trianna (yellow). "Nice, the simple approach works but we need it secure and robust" replied Trianna (red). "I may have an idea on that, a low level Iconian virus just enough to infect any unauthorized computer that tries getting in" answered Trianna (prime). "That works, I was once tasked with breaking your security programme and it beat me, nice work by the way" replied Trianna (yellow).
"My best work" answered Trianna (prime). "We all agreed on that?" asked Trianna (red). "Totally chorused the Valdez twins. Within 12 hours, they had a prototype ready for testing. "I'll ask Admiral Heath if she's got any damaged shuttles we can test this programme with, I'm sure Aunlel has written off some more by now" said Trianna (prime). Admiral Heath released four shuttles for use in the tests. "Crash test dummy one ready to launch" said Trianna (prime) as she took control of the shuttle and rammed it at warp into one of Saturn's moons by remote control. "We need to boost signal for longer ranges, ready crash test dummy two" suggested Trianna (yellow). This time they remotely rammed it into an abandoned freighter at warp on a Starfleet firing range near Neptune. The freighter was obliterated. Tests three and four produced the same results with the system performing well. The three Triannas sent their results to Admiral Heath with the optimum distance and warp speed for ramming attacks. They now upscaled the test to an old freighter and it tore apart an abandoned space station on the outskirts of Sol at warp six.
Admiral Heath looked at the programme and results before smiling. Trianna (red) had already sent the data to the empress. With the guidance and remote piloting systems done, they now worked on a virus. What the three Triannas created was a virus that countered and adapted only to Borg systems working on the data Trianna (red) sent to her counterparts. After 16 hours of testing and tweaking, the programme was put onto a secure data chip and the remote control put on another chip. After giving Admiral Heath a copy of both creations, they passed the programmes onto General Smith up in orbit.
Undisclosed location (MU yellow) two days later. General Smith boarded the Los Lobos and was very through in his debriefing. His fact finding trip had worked out very well and he gave the empress the creations the three Triannas had designed and worked on. The anti-Borg task force was now renamed Battle Group Omega, it comprised ships, soldiers and scientists from the empire, the Ask'Kaar as well as other allied governments. They would be based at Imperium Planetia in orbit of Mar in the red empire. They were joined by ships, soldiers and scientists from the yellow empire. The personnel were all trained in firearms in case of being boarded by the Borg as production impact ships commenced in both empires.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
At the first meeting of the Battle Group Omega leadership, representatives from each government took their seats. Having given Isoisa permission to remain in the other empire with Trianna (red) and Mereu, Smith could feel a bit better. One the station itself, the BG Omega leadership all sat around a long table with a holographic display built into it. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have all been asked here to combat a new threat to our governments. Imperial, Ask'Kaar and Romulans all working as allies against this new species" said Smith. Naynta then activated the display and briefed Omega's commanders as a holographic drone appeared as well as displays of known Borg ships. "They call themselves the Borg. During their invasion they have displayed an incredible ability for analysis and adaptation, at first our weapon did damage but after the Borg adapted our weapons were useless. Brute force is not the answer hence why we've also asked scientists here. General Smith has faced their drones and may have found a weakness" said Naynta after taking her seat at the head of the table.
"Their shields adapt to particle energy, what we found effective was kinetic energy. Things like bullets work very well. Each drone is part of their hive mind with a queen in overall control. While they may be slow, they are stronger and tougher and very dangerous. They don't kill, they assimilate other species into their collective as you shall see" said Smith bringing up the visual logs of his battle with the Borg. "Those were once some of my crew, recently I made a visit to the Federation to find out as much information about the Borg and you are all now receiving that data, read it carefully. Their ships have that same adaptive shields as the drones so here's how we counter them" added Smith. "What you are looking at are Kinetic Impact ships that will ram into Borg ships at warp, they are unmanned and piloted by remote control. The Borg will eventually adapt to this so we have to keep ahead of them" said Naynta.
"Who designed this remote control programme?" asked Commander Pelagia. "Three versions of a Trianna Valdez, part of the general's mission was to enlist their help in creating this, they've also come up with a virus that targets Borg only. This virus is designed to target the hive itself and disrupt the collective" answered Naynta. "How do we infect the collective?" asked Admiral Tohel. "By getting them to assimilate it, we infect a criminal whose on a death sentence and put them in a shuttle before sending that shuttle into Borg territory, it's technology should get the Hive's attention. Once they assimilate the subject, it spreads the virus" answered Naynta. "This virus brings chaos to their ordered hive, the more drones we infect, the more chaos we cause among them. The empress has also authorized General Order 24 on worlds being assimilated, if we cannot save the planet it is to be exterminated from orbit to deny the hive drones and resources. The Borg are ruthless so we must be too when dealing with them" added Smith.
"The Borg cannot be reasoned with, all we are to them are more drones and resources for their march of conquest across this galaxy" said Naynta. "There is a way of separating drones from the hive mind, On Earth I spoke to a liberated Borg and it was very enlightening. Victims of assimilation can be saved but it's highly dangerous but we'll keep it as an option for lone drones. In large numbers forget it, the best we can do for them is liberate them by death from their horrific existence" added Smith. "My people have met the Borg before, we were lucky. My government has allowed our logs to be made available to our allies" said Pelagia. "We cannot allow them to get a foothold in our part of the galaxy, our priorities are the destruction of any transwarp apertures that are detected" replied Smith. "We can collapse them by detonating quantum singularity devices the mouth of the apertures. Cloaked ships are watching them as we speak so we'll get some early warning if the Borg come through" answered Tohel. "Priorities are the construction of these impact ships, all Omega personnel are to be trained on the use of firearms just in case our ships are boarded. These firearms will be issued with armor piercing ammunition fed from a micro replicator in the bottom of the magazine. Everyone will have several of these magazines as well as this, it's a Colt model 1911. Semi automatic with a armor piercing 45 caliber round. Each magazine holds 15 rounds, automatic and semi-automatic rifles with 20 round and 40 rounds magazines will also be issued. Training will begin this afternoon" said Smith.
Naynta called an end to the meeting and everyone got to their tasks.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
"The project seems to be off to a good start," Thay commented. "Yes," Layress agreed. "Although the Romulan Praetor did make the suggestion of replacing the warp core with one of their forced singularity ones." "Why?" "Upon failure ours explode, theirs implode." "Causing further damage by having it collapse in on itself." "And limiting the scattering of Borg debris throughout our space." "Sounds like a good modification to the design." "It is. Although the Klingon Chancellor finds the idea of remote control ships 'cowardly'. He has lists of those he would 'give the chance to redeem themselves and earn their place in Sto-Vo-Kor by dying a warriors death'. They want the design altered to include pilot controls." "They would." " Although I can't fault their logic. A manual override in case of being comprised could be a good thing." "That control system and virus of there's is supposed to be unbeatable." "I don't believe in the word unbeatable. Or invulnerable, impregnable or any like that. There is always a way around everything." "You my lovely Empress, are proof of that. You shouldn't have been able to survive but you did. But still, they do love their Iconian viruses don't they?" "I'm not happy with the Borg coming in contact with Iconian technology." "It's the best way." "All it takes is one Borg from some speices that has some genetic resistance to it and they adapt to it. Then they investigate and go looking for things with similar energy signatures..." "And we can't destroy the network. We did in Andromeda... There's nothing alive there now... By the way, Lt Commander Wheeler says that the Beta site is ready now, with the same precautions as the Alpha. What does that mean?" Layress smiled. "Two things they taught us in my engineering classes. Never make something you can't turn off and in case you do, always have a backup plan."
USS Constellation Earth orbit prime
"Hello, I'm speaking to you from the ready room of the USS Constellation. With me is the new president-elect Captain Michael Ford. He's agreed to this, his first interview since winning the election. Captain, thank you for speaking with us." "Glad to. Things have been hectic, finally had a moment to think." "Now that you've been elected, will you resign from Starfleet?" "No. But they needn't worry about the separation of power. I will be going on reserve status. If the need arises, I will return to the captain's chair. I will not lead from a desk but from beside those on the front line." "Some would call that reckless." "I'm not going to ask someone to do anything that I wouldn't do myself." "So what are your plans? "I plan to be very hands on. I want to be out there among the population, talking to them, seeing what they actually want and need. You can't learn that from behind a desk. Reports just show you numbers, I want to be able to put faces with the information. While I doubt I'll spend much time at that desktop I be taking care of everything that has to." "I see. Now was some talk of your fiancee not being there with you when you won. It has sparked rumors of problems between the two of you." "Not at all. She had planned to join me, but her duties as a Mirror border guard occupied her." "More problems with the mirror universe?" "They just suffered their first encounter with the Borg. They came asking for help and to share the information they had on them." "And you agreed to this exchange?" "The Borg is a threat to everyone. Wouldn't you agree?" "Most definitely. But now that she's going to be the First Lady, will she be going on reserve as well?" "No. The rule only applies to the office holder. Besides, she does a great job out there. Why take her away from it?" " Now what is the first thing you plan to do?" "Before the inauguration and the swearing in, I have a wedding to think about." "Really?" "We agreed that if I won we'd get married before I was sworn in." "That only gives you three weeks." "Yes it does. So if you'll excuse me, I have to get to work on it." "Not at all. Thank you for your time."
"The Klingons raise a good point, if they want to go Kamikaze it's a good back up" said Smith to the empress via subspace. "Keep the virus in storage for now, the Klingons are sending warriors and pilots to you along with a fleet. The Romulans are providing you with quantum singularity to install onto the impact ships and what Kamikaze?" replied Heath. "During Terra's Second World War, Japanese pilots deliberately rammed their planes into Allied warships, their soldiers would run and get under Allied tanks with a demolition charge and detonate it killing themselves and destroying the tank with the blast ma'am. We'll consider the virus to be a last resort weapon" said Smith. "We're looking at other viruses as well, the Valdez twins did say the virus was strictly one shot only" added Naynta.
"How many ships in production?" asked Thay via subspace. "Two dozen so far, all with quantum singularity cores and a pilot's seat as a manual control" answered Smith. "Any volunteers?" asked Thay. "The Klingons have sent us warriors who want to redeem their honor, we're also looking at recruiting those officers arrested for incompetence. Give them the choice of languishing in our booths and ship repair yards or a suicide mission to regain their honor, their families will be looked after" answered Smith. "The Ask'Kaar are contributing ships as are the Romulans. Problem is the Klingons and Romulans despise each other so we'll have to keep them separate to avoid bloodshed" added Naynta. "We've also got cloaked ships watching all known transwarp apertures as an early warning" said Smith.
