Meanwhile, outside, Banks was left with Graff and the crew of the Firestorm. She sat down and took out her PADD, mumbling something about "trying to work it out with a pencil".
A minute later a message silently appeared on Graff's PADD: Theyre all batty. Have you got any ideas? Who those soldier people that got beamed in at you? I don't know that uniform. Capt J seems to not like them very much.
[img]http://www.zen177395.zen.co.uk/ST stories etc/OoOTiM banner.jpg[/img] One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
Jim walked briskly past Burt, Scott, and the other Firestorm crew members, motioning for them to follow. They did.
Soon enough, they had beamed over to the Mephiles, aside from Nat, 11 of 14, Sarah, and Jim, who went to one of the intelligence offices on ESD, as though looking for something.
Krystal sighed and sat down behind her desk before dropping her head to the desk's surface.
"None of this is making sense..." she said to herself. "Too much, too fast..."
After a minute the door unexpectedly opened again and Ensign Banks looks in. "Sir, sorry but where am I supposed to be going? I still don't really know what I'm meant to be doing here..." She saw Krystal's expression and looked concerned. "You all right, sir? You were doing... a lot of things. You ought to have something to eat. That's what my C.O. always says when - My God. I forgot!" Banks seemed to be weighing something up before she spoke again.
"Supposing the Borg cube did come through and we disabled it, would that do us any good, or would he just send more stuff through?"
---
Meanwhile under the surface of Leora IV: A transporter beam lights up the dark tunnel for a moment. There is a loud squawk, and some kind of parrot appears.
[img]http://www.zen177395.zen.co.uk/ST stories etc/OoOTiM banner.jpg[/img] One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
"I don't know," Krystal sighed, lifting her head. "Maybe... maybe I should take a break and get something to eat. Maybe hit up the holodeck and de-stress."
"You do that, sir. I'll be..." Banks seemed, on reflection, totally unable to finish this sentence. "I'll be at the other end of my combadge. But really. About that thing. Let me know." She left the room.
[img]http://www.zen177395.zen.co.uk/ST stories etc/OoOTiM banner.jpg[/img] One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
Krystal got up and headed out, making her way to Holodeck 3. Once there, she fired up one of her favorite programs and went in. De-stress first, food later.
Eventually, they reached one of the intelligence offices on ESD and started trying to figure out... something. No luck so far.
General Kro'nok - I.K.S. Ha'vok, Qo'Nos Sector
The Klingon General sat in his command chair on the bridge of the Kar'Fi class battle carrier, watching the viewscreen, at a hunk of rock that was once the sight of a Klingon colony. Now, it was only a chunk of charred rock, destroyed by some kind of weapon larger than the Klingons had seen the likes of before.
The science officer turned to the General. "They were destroyed by some kind of plasma weapon, sir. A lot of plasma weapons."
The general didn't seemed happy. "What kind of plasma weapons? Romulan? Borg? Na'kuhl?"
The science officer replied, "unknown. More powerful than anything recorded, sir."
The tactical officer spoke up. "Sir, detecting a vessel 17 kelicams from here; it's big, sir. Very large... it's Cube shaped, sir."
Banks joined Nat, 11 of 14, Sarah and Jim in the intelligence office. She turned to Nat. "Sorry, sir, I stopped to ask Captain Jade something. Listen, I wanted to ask you, supposing the Borg cube did come through and we disabled it, would that do us any good, or would the Mirror Alliance just send more stuff through?"
[img]http://www.zen177395.zen.co.uk/ST stories etc/OoOTiM banner.jpg[/img] One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
Nat seemed surprised; he hadn't noticed that Banks had followed him until now. "I suspect the mirror Alliance probably only have so many ships to send through, but I wouldn't be surprised if we had to survive a few waves before they gave up or threw something bigger at us."
Sarah turned to Nat. "Like what?"
Nat started sweating. "Temporal weapons, probably. They'd be in and out before we even noticed a thing."
