‘Five point seven… five point eight…’

A red warning light flared at Ekios’s left, small but enough to flicker crimson across the cramped cockpit. Jaw tightening, he ignored it, grip firm on the flight controls to keep his course steady as the shuttle shuddered and rattled around him.

‘Six!’ he confirmed triumphantly through gritted teeth. Through the canopy, it was as if the stars began to to streak as his shuttle vaulted through the black and hunted impulse speeds to threaten light itself.

‘That’s enough, Ekios,’ came Control’s voice through his earpiece. ‘Throttle her down, and we’ll pick you up.’

But the speed level on his dashboard was already eking up. Six point one. Point two. Point three…

‘Six isn’t good enough to win the Trans-stellar Rally, Control.’ With a flash of a grin, Ekios pumped more juice into his engines. ‘We can hit seven.’

‘Injection manifolds aren’t rated for the heat levels at six point five,’ Control reminded, her voice as monotonous when she was chiding him as it had been when he’d hit their test target. ‘You are directed to end the flight.’

Ekios’s gaze flickered back to the dashboard. Point four. ‘We came second to the Chessu last year!’ he protested. ‘Starfleet keep wanting to compete! We’ve got to nail this thing, or we can kiss victory goodbye again.’

But Control’s answer was predictable. ‘We will review this flight’s findings and grant another test if the engineering team clears the system for these speeds.’

‘What’s that, Control? You’re breaking up.’ It was the oldest lie any test pilot had ever told, but it was for his own benefit, not hers. Not his superiors in the Antarian Nor-Flight Company, chasing dominance on behalf of his government in the annual Antarian Trans-stellar Relay, the Gradin Belt’s sporting and political event of the year.

‘You are directed to –’

When Control’s voice went dead, for a second, Ekios thought he’d killed the comms. But his hands hadn’t left the flight controls, and a heartbeat later, they began to shudder more. Another alert light went off.

Six point six. Ekios could smell burning. And his comms had blown out. A second later came a blaring alarm as his left impulse engine began to overheat, and all ambitions about the Trans-stellar relay fled his thoughts. On instinct, the veteran pilot ran through his protocols. Shut down the engine. Vent the system compartments.

The shuttle fell into a wild, desperate spin, hard enough for the G-forces to pin him back in his chair. Groaning, Ekios had to fight to reach for the controls for his manoeuvring thrusters.

Over and over he tumbled. Even as spots flared in front of his eyes, the Antarian pilot fought to bring what few systems he could back online, activate what thrusters he had to stop the spin, to slow him down. Being in the far, distant reaches of the Gradin Belt, light-years away from anyone was the perfect place to test new engines away from watching eyes of rivals and spies. Even his ship was a distance out. But if he blacked out, he’d tumble forever.

The manoeuvring thrusters fired. The shuttle stopped spinning. Slowed. And Ekios let himself black out.

When he came to, the smell of burning was still in his nostrils, but it smelled old. A quick check of himself confirmed no injuries; a quick check of his systems confirmed most of them were dead, but nothing was on fire. Life support minimal. Manoeuvring thrusters burnt out from salvaging his fall. No comms, and nothing through the canopy but the endless black of space.

Something flickered on his short-range sensors, the only ones he had left, and Ekios breathed a sigh of relief. His ship had come to pick him up. Scrubbing his face with his hands, he sat up, and looked at the signal.

When his stomach dropped out, he told himself it was a mistake. Damage to his systems. Then a shadow fell over the canopy, and Ekios stared up as the stars were blocked out for a dim, emerald gleam. Even though he’d never seen the like of this ship before, he didn’t need his sensors to tell him what he was looking at: a Borg Sphere.

It hung before his battered, disabled shuttle for what felt like a lifetime. Ekios’s hands hammered in panic across his controls, trying to fire up engines, warp drive, comms, anything that could get him out of there or summon help. All he managed to do was boost what limited power he had to his short range sensors, and they told him that the Sphere was scanning him.

‘They never come this far out,’ he babbled to himself as if that would change anything. Chaotic Space had stopped the Borg from expanding their territory into the Belt, and ships venturing this far had not been reported in decades. Though Ekios knew he could not actually feel being scanned, his skin crawled as if it knew Borg sensors were raking over him, his flesh and blood, his potentiality as a drone. None of his systems responded. He was trapped. Ekios closed his eyes, knowing that in a moment, the transporter beam would consume him, knowing it was, indeed, futile to resist.