"What about the fire arms training?" asked Thay. "We've made it mandatory for all Omega personnel" answered Naynta. "We would also recommend that the empress and her officers along with her troops receive training on firearms, obviously after the empress has given birth" added Smith. "Thank you both for your assessment, Los Lobos out" said Heath. "Well I'll meet you at the firing ranges" said Naynta before she left the room.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Reports streamed in of another Borg incursion, this time on course for Vulcan. Battle Group Omega mobilized and deployed in the path of the Borg attack, As the Borg cross the border, they were intercepted by 30 conventional ship and 12 Impact ships. The Impact ships were released from their tethers and launched at Warp Six. Guided by remote control, they collided with the Cube in waves of three ramming from different angles. The Cube tore itself to pieces and exploded, then the conventional ships destroyed the debris left over and returned to base after confirming their first kill. For Omega, it was a job well done and they read the data gathered and smiled.
Smith was bothered though and Naynta had picked up on that. "The Borg I spoke to did say the Borg will adapt to these tactics eventually, chances are they'll support ships with their next attack to cover their Cubes or adapt and increase their hull armor" said Smith. "That's a bit disconcerting to say the least but for now let's call this a victory, we can show the Borg that we would rather die than be assimilated" replied Naynta. "Don't count us out yet, we have to be even more devious now" answered Smith. "The empress will be pleased, not only do we have an early warning system in place, we can intercept the intruders and destroy them" replied Naynta. "How are we on production?" asked Smith. "I've just ordered production of another 100 impact ships, they should be ready at end of the month, hows the training going on the firearms?" asked Naynta. "Very well, some of the soldiers actually prefer the firearms over phasers. I'm adding shotguns into our arsenal for close encounters" answered Smith.
"I'll send the report to the empress, you carry on with training our soldiers up" said Naynta. "Got a call to make first, I speak with Mereu daily. It's the only way we can keep in touch" said Smith. "Wife first, training afterwards" replied Naynta smiling. In his office, Smith put a call through to Mereu. "Dexter, tough day?" asked Mereu. "You could say that, things have been more than hectic around here. How's your day been?" replied Smith. "Interesting, Trianna has been scaring the hell of of the doctors which is quite amusing, just another month to go" answered Mereu. "You have warned Isoisa that women in labor are terrifying right?" asked Smith. "Not yet" answered Mereu.
Post edited by theraven2378 on
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
On Mars, Smith had all the MACO officers formed up with their units. "Today, you will face the Borg. This exercise will be in a holochamber, the enemy will adapt to your tactics so I want to see creativity and control of your emotions. Those of you who insist on using phasers only will be in for a rude shock. Firearms with holographic bullets will be used and holochamber safeties are on. Computer activate programme" said Smith then he took his seat in observation along with Naynta. "This is a near virtual no win scenario, you're setting them up to fail" said Naynta. "There's no right or wrong way of doing this exercise, this is to test them and find the leaders with potential, the teams who rely on brute force will learn the hard way that violence does not always win engagements. Sometimes knowing when to retreat is just as important in preserving their teams" answered Smith.
"Always a valid point, raise the temperature to 39.1 degrees celsius, it's the same as in a Borg vessel. Heat and humidity will affect their decisions" replied Naynta. "Done, lets make things interesting, team two has just fired on a drone. Time to awake the hive and target team two" answered Smith. The holographic drones now marched on team two from all angles as their phasers became useless. Smith stopped the programme with team two just the holographic drones grabbed them. Teams one and three were making progress controlling their fire and walking past the holographic drones without even being noticed. "The Borg will not engage intruders unless they become a target or a threat. However, team one is closing on their objective so lets ramp up the security, add forcefields around the central plexus and increase drone response to incursion" said Smith. "Team three are downloading the Borg computer now, permission to activate drones" asked Naynta. "Go ahead, let's test them" answered Smith. Now they activated the drones as team one got trapped by forcefields and team three had to fight their way to the beam out point. Team three were the only ones who made it to the beam out site. "End exercise" ordered Smith via intercom.
"The Borg will ignore intruders, however if an intruder becomes a threat or a target the Borg will attack as team two found out to their cost. Stealth and fire discipline are much better, Borg security is very good with enhanced forcefields to trap intruders as team one found out. Team three were the only ones who got to their objectives and carried their orders out before retreating to the beam out site. The lesson is act intelligently around the Borg because if that was real twelve of you would become drones" said Smith. "The Borg are a threat to all life, their ability to adapt to changing conditions makes them the most dangerous species we have encountered so do not underestimate them" said Naynta. "We'll run that again in six hours, go and study because it will be more difficult" ordered Smith. The troops chorused "Yes Sir." "Not bad but could be better" commented Naynta. "Agreed, practice makes perfect" replied Smith.
Post edited by theraven2378 on
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Comments
Both Valdez twins were sat in the garden after Trianna (prime) had put Teanna Jane to bed. "I can see why you chose this place to live, it's nothing but countryside all around" said Trianna (yellow). "And it's peaceful" answered Trianna (prime). "Very" replied Trianna (yellow). "So who is she?" asked Trianna (prime). Trianna (yellow) just smiled and answered "her name is Isoisa, we met at the boxing club in town. One thing led to another and we've been seeing each other since" answered Trianna (yellow). "In the three months you been with us, you've embraced who you are and broken out of that shell" replied Trianna (prime). "Not without help from family" said Trianna (yellow).
"That's what family does" answered Trianna (prime), both twins then went inside. "Very sharp dad" commented Trianna (yellow). "Captain Dawson again Dad?" asked Trianna (prime). "Indeed, date number four" answered Valdez as he finished getting his tie straight. "As in Captain Joanna Dawson, commander of the Cairo?" asked Trianna (prime). "Indeed little one" answered Valdez as he put his jacket on. "Anna, hows things been down at the boxing club?" asked Valdez. "Very good, dad I met someone there" answered Trianna (yellow). "That's good, you've embraced who you are" advised Valdez. "Dad, I've got a girlfriend. Her name is Isoisa" replied Trianna (yellow). "You love her?" asked Valdez. "I do dad" answered Trianna (yellow). "You don't need my approval, just be who you are. I have one rule, keep out of trouble" answered Valdez. "Understood dad" replied Trianna (yellow).
Terra (MU red)
After moving Trianna (red) to the other empire for her own safety, the Brigands left Betazed to return to their reality. Once back through the wormhole, they went to the business of taking down criminal leadership. In Hong Kong, they had taken down the Triads and assisted police in arresting disloyal elements. At his morning meeting with the empress, Smith brought up the subject of ship disappearances along the frontier along with the evidence of nanoprobe weapon development by former emperor Valdez. He even gave the empress the logs of his encounter with the Borg years earlier and raised a disturbing point, the Borg were aware of the Empire's existence quoting some of the stories of whole colonies and ports being scooped out of the ground along the frontier as well as witness accounts of cube and sphere shaped ships taking down Imperial warships.
The Empress listened carefully before dismissing Smith.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Trianna (yellow) brought her girlfriend to meet the family, immediately Isoisa Hetal recognized Nathan Valdez and saluted him. "I'm retired, no uniform no rank" said Valdez after shaking her hand. "Sorry sir, I'm used to Starfleet regulations" answered Isoisa. "No need to apologize Miss Hetal" replied Valdez. "We fought side by side at the Battle of Iconia during the war, I was aboard the U.S.S. Kamakura" said Isoisa to Trianna (yellow). "Very few ships made it out of that disaster, Oudenarde, Kamakura and Cairo were among the survivors" chimed in Valdez. "My first battle" said Trianna (prime). "Anna, your dad saved the lives of those crews. He's a hero" said Isoisa. "He's dad to me" answered Trianna (yellow). "A good man" replied Isoisa smiling.
"This is my twin sister Trianna" said Trianna (yellow). "Honor to meet you" said Isoisa kneeling down to Trianna's (prime) level and shaking her hand. "Isoisa, a pleasure to meet you" answered Trianna (prime). "This is my brother in law, Ablim and my little niece Teanna Jane" said Trianna (yellow). "She's adorable, hold on, she's trying to run me over with her walker" replied Isoisa laughing. "She runs rings round us" answered Trianna (prime). "Could explain the extra grey hair on dad" joked Trianna (yellow). Valdez then picked up Teanna Jane to put her in her playpen. All everyone heard was an "OW!! You little menace" from Valdez as she pulled on his beard. It was followed by a "hiya" from Teanna Jane. "That hurt but I can't get mad at my own grand daughter" said Valdez afterwards as he put Teanna Jane into her playpen.
Over family dinner, Isoisa got to know her girlfriend's family. She was accepted by the Valdez family after an enlightening evening. Both Isoisa and Trianna (yellow) smiled later when they got to the barn, it was Trianna's (yellow) room she had selected when she first moved in. "I value my privacy hence why I chose to convert this barn into a home and my inner sanctum" said Trianna (yellow). "Privacy is good" said Isoisa right before she planted a kiss on Trianna (yellow). "I like where this is going" replied Trianna (yellow) afterwards as the doors were locked and the light went out. The next morning, both Trianna (yellow) and Isoisa were at breakfast, both smiling at each other and holding hands. "That was fun he he" said Trianna (yellow). "Indeed that was" answered Isoisa smiling. "Please keep that type of talk private, not something suitable with little ears around" asked Valdez politely. "Oops" chorused Trianna (yellow) and Isoisa once they realized their mistake.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
In the cold dark depths of space, a conduit opened near Ivor IV. Around the world were a squadron of Imperial warships on defense duty, what came through the conduit was a ship that put the fear of god into the Imperial crews. It was a Borg Cube and it was on it's way to Terra. The defenders of Ivor IV were overrun but not before sending out a warning as their ships were disabled and then boarded, The Borg drones then abducted the crews leaving the Imperial ships adrift. Aboard the cube, the captured crews were led to assimilation chambers along with the 1500 colonists on Ivor IV and were helpless to act as they witnessed the assimilation of the prisoners each one knowing they could be next.