Jim was looking at the map of the galaxy, and seemed to be following some kind of path, but the path was... erratic. One minute, he was looking at the Gamma Quadrant; then Breen space, then Cardassian space, then he seemed to be lost. His eyes glanced over at Tholian space, and rested at the Azure Nebula. He typed a question or three into the computer, and number of red dots lit up in the Nebula on the map. Jim turned to 11 of 14. "Do you have a fleet under your command or anything now?"
11 raised an eyebrow. "A small taskforce of assorted Starfleet ships and a few Starfleet allied Breen ships. How come?"
Jim pointed to the dots. "The admiral might be currently held in one of these bases."
11 of 14 replied, "why there?"
Jim answered, "well I'm pretty sure they weren't holding the admiral in any of the Alliance Dyson Spheres before, so it seems reasonable that they had him in various Alliance allied outposts throughout the galaxy; I followed various prison transports and such that we've uncovered, and they eventually led these particular bases. It's probably worth a look."
11 of 14 nodded in agreement, downloading the data, and walked out, probably to issue some orders.
"Well," Banks said, more to herself than anyone, "if the anti-tachyon pulse fails or they get past it for whatever reason... I suppose it can't help but be good to have something in reserve to deal with the Borg cube." She nodded. "Excuse me a moment."
She sat down in the corner of the room with her PADD, where she sent a message to Admiral Quinn, headed "URGENT. '45." Having sent off the message, she sat scribbling on the PADD in silence, waiting for the response.
[img]http://www.zen177395.zen.co.uk/ST stories etc/OoOTiM banner.jpg[/img] One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
Elric's fall through a vertical tunnel turned diagonal and he slid out into an underground passage. He then got up on solid ground and, with his palm beacon, he saw that the new tunnel was endless in either direction. After several minutes of walking, a parrot transported in and began fluttering toward him, frantically! Seconds later, a metallic cable with an end that split like a mini-claw, grabbed the bird in mid-air and pulled it away from Elric.
The bird fluttered off, toward the opening in the wall several meters away, and Elric saw the cable sucked back into a 6 inch tall robot spider that looked like a crystal spinner. *Click!? Click, chirp!?*
"Whoa! You're not what I was expecting?" Elric said. "And, by the way, I had that."
The large arachnid hopped excitedly. *Chirp! By the way, I had that.*
"That was you I heard on the surface, wasn't it? Well, anyway, I'm looking for a way out of here. Know of any?"
It leapt onto the rocky wall and scurried passed Elric. *Click, click, chirp!* Then it leapt back onto the ground and started leading Elric. The Captain shrugged and began following.
(N.B. I've had to leave, but I can't think of a story reason for Banks to disappear, but just take it that she is no longer here or at least not available to be talked to!)
[img]http://www.zen177395.zen.co.uk/ST stories etc/OoOTiM banner.jpg[/img] One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
Nat turned to Jim, who shrugged. The three looked at Banks, then shrugged and walked out.
General Kro'nok - I.K.S. Hav'ok, Xarantine Sector
"Sir, we've successfully beamed aboard the vessel and are beginning our investigation now."
General Kro'nok sat in his command chair as always, observing the Cube-bound away team on the viewscreen. So far, everything was calm. "Remember, commander; they shouldn't attack until they consider you a threat. Don't do anything to... ahem... aggravate them?"
The Gorn commander hissed back. "I know, sir. They're quiet as... wait..."
Unexpectedly, one of the drones turned to the away team. Soon, another, then another. A drone emerged from it's alcove and began running towards them, tackling one of the officers and injecting him with nanoprobes. "Sir, they're attacking. They're too fast, they--" he turned to fire on another incoming drone; his weapon was blasted away by a plasma bolt and the Gorn commander, too, soon became Borg.
The General was shocked. After all, the entire away team of Honor Guards had been obliterated in under a minute after bording the vessel. "Borg drones shouldn't be able to move that quickly. They're faster, and don't let us beam aboard with challenge." He turned to the communications officer. "Contact the Klingon High Command and inform them of this development immediately."