He did not know how long he sat like that, braced and cowering and nearly weeping. But when he opened his eyes, he was still in his shuttle. There was no Borg Sphere through his canopy. His sensors were clear.

Had he doubted himself even a shred more, he might have checked his records to be sure he hadn’t imagined it. But Ekios had seen all manner of horrors on the edge of space, and while none of them came close to the Borg, he knew himself and his judgement. At once, he sat up, and began rummaging through his cockpit for his emergency rescue beacon. He had to be rescued. But more importantly, the Gradin Belt had to be warned.

The Borg were silent no longer.

‘Another?’ Vice Admiral Beckett’s face was like granite as he entered the operations centre of Fourth Fleet Intelligence.

Even though she’d expected him, Commander Lockhart jumped. ‘Several, sir. Borg signals are cropping up across the Beta Quadrant.’

Beckett advanced on the holographic display of the galactic map. The great powers shone bright, the Federation’s democratic cerulean bracketed by brash crimson, perfidious emerald, conceited gold. Those were the hues that dominated his day-to-day, the rivals, allies, and foes who commanded most of his and his department’s attention. But while his eye still fell to those borders, it was not they who had his attention, for once. ‘These aren’t ships.’

‘If they were ships, sir, we’d be on full alert,’ Lockhart said. She tapped one shining neon green light winking atop a Federation insignia. ‘Starbase 10 has been dismantling the black market in the former Neutral Zone. Two months ago, they broke up a smuggling ring whose wares included Borg technology. That trade lost its leadership in the last few years, so it’s been a lower priority, but it’s still been on our sensors. Starbase 10 retained the technology – implants from xBs, wreckage from the Artifact – for evidence and for study.’

‘That’s the source of this signal.’

‘Yes, sir. They thought they’d killed all power sources on the Borg devices, only for half of them to reveal an emergency power supply, enough to activate a homing beacon.’ Lockhart straightened. ‘Admiral, Starfleet has seen these before. They’re emergency signals lost drones and ships send out when they need retrieving. It matches the same signatures the Enterprise recorded in their encounter in 2368.’

‘Hugh,’ Beckett recalled with a curl of the lip. If he had any opinions on the xB or the Enterprise’s encounter – opinions on whether Jean-Luc Picard had been right to refuse to use the lost drone to infect the Collective over thirty years ago – he kept them to himself. Lockhart was quietly relieved; she had been at this all night, and 0400 hours was not the time to relitigate that manner of warfare. At last, he said, ‘We’re containing this information?’

‘These signals are activating either in labs which are already classified to the highest level, or on volatile frontiers like the Neutral Zone,’ said Lockhart. ‘The moment you bring Borg into a situation, people get tense, sir, but for the moment, it’s staying off the beaten track.’

‘Is there any sign of the Borg coming for these signals?’

Lockhart grimaced and brought the map’s focus closer to the Beta Quadrant coreward frontier. ‘The Susan B. Anthony continued to monitor that Borg ship on long-range sensors. It intercepted a homing signal. The signal went dark. The ship has withdrawn. The Anthony kept her distance, but other homing signals in the region have gone dark since, too.’

‘If the Borg are responding to these signals, there’s no reason to assume they’ll keep their distance.’

‘It’s worse in the Delta Quadrant, sir,’ Lockhart said, unhappy to be the bearer of bad news. This was her job, but Beckett never made it easy. ‘We have several confirmed reports of Borg ships moving from Collective space and into regions even such as the Gradin Belt. This isn’t a deployment of aggressive expansion, but something’s kicked the hive.’

‘This isn’t a coincidence, weeks after Frontier Day.’ Beckett shook his head. ‘Do you still have contacts at the Palais, Commander?’

‘Of course,’ Lockhart said without blinking. It was a mild exaggeration, but it wouldn’t do to tell Vice Admiral Beckett that she’d have to grease some wheels and be somewhat obsequious to her successor, aide to the President’s intelligence advisor, to weasel something out of him.

‘What’s the mood there?’

She hesitated, caught between not wanting to lie and not wanting to be useless. ‘Nobody wants to jump at shadows, sir. We’ve just had one disaster – two.’

‘And from one of those, you’d think they’d have learnt about sitting on problems and hoping they’d go away,’ Beckett grumbled. ‘We need to put this together in a cast-iron briefing package. No more tip-toeing about. This goes to the top.’

‘This goes,’ boomed a voice at the doorway, ‘to me, Alex.’