After assimilating the colonists of Ivor IV and the defenders, the cube set a course for Terra. The Imperial fleet fought them all the way to Terra as the cube bore down on Sol. At Sol, the Warrior led the defense and engaged the cube. To their horror, the Imperial crews found their weapons ineffective as the Borg adapted. Aboard Warrior, her crew all knew it was time to get desperate and came up with a plan. They laced quantum and photons with Iconian viruses and fired, the cube suddenly came to a stop as door opened to reveal a sphere. The sphere then opened a temporal rift into Terra's past and entered it as the cube exploded with the Warrior and one other ships in hot pursuit into the rift. "Boss, it's Terra. Population is 9 billion, all Borg" reported Wilkinson. "They must have done it in the past, we have to go back and stop them" said Smith. "Athena, did you hear that?" asked Lwasana Pitaskli. "We did, we're the only ones in position to stop them" answered Naytna Lot. "Rift is collapsing" reported Wilkinson. "Sonic, get us through" ordered Smith. The Warrior and Athena exited the rift close behind the sphere and and both ships fired a volley of transphasic torpedoes which obliterated the sphere firing on Terra. "What's the date?" asked Smith. "April 2nd 2063" answered Wilkinson. "They're here to stop the empire from being formed, assemble away teams. Make sure to wear civilian dress of the mid 21st century" ordered Smith, "and why is it so hot?"
Ibarid and his engineering crew got to the bridge along with Mereu and her patients with reports that the Borg were overrunning decks 12,13 and 14. Immediately Smith transferred most of the crew including Mereu to Athena and told his officers to meet him in the armory. At the armory, they broke out Trianna's (red) gun collection and equipped the the rest with TR-116 rifles since particle weapons had no effect. On Terra, Lwasana and her teams checked the Phoenix and it was intact, now they had to find Doctor Zefram Cochrane and convince him to carry on with his April 4th launch. At a bar, Isoisa was at down drunk while Cochrane was dancing to some old music. "Sonic, that him?" asked Lwasana. "Took me four drinks of something called moonshine to find out it was him and I've been trying to stop him from chatting me up" answered Isoisa. "You ladies married?" asked Cochrane. "Yes, so we're out of bounds" answered Lwasana. "Shame, you two pretty ladies would make anyone jealous" replied Cochrane. "It's him" said Isoisa right before she passed out followed by a facepalm from Lwasana.
Earth (prime)
It was six weeks to go before Trianna (prime) was due. "Dad, it is normal to feel tired at this stage?" she asked. "It is, your mother was the same at that stage" answered Valdez. "Even down to the ill tempered hormonal part?" asked Trianna (prime). "Yep, let's just say if your mother did not get chocolate she was scary" answered Valdez. "Mom can't have been that scary" replied Trianna (prime). "I still twitch to this day, I was your age at the time and not prepared for this" answered Valdez. "Hi dad" said Trianna (yellow) as she sat down along with Isoisa. "Anna, how was your day?" asked Valdez. "It was great, me and Isoisa have decided to take our relationship to the next level" answered Trianna (yellow). "Congratulations" replied Valdez. "Sir, do I have permission to take your daughter's hand in marriage?" asked Isoisa. "You do" answered Valdez.
Isoisa then got a box and opened it before proposing. "Yes" answered Trianna (yellow). "Thanks dad" said Trianna (yellow) afterwards after giving him a hug. "Isoisa, welcome to the family" said Valdez. "Thanks sir" answered Isoisa shaking Valdez's hand. "A baby on the way and a wedding, this will be eventful" though Valdez with a smile. "Dad, hows things with you and Captain Dawson?" asked Trianna (prime). "We're taking our time over this" answered Valdez. "We certainly made an impression" replied Trianna (yellow). "Why do my children insist on playing matchmaker?" asked Valdez to himself. "Because you need to move on from Mom" chorused the twins. "Need lemon cakes" said Trianna (prime) as her cravings kicked in again.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
As Smith and his squad of volunteers moved down into the Borg occupied decks, they were all on edge. Each one of them was armed with a gunpowder firearms and several pistols of different energy types. Instructions were to move carefully, sweep then clear. On the way, they saw what the Borg had done to their crew mates as the drones just ignored them. "Interesting, they don't consider us a threat yet, everyone lower your weapons" ordered Smith. Aboard Athena, Cypher had had remotely transferred command functions of the Warrior to Athena as per her instructions as Naynta watched the footage from Warrior. Even Naynta showed some concern for Smith and his suicide squad and effectively became mission control.
Aboard Warrior, Smith's team edged carefully towards engineering carrying thalaron grenades. They were willing to try everything to save the empire. Suddenly, the drones awoke from their alcoves and moved on Smith's team. "Cypher, they're moving again" reported Smith as he sent Naynta all the data from covert scans of the drones moving on them. "Form a defensive perimeter, one shot one kill and aim for the head" ordered Smith as his suicide squad was surrounded. The drones now attacked as Smith's squad opened fire with their particle weapons dropping several drones but eventually phasers proved ineffective. "They've adapted, don't let them touch you" said T'Pamne as she dropped a drone with a disruptor. Every particle weapon that could be brought to bear was used as the drones just adapted to each energy type. "Break out the guns" ordered Smith to his team, "Naynta, we may need a pick up because we are about to be overrun" he said afterwards.
"Hold out for two minutes, we're deploying shuttles to beam you out. Decks 10 through 4 aboard Warrior have been overrun, the ship is lost" answered Naynta, "Tactical, once Smith and and his squad have been rescued, destroy the Warrior" she ordered afterwards. "Smith to Athena, this will be a long two minutes" said Smith sounding very worried, "Open fire, we do not want to become them" ordered Smith to his team as Naynta heard the sound of gunshots over the channel. Smith and his squad put up a valiant struggle being beamed out as the drones were about to grab them. "Is everyone here?" asked Smith to his squad aboard the shuttle. "We're all here" chorused his squad as they landed aboard Athena. Smith then made his way to the bridge and told Naynta "the Warrior is lost, destroy her" clearly upset his home was lost. "Fire" ordered Naynta. The Athena fired and the Warrior exploded but there was a problem, the Borg had transported dozens of drones down to Terra. "How many MACOs can we deploy to the surface, we know what their target is" asked Smith.
"The Phoenix launch site" answered Naynta. "They cannot be allowed to interfere with that launch" replied Smith. "What about our teams on the surface?" asked Naynta. "Do they have fire arms down there?" asked Smith. "Why?" asked Naynta. "Borg cannot adapt to them, with our particle weapons it was like we were firing blanks at them once they adapted" answered Smith. "Get a message down to the teams, any fire arms are to be commandeered and distributed among anyone who can fight" ordered Naynta. On Terra, Lwasana got the message and prepared her teams for combat. They were soon joined by MACOs armed with primitive assault rifles and light machine guns. The Borg drones that made it to the surface soon overran a large town near the launch site to rebuild their numbers before marching on the Phoenix launch site. On Terra, Smith took command of the ground battle and told his troops the reality of their enemy, "We are the light in the darkness, we succeed here and we save our empire, if we fail none of us will ever be born and our empire will have never existed. Those drones were once our crew mates, Imperial citizens and some were innocent civilians taken not by choice and enslaved with no escape. Every drone we kill is doing them a favor, we're many species all fighting to save our futures and our loved one so let's be the defenders of Mother Terra in her gravest hour."
It was met by cheers as the Athena crew also cheered, this would be a fight to the finish. The empire's future would be decided on the battlefield of Terra as engineering crews worked overtime in getting the Phoenix ready along with Doctor Cochrane.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Everyone took positions and formed a battle line, the Borg attack came at them through the forest as the sounds of gun fire filled the air, approaching the defenders were 1200 drones all marching slowly at the 400-500 defenders. At 1000m the defenders opened fire as hot lead filled the air dropping drone after drone but still the drones carried on into the wall of bullets as civilians were evacuated underground. Aboard Athena, Naynta Lot provided accurate information to Smith where to aim his battle line. However, unexpected help had arrived for the defenders when Terran troops from the US army and Marine Corps on training in the area landed by helicopter. "I don't know who you are but we heard reports of fighting" said Brigadier in command. "If we told you who we were, it would change the future. We're time travelers, that's all you need to know" answered Smith.
"Friend or enemy?" asked the brigadier. "Friend, you have to trust us on this. Those things marching on us intend to destroy youR way of life and freedom, we're here to stop them" answered Smith. "Well you look friendlier than those things and you are are fighting them, where do you need my men?" asked the Brigadier. "Our right needs more guns" answered Smith. "Alpha, Golf and Broavo companies, take position on the right of our allies" ordered the Brigadier to the US army troops. The Marines reinforced the left as the drones kept moving forward as bullets dropped dozens of drones. "How Doctor Cochrane doing?" asked Smith to Ibarid Pitaskli. "The Pheonix is nearly ready, just hold them off" answered Ibarid. "This will be the longest fight of my life" joked Smith afterwards. As the drones got closer, the battle line pulled back to the top of the hill keeping up a wall of lead. After 20 hour, it was over, the Terran line had held as 1200 drones lay dead in front of their lines. Terran losses were 300 dead out of the original 400-500 Imperial MACOs as well as at least 200 US dead.
"Athena here, all drones destroyed. Athena has been checked and no intruders" reported Naynta Lot. "Now let's make sure the Phoenix launches" answered Smith as he went down to see the Phoenix after saluting the US soldiers and Marines. "Brigadier, I would prefer if this becomes secret. Even though we made sacrifices, no one must know of this battle" said Smith as Naynta got rid of the Borg bodies by beaming them into the Sol star. "The people of his world will forever be in your debt, your secret is safe" said the Brigadier. "Good, there's only one way to be sure" answered Smith as the US soldiers and marines' minds were wiped of the whole battle and they went back to barracks with no memory of what happened. On April 4th, Isoisa and Ibarid took their crew positions on the Phoenix along with Cochrane as the countdown to launch started. After a slight panic, Cochrane put his music on as the Phoenix launched. "We've just passed the atmosphere" reported Isoisa. "Prepare separation couplings" ordered Cochrane. Ibarid activated the coupling separation and the nacelles deployed. "That your ship?" asked Cochrane. "That's what your engine will lead to" answered Ibarid as Cochrane ordered "engage!". The Phoenix jumped to warp one before turning around and Cochrane was awed at how beautiful Terra looked. "This engine is the future of the Terran people, we can expand our people's reach throughout the stars" said Isoisa.
Later that day a light was seen in the Terran sky as a Vulcan shuttle came down to land, they had detected the warp flight and investigated. Smith had a gift for Cochrane, he handed Cochrane a shotgun. After beaming all Imperial troops up to the Athena, the Athena broke orbit and prepared to return to the 25th century. On Terra, history played out exactly how it happened with Cochrane shooting the Vulcans and a Terran mob ransacked the Vulcan shuttle. "Naynta, lets go home" said Smith as the Athena entered the rift and arrived only to be greeted by the Los Lobos and the Terran fleet, they were given an honor guard all the way to Space dock. "The empress won't be happy, I lost my ship" said Smith. "We prevented it from falling into enemy hands, I've got your back" answered Naynta. "At least my team made it out, we were pushed to the brink of total defeat but we won in the end" replied Smith. "At what cost?" asked Naynta. "At too high a cost" answered Smith.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
(Mu yellow unknown location)
"You're almost there. Less than two months to go," Naynta said.