The Borg ship came closer into view; it was a monster. Massive in size, approximately 20 kilometers in dimensions; indeed, a Tactical Fusion Cube not unlike the one the Firestorm officers had described. It headed for Earth, having destroyed anything in it's path.
"So, your name is Zeta, huh? And you've been roaming the stars from ship to ship?" Elric said. "Sorry to hear that, and that you ended up here."
The android-spider continued leading the way. *Click, click! Chirp!*
"Speaking of ships, I think I've lost contact with mine. Things can beam in, but I can't beam out. I must be on the cusp of range. Figures that I'd lose my second chance at the Amaterasu. As for this medallion, it's designs are nearly identical to depictions found on this planet. It's been claimed this world was a site for an ancient El-Aurian colony."
Suddenly, the two came upon the end of the tunnel, leading into a giant open area containing an age-old, underground city, lit by luminescent plant-based filaments. The buildings were abandoned, dusty, and at the center of them was an alien pyramid.
Captain Aeris - U.S.S. Viracocha, Bridge
The human command officer sat at her chair aboard the Sojourner-class starship as it was examining a Class J nebula. A few seconds later, her arm console reported the Borg signature heading for Earth. Aeris stood and narrowed her brow.
Klingon Bortas'qu class Dreadnought I.K.S. Pet'qu, Celes Sector
The Klingon captain sat in their command chair aboard the Bortas'qu class battlecruiser, sent to intercept the Borg vessel, which dropped out of warp upon detecting the Pet'qu. The Klingon ship moved in to attack. The Borg ship fired on the ship with a number of plasma arrays, and fired a trio of Borg heavy plasma torpedoes. A half second later, it fired 3 more torpedoes. Than another 3. Then another 3. It continued firing with a barrage of torpedoes until, exactly 2.47 seconds after the engagement began, at which point the Klingon ship had already been destroyed. The Borg vessel, unharmed, continued to warp, still headed for Earth.
The admiral sat around in his office, not sure how things would end regarding the 2 Alliances. A moment later, his comm console chirped, and he reached over and activated it. "What is it?" asked the admiral.
A Klingon general, Kro'nok, starting speaking. "This is General Kro'nok aboard the I.K.S. Hav'ok, currently tracking a massive Borg vessel headed for the Sol System, and set to arrive in a few minutes, if uninterrupted. The drones are overwhelmingly fast compared to the norm, and the vessel has demonstrated enough power to destroy a Bortas' dreadnought in a single shot. You should prepare Earth's defenses for it's arrival."
Captain Nat, Captain Jim Dennison, Commander Sarah Walker, Rear Admiral 11 of 14 - Earth Spacedock
11 of 14 turned to Sarah. "By the way, command has authorized to promote you back to captain and give you command of a new ship. Since we're low on ships at the moment, I wouldn't mind if you could serve as my first officer, and essentially captain of the Midnight, considering that I'll be spending most of my time--"
Alarms sounded abruptly, red lights coming on throughout the station. Captain Nat looked around at the panic as the speakers broadcast warnings of the incoming Borg vessel. He turned to 11 of 14, Sarah, and Jim, nodding, as they nodded back. Sarah and Jim scrambled to their (in Sarah's case, newly assigned) ships immediately; Nat and 11 of 14 ran for main engineering aboard Spacedock, hoping to set up an anti-tachyon pulse before the Borg ship arrived.
Krystal comes back to the bridge of the Lexington.
"Report," she ordered.
"Massive Borg ship inbound! Its... sir... permission to speak freely?"
"Granted."
"We're frakked."
"That big huh?"
"Bigger."
The vessel, predictably, dropped out of warp. Massive in size, it's mere presence had already altered the orbit of the moon, and the flight paths of half a dozen starships in the area, at least until the vessels were blasted away, almost immediately. Admiral Quinn had already organized as many ships as the Federation could muster here and now, but with only a few dozen ships, most of which were barely flying, the situation was bleak, to say the least.