Lockhart stared at a point on the bulkhead and tried to turn invisible as Beckett froze. Few people in the galaxy should have been able to open those doors right now. It was rarer and more terrifying that speaker had deigned to be on first-name terms with the Director of Fourth Fleet Intelligence.

By the time Beckett turned, he was all smiles. Lizard smiles, the type everyone knew were for polite performance but might be a prelude to being swallowed whole (Lockhart had a phobia of lizards; if she tried to retain accurate knowledge of their eating habits, she wouldn’t sleep for a week). ‘Liam.’

Those who worked with Beckett had to become inured to his manner, and Admiral Liam Dahlgren, Deputy Commander, Fourth Fleet, was no exception. He marched straight-backed to the display, eyes flickering across it to absorb the essentials in mere heartbeats. ‘You’re sure.’

‘That we have a Borg problem?’ Beckett straightened. ‘I’m certain. These signatures are showing up anywhere Borg might show their faces, from Markonian to Freecloud. Several of our ships have gone silent, including the Marlowe. Why haven’t we gone to full alert?’

Dahlgren ignored him for a moment more, folding his arms across his chest as he surveyed the map. At length, he looked to Lockhart. ‘Your opinion, Commander?’

Lockhart realised she had failed to leave her body and become one with the universe. ‘I agree with Admiral Beckett,’ she said, and at the faintest flicker in Dahlgren’s eye, she drew a sharp breath. ‘This isn’t scattered or random, sir. We’ve got a good bead on some of these Neutral Zone locations, if only through long-range sensors. These were low priority situations, with nothing to indicate current, dangerous tech on the loose – and they all light up with signals at once? Hardware in some of our most secure research facilities has done the same. I have some of my own contacts on Markonian, not just the DEI’s, and they’re all saying the same thing. The Borg are moving. I don’t know if the signals came first and they’re responding, or if the Collective decided to move and activating those signals is part of it.’

Dahlgren nodded, rubbing his chin. ‘Picard thought the Borg were finally gone for good.’

‘Picard thinks only he can understand or deal with the Borg,’ Beckett scoffed. ‘But Frontier Day cannot have been the Collective’s original plan. They genetically altered Picard thirty-five years ago so they could sabotage Starfleet systems and use his future son to assume control of young officers? That was a gambit of a desperate entity, pulling together loose threads of failed schemes. They lost one ship and a Queen. They’ve lost Queens before – at least four times, to the best of our knowledge. Frontier Day doesn’t tell me they’re defeated. Frontier Day tells me they’re desperate and unpredictable.’

‘This response,’ Dahlgren said, gesturing to the map, ‘doesn’t seem unpredictable.’

‘What little we know,’ Lockhart ventured, ‘matches our oldest records on Borg activity. The Delta Quadrant inhabitants have reported individual ships being overlooked in their encounters. Captain Camarero said she thought the Cube had spotted the Anthony on several occasions, but it ignored them to prioritise these signals.’

‘That could mean anything,’ Beckett said, and rounded back on Dahlgren. ‘Put our past disagreements aside, Liam. You know I’m right.’

Dahlgren raised an eyebrow. To Lockhart, it looked like he had not given their disagreements half as much thought as Beckett. But then, Beckett was the one who had been wrong; the one who had spent weeks squatting on his suspicions of a Changeling infiltrator at the heart of Fourth Fleet Command, only to discover he’d been pointing the finger at the wrong admiral completely. By his records, Lockhart thought Liam Dahlgren was likely the sort of man to accept fog of war in a time of subterfuge and manipulation, and move on with his life. By meeting Alexander Beckett for five minutes, Lockhart thought the Director of Fourth Fleet Intelligence would go to his grave seething over being wrong.

At length, Dahlgren said, ‘What are you asking for, Alex?’

‘We take this to Ramar. We take this to the President. We raise the alert across the Federation,’ Beckett thundered.

‘And then… what? We mobilise the fleets? Where? Against what?’

Beckett hesitated. ‘We reinforce the Beta Quadrant borders. We send task forces to the Delta Quadrant.’

‘The Borg haven’t sent ships anywhere near our borders. Even if we send forces to the Delta Quadrant, what would they do when they find a Borg ship? Get blown up? This isn’t a time to overreact.’

‘I don’t think there exists such a thing as “overreaction” when it comes to the Borg, sir.’

Lockhart held her breath. Beckett hadn’t sounded sarcastic at the address. He’d sounded, if anything, desperate.