"Thank the Prophets."
Layress lay on the examine bed in Sickbay. Naynta has just finished her monthly check up.
"Tell me, after she has them will her bust still be like this?" Thay asked
"Childbirth does tend to cause a permanent increase in size."
"Oh good."
"Your priorities amaze me sometimes Thay," Layress sighed. "Like I need them to get any bigger."
"There are options for reducing..." Naynta started.
"You come near them, I'll break your hands." Layress said perhaps a little too forcefully.
"Oh my Sounds like someone secretly enjoys her enhancements."
"You know Thay I can have you beaten."
"Promises, promises you tease."
"Before things veer into R'shee territory, you need to read this."
Naynta handed Thay a PADD.
"Bajoran Birthing Techniques?"
"Bajoran births are about creating a calm mood to relax the mother."
"No problem. I can do calm."
They just looked at her.
"What? I can."
The stares continued.
"Alright, so what if I can't?"
"Without the proper calm atmosphere, the mother can't give birth.."
"So she'll be pregnant forever?"
"Thay, I love you dearly. But I will tear off your boo.bs, beat you with them, and then ram them down your throat if that happens."
"I think I have some reading to do."
"Yes, you do."
USS Constellation
Bajor orbit prime
"And finally tell the chef I want nothing but oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the rest of the week."
"Yes Captain. Was it really that bad?"
"Hasperath should be considered a bioweapon. I've finished kegs of bloodwine, bottles of Saurian Brandy, and more things than I can count. But none of them hit me like that. I think when I'm President I'll have it outlawed."
"I don't think your fiancée would like that. Doesn't she cook that regularly for her crew?"
"She does it to keep them in line. She threatens to make them eat it if they..."
"Something wrong?"
"I... I just had a mental image of Layress wearing an apron."
"That's not so bad..."
"Just the apron."
"I see... Exactly what happened last night?"
"I think... I may have proposed to her."
"Well she is your fiancée as far as the Galaxy is concerned."
"No D, I told her... I wanted to marry her."
"..."
"I know. I run from the idea of marriage. But..."
"Sir, is it possible that you might have actual feelings for her that you've been ignoring?"
"What? No. She's always just been a friend."
"I have noticed that whenever she is in Close proximity to you act differently. When did this 'proposal' happen?"
"She had my head in her lap... Am I really attracted to her?"
"Only you know the answer to that."
"..."
"Yes?"
He hit the comm panel.
"Contact the Los Lobos. Tell the Admiral a need to speak to her."
"I'll leave you to it."
"No stay. You'll keep me honest."
The screen lit up.
"Hello. Feeling better?"
"Yes. Tell me, last night. Did I..."
"Throw up on me? Yes."
"Sorry. But what I wanted to know is..."
"Yes, you did ask me to marry you."
"I see. I don't remember your reply..."
"I didn't say no."
"So you..."
"You tried to kiss me, then threw up on me and passed out."
"Not my best night."
"We're you serious? Do you really want to marry me?"
"In the light of day...yes."
"..."
"Layress?"
"I will be over there in five minutes. When I get there... You will kiss me properly. That's an order."
He smiled.
"Yes ma'am."
After arriving at Betazed aboard the Athena, Smith was still irate about the Borg attack, "I bloody well warned them this would happen and our empire's Starfleet ignored the warnings" said Smith to Naynta (red). "Maybe when we get back to our reality, we need to have a little chat with them about this. We were on the brink of defeat due to the arrogance of Fleet command in our empire and heads need to roll about this" answered Naynta (red) in agreement. "Thousands lost and hundreds of ships destroyed not to mention colonies along that cube's path, we were lucky this time round" replied Smith letting his feeling be known about the attack. "Agreed, this must not happen again. Maybe command needs to be replaced in our reality and those responsible must be held to account" answered Naynta (red).
"Well at least the empire is saved, I've got a friend to see" replied Smith. "I've got crew to attend to, send my regards to Mereu. She's been a great help with my medical staff" answered Naynta (red). "I will do" replied Smith. Smith then paid Trianna (red) a visit along with Isoisa (red). Trianna (red) was finishing her little project when Smith knock on the door at the palace. "Boss, how bad?" asked Trianna (red). "We lost Warrior and two thirds of the crew but stopped them from wiping the empire out" answered Smith. "I heard about the attack, understandable why you're angry, the Borg dismissed as a smuggler's tale. Some even called them a myth" replied Trianna (red). "Victory at too high a cost, a Pyrrhic victory at best. One more like that and we're finished" answered Smith still annoyed about it. "One good thing came of it, my father's old empire has been kicked out of their myth of invincibility. His legacy of total war against other governments and non-imperial races destroyed by the Borg. I've just finished hammering in the final nail into the coffin of his legacy" answered Trianna (red). "How?" asked Smith. "I written a history of his crimes against sentience, I want people to question how a warlord like that was allowed power" answered Trianna (red) passing Smith her first draft of her book.
After reading the first few chapters, Smith smiled before "you are not holding back. Hell hath no fury like a daughter scorned." "That's the intention" answered Trianna (red). "I'll leave you and Isoisa to it, you two have a lot to talk about" said Smith. "When you see our empire's command, give them hell" answered Trianna (red) after saluting.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
"Activate multiphasic shields, and take us closer to the sphere." Emma kept her eyes trained on the object on her view screen- the thing was ugly on the outer hull, hopefully finding her way through the interior wouldn't be to difficult.
After beaming onboard the sphere Emma and her small team began making their way to the viriculum hoping to hack into the enemy communication network and learn their plans. Everything seemed to be fine, the crew of cyborgs wasn't reacting to their movements, the shields seemed to be working.
Vanguard station (prime)
Soreth looked up at her advisor from the report on her desk. "I want you to begin combat drills on the Borg tomorrow- and put the fleet on alert just in case. I'll discuss the situation with our 'guests'." She ordered.
She activated her communications, "Please have Mr. Drake brought to my office."
Fifteen minutes later, Franklin Drake entered the room. "I hope you and your compatriots have found the accommodations acceptable?"
"Yes, thank you High protector. Your people are quite hospitable." Drake responded, as he took a seat at the desk.
"I'm still unsure if having you all here is a security risk sir, I've no guarantee you're not involved with this assassination business. Coupled with the fact that you were smuggled in using a disguised transporter buffer."
"The deception was a necessary precaution, I'm sure you understand."
"Yes... But that's not why I've asked you here: the Empire is apparently being attacked by what you called the Borg." Soreth began.
"While I don't wish assimilation on anyone, they're our enemy... What's your concern?"
"I've read the reports provided by the Federation on them; including Voyagers encounters. I think they may have entered the mirror universe at Hobus sometime after its destruction in this reality the debris match your quantum signature. We barely survived that encounter, the RDW Kalamos entered warp and detonated its singularity core inside the cube."
"The Borg have been seen to operate like an insect colony, my question and concern is the following- aside from the Empire reverse engineering their technology... What happens when the Bog in the Mirror universe (if these are from the mirror universe) become are of and contact the Borg in this universe? Do the two hives fight each other, or do they merge and become a super colony?"
The Foundry, and my love of Star Trek
Smith was finishing up his report along with Naynta (red) on the Borg attack for their meeting with the empress. "There are elements who are interested in reverse engineering Borg technology" said Naynta. "I would not go near that technology even with a ten foot barge pole" answered Smith. "Ten foot barge pole?" asked Naynta as she refilled both their coffees. "It's a figure of speech Naynta" answered Smith. "Our weapons were useless against that cube, at first we were damaging it then suddenly it's like we're firing blanks" replied Naynta. "They adapt, that what makes them frightening" answered Smith. "So instead of a high tech solution you chose a low tech solution using firearms instead when engaging drones once your particle weapons were made useless" replied Naynta.
"No frequency, no adaptation" answered Smith. "Indeed" replied Naynta. "The empress has assured me that command will take the Borg threat seriously instead of dismissing it as myth" answered Smith. "If command will not listen to reason, then they need to be removed and replaced with more competent leadership at Starfleet command in our reality" replied Naynta putting together the scan logs. "I've got my logs of my first encounter with them as well as the other stories from the fringes of the empire. This may be the beginning, they know about us and they'll be back. Our empire has been given a very bloody nose and I hope and pray that we're prepared the next time" answered Smith. "And I thought the Dominion was dangerous" sighed Naynta. "They were nothing compared to the Borg" answered Smith.
Borg controlled space, Alpha quadrant (MU red)
The Shadows after downloading the viriculum made a hasty retreat and beamed back to the Enteri'ls before jumping to warp. For now, they were on high alert as they made their way back to Imperial space. What they found was enough to send shivers down Shade's spine, the Borg had a transwarp corridor all the way to the Delta Quadrant with a transwarp hub on the other end. From now on the empire would not sleep easy knowing the enemy were at their gates.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Both Smith and Nayta (red) was escorted to the empress after surrendering their weapons. "Ma'am" chorused both officers to Thay. "Mr Smith, Naynta, good job" said Thay smiling. "A Pyrrhic victory at best ma'am, we got lucky" answered Smith. "We had to destroy one of our own ships when it was clear there was no recovering it" added Naynta. "The empress read the report, she agrees with that assessment. The Borg are a threat to all life" answered Thay. "If the other empire Starfleet command did not have their heads up their proverbial backsides and listened to the warnings, this would not have happened" replied Smith with brutal honesty.
"When they did get the warning, we were already under attack and they did not even bother informing the empress due to their arrogance citing the Borg as being an old smuggler's tale and myth" added Naynta. "The Borg have to be taken seriously, this was something that should not have happened and those idiots in the other empire's Starfleet command need to be replaced with officers who can actually do their jobs" said Smith. "Too many loyal crews lost, thousands of collateral casualties and we were nearly erased from history. Those in command over in the other empire must be held to account" added Naynta. "I lost my ship and two thirds of my crew because of those idiots, I saw what the Borg did to them and I'm damn angry about it" said Smith.