Admiral Quinn came over the comms. "This is Admiral Quinn on spacedock. We've got officers working to set up a pulse to repel the incoming Borg vessel, but they won't be able to manage it in time, so you'll have to hold off that Borg ship, somehow, until they do. Do whatever it takes; anything and everything is authorized to keep that thing at bay. We can't let them--"
The transmission cut out and was substituted for a new one. "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
The Mephiles immediately shot towards the Borg ship, followed by a number of other Federation ships. The Borg vessel charged weapons.
"Can we reconfigure our Deflector to emit an Anti-Tachyon beam? Maybe it will disrupt their systems by forcing the ship to fluctuate between our universe and their own," Krystal suggested.
"Possibly..."
"Do it!"
"We'll need some time..."
"Cut corners if you have to! We need that beam now."
The Mephiles was still headed for the Cube, the Starfleet vessel's shields now glowing blue, humming with power. The Cube fired a trio of plasma lances at the Mephiles; somehow, she remained undamaged as the beams were deflected back at the source; weakening the Cube's shields. It fired again, and again, still to no avail. The Mephiles opened fire with a flurry of antiproton beams and omega plasma torpedoes, adding to the Cube's damages as it hopelessly continued firing.
The Borg vessel was evidently disrupted. It detected the disruption, and targeted the Lexington, firing on her main deflector with a salvo of heavy plasma bolts. The Mephiles moved to target and destroy the vessel's targeting sensors.
Lexington absorbed the damage by reversing her shield polarity, causing the attacts to actually strengthen her own shields while maintaining the beam. Any torpedos were shot down with a Point Defense system.
The Sojourner-class Viracocha dropped warp at Earth Spacedock in time to engage the enormous Borg cube. Aeris stepped forward in shock.
"Never thought I'd be back here so soon. Well, new crew, new ship; let's see how we hold up. Offensive maneuvers! Fire all weapons!"
Captain Elric - Leora IV, Underground Lost City
Elric and his robotic spider companion, Zeta, walked through the ancient subterranean core, passing dust-infused, abandoned building after abandoned building. He then came upon a public square displaying a giant stone wall with age-old inscriptions on it.
"This appears to be Ancient El-Aurian. It's quite similar to recent historical El-Aurian, a writing that no one is familiar with."
Zeta, at his feet, perked. *Click!?*
"My professor was only one of a few that got their hands on a sample and was cataloging it back in my Academy days. I snuck in a study session with it once. If I'm not mistaken, by the looks of the pictographs and inscriptions, it's describing a communal anti-power vessel, and then it displays the top of the pyramid."
Suddenly, there was a growl from behind him. Upon turning, he saw a tall, hairy beast, resembling a mugato, staring him down. It quickly moved forward and attacked, launching its giant forearms right for Elric. The Captain and Zeta leapt out of the way as the forearms smashed into the stone tiles and sent rocky debris into the air. The two explorers turned and ran for it! As Elric was running through the old streets, he saw two more giant mugato cousins running and leaping at pace over rooftops in his direction. Elric then turned toward the center-town pyramid.
The Borg vessel returned fire on all ships, firing off all kinds of weapons. Plasma beams, plasma lances, torpedoes, plasma bolts, cutting beams, cannons, etc. Basically everything the Borg have ever wielded.
Lexington held her ground, using every conventional and unconventional trick in the book to survive the onslaught, but it was starting to become clear it was taxing the ship's systems to do so.
The Anti-Tachyon Beam continued to drill into the Borg ship.
The Borg ship wouldn't relent. Systems were phasing in and out of normal space, but the ship remained regardless, firing another salvo of heavy plasma bolts at the Lexington; the Mephiles managed to the intercept the projectiles in time, luckily.