Dahlgren seemed to hear that, too, and turned to face the other admiral. ‘Starfleet is still reeling from Frontier Day. Our ships lack personnel, especially experienced personnel. People have barely managed to avoid pointing at each other and yelling “Changeling,” let alone, “Borg.” If we set one foot wrong, we’re going to turn Frontier Day into the next Mars: a soul-wound so deep we do nothing but stare at a terrifying galaxy, reinforce and hide behind our borders, and look amongst ourselves for someone to blame. I will not bring any such recommendation to Fleet Admiral Ramar.’

Beckett worked his jaw. ‘We can’t do nothing.’

‘I’ve no intention of doing nothing. I intend to do the right thing.’ Dahlgren pulled out a PADD and began tapping at it. ‘We have to remember why we’re here.’

Now Beckett rolled his eyes. ‘Liam, I don’t need a lecture on Starfleet’s role to shepherd the heart of the Federation and -’

‘I’m not being insipid, Alex. I don’t mean Starfleet.’ At last, Dahlgren sounded frustrated. He flipped the PADD and extended it. ‘I mean, we have to remember why the Fourth Fleet is here.’

When Beckett reached for the PADD, it was as if he feared it might sting. ‘Directive Four.’

Lockhart waited for an explanation; freely given or by the context cues, she didn’t care. But in the silence that followed, she found herself clearing her throat. ‘Directive Four, sirs?’

‘People think of the Fourth Fleet as forming for the Dominion War,’ said Beckett, straightening as he sobered. ‘That is incorrect. We were already formed by the war’s start.’

‘We’re not going out on a limb like in Deneb, stood alone against the darkness,’ said Dahlgren, eyes locked on Beckett. ‘We’re not acting in secrecy. The Collective is out there. But before Starfleet – the Federation – takes one wrong step, we get the true measure of this situation. That’s why we’re here, Alex. The Fourth Fleet was formed to face the Borg.’

“Captains, we have the latest reports.”  The yeoman handed PADDs to each man and retreated to his desk.

Captain Geronimo was first as he read, “The next time I get the idea to send the Mackenzie to the Delta Quadrant, tell me in no uncertain terms how bad of an idea it is.”  He read the report of Chief Katsumi’s death, the ensuing service, and the request from Captain Wren Walton for station counseling services to be available upon arrival.

“As long as you remind me to never send Theta Squad… anywhere apparently.” Varen rubbed his forehead, pressing even more furrows into the bridge of his nose. He had spent much of the overnight shift calling favours from across the quadrant to facilitate Daedalus’ newest additions. “Tanek is barely answering my comms, when he does it’s all one word answers. I’ve got no idea about the state they’ll be in when they get back.” He thumbed the corner of the PADD as his eyes wandered to the window, looking out onto Starbase 72’s interior dock, a plethora of Fourth Fleet ships filling the berths, each filled with new mysteries about the Borg.

“Jalian’s not too happy about the idea of them bringing the Unimatrix beacon back with them. It almost became a rank battle. But I can’t just leave them out there in this state.” He chewed his bottom lip in the silence as Geronimo continued reading. “Maybe it is a bad idea.” 

Fontana hadn’t been intentional with his silence. There was so much to read, not just from their Task Force.  The rest of the Fourth Fleet had been given the ultimate mystery. None of them had come away unscathed.  He finished reading Wren Walton’s report of her conversation with another captain at the Markonian Outpost.  “When it comes to the Borg, there are no bad ideas.  We got caught unawares with Frontier Day, and this one makes the mystery deeper and deeper.”  He sighed and tossed the PADD onto his desk, “I wish we could stop digging into this one eventually.  When it comes to mysteries and the Borg, it’s never about buried Latinum.”  He sat back in his chair, “If we leave them out there, something worse could happen and history tells us the things we leave to a worse fate have a habit of coming back for us.”

A shiver ran down Varen’s spine and echoed deep into the deck. “The Dominion. The Borg. It’s been a busy six months for the Federation’s closet of skeletons.”  The Bajoran swallowed against a dry throat, “I dread to think what could be hiding out there beneath the next nebula. I know we’re all about the new worlds and new civilizations but it’s hard to look past this.” He waved toward the discarded PADD on the desk, his eyes never straying from the scarred hulls out in the dock. “Did you hear about Cruz on Seattle?” A raised eyebrow invited more. “Acquired a new brother, XO, and vineyard all in one go.”

Geronimo smiled at the news, “We’ll take the wins where we can get them.  I’ll have to put the vineyard on my list of places to visit.  I appreciate a good vintage where I can find them.”  He leaned back in his chair, “Varen…you’re not the only one worried about Tanek.”  He asked, “Commanding officers carry a lot on their shoulders in the good times and the bad…given what you know of him…what would you recommend?”