"The empress will get a brutally honest assessment, every bit of information on the Borg we've got as well as our scans of the drones and our logs are in this case" added Naynta. "The enemy are at our gates, we cannot deny they exist now" said Smith. "That cube just shrugged off everything we fired at it like we were firing blanks, we had to infect the cube with viral laced torpedoes just to stop it" added Naynta. "The drones have a shield that adapts to particle weapons so we decided on good old fashioned firearms and they are most effective" said Smith. "My sister and her gun collection, I'll have to thank her when I see her next" added Nanyta. "The Borg personal shield cannot stop bullets so we'll have to come up with new armor piercing ammunition for maximum effect on them" said Smith. "A low tech solution?" asked Thay. "Indeed, simple and it works" answered Thay. "They were dropping those drones quickly" replied Naynta. "Thanks for being my eyes in the sky" said Smith. "Your ground troops performed very well but they took heavy losses and carried on fighting because their survival depended on it, great speech by the way. I recorded it" replied Naynta smiling.
"I'll take you both to the empress. The empire owes you both a great debt for your quick thinking and actions" said Thay. "It's the troops who deserve the credit, their sacrifices must be honored" countered Smith. "We only led them, they did the rest" added Nanyta. "This should be an interesting meeting, in the wake of this tragedy the empress has something you both need to hear" said Thay.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Smith and Naynta (red) were led to the a room with a screen. "This is how the meeting will be conducted, more secure" said Thay. Both Smith and Naynta took their seats and opened their cases and prepared their evidence. Heath's face appeared and the screen and the meeting had started. "General, Admiral. In wake of the Borg invasion, I've asked you both for your assessments of their attack, you both faced them and survived" said Heath reading through their reports and evidence after it was transmitted to her. "It was a close run thing with respect ma'am. When they traveled back, we were the only two who's ships followed them. You should be seeing our view now of Terra as we passed through the temporal tunnel" said Smith. "We've also sent you our readings as well" added Naynta.
"They pulled a similar move on the Federation in 2373 by attempting to stop first contact. They were followed by the Enterprise E and her crew" said Heath. "It's a damn insidious move, why attack your enemy in the present when you can attack them in the past" answered Smith. "How bad was it for the Enterprise crew?" asked Naynta. "Most of the ship assimilated with the crew fighting back desperately, the Borg were led by a queen. Luckily, the fighting was contained on the ship and Captain Picard and Lt Cmdr Data managed to destroy the queen killing the other drones on the ship, history carried on as normal" answered Heath. "Like an ant colony, you have the drones which are your worker ants with others acting as soldiers to protect the hive with a queen at the heart of the hive using pheromones to control the hive" replied Smith. "It's exactly that, but instead of pheromones, the Borg queen controls the hive via subspace sent by neural signals. There two main types of drones, medical and tactical. Both are equally dangerous, the queen does not reveal herself directly unless her presence is required" answered Heath.
"Our particle weapons were next to useless on the drones, their personal shields adapt to particle weapons very quickly. You can drop a few but then it's like you're firing blanks" replied Smith. "What we did find effective were firearms, no particle frequency means no adaptation. Kinetic energy seems to be their weakness" said Naynta transmitting the footage of Smith's attempt to retake the Warrior and the ground battle on Terra. "The Federation never considered firearms, hence their high losses to the Borg. You two may be onto something here so I'm building a anti-Borg task force to work with our allies against the Borg. Naynta, you will command the space elements and General, you're in charge of the ground units. Since the Warrior was destroyed, I'm releasing the captured U.S.S. Lexington to you. I've also authorized the design and construction of Kinetic Impact ships for use on Borg ships, they will ram the ships at warp in swarms, rather than waste crews in manning these ships, a remote control system will be employed. This information will be shared with our allies even the Federation Alliance. I'll send a message to the Federation to tell them to expect a visitor. That visitor is you General, one ship only will go through and your job is to speak with the Federation government about how to deal with the Borg" said Heath.
"What's to be done about those idiots in the other Imperial Starfleet Command? Their arrogance caused this near disaster when they had the warnings of something like this happening" asked Naynta. "They dismissed the Borg as a frontier myth, my first meeting with the Borg was on a smuggling run, me and my crew at the time had to hide in the cargo bay with bio dampners and play dead in a debris field. We hid for 12 hours and once that cube moved out of the area we were not going to hang around to find out if they had seen us so we left in the opposite direction. We also found colonies with all settlements seemingly just scooped up out of the ground as well. That was five years ago" added Smith. "General Smith did try and warn them using his logs but no one listened" said Naynta. "They had their heads up their proverbial backsides in denial" added Smith. "They need replacing with officers who can listen and do their jobs, the idiots in charge in the other Imperial Starfleet Command must be held accountable for the loss of several colonies, hundreds of ships and thousands of lives. They're incompetent bigots who care only for their personal advancements rather than the people of the empire" said Naynta.
"I will take that under advisement" answered Heath. "I lost my ship and two thirds of my crew because of them, the Admiral lost a third of her crew. Mission parameters call 10% an acceptable loss rate, we both lost more than that and that is unacceptable" replied Smith. "Admiral Barclay did the best she could but it was a near impossible situation given that she fought that cube all the way from the Typhon Sector to Terra, we had to infect that cube with a virus just to stop it" added Naynta. "Thay, you agree on their assessment?" asked Heath. "100%, I will see that the other Imperial Starfleet Command is changed, I want Barclay in charge of the other Imperial Starfleet" answered Thay. "Thank you for your brutal honesty both of you, General, the Lexington will arrive in two hours with your crew. Until then, you will work with Admiral Lot aboard the Athena. Send this to Betazed, since Colonel Bray is not cleared for field operations she will remain on Betazed but I have a job for her. She's to design a remote control programme and a virus to disrupt the collective. In the Federation, she has two counterparts, if you have to ask them to help do so. They are experts in the field of computer warfare and remote control systems" said Heath. "Gods help the Borg, three Triannas should have an interesting invention or few. My sister will have work via subspace though" answered Naynta. "Admiral Valdez is a good man, I'd like to hear his assessment on our anti-Borg ideas" said Smith. "He's retired now but I trust him and you worked under him during the Dominion War so if you can get in contact with him about asking his daughters for help do so, I'll ask my counterpart if she can arrange a meeting with him and his daughters for you" answered Heath. "Thank you Ma'am" said Smith. "Dismissed, may the Prophets guide your way" said Heath. Both Smith and Naynta left the room and retrieved their weapons before beaming back to Athena.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The Lexington arrived and General Smith took a look at the ship noting the new paint scheme, it has yellow markings on the edges of the saucer with a red inner design around the bridge going down to the deflector, Smith smiled when he saw a Jolly Roger with Imperial dagger painted onto the upper saucer. After beaming aboard, he was met by his crew. Since Trianna (red) was on maternity, Lwasana Pitaskli was his acting first officer. On the bridge, Smith took his seat with the rest of the crew at their usual posts, Mereu Smith had decided to remain on Betazed as midwife for Trianna (red). What really impressed Smith was that his new enlisted and junior officers were all volunteers from both empires, they all understood the job was high risk before they had signed up, Smith then left the bridge to inspect the ship and speak to his crew.
In the mess hall, Smith noticed the unit flag. It had been recovered from the debris of the Warrior and remounted on the wall of the mess hall. Smith smiled as he continued his inspection, in engineering reinforced bulkhead doors had been installed as well as hidden sentry guns in the ceilings of the corridors to defend against any intruders, they were armed with 50 cal bullets. In sickbay, Tommen Paris was acting medical officer. Smith noted the new medical equipment as he spoke to his medical staff. Once his inspection was finished, he was given a message from the empress giving him permission to rename the ship. Smith had the ship renamed to I.S.S. Denorios after the Battle of the Denorios during the war. Meanwhile on the bridge, Lwasana gave the order to follow the Athena to the wormhole after the ship name and registry number of ICC-81603 was repainted in place of the original name and number.
The Denorios and and Athena entered the wormhole and re-entered their empire. The ships then parted ways as the Athena went to Terra and the Denorios went to the border. After arriving at the Badlands 18 hours after leaving the other empire's Betazed, Smith sent a signal to TF-113 and waited.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
(Antares fleet yard prime)
"You picked a bad day to call," Admiral Heath said, looking at the screen in her office.
"The Empress wishes to speak with you."
"I'm sure she does. Alright put her through."
The image on the screen changed.
"And what can I do for you today?"
"The Borg attacked us."
"How bad?"
"It was the first contact invasion all over again."
"I see."
"They didn't believe in the stories about them. They do now."
"So why the call?"
"We expect them to return at some point. We want to have an information exchange. We'd like everything you have on them, including talking with Admiral Janeway. In exchange we'll give you all our data, plus our design for our Anti-Borg ships."
"Your version of the Defiant class?"
"No, these ships inflict pure kinetic damage."
"I see. And your giving us these designs why?"
"The Borg is everyone's problem. They are a threat to all live."
She smiled.
"Nice to see I'm still me."
"Somethings will never change. So the ship at the border has all the information. Will you let it through?"
"Like I told him, this is a bad time."
"Why?"
"It's election day. For the next thirty six hours everyone is voting for the new president."
"I see. Escorting us through would be bad."
"But seeing how it's about the Borg, I'm very certain that they'll come out here to talk."
"Thank you."
"Your welcome, Empress."
"The pleasure is all mine, soon to be first lady of the Federation."
General Smith came aboard by Federation shuttle with a small team given the political situation. "Admiral Heath, my name is General Dexter Smith. We have a mutual enemy" said Smith after saluting Heath as an ally. "The Borg, I heard" answered Heath. "I'm providing all imperial logs of all encounters with them including the last invasion, we will also provide the specifications for a Kinetic Impact ship in exchange for Federation data on the collective. Speaking to Admiral Janeway and Seven of Nine would help us immensely" replied Smith giving Heath the Imperial data. "General, how bad was it?" asked R'Shee. "Cmdr, a bloody close run thing. We went low tech and grabbed any firearm we could find, bullets work very well" answered Smith. "Firearms, they're barbaric" replied R'Shee.
"They do the job, just aim for the head because when your fancy advanced particle weapons cease being effective you are in trouble, with respect Cmdr" answered Smith. "These impact ships, how will they operated?" asked Heath. "Remote control which brings me to my next point, I may require the help of a Trianna Valdez. From what I understand, her technical skills are vital to us in creating a remote control programme that is secure, robust and accurate on the guidance, in fact all three Triannas working together, one via subspace would be more helpful" answered Smith. "She's retired, I don't think she'll be best pleased having that disturbed" replied Heath. "I fought alongside her father during the Dominion War, the empress trusts him. I've been authorized to enlist the help of his daughters if required to, it's nothing dangerous" answered Smith. Meanwhile R'Shee was reading the Imperial logs and was shocked at the level of denial before the invasion. "The General may need to speak with Admiral Riker, he was Captain Picard's first officer when first contact happened with the Borg in 2365" she said afterwards.