A Miranda-class starship's saucer section was torn apart and as the Viracocha fired a spread of quantum torpedoes into the Borg cube, Aeris' starship dropped shields for a moment to beam the other ship's survivors on board. The Viracocha's port hull was hit with a harsh beam, but its access was quickly cut off by her shields going back up. Aeris had the Viracocha tractor beam the Miranda-class starship toward the Borg cube, drop tractor, and fired phasers into the derelict Federation starship until its core breached against the Borg cube's hull. A massive explosion bloomed behind an escaping Viracocha.
Winning.
A minute later a message silently appeared on Graff's PADD:
Theyre all batty. Have you got any ideas?
Who those soldier people that got beamed in at you? I don't know that uniform. Capt J seems to not like them very much.
One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
Soon enough, they had beamed over to the Mephiles, aside from Nat, 11 of 14, Sarah, and Jim, who went to one of the intelligence offices on ESD, as though looking for something.
Winning.
"None of this is making sense..." she said to herself. "Too much, too fast..."
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
"Supposing the Borg cube did come through and we disabled it, would that do us any good, or would he just send more stuff through?"
---
Meanwhile under the surface of Leora IV:
A transporter beam lights up the dark tunnel for a moment. There is a loud squawk, and some kind of parrot appears.
One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
General Kro'nok - I.K.S. Ha'vok, Qo'Nos Sector
The Klingon General sat in his command chair on the bridge of the Kar'Fi class battle carrier, watching the viewscreen, at a hunk of rock that was once the sight of a Klingon colony. Now, it was only a chunk of charred rock, destroyed by some kind of weapon larger than the Klingons had seen the likes of before.
The science officer turned to the General. "They were destroyed by some kind of plasma weapon, sir. A lot of plasma weapons."
The general didn't seemed happy. "What kind of plasma weapons? Romulan? Borg? Na'kuhl?"
The science officer replied, "unknown. More powerful than anything recorded, sir."
The tactical officer spoke up. "Sir, detecting a vessel 17 kelicams from here; it's big, sir. Very large... it's Cube shaped, sir."
Winning.
One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
Sarah turned to Nat. "Like what?"
Nat started sweating. "Temporal weapons, probably. They'd be in and out before we even noticed a thing."
Jim was looking at the map of the galaxy, and seemed to be following some kind of path, but the path was... erratic. One minute, he was looking at the Gamma Quadrant; then Breen space, then Cardassian space, then he seemed to be lost. His eyes glanced over at Tholian space, and rested at the Azure Nebula. He typed a question or three into the computer, and number of red dots lit up in the Nebula on the map. Jim turned to 11 of 14. "Do you have a fleet under your command or anything now?"
11 raised an eyebrow. "A small taskforce of assorted Starfleet ships and a few Starfleet allied Breen ships. How come?"
Jim pointed to the dots. "The admiral might be currently held in one of these bases."
11 of 14 replied, "why there?"
Jim answered, "well I'm pretty sure they weren't holding the admiral in any of the Alliance Dyson Spheres before, so it seems reasonable that they had him in various Alliance allied outposts throughout the galaxy; I followed various prison transports and such that we've uncovered, and they eventually led these particular bases. It's probably worth a look."
11 of 14 nodded in agreement, downloading the data, and walked out, probably to issue some orders.
Winning.
She sat down in the corner of the room with her PADD, where she sent a message to Admiral Quinn, headed "URGENT. '45." Having sent off the message, she sat scribbling on the PADD in silence, waiting for the response.
One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
Winning.
Elric's fall through a vertical tunnel turned diagonal and he slid out into an underground passage. He then got up on solid ground and, with his palm beacon, he saw that the new tunnel was endless in either direction. After several minutes of walking, a parrot transported in and began fluttering toward him, frantically! Seconds later, a metallic cable with an end that split like a mini-claw, grabbed the bird in mid-air and pulled it away from Elric.
The bird fluttered off, toward the opening in the wall several meters away, and Elric saw the cable sucked back into a 6 inch tall robot spider that looked like a crystal spinner. *Click!? Click, chirp!?*
"Whoa! You're not what I was expecting?" Elric said. "And, by the way, I had that."
