Star Trek: Eleventh Fleet

Episode 4: Chapter 1: The Signal

Moments before:

Kal struggled against time as he moved chips from one panel to another. The station shook now and then as weapon's fire hit it. He purposefully ignored the window, not wanting to watch the battle. The flashes of light told him all he needed to know.

"There goes that... and connect this... come on..." he strained to pull a high capacity isolinear cable from one section of the room to the other. He was changing this in a way that it was not originally intended for. He checked a readout on the small monitor and actually smiled. "Subspace interference is gone. Finally, something is going right."

"Captain! What are ya do'n up there?" Scotty's voice came over his comm badge.

Kal had one cord in his mouth while he yanked on another. With a muffled voice, he answered, "Kinda busy."

"Whatever you're do'n, you just cut communications with the fleet!"

"Damn," Kal muttered and finally plugged the first cord in, then pulled the other out of his teeth and shoved it into its new slot. He answered, "Sorry, can't help it. Just monitor things."

"It's a real mess, Captain. We... HOLD ON!" Scotty yelled this so loud his voice echoed up the tube from the command deck below.

Kal turned just in time to see that attack vessel careening out of control toward the station. He held the walls with both hands and cringed. The station rocked hard; the power flickered off and back on. Sirens blared all over the place and the computer announced, "Collision, Decks seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. Collision..."

"Dear god," Kal whispered as he watched that Borg sphere approaching the station. He slapped his comm badge, "TOJANN, ARE YOU OKAY!"

To his great relief, the voice of the Vulcan came through clearly, "Yes, Captain. We have..." The communication cut off.

"Tojann! TOJANN!" Kal slapped his badge over and over, but the buzz it made told him that internal communications were not working.

Just then the worst announcement came, "Intruder alert, deck ten."

"Damn, damn, damn..." Kal raced to finish his work, not sure if it was even necessary any longer. He activated the rewired system and put in the last of the chips. He checked over the monitor and it showed that all the relays were emitting from the same source. The signal would be more than a thousandfold stronger than any normal signal a starship could hope to send. All he had to do was give it the command to activate. Putting in a code, he turned the system on. It was emitting, but nothing was coming out just yet. Thinking about the dangers of this situation, he decided precaution was necessary. He accessed the computer core and found the special firewall programs Sakura created to stop the Borg. So long as they can't adapt, they won't be able to break this. He activated it to protect the comm system and then jumped over to the ladder and sped down. He climbed a few feet down and then slid the rest of the distance.

Racing around the corridor, Kal nearly skidded right into Scotty. "Report!"

"Captain! We have intruders. Five drones are marching down our halls again. Com'n right for the command center, all of em."

Kal paused. "If they could beam in, how come they didn't just beam in here?"

Scotty grinned. "I've got a scattering field pumping out of the old docking sensors. No one can beam to or from the command levels without their atoms splattered across the sector."

"Good thinking." Kal patted him on the back. "What about the science labs?"

"I canna say. That ship did a lot of damage to that section."