"How bad did it go?" asked Smith noting all this down. "18 crew missing and a very narrow escape for the Enterprise D, we should provide the General with the logs of Wolf 359 and Sector 001 as well" suggested R'Shee. "Thank you, any co-operation will be good for both our governments on this matter" said Smith. The meeting lasted for three hours before Smith returned to his ship armed with the new intel. He had 36 hours to work it all out with his officers then the I.S.S. Denorios would be escorted to Earth. Aboard Los Lobos, Heath had 36 hours to study the Kinetic Impact ship designs.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The Valdez family were sat at home awaiting the results of the election. For Trianna (yellow) it was a new experience voting and she was smiling. Then the results came through, Captain Micheal Ford had been elected President by landslide victory. "Dad, does that mean, Captain Ford has to step down from Starfleet by law?" asked Trianna (yellow). "Since he's now leader of the Federation, one would presume so" answered Valdez. "Captain Dawson, you and dad understand each other clearly" said Trianna (prime). "Call me Joanna, captain is only for my crew and Starfleet. No uniform, no rank Trianna" answered Dawson. "I'm used to Starfleet regulations, still not used to being a civilian" answered Trianna (prime) before she called Ablim over, "He's moving again." Ablim put his hand on Trianna's (prime) stomach and smiled with joy right up to when the baby kicked, "right you little menace, less of that kicking" he said afterwards laughing.
A call then came through from Admiral Heath. "Have I caught you at a bad time Nathan?" asked Heath. "No not at all Layress" answered Valdez. "There's an Imperial officer who wishes to meet with you somewhere secure when he gets to Earth. He claims to have fought alongside you during the Dominion War" replied Heath. "Name?" asked Valdez. "A Dexter Smith" answered Heath. "I know him, I worked alongside his unit during the war, complete lunatic and totally unorthodox but in a good way" replied Valdez. "Well, he requested politely the technical assistance of both your daughters. The request comes from the empress" answered Heath. "I'll speak with him face to face here at home, rules are only one aide" replied Valdez. "Nathan, thanks. We'll be at Earth in 12 hours" answered Heath. "Layress, congratulations on the big promotion to First Lady of the Federation" said Valdez. "Thank you Nathan, Heath out" replied Heath and the screen went blank.
"Joanna, Admiral Heath was my commanding officer and she's godmother to Teanna Jane" said Trianna (prime). "Trianna, I've heard about your work on cyber-warfare, very impressive work" said Dawson smiling, she then asked "Nathan, Dominion War?" "The Terran Empire was invaded by the Dominion, Leeta was with them hence why the Federation and her allies put aside centuries of mistrust to aid them, not all of them are bad people, some of them are quite reasonable and decent people" answered Valdez. "Always the knight, a man of honor and integrity given what happened to this family" replied Dawson. "It made us stronger" said Trianna (prime). "Dad's a good man and excellent teacher, he's been tutoring me in ethics and morals. My father was his counterpart, he was a murderous warlord held my adoptive sister hostage after forcing her to watch the murders of her mother and crew mates. When my mother died after taking a shot aimed at the empress, I chose to take dad's offer of a fresh start, he encouraged me to find who I really am and be my own person" said Trianna (yellow). "Nathan Valdez, charitable and kind. That's why I fell in love with him, Anna follow his example" said Dawson. Isoisa just smiled as Teanna Jane threw a stuffed toy at her grand father. "Looks like I'm needed" said Valdez as he picked up Teanna Jane.
"She tired, bed time for my little one" said Trianna (prime). Ablim then picked Teanna Jane up and took her to her cot before coming back into the room. "Nathan, I'm on duty in 10 minutes, hopefully the Cairo is intact after those engineers have finished" said Dawson. "She then gave Valdez a kiss then beamed up to her ship. "Dad, it's official, you and Joanna are a couple" joked the twins. "Very funny girls" answered Valdez. "Anna, human or Betazoid wedding?" asked Isoisa. "Human I think, I draw the line at being in my birthday suit at my wedding" answered Trianna (yellow). "Too old fashioned" replied Isoisa. "Indeed" answered Trianna (yellow). "My parents wanted me to marry someone respectable and they did not approve of us. Both of them are in prison for armed robbery and several counts of first degree murder" replied Isoisa. "Welcome to the having bad fathers club Iso" answered Trianna (yellow).
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
"Eta to Earth" asked General Smith. "Entering Sol now General" answered Ensign Tucker. "Excellent, they're trusting us so we'll have to trust them" replied Smith. "Message from Los Lobos boss, we cleared for standard orbit around Earth. You're to beam down to Starfleet headquarters with one aide only" reported Wilkinson. "Mario, you're with me. Lwasana, keep things running smoothly while I'm gone" said Smith. "Just like the old days on the Bounty" joked Lwasana Pitaskli. Smith and Petrofski left the bridge and beamed down to Starfleet Command, they were met by Admiral Heath and Admiral Riker. "General" said Riker. "Admirals, this is my data analysis officer, Lt Petrofski" answered Smith. "Admiral Heath told me about what happened and how your command dismissed the Borg as a myth" replied Riker. "The Borg are a threat to all life, we have a mutual enemy Admiral" answered Smith.
"The General here led a creative defense when the Borg traveled into the Empire's past to wipe them out, his solution was low tech to say the least" said Heath. "Firearms" added Smith. "Very low tech" answered Riker. "But very effective, we're developing new weapons and tactics to deal with the Borg. Our particle weapons were next to useless, we had to infect the cube with a virus just to destroy it after several colonies, hundreds of ships and thousands of casualties. When we followed them into the past, they boarded my ship and assimilated two-thirds of my crew, I had to evacuate the rest to the only other Imperial ship that came with us before I took a small team armed with every weapon we could carry, it was futile so we had to abandon my ship and order it's destruction to prevent it from falling into enemy hands" replied Smith. "I was on the Enterprise at System J-25 when the Federation made first contact with the collective, 18 crew were lost. I was made Captain of the Enterprise when they took Captain Picard and used his knowledge to wipe out 39 Federation ships at Wolf 359 out of a fleet of 40. We had to be creative to stop that cube" answered Riker.
"How?" asked Smith. "We rescued Captain Picard and used his connection to put the Borg to sleep, the cube blew up shortly afterwards" answered Riker. "We observed rapid regeneration on the surface of the cube that attacked the Empire, we fought a running battle at the cost of too many ships and lives" replied Smith. "The Borg ability to adapt and repair makes them very dangerous, we calculated that a cube can still be operational even if 78% of it is destroyed making it very resilient. At Sector 001, Captain Picard used his knowledge of the Borg to find a weak point in the cube leading to it's destruction" answered Riker. "The empress told me about the first contact invasion in your universe, it's insidious to say the least" replied Smith. "Very, in all my years in Starfleet, I've never met a more ruthless opponent than the Borg. Your government will get our data files on the Borg, your logs were very thorough even down your encounter five years ago" answered Riker. "Can we get General Smith a meeting with Admiral Janeway and Seven of Nine?" asked Heath. "I'll schedule it for today. General, I hear you want a meeting with Admiral (ret) Valdez about asking his daughters for their technical assistance" said Riker. "It's for this, Kinetic Impact ships, remote controlled to ram Borg vessels at warp speeds. Admiral Valdez's daughters are experts in their field of computer warfare and remote control systems, they're collective expertise will be helpful, their counterpart will be working with them via subspace. It's nothing dangerous" answered Smith. "After your meeting with Starfleet Command and our new president" replied Riker. "Thank you Admiral, we're better as allies than enemies" answered Smith.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Naynta Lot walked in with her guards and had the doors locked. "All of you are guilty of negligence and failure, those officers who did the best they could given a near impossible situation will be demoted and given a chance to regain your ranks, those who are arrogant and incompetent, well the empress has plans for you. You will stripped of your commissions and reassigned to ship repair, before that however, you will make a statement on INN detailing your failures to the people. You put them at risk" she said to Starfleet Command. "Why should we listen to tiny Betazoid piece of trash? We're Terran, we're above all other species even that Bajoran usurper" asked Admiral Riker.
"That's the kind of attitude that led to this crisis, you all had the warnings and none of you listened. We were nearly wiped out" answered Naynta noting down Riker's name. "Those 'warnings' were from a former criminal covering up his own past. He was panic mongering" answered Admiral Nogata. "General Smith's character is not at question. He tried to warn you and you called the Borg a myth, it's the decision of the empress that this command will be reformed with officers from different species who can do their jobs and work for the people of the empire. The old guard will be removed and younger more talented officers put in your place" replied Naynta.
"This is an outrage, what gives alien filth the right to remove us, you're killing our political power" demanded Riker. "You failed the empire, now face the consequences" answered Naynta. The admirals were led out to face INN cameras and reporters.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
"Have you ever met a Borg and spoken to them?" asked Heath. "Can't say I have, the only Borg I've met tried to wipe out the empire" answered Smith. "You'll find this Borg to be very enlightening, be to the point and listen to what she has to say" advised Heath. "Noted, given the recent crisis, hearing things from a Borg point of view will be most helpful" replied Smith. "Indeed, Admiral Janeway was commander of U.S.S. Voyager during their trip through the Delta Quadrant, she's an expert on the Borg given the amount of damage she caused the collective when she met them, the Admiral is always on point" answered Heath. "Thanks for the heads up" replied Smith as both officers entered Admiral Janeway's office.
"Admiral, Miss Hanson" said Smith. "The name of Annika Hanson died when I was assimilated, my designation is Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01. But you may call me Seven of Nine" answered Seven. "My apologies, I did not mean to cause offense, is Seven acceptable?" replied Smith. "Seven will do General Dexter Smith" answered Seven. "Admiral Janeway, your logs of your encounters with the Borg have been very enlightening. The Borg are everyone's problem, they recently tried a first contact invasion of the empire. The empire was lucky this time, the empire has been looking at new methods of defending themselves since the attack" said Smith handing Janeway his logs of the Borg and the Kinetic Impact designs. "Seven, how effective would these measures be?" asked Janeway. "Efficient, the Borg will eventually adapt to these measures. General, in your report, you think you've found the Collective's weakness. Most races try to fight back by improving technology, you used technology that is obsolete by Borg standards" answered Seven. "Since the drones can deal with particle weapons by adaptation, we found firearms and bullets were effective every time. We're developing new ammunition types with increased armor piercing capability which explode inside the target, the Impact ships will ram Borg ships at warp in swarms. What we are also looking at is a guidance system to pilot them by remote control" replied Smith.