The large arachnid hopped excitedly. *Chirp! By the way, I had that.*
"That was you I heard on the surface, wasn't it? Well, anyway, I'm looking for a way out of here. Know of any?"
It leapt onto the rocky wall and scurried passed Elric. *Click, click, chirp!* Then it leapt back onto the ground and started leading Elric. The Captain shrugged and began following.
One Of Our Telepaths Is Missing - a new Foundry mission.
What do you do when somebody goes into meditation and doesn't come out?
Where's the only place in the universe that Romulus still exists?
Can you cope when your minds are playing tricks on you?
Nat turned to Jim, who shrugged. The three looked at Banks, then shrugged and walked out.
General Kro'nok - I.K.S. Hav'ok, Xarantine Sector
"Sir, we've successfully beamed aboard the vessel and are beginning our investigation now."
General Kro'nok sat in his command chair as always, observing the Cube-bound away team on the viewscreen. So far, everything was calm. "Remember, commander; they shouldn't attack until they consider you a threat. Don't do anything to... ahem... aggravate them?"
The Gorn commander hissed back. "I know, sir. They're quiet as... wait..."
Unexpectedly, one of the drones turned to the away team. Soon, another, then another. A drone emerged from it's alcove and began running towards them, tackling one of the officers and injecting him with nanoprobes. "Sir, they're attacking. They're too fast, they--" he turned to fire on another incoming drone; his weapon was blasted away by a plasma bolt and the Gorn commander, too, soon became Borg.
The General was shocked. After all, the entire away team of Honor Guards had been obliterated in under a minute after bording the vessel. "Borg drones shouldn't be able to move that quickly. They're faster, and don't let us beam aboard with challenge." He turned to the communications officer. "Contact the Klingon High Command and inform them of this development immediately."
The Borg ship came closer into view; it was a monster. Massive in size, approximately 20 kilometers in dimensions; indeed, a Tactical Fusion Cube not unlike the one the Firestorm officers had described. It headed for Earth, having destroyed anything in it's path.
Winning.
"So, your name is Zeta, huh? And you've been roaming the stars from ship to ship?" Elric said. "Sorry to hear that, and that you ended up here."
The android-spider continued leading the way. *Click, click! Chirp!*
"Speaking of ships, I think I've lost contact with mine. Things can beam in, but I can't beam out. I must be on the cusp of range. Figures that I'd lose my second chance at the Amaterasu. As for this medallion, it's designs are nearly identical to depictions found on this planet. It's been claimed this world was a site for an ancient El-Aurian colony."
Suddenly, the two came upon the end of the tunnel, leading into a giant open area containing an age-old, underground city, lit by luminescent plant-based filaments. The buildings were abandoned, dusty, and at the center of them was an alien pyramid.
Captain Aeris - U.S.S. Viracocha, Bridge
The human command officer sat at her chair aboard the Sojourner-class starship as it was examining a Class J nebula. A few seconds later, her arm console reported the Borg signature heading for Earth. Aeris stood and narrowed her brow.
"All stop. Load up the engines and set a course."
The Klingon captain sat in their command chair aboard the Bortas'qu class battlecruiser, sent to intercept the Borg vessel, which dropped out of warp upon detecting the Pet'qu. The Klingon ship moved in to attack. The Borg ship fired on the ship with a number of plasma arrays, and fired a trio of Borg heavy plasma torpedoes. A half second later, it fired 3 more torpedoes. Than another 3. Then another 3. It continued firing with a barrage of torpedoes until, exactly 2.47 seconds after the engagement began, at which point the Klingon ship had already been destroyed. The Borg vessel, unharmed, continued to warp, still headed for Earth.
Admiral Quinn - Earth Spacedock, Admiral Quinn's Office
The admiral sat around in his office, not sure how things would end regarding the 2 Alliances. A moment later, his comm console chirped, and he reached over and activated it. "What is it?" asked the admiral.