The young man sighed, deep and heavy with thought it hovered in the office’s still air. “I always think it must be hard for those with longer life expectancies. By virtue of time served you end up with more and more weight to carry.” His eyes were caught by the large space doors of the upper dock that had parted, allowing the warm sun of Minos Korva to filter in, silhouetting the arriving USS K’ehleyr against the golden sun. “Well… Daedalus is due for its postponed refit after Deneb, and that ship is a first responder; it’s only ever going to be going headlong into danger.” Varen sucked his teeth thoughtfully. “Maybe a change of scenery; maybe he just needs something a bit more hopeful for a while.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “Maybe we all do.”

K’ehleyr continued past the wide windows of the office, its hulking shape moving with surprising delicacy through the dockyard towards its reserved berth. “It doesn’t help that Starfleet Command is just carrying on like the last six months haven’t happened. Deneb, Frontier Day, The Signals…” He cast an eye towards the aide just beyond the glass partition. “I worry people are losing confidence.”

Fontana followed his deputy commander’s eyes and logic.  He wasn’t wrong.  The Fourth Fleet was earning its keep within Starfleet when it came to seeing the truth, even belatedly.  He wasn’t sure of the answer to Veren’s statement.  Being at the tip of the spear wasn’t all it was made out to be.  “That’s where we come in.” He shifted to the replicator for a fresh cup of coffee and returned to his desk, “We know the quality and quantity of our people here and elsewhere – the task forces of Fourth Fleet have given a lot.  We have to work to boost that confidence.  If that means a tour of our commands, a handshake, and a good word – whatever we must do to keep that confidence in what we all do in the fleet…I don’t want to think of the day when that confidence begins to go beyond just mild doubt into much darker and dangerous territory.”

A barely audible beep snuck from the padd at Varen’s side, as he pulled it from where it rested between his leg and the comfy chair a lopsided smile spread across his face. “It looks like my first stop on the good word tour has arrived. Daedalus has just reached the outer bouys and I want to see them in, everyone’s a bit nervous about having the Unimatrix around. I’m going to keep them on an opposing orbit until Starfleet Security gets back to me.” The man shrugged his shoulders in resignation. “Even my boyish smile couldn’t convince the Admiralty to let them aboard, only just managed to get them into Federation space.” Varen stood and reset the glasses on his nose as he nodded to the aide to signal a waiting runabout.  “At least I can bet on a cookie in Tanek’s office” 

The senior of the two gave a nod as he shifted up from his chair, “I’ll need to meet Mackenzie when she arrives.  Some of her crew may want to step away…I wouldn’t blame them.”  He stood at attention, “Safe travels, Varen.  Let’s hope for calmer seas.”

He watched the task force executive officer leave with pride.  They’d worked well together, and there was little doubt Varen was on a strong heading up the ladder.  He returned his attention to the rest of the ships, noting where to visit next. 

The timer hit zero with a whistle like a sabre’s slice, cutting through the tense air on the bridge of the Susan B. Anthony. As if guilty, Lieutenant Lourde turned from her post at Science and said, ‘Eighteen hours, Captain.’

Captain Camarero remained seated, killing the timer’s chime with a jab at her armrest controls. ‘Sensor readings?’

‘None,’ said Lourde without moving. At Camarero’s stern look, she winced and turned back to her post. This was more than another last-second consultation of her sensor readings. This was fresh scans, fresh double-checking of their sensor calibrations, another comparison of their readings over the last hours.

It took three minutes before Lourde looked up again. ‘Confirmed, Captain. There’s still no sign of the Sphere.’

‘That doesn’t mean they’re not there,’ said Commander Tabe, stern and suspicious at Ops. ‘Evidence of absence -’

‘Is not an excuse for paranoia.’ Camarero drummed her fingers on the armrest, lips setting to a thin line. ‘We’ve set this timer for a reason. Watched for days for a reason.’

‘It’s the Borg, Captain,’ said Tabe. ‘We can’t be too careful.’

‘I’m aware it’s the Borg, Commander,’ she replied with the faintest edge to her voice. Not too much, though – it was an impersonal chiding, a reminder from captain to senior officer that emotive pleas were unnecessary. ‘But we have to confront the enemy that really exists. Not the one living in the shadows of our scared thoughts.’

In the pause, Lourde shifted her weight. ‘Uh, meaning? Captain?’

Camarero sighed. ‘The reality is that we don’t understand the Borg. We’ve spent weeks monitoring that Sphere as it’s traversed our border, scanning worlds and outposts from a distance. We’ve all waited for the other shoe to drop, for it to strike. But just because we fear that doesn’t make it more likely than the Sphere was on a reconnaissance mission it’s now finished.’ She stood. ‘Assuming the worst does not automatically make us wise. It can be just as blinding as undue optimism. We follow the evidence. Lieutenant Edrun, put a call via my ready room to Fourth Fleet Command. It’s time to report in. Commander Tabe, you have the bridge.’

Tabe watched as she stepped away from the command chair. ‘What is our conclusion, Captain? That the Sphere is gone, and the Borg aren’t coming back?’

‘We follow the evidence,’ Camarero reminded him as she crossed the bridge. ‘I believe the Sphere has left, Commander. Our findings tell us nothing about the future.’

‘Withdrawals along the Beta Quadrant frontier. Reduced sightings in the Gradin Belt.’ Fleet Admiral Ramar folded his arms across his chest as he regarded the holographic projection of the strategic star map billowing across the fleet’s operations centre, deep in the heart of Starbase Bravo. ‘Is this over, Alex?’

Vice Admiral Beckett tilted his head this way and that as he rested his hands on the edge of the panel. ‘Over, when we’re talking about the Borg…’

‘Oh, I was about to assume that because they’re out of sight, they’re done; we’ll never see them again.’ Irritation rang through Ramar’s voice, and he mimed tapping his combadge. ‘Ensign, cancel that order of champagne for all Fourth Fleet captains -’

‘I believe,’ Beckett pressed on, duly cowed by Ramar’s mockery, ‘that the recent bout of activity from the Borg Collective has subsided. Yes, sir. Captain Camarero’s report is the latest to confirm there are no more sightings of Borg ships anywhere we can see in the Beta Quadrant.’

‘What about the Delta Quadrant?’ asked Dahlgren, visibly trying to hide his satisfaction at Ramar shutting Beckett down.

‘Inevitably, a little more complicated.’ Beckett tapped a button and the map zoomed in on the Gradin Belt. ‘I dispatched the Caliburn to report on their wider movements out there. They gathered intelligence from local allies, launched deep-space probes, and conducted their own surveillance. The Borg borders have moved… but not necessarily expanded.’

As he waved a hand across the map with the shining green of known Borg space clutching the starscape of the Delta Quadrant like a parasite, the borders warped and twisted in acknowledgement of fresh intelligence. ‘As you can see, in many areas, they withdrew. In others, they expanded. On the whole, however, their territory has contracted. Captain Hargreaves is continuing to investigate, but his working theory is still concerning.’

Ramar lifted his chin in the pause. ‘Go on.’

‘His theory,’ Beckett emphasised, clearly prepared to take credit if Hargreaves’s work was well-received and otherwise cut him loose, ‘is that they’re consolidating. The locations they’ve notably not withdrawn from or expanded to seize are more resource-rich. The areas they’ve pulled away from have less logistical or strategic value.’

‘They have less,’ Dahlgren mused, ‘but they’re using it more efficiently?’

‘Just so,’ said Beckett with a nod. ‘Then we come to the report from the USS Daedalus. Or, rather, their new friends from Unimatrix Zero.’ Another press of a button brought up that mission report on the projector, but Beckett looked to Dahlgren now. The diplomatic intricacies of such an operation were far more the deputy fleet commander’s purview.

Dahlgren sighed. ‘If the xBs of Unimatrix Zero can be trusted – and I speak of accuracy, not sincerity – then Admiral Picard did, actually, kill the last Queen at Jupiter. That’s just not the end of the Collective.’ He looked at Ramar. ‘The Unimatrix Zero survivors say that Borg Queens are, themselves, an… an adaptation. In the face of certain threats, certain challenges, the Borg need a focusing force. After they encountered the Federation, they manifested a Queen – Queens. They directed the Collective, particularly against us. That maybe explains some of the strange… personal touches, even vendettas, that the Borg seem to have manifested in a few of our encounters.’

‘And now, for whatever reason,’ chimed in Beckett, obviously unwilling to wholly sacrifice a dramatic reveal, ‘they have no more Queen. They’ve returned to operational parameters much closer to our early encounters with the Collective.’

Ramar didn’t look at either man for a few moments, eyes on the report from the Daedalus, the images of the Exodus shining bright before them. ‘So they come and go from our borders without disruption or attack. So our away teams have been able to board and been completely ignored. They’ve been hobbled by the pathogen, hobbled by losing the Queen. They’re just not beaten. They’re adapting.’

‘It seems,’ said Beckett, ‘based on everything we’ve learnt, that they’re on a path to recovery. They’re cutting off dead weight, abandoning and destroying infrastructure and ships that have been too badly damaged by the pathogen. They’ve given up trying to restore what they had. They spent the last weeks refamiliarising themselves with the galaxy – gathering intelligence on us just as much as we did on them. Finding new possible species for assimilation. Securing the material resources they need to rebuild. I believe this will take time – potentially decades. And there’s no telling what they’ll be when this is over.’

‘But for now, they’re in their cocoon,’ surmised Ramar. ‘Not about to launch a new offensive since we killed their Queen.’

Beckett nodded. ‘Reports from the USS Endeavour state the Jupiter Signal was as much of a surprise to most of the Collective as it was to us. They were fractured, scattered. Receiving an unexpected command signal from a disconnected Queen seems to have prompted the Collective as a whole to enter this regeneration cycle. With the conclusion, ironically, that they don’t need a Queen any more.’

Ramar was silent for a time, eyes on the map. At length, he nodded again and straightened. ‘Decades, you say.’

‘I believe,’ said Beckett. ‘And you know me. I’ll keep an eye out for the first sign of trouble.’

‘It’s not over,’ Ramar agreed. ‘But this will reassure a lot of people, Alex. Not just the news itself, but that we can give this comprehensive a report to Starfleet Command, to the President. Nothing breeds panic like the unknown.’

‘Nothing breeds panic like the Borg,’ rumbled Dahlgren. He had gone quiet, eyes largely on Beckett.

‘I may need more resources from the DEI,’ said Beckett. He’d visibly swollen with delight at the praise and wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to stick his hand in the logistical cookie jar for the benefit of his department. ‘To continue monitoring the border, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Ramar, with a tired edge to his indulgence. ‘I’ll run this up the flagpole. Good job, Alex. Good job indeed.’

But Dahlgren watched Beckett as Ramar left. He did not speak even once the doors were shut, reaching for PADDs to gather his affairs with slow deliberation. Beckett, too far into his own self-satisfaction, did not notice the coiling of a trap even when Dahlgren had everything, straightened up, and said, ‘Just one more question.’

Beckett smirked as he looked over. ‘Anything I can do to enlighten you, Liam?’

‘Some of our missions fared better than others.’ Dahlgren shrugged. ‘Take the Tokyo.’

‘The Tokyo.’ Beckett paused as if trying to recall. It was plainly an affectation. ‘Truly a tragedy.’

‘What was their mission?’

Beckett made another show of checking his records. His voice was too light when he replied. ‘To ascertain the status of the pathogen in Borg infrastructure.’

Dahlgen’s jaw tightened. ‘To secure a sample of the pathogen,’ he said slowly, ‘and use it to reinfect the rest of the Collective.’

‘I might,’ said Beckett carefully, ‘have given directions that the pathogen, if secured, could be given a bit of a nudge -’

‘You directed one of our captains to secure a biological weapon and then deploy it.’

For a second, it looked like Beckett might continue weaselling. Then he straightened and looked Dahlgren in the eye. ‘Against the Borg, Liam. Don’t be so sanctimonious.’

‘I’m not jumping into an ethical debate. A decision of that magnitude is beyond your purview as Director of Fourth Fleet Intelligence.’

‘You’re right; we’re not having an ethical debate because it’s over. Now, you don’t have to consider the decision under fire. But how long would we – would you, would Ramar, would Duncan – would all of you have sat in a meeting room and chewed on the weight and the implications if I’d brought this to you first?’ A resentful gleam entered Beckett’s eye. ‘My plan didn’t work. I apologise for that. I don’t apologise for trying to resolve this crisis – the great crisis of the past century – without dirtying your hands with it.’

Dahlgren let out a frustrated breath as he shook his head. ‘You know what, Alex? This cloak-and-dagger routine – doing what needs to be done behind closed doors, out of sight of bureaucrats and people who don’t understand the galaxy like you – would be a lot more convincing if you weren’t desperate for everyone to praise and thank you for being the hard man making hard choices.’

Beckett faltered. ‘That’s not why I did it.’

‘Bull,’ said Dahlgren. ‘You might be golden for a time, pulling off this intelligence-gathering op of a lifetime. And I’ll remember that, I really will. But I’ll remember this. And I want you to remember something, too, Alex.’