"Ramming Borg ships has proven effective, the Borg assimilate cultures on their technology and distinctiveness. They also control large sections of the Delta Quadrant. There is resistance to them with the Borg cooperative" said Seven. "Cooperative?" asked Smith. "Drone separated from the hive mind and liberated, Seven was liberated from the collective in 2374" answered Janeway. "Interesting, there are ways to save people assimilated by the Borg" thought Smith noting this down. "Any other species stood up to the collective and proved impossible to assimilate?" asked Smith. "Species 8472, they caused the collective a great deal of damage. They are hostile to anyone who trespasses in their realm as the collective discovered when they started a war with them" answered Seven. "So they are off the table" thought Smith noting it down. "Any way of attacking the collective with something like a computer virus to disrupt the collective?" asked Smith. "A neurolytic pathogen, something to bring chaos to order works" answered Janeway. "I know someone who understands computer viruses, which brings me to my next point. I need the help of Admiral Valdez's daughters to help us create a remote control program for our Impact ship designs as well as a neurolytic pathogen to infect the collective with, they'll be asked to work with their counterpart who will be on subspace from the empire. It's nothing dangerous for them" replied Smith.
"You have permission to visit them and ask them, Admiral Heath will go with you" said Janeway. "Thank you Admiral, thank you Seven for your advice on this matter" said Smith.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Heath's shuttle landed in a field outside the Valdez farm. "Word of warning, Trianna does not like the empire. Watch what you say around her, be polite and she'll be polite to you" advised Heath. "You know her?" asked Smith. "I was her commanding officer, certain subjects are considered taboo to her so don't go there" replied Heath. "Noted" answered Smith. "Come on" replied Heath and both officers knocked on the door to the main house. It was answered by Trianna (yellow). "Dad, Admiral Heath is at the door with a Terran officer" shouted Trianna (yellow). "Layress, this must be Captain Smith" said Valdez. "It's General these days sir" answered Smith. "Ah, so they had sense to promote you. Layress, this man led a suicidal mission to rescue innocents from genocide. He earned my trust and respect" said Valdez. "Sir, I've been asked to request the help of your daughters in some programming work for the empire, the Borg tried to wipe us out" replied Smith.
That got Valdez's attention straight away, "come on in. Let's just say we have a mutual loathing of the Borg" he said afterwards. Smith and Heath entered the lounge only for Smith to do a double take when he saw the Valdez twins. "You look like you've seen a ghost" said Ablim to Smith. "I knew your counterpart, he saved my life on more than one occasion and was a good friend" answered Smith. "You're telling the truth" replied Ablim. Both Valdez twins just looked at Smith. "Something spooked him, why else would he be here asking for our help" said Trianna (yellow) to her twin. "I know your counterpart, she's like a little sister to me. You were both asked for by name by the empress" replied Smith. "What's the job?" asked Trianna (yellow). "Something that hurts the Borg?" asked Trianna (prime). "You could say that Miss Valdez, what kind of programme could three of you come up with for guiding an Impact ship at warp?" replied Smith. "And the other part?" asked Trianna (prime). "A computer virus that could disrupt the Borg hive mind" answered Smith.
"Since it's the Borg, we'll help you on two condition. Certain subjects are no go zones and two, don't call me a Spitfire again" replied Trianna (prime). "Deal" answered Smith. "How will our counterpart be working with us?" asked Trianna (yellow). "Secure subspace, she's not cleared for field duty" answered Smith. "Good to see you're looking out for her safety, if anything happens to her, I'll hold you responsible" replied Trianna (prime). "Fair enough, how do I tell the difference between you two voice wise?" asked Smith. "I go by Anna and my sister goes by Trianna" answered Trianna (yellow). "Let's have a look at your designs and get our counterpart onscreen" said Trianna (prime). Smith put the call through to the empire over a secure channel and Trianna (red) appeared onscreen. "Boss, leave the designs with us for a couple of days. We'll have something for the empress that is secure, robust and accurate, a collective disrupting virus may take a bit longer. How is the fact finding going?" said Trianna (red). "Very enlightening, let's just say the empress will get a very detailed report when I get back. How's Admiral Lot doing at Terra with those idiots?" replied Smith.
"She shamed them on INN and had them all replaced, it was amusing to say the least" answered Trianna (red). "They reaped what they sowed, they deserve the humiliation" replied Smith. "New instructions from the empress, you are to stay on the ship until the programme and virus are ready. Once they are done, you will be escorted back to the border and will be sent new instructions" said Trianna (red). "Understood number one" replied Smith. Smith beamed back to the Denorios as the three Triannas started work, they were finished four days later and the programme sent to Smith. The Denorios were then escorted back to the Terran border crossing it 36 hours after leaving Sol. In Imperial Space, the Denorio was then sent to meet up with the Los Lobos-A at a undisclosed location in the Terran Empire (yellow).
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Still working on the Ask'kaar 'First Contact' mission I was talking about a while back. Mirror stuff, I don't know what to do yet.
In the Valdez twins' lab, they got to work as all three Triannas started passing ideas on a remote control programme. "Ladies, first problem. How do we link up to a command vessel where the pilot will be?" asked Trianna (red) via the screen. "A drone type guidance system but we upscale it" answered Trianna (prime). "Keep it simple" added Trianna (yellow). "Nice, the simple approach works but we need it secure and robust" replied Trianna (red). "I may have an idea on that, a low level Iconian virus just enough to infect any unauthorized computer that tries getting in" answered Trianna (prime). "That works, I was once tasked with breaking your security programme and it beat me, nice work by the way" replied Trianna (yellow).
"My best work" answered Trianna (prime). "We all agreed on that?" asked Trianna (red). "Totally chorused the Valdez twins. Within 12 hours, they had a prototype ready for testing. "I'll ask Admiral Heath if she's got any damaged shuttles we can test this programme with, I'm sure Aunlel has written off some more by now" said Trianna (prime). Admiral Heath released four shuttles for use in the tests. "Crash test dummy one ready to launch" said Trianna (prime) as she took control of the shuttle and rammed it at warp into one of Saturn's moons by remote control. "We need to boost signal for longer ranges, ready crash test dummy two" suggested Trianna (yellow). This time they remotely rammed it into an abandoned freighter at warp on a Starfleet firing range near Neptune. The freighter was obliterated. Tests three and four produced the same results with the system performing well. The three Triannas sent their results to Admiral Heath with the optimum distance and warp speed for ramming attacks. They now upscaled the test to an old freighter and it tore apart an abandoned space station on the outskirts of Sol at warp six.
Admiral Heath looked at the programme and results before smiling. Trianna (red) had already sent the data to the empress. With the guidance and remote piloting systems done, they now worked on a virus. What the three Triannas created was a virus that countered and adapted only to Borg systems working on the data Trianna (red) sent to her counterparts. After 16 hours of testing and tweaking, the programme was put onto a secure data chip and the remote control put on another chip. After giving Admiral Heath a copy of both creations, they passed the programmes onto General Smith up in orbit.
Undisclosed location (MU yellow) two days later. General Smith boarded the Los Lobos and was very through in his debriefing. His fact finding trip had worked out very well and he gave the empress the creations the three Triannas had designed and worked on. The anti-Borg task force was now renamed Battle Group Omega, it comprised ships, soldiers and scientists from the empire, the Ask'Kaar as well as other allied governments. They would be based at Imperium Planetia in orbit of Mar in the red empire. They were joined by ships, soldiers and scientists from the yellow empire. The personnel were all trained in firearms in case of being boarded by the Borg as production impact ships commenced in both empires.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
At the first meeting of the Battle Group Omega leadership, representatives from each government took their seats. Having given Isoisa permission to remain in the other empire with Trianna (red) and Mereu, Smith could feel a bit better. One the station itself, the BG Omega leadership all sat around a long table with a holographic display built into it. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have all been asked here to combat a new threat to our governments. Imperial, Ask'Kaar and Romulans all working as allies against this new species" said Smith. Naynta then activated the display and briefed Omega's commanders as a holographic drone appeared as well as displays of known Borg ships. "They call themselves the Borg. During their invasion they have displayed an incredible ability for analysis and adaptation, at first our weapon did damage but after the Borg adapted our weapons were useless. Brute force is not the answer hence why we've also asked scientists here. General Smith has faced their drones and may have found a weakness" said Naynta after taking her seat at the head of the table.
"Their shields adapt to particle energy, what we found effective was kinetic energy. Things like bullets work very well. Each drone is part of their hive mind with a queen in overall control. While they may be slow, they are stronger and tougher and very dangerous. They don't kill, they assimilate other species into their collective as you shall see" said Smith bringing up the visual logs of his battle with the Borg. "Those were once some of my crew, recently I made a visit to the Federation to find out as much information about the Borg and you are all now receiving that data, read it carefully. Their ships have that same adaptive shields as the drones so here's how we counter them" added Smith. "What you are looking at are Kinetic Impact ships that will ram into Borg ships at warp, they are unmanned and piloted by remote control. The Borg will eventually adapt to this so we have to keep ahead of them" said Naynta.
"Who designed this remote control programme?" asked Commander Pelagia. "Three versions of a Trianna Valdez, part of the general's mission was to enlist their help in creating this, they've also come up with a virus that targets Borg only. This virus is designed to target the hive itself and disrupt the collective" answered Naynta. "How do we infect the collective?" asked Admiral Tohel. "By getting them to assimilate it, we infect a criminal whose on a death sentence and put them in a shuttle before sending that shuttle into Borg territory, it's technology should get the Hive's attention. Once they assimilate the subject, it spreads the virus" answered Naynta. "This virus brings chaos to their ordered hive, the more drones we infect, the more chaos we cause among them. The empress has also authorized General Order 24 on worlds being assimilated, if we cannot save the planet it is to be exterminated from orbit to deny the hive drones and resources. The Borg are ruthless so we must be too when dealing with them" added Smith.