A Klingon general, Kro'nok, starting speaking. "This is General Kro'nok aboard the I.K.S. Hav'ok, currently tracking a massive Borg vessel headed for the Sol System, and set to arrive in a few minutes, if uninterrupted. The drones are overwhelmingly fast compared to the norm, and the vessel has demonstrated enough power to destroy a Bortas' dreadnought in a single shot. You should prepare Earth's defenses for it's arrival."
Captain Nat, Captain Jim Dennison, Commander Sarah Walker, Rear Admiral 11 of 14 - Earth Spacedock
11 of 14 turned to Sarah. "By the way, command has authorized to promote you back to captain and give you command of a new ship. Since we're low on ships at the moment, I wouldn't mind if you could serve as my first officer, and essentially captain of the Midnight, considering that I'll be spending most of my time--"
Alarms sounded abruptly, red lights coming on throughout the station. Captain Nat looked around at the panic as the speakers broadcast warnings of the incoming Borg vessel. He turned to 11 of 14, Sarah, and Jim, nodding, as they nodded back. Sarah and Jim scrambled to their (in Sarah's case, newly assigned) ships immediately; Nat and 11 of 14 ran for main engineering aboard Spacedock, hoping to set up an anti-tachyon pulse before the Borg ship arrived.
Winning.
"Report," she ordered.
"Massive Borg ship inbound! Its... sir... permission to speak freely?"
"Granted."
"We're frakked."
"That big huh?"
"Bigger."
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
The vessel, predictably, dropped out of warp. Massive in size, it's mere presence had already altered the orbit of the moon, and the flight paths of half a dozen starships in the area, at least until the vessels were blasted away, almost immediately. Admiral Quinn had already organized as many ships as the Federation could muster here and now, but with only a few dozen ships, most of which were barely flying, the situation was bleak, to say the least.
Admiral Quinn came over the comms. "This is Admiral Quinn on spacedock. We've got officers working to set up a pulse to repel the incoming Borg vessel, but they won't be able to manage it in time, so you'll have to hold off that Borg ship, somehow, until they do. Do whatever it takes; anything and everything is authorized to keep that thing at bay. We can't let them--"
The transmission cut out and was substituted for a new one. "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
The Mephiles immediately shot towards the Borg ship, followed by a number of other Federation ships. The Borg vessel charged weapons.
Winning.
"Possibly..."
"Do it!"
"We'll need some time..."
"Cut corners if you have to! We need that beam now."
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
Winning.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
Winning.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
The Sojourner-class Viracocha dropped warp at Earth Spacedock in time to engage the enormous Borg cube. Aeris stepped forward in shock.
"Never thought I'd be back here so soon. Well, new crew, new ship; let's see how we hold up. Offensive maneuvers! Fire all weapons!"
Captain Elric - Leora IV, Underground Lost City
Elric and his robotic spider companion, Zeta, walked through the ancient subterranean core, passing dust-infused, abandoned building after abandoned building. He then came upon a public square displaying a giant stone wall with age-old inscriptions on it.
"This appears to be Ancient El-Aurian. It's quite similar to recent historical El-Aurian, a writing that no one is familiar with."
Zeta, at his feet, perked. *Click!?*
"My professor was only one of a few that got their hands on a sample and was cataloging it back in my Academy days. I snuck in a study session with it once. If I'm not mistaken, by the looks of the pictographs and inscriptions, it's describing a communal anti-power vessel, and then it displays the top of the pyramid."
Suddenly, there was a growl from behind him. Upon turning, he saw a tall, hairy beast, resembling a mugato, staring him down. It quickly moved forward and attacked, launching its giant forearms right for Elric. The Captain and Zeta leapt out of the way as the forearms smashed into the stone tiles and sent rocky debris into the air. The two explorers turned and ran for it! As Elric was running through the old streets, he saw two more giant mugato cousins running and leaping at pace over rooftops in his direction. Elric then turned toward the center-town pyramid.
Winning.
The Anti-Tachyon Beam continued to drill into the Borg ship.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
Winning.