At last, there was a roll of the eyes. ‘Remember what, Liam?’

Dahlgren walked past him, burly shoulder brushing his none-too-gently. Only once near the door did he stop, look back, and say, ‘How many good officers you sacrificed for exactly nothing.’

He left before there could be any final cutting remark or sharp defence. He left, leaving Vice Admiral Alexander Beckett in the dark of his den, the holographic lights shining with the signals of his victory.

But it was a victory of information, not results. An enemy weighed and measured, not managed and beaten. And as Beckett, huffing and grumbling in self-indulgent indignation, turned back to the strategic map, he knew the unspoken truth beneath everything. Beneath the Borg’s strategic changes, beneath their fundamental alterations, and even beneath Dahlgren’s admonishment.

Matters would be quiet for a time. There was a new status quo to understand, measure, and learn to live with. But this was not, by any measure, the end.

Starbase 86 was less busy than usual. The ships were slowly returning from their sudden operation to find out what the Borg were up to when they appeared to be crossing their comfort zone. It created wide panic, as no one really knew what they were up to or the sudden interest. Overlooking the inner dry docks of the starbase, Lieutenant Commander Oanom Areva, the base shipyard chief, looked from the operational deck at a recent Grissom class ship being repaired after barely escaping their encounter with a Sphere. 

“The horrors of the unknown darkness are all-consuming,” Oanom muttered as his arms crossed over each other. He honestly didn’t know how to react to all this, and the Borg’s sudden appearance right after the Frontier Day incident, the Lost Fleet invasion, so much was happening. Taking a deep breath, wondering what they can expect next. 

Flipping between several documents on his PADD Captain Nathan Hawthorne looked around for his Commanding Officer. He’d been relegated to Vulcan working in a Starfleet office doing menial clerical work, and then, thankfully, he’d gotten this transfer as the Task Force Executive Officer for TF86. It was undoubtedly more important and interesting than his exile on Vulcan.

First up was his report on the USS Tokyo, which had failed in its assignment of the pathogen deployment, losing seven people. The Tokyo is currently in the Delta Quadrant and en route to Markonian Outpost to regroup with USS Mariner.

He nodded at Lieutenant Commander Areva, “How’s things going? Many ships coming in this week?” 

His black Betazoid eyes looked over his shoulder toward the new arrival. “Captain, I didn’t expect your arrival here for another week. Did Starfleet rush up your schedule also, sir?” Oanom shrugged and turned sideways to him as he pointed toward the Grissom. “Much like this, smaller ships are coming in for repairs the whole week. The USS Girga was unlucky and will be stuck in docks for a while.” 

Oanom lowered his hand and shrugged, “We got the USS Los Angeles en route to us for highly required repairs.” He placed his hands over each other. “Any status on USS Jaxartes ETA? That little ship has quite the history, but it still needs that checkup after everything that has happened.”

Hawthorne nodded, flipping through his PADD, “The USS Jaxartes is recovering after their encounter with the Borg and staying at Tartarus III to provide aid. We have Starbase 416 with an unknown status as of yet, but USS Gemini with Captain Maxwell has arrived at the scene to investigate the blackout. Also going there is my old ship, the USS Seattle, which just transferred in from Task Force 72. She’s a quick little ship, good crew, too.”

Hawthorne looked at his PADD, “Any news on the USS Solvang?”

Giving the Captain a questionable look, “Solvang, yea… “ Looking at the task force schedule on his PADD, “I am just a mere shipyard chief, but that ship just launched for a shakedown cruise from Starbase Bravo and is actually heading towards a known pirate activity area. Might want to check up on that one,” Oanom pointed out, followed with a shrug, “Any data on when we can expect the USS Lafayette, sir?”

Hawthorne gave the Chief a look, “Chiefs tend to know more than the Admirals, don’t sell yourself short. You’re getting your hands dirty while we sit in offices and file reports. The Lafayette is headed to Chandra Prime, so that I wouldn’t expect her back for a bit.”

Folding his hands behind his back, which he hoped was a leader-looking thing to do, Captain Hawthorne nodded once more, “Seems all crews are appropriately occupied. I’ll let you get on with it, Oanom.”

Scratching the back of his head, he saw an incoming request for logistic aid, “Thanks, I need it, sir. Good luck with the TFCO. She is a…..hard ass, sir” Oanom shrugged a bit and gave a final nod before walking off to resume another day at the dry docks.