"The Borg cannot be reasoned with, all we are to them are more drones and resources for their march of conquest across this galaxy" said Naynta. "There is a way of separating drones from the hive mind, On Earth I spoke to a liberated Borg and it was very enlightening. Victims of assimilation can be saved but it's highly dangerous but we'll keep it as an option for lone drones. In large numbers forget it, the best we can do for them is liberate them by death from their horrific existence" added Smith. "My people have met the Borg before, we were lucky. My government has allowed our logs to be made available to our allies" said Pelagia. "We cannot allow them to get a foothold in our part of the galaxy, our priorities are the destruction of any transwarp apertures that are detected" replied Smith. "We can collapse them by detonating quantum singularity devices the mouth of the apertures. Cloaked ships are watching them as we speak so we'll get some early warning if the Borg come through" answered Tohel. "Priorities are the construction of these impact ships, all Omega personnel are to be trained on the use of firearms just in case our ships are boarded. These firearms will be issued with armor piercing ammunition fed from a micro replicator in the bottom of the magazine. Everyone will have several of these magazines as well as this, it's a Colt model 1911. Semi automatic with a armor piercing 45 caliber round. Each magazine holds 15 rounds, automatic and semi-automatic rifles with 20 round and 40 rounds magazines will also be issued. Training will begin this afternoon" said Smith.
Naynta called an end to the meeting and everyone got to their tasks.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
(Unknown location mu yellow)
"The project seems to be off to a good start," Thay commented.
"Yes," Layress agreed. "Although the Romulan Praetor did make the suggestion of replacing the warp core with one of their forced singularity ones."
"Why?"
"Upon failure ours explode, theirs implode."
"Causing further damage by having it collapse in on itself."
"And limiting the scattering of Borg debris throughout our space."
"Sounds like a good modification to the design."
"It is. Although the Klingon Chancellor finds the idea of remote control ships 'cowardly'. He has lists of those he would 'give the chance to redeem themselves and earn their place in Sto-Vo-Kor by dying a warriors death'. They want the design altered to include pilot controls."
"They would."
" Although I can't fault their logic. A manual override in case of being comprised could be a good thing."
"That control system and virus of there's is supposed to be unbeatable."
"I don't believe in the word unbeatable. Or invulnerable, impregnable or any like that. There is always a way around everything."
"You my lovely Empress, are proof of that. You shouldn't have been able to survive but you did. But still, they do love their Iconian viruses don't they?"
"I'm not happy with the Borg coming in contact with Iconian technology."
"It's the best way."
"All it takes is one Borg from some speices that has some genetic resistance to it and they adapt to it. Then they investigate and go looking for things with similar energy signatures..."
"And we can't destroy the network. We did in Andromeda... There's nothing alive there now... By the way, Lt Commander Wheeler says that the Beta site is ready now, with the same precautions as the Alpha. What does that mean?"
Layress smiled.
"Two things they taught us in my engineering classes. Never make something you can't turn off and in case you do, always have a backup plan."
USS Constellation
Earth orbit prime
"Hello, I'm speaking to you from the ready room of the USS Constellation. With me is the new president-elect Captain Michael Ford. He's agreed to this, his first interview since winning the election. Captain, thank you for speaking with us."
"Glad to. Things have been hectic, finally had a moment to think."
"Now that you've been elected, will you resign from Starfleet?"
"No. But they needn't worry about the separation of power. I will be going on reserve status. If the need arises, I will return to the captain's chair. I will not lead from a desk but from beside those on the front line."
"Some would call that reckless."
"I'm not going to ask someone to do anything that I wouldn't do myself."
"So what are your plans?
"I plan to be very hands on. I want to be out there among the population, talking to them, seeing what they actually want and need. You can't learn that from behind a desk. Reports just show you numbers, I want to be able to put faces with the information. While I doubt I'll spend much time at that desktop I be taking care of everything that has to."
"I see. Now was some talk of your fiancee not being there with you when you won. It has sparked rumors of problems between the two of you."
"Not at all. She had planned to join me, but her duties as a Mirror border guard occupied her."
"More problems with the mirror universe?"
"They just suffered their first encounter with the Borg. They came asking for help and to share the information they had on them."
"And you agreed to this exchange?"
"The Borg is a threat to everyone. Wouldn't you agree?"
"Most definitely. But now that she's going to be the First Lady, will she be going on reserve as well?"
"No. The rule only applies to the office holder. Besides, she does a great job out there. Why take her away from it?"
" Now what is the first thing you plan to do?"
"Before the inauguration and the swearing in, I have a wedding to think about."
"Really?"
"We agreed that if I won we'd get married before I was sworn in."
"That only gives you three weeks."
"Yes it does. So if you'll excuse me, I have to get to work on it."
"Not at all. Thank you for your time."
"The Klingons raise a good point, if they want to go Kamikaze it's a good back up" said Smith to the empress via subspace. "Keep the virus in storage for now, the Klingons are sending warriors and pilots to you along with a fleet. The Romulans are providing you with quantum singularity to install onto the impact ships and what Kamikaze?" replied Heath. "During Terra's Second World War, Japanese pilots deliberately rammed their planes into Allied warships, their soldiers would run and get under Allied tanks with a demolition charge and detonate it killing themselves and destroying the tank with the blast ma'am. We'll consider the virus to be a last resort weapon" said Smith. "We're looking at other viruses as well, the Valdez twins did say the virus was strictly one shot only" added Naynta.
"How many ships in production?" asked Thay via subspace. "Two dozen so far, all with quantum singularity cores and a pilot's seat as a manual control" answered Smith. "Any volunteers?" asked Thay. "The Klingons have sent us warriors who want to redeem their honor, we're also looking at recruiting those officers arrested for incompetence. Give them the choice of languishing in our booths and ship repair yards or a suicide mission to regain their honor, their families will be looked after" answered Smith. "The Ask'Kaar are contributing ships as are the Romulans. Problem is the Klingons and Romulans despise each other so we'll have to keep them separate to avoid bloodshed" added Naynta. "We've also got cloaked ships watching all known transwarp apertures as an early warning" said Smith.
"What about the fire arms training?" asked Thay. "We've made it mandatory for all Omega personnel" answered Naynta. "We would also recommend that the empress and her officers along with her troops receive training on firearms, obviously after the empress has given birth" added Smith. "Thank you both for your assessment, Los Lobos out" said Heath. "Well I'll meet you at the firing ranges" said Naynta before she left the room.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/868489934986127554/6E626C1923D538E64C0CE182400C60C2CA80917D/
Terran Empire 2256 (red)
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/868489934986129381/BCA04CF02E0AA4A3B48BE4EEC254619C4745FF8C/
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Terran Empire 2256
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/868489934986182701/0C5FFCC1A36B9F3513DE8BCAB0F3B1B3266A3A4B/
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Reports streamed in of another Borg incursion, this time on course for Vulcan. Battle Group Omega mobilized and deployed in the path of the Borg attack, As the Borg cross the border, they were intercepted by 30 conventional ship and 12 Impact ships. The Impact ships were released from their tethers and launched at Warp Six. Guided by remote control, they collided with the Cube in waves of three ramming from different angles. The Cube tore itself to pieces and exploded, then the conventional ships destroyed the debris left over and returned to base after confirming their first kill. For Omega, it was a job well done and they read the data gathered and smiled.
Smith was bothered though and Naynta had picked up on that. "The Borg I spoke to did say the Borg will adapt to these tactics eventually, chances are they'll support ships with their next attack to cover their Cubes or adapt and increase their hull armor" said Smith. "That's a bit disconcerting to say the least but for now let's call this a victory, we can show the Borg that we would rather die than be assimilated" replied Naynta. "Don't count us out yet, we have to be even more devious now" answered Smith. "The empress will be pleased, not only do we have an early warning system in place, we can intercept the intruders and destroy them" replied Naynta. "How are we on production?" asked Smith. "I've just ordered production of another 100 impact ships, they should be ready at end of the month, hows the training going on the firearms?" asked Naynta. "Very well, some of the soldiers actually prefer the firearms over phasers. I'm adding shotguns into our arsenal for close encounters" answered Smith.
"I'll send the report to the empress, you carry on with training our soldiers up" said Naynta. "Got a call to make first, I speak with Mereu daily. It's the only way we can keep in touch" said Smith. "Wife first, training afterwards" replied Naynta smiling. In his office, Smith put a call through to Mereu. "Dexter, tough day?" asked Mereu. "You could say that, things have been more than hectic around here. How's your day been?" replied Smith. "Interesting, Trianna has been scaring the hell of of the doctors which is quite amusing, just another month to go" answered Mereu. "You have warned Isoisa that women in labor are terrifying right?" asked Smith. "Not yet" answered Mereu.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
On Mars, Smith had all the MACO officers formed up with their units. "Today, you will face the Borg. This exercise will be in a holochamber, the enemy will adapt to your tactics so I want to see creativity and control of your emotions. Those of you who insist on using phasers only will be in for a rude shock. Firearms with holographic bullets will be used and holochamber safeties are on. Computer activate programme" said Smith then he took his seat in observation along with Naynta. "This is a near virtual no win scenario, you're setting them up to fail" said Naynta. "There's no right or wrong way of doing this exercise, this is to test them and find the leaders with potential, the teams who rely on brute force will learn the hard way that violence does not always win engagements. Sometimes knowing when to retreat is just as important in preserving their teams" answered Smith.
"Always a valid point, raise the temperature to 39.1 degrees celsius, it's the same as in a Borg vessel. Heat and humidity will affect their decisions" replied Naynta. "Done, lets make things interesting, team two has just fired on a drone. Time to awake the hive and target team two" answered Smith. The holographic drones now marched on team two from all angles as their phasers became useless. Smith stopped the programme with team two just the holographic drones grabbed them. Teams one and three were making progress controlling their fire and walking past the holographic drones without even being noticed. "The Borg will not engage intruders unless they become a target or a threat. However, team one is closing on their objective so lets ramp up the security, add forcefields around the central plexus and increase drone response to incursion" said Smith. "Team three are downloading the Borg computer now, permission to activate drones" asked Naynta. "Go ahead, let's test them" answered Smith. Now they activated the drones as team one got trapped by forcefields and team three had to fight their way to the beam out point. Team three were the only ones who made it to the beam out site. "End exercise" ordered Smith via intercom.
"The Borg will ignore intruders, however if an intruder becomes a threat or a target the Borg will attack as team two found out to their cost. Stealth and fire discipline are much better, Borg security is very good with enhanced forcefields to trap intruders as team one found out. Team three were the only ones who got to their objectives and carried their orders out before retreating to the beam out site. The lesson is act intelligently around the Borg because if that was real twelve of you would become drones" said Smith. "The Borg are a threat to all life, their ability to adapt to changing conditions makes them the most dangerous species we have encountered so do not underestimate them" said Naynta. "We'll run that again in six hours, go and study because it will be more difficult" ordered Smith. The troops chorused "Yes Sir." "Not bad but could be better" commented Naynta. "Agreed, practice makes perfect" replied Smith.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius