[ Act One ]

The shift handover went without a hitch, and Lieutenant Commander Lebedeva officially relieved delta shift from duty. Quickly the previous twelve engineers grabbed their belongings and filtered out of main engineering, while her team manned the stations and picked up the open duties. So far everything was running smoothly, but there was one minor irregularity she’d have to fix soon. It was nothing critical, but minor annoyances and disturbances could quickly build up if left unchecked.

Since her arrival onboard the Enterprise barely two weeks ago, Nadya had spent most of her off-duty time studying and learning. The Destiny class was the pinnacle of Federation engineering, especially the propulsion systems. She was standing less than thirty meters away from the first stable coaxial warp drive, based on the prototypes the SCE had been messing around with for over a decade. Also, the shields, the weapons, and the ablative armor were the best and most advanced technology ever integrated into a Starfleet ship, and she had quite a pile of things to learn and catch up on.

Nadya tapped away at the central console to bring up the propulsion schematics. In her left hand she held the PADD with delta shift’s report of a three percent drop of energy efficiency in the Enterprise’s coaxial warp drive and checked the details again to ensure she was looking at the correct components. Since she was familiar with the theoretical workings of the coaxial drive, as well as the simulations and some of the prototypes, she already had an idea what could have caused it.

Such a drop could result either from the chroniton generators feeding the coaxial core getting out of sync, or the neutrino compressor being misaligned at specific power levels. Either problem wasn’t impairing the coaxial drive’s function but made it more energy expensive than necessary. As the chief engineer it fell to her to get rid of this malfunction, since in a critical situation those three percent could decide the ship’s fate. And of course, Nadya was eager to take every opportunity to gain some practical experience with this new technology.

“Lieutenant Sakar, please check the port chroniton generator. The starboard generator’s phase constant is 3.30465i. Make sure they’re in sync. I’ll take a look at the neutrino compressor.” The Russian engineer called out to her colleague on the far end of the chamber housing the Enterprise’s impressive warp core. It was the latest iteration of super-scale warp core designs and was an order of magnitude more powerful than the Odyssey class core. The gigantic reaction chamber provided enough power to fuel the massive Destiny class’s engines and tactical systems.

The male Vulcan acknowledged the CE’s order, and proceeded to pick up a tricorder and a calibration tool. While he was busy scanning for any phase variance in the generator’s chroniton emitter, Nadya walked around the primary warp core towards the coaxial drive core located behind it in a secondary engineering room. She briefly looked upon the towering pinnacle of Federation propulsion technology while her lips twisted into an excited smile. The tall woman flipped open her own tricorder and went to work on the core’s neutrino compressor.

With determination Nadya placed her tricorder on top of the engine’s component and tapped a few buttons on the compressor’s console to start up a diagnostics run simulating average load. The tricorder started beeping in a regular pattern, indicating the measured values were within parameters. The Augment furrowed her brow and pressed her lips together. So far everything seemed normal.

Nadya changed the simulation parameters to maximum, and for a single data point the tricorder’s beep turned shrill. “Aha!” She exclaimed, and updated the simulation to run just below maximum, at ninety-nine percent. The handheld device was protesting the scanned values with jarring beeps before the engineer folded it close to switch it off. Nadya was satisfied with having identified the problem so quickly and picked up the tricorder before she returned to the central engineering console.

She pulled her tactical uniform straight and tapped her combadge. “Lebedeva to bridge.”

“Yes, Lieutenant Commander?” Came the immediate response from Captain K’Torr, in his typical deep and rough Klingon voice.

“Captain, I’ve just completed a diagnostics run on the coaxial drive system. We have a minor energy loss in the neutrino compressor. It doesn’t affect the usage of coaxial warp but should still be corrected. I would need approximately three hours to realign the compressor to fix the energy loss, but during that time the coaxial drive would need to be taken offline.” While Nadya was reporting her findings to the bridge, Lieutenant Sakar returned and handed her his tricorder. She quickly checked the readings and nodded in approval when she saw the chroniton generators were perfectly in sync.

“Understood. We’ll arrive at Deep Space 21 in seventy minutes. Once we get there you can start with the necessary repairs.”

“Aye, Captain. Lebedeva out.” Nadya turned towards her Vulcan colleague and returned his tricorder. “Thank you, Lieutenant. And good work completing the scan so quickly.” Sakar nodded, a hint of a smile on his lips. “You heard the Captain, we’ll start the realignment in seventy minutes.”

The new chief engineer had returned to her own station in a small alcove at the side of main engineering and had worked for almost an hour when she received a message. “K’Torr to Lebedeva. Report to the observation lounge.”

Nadya acknowledged the order but raised an eye brow. “Aye, Captain, on my way.” On her way to the turbolift she exchanged a few glances with her fellow engineers, but nobody was any wiser what this was about. Before she left main engineering, she briefly stopped by the other engineers of alpha shift. “I hope it doesn’t take too long. Lieutenant Sakar, don’t wait for me with the maintenance on the neutrino compressor. Once we’re docked at DS21, take the coaxial core offline and start the realignment procedure. I want to be done with it as soon as possible.”

Less than a minute later, the Russian Augment stepped off the turbolift on deck one and closed the last few meters to the doors leading to the observation lounge. When she entered, she saw Captain K’Torr standing at a window at the far end of the room, watching the mesmerizing patterns of folded space rapidly flow around the Enterprise. “Reporting as ordered, Sir.” The ship’s Human counselor, Lieutenant Commander Alric Bravis, sat at the long table made from dark brushed metal, with a PADD in front of him.

The Captain turned around to face her, and she immediately noticed his concerned and saddened expression. This immediately threw her off, because her CO was not known for being sentimental at all, but rather straight to the point and sometimes pragmatic to a fault. Still, the crew spoke highly of him and respected him deeply. He let out a sigh and gestured towards the table. “Please, take a seat.”

K’Torr was considered an exceptional but unusual Captain. Not only was he a Klingon enjoying the honor of commanding the Federation’s flagship, but he was also considered an often tough but always fair CO. Given she’d been on the Enterprise for less than two weeks, she would also ascribe that characterization to him. K’Torr was running his ship with efficiency and courage. He instilled a sense of pride and camaraderie in his officers and crew, and always managed to motivate everyone to give their best. Seeing him like this made it clear to Nadya that something was wrong.

The broad-chested Klingon with a massive column of ridges on his forehead sat on his chair at the end of the long table and waited until Nadya was seated. His darkened skin contrasted perfectly with the white shoulders of his Captain’s uniform, while his full but accurately styled warrior beard and the wallowing mane he had tied into a thick pony tail gave him an aura of authority and wisdom. “Twenty minutes ago, we received a report from Starfleet Command regarding the Sidereal.”

The way he spoke about her former ship sent shivers down her spine and made her hair stand on end. The Augment didn’t have a good feeling about this meeting at all, and carefully asked. “Did something happen, Sir?” Nadya still fondly remembered the long talk she had with Sina after her transfer request had been accepted. She only hoped that her friends and former colleagues were doing okay without her and nothing bad had happened to them.

K’Torr took a deep breath and exchanged silent looks with the counselor who just nodded softly. “Five days ago, the Sidereal encountered a quantum fissure on her way to Earth. They sent out a distress call, and several ships responded, but… there was nothing left when those ships arrived. The SIS report indicates that their attempts to escape from the fissure were unsuccessful, and the Sidereal was destroyed by the anomaly shortly after she sent out the distress signal. Starfleet Command considers her lost with all hands.”

Nadya stared at her CO, her mind refusing to accept the reality he had just described with his words. “No…” Her gaze wandered between the Captain and the counselor. The Swedish counselor silently handed her the PADD, and she quickly scrolled through the record. It was not a joke. It was not a test. She dropped the data device onto the table’s surface when the finality of her friends’ deaths started to sink in. Of Sina’s death.

“Even though most of the Sidereal’s personnel had remained on Starbase 84, I understand you had many close friends amongst the eighty-two lost crew members. I’m truly sorry for your loss, Nadya. If you need any support or time off, don’t hesitate to ask.” K’Torr waited for a few more moments, then rose from his seat, nodded at Nadya and Alric, and returned to his post on the bridge.

Nadya took the PADD again and stood from her seat. She looked sadly at the flat device, her eyes lazily following the letters of the report’s cover page. “I should have been there. I would have been able to help them…” She whispered with a strained voice.

“No!” Came immediately from Alric, and he furrowed his brow as he stood from his chair. “Don’t ever think that!” The counselor walked around the table, stopping next to Nadya. “You must not think like that, Nadya.” He implored her. “It’s not your fault. There was nothing you could have done. It appears they only had a few minutes to try to escape. Chances are if you had been on board the Sidereal, you would have also died.”

Lieutenant Commander Lebedeva stared angrily at the counselor, but after a long moment the expression on her face softened. They both knew he was right. “I know.” She spoke softly and sighed, looking to the floor. “But it doesn’t make it any easier. They were my colleagues, my friends, my …” She stopped herself right before speaking that last word. “It just doesn’t feel right…”

“I understand how you feel, but you must not listen to your emotions here. The doubts and guilt you’re probably feeling are misleading. You have done nothing wrong. You couldn’t have possibly known what would happen. And you most likely couldn’t have prevented it. Don’t let survivor’s guilt entrap you. If you want to talk about it, my doors are always open. You can contact me at any time.” The counselor was looking Nadya right in the eyes, trying to gauge her reaction.

“Thank you, counselor. I’ll take you up on your offer when I should need it. Can I take the PADD with the report? I would like to know exactly what happened.”

Lieutenant Commander Bravis nodded. “Sure. I only hope the information will not be too unsettling, since it also contains the recording of the distress call. If you experience any difficulties reviewing the material, just give me a call.”

The chief engineer nodded softly and clasped the PADD like a treasure. She looked out the windows and watched the folded space distort and flow around the Enterprise for a few moments, while her thoughts were taking her away from the ship. If only the Sidereal had been a more modern ship. Then they might have been able to escape. While Nadya was looking out of the windows, Alric cleared his throat. “I’ll return to my post now. Please take care.”

“Thank you. Oh, before you go I have one question, counselor. The information about the Sidereal’s… loss… is it confidential or classified?” She turned to face her Human colleague.

“No. The report is openly available to all Starfleet personnel. The Captain simply wanted to make sure that you hear it from him personally, and not for example from a random conversion during lunch break.”

“I understand. Again, thank you.” Nadya smiled weakly and turned to leave the observation lounge. Still holding the thin gray tablet, she returned to main engineering where she was immediately greeted by her team. “Welcome back, Lieutenant Commander. We’ve prepared everything for the realignment and can start whenever…” But quickly her engineers saw the downcast gaze in her eyes and the PADD she was holding close. “Sir, are you okay?”

Nadya looked up at the dozen pairs of eyes focused on her. Lieutenant Sakar stood closest and raised an eyebrow when she took a deep breath before answering with a slight tremble in her voice. “Yes, I am okay. I was just informed by the Captain that… the Sidereal was destroyed by a spacetime anomaly. She was lost with all hands.”

From one moment to the next main engineering became as silent as a grave, only the ship’s warp core humming uncaring in the background. Several gasps and whispers sneaked through the silence. “My condolences, Lieutenant Commander.” Sakar had turned and walked closer to his superior. “Should we reschedule the realignment for a later time?”

Nadya simply shook her head. “No. The Captain expects the propulsion systems to work at peak efficiency, and we have a window of opportunity at our hands to perform the maintenance without affecting ship operations. We will not delay the procedure.” Shifting her thoughts back to her work finally returned the confidence and determination the was used to always having. She could mourn later in private, now she had a job to do.

The Augment returned to her station and placed the PADD in a simple black Starfleet standard issue transport bag, so it wouldn’t get lost or accidentally damaged. She picked up a tricorder from the wall mounting and walked towards the coaxial core, ready to begin the maintenance once they docked in a few minutes.

[ Act Two ]

Tarik watched [email protected] and her guards disembark and let out a heavy sigh. He still wasn’t sure how to feel about his new job. On the one hand it was quite an honor to be tasked by the Matriarch herself with such an important assignment, and he was sure it would be extremely interesting and challenging to work on this strange ship. On the other hand, he was unhappy to leave “his” sphere that he had worked so long and hard on, as well as all his acquaintances he had made here.

But almost as if the Matriarch had heard his private thoughts, he suddenly felt her mental touch and heard her voice in the hive-mind again. [Sphere 272-Theta-8 will be reassigned to tow the USS Sidereal to shipyard Sol III/Gamma and will remain there to facilitate close cooperation between the Federation castaways and the Synergy. Until further notice it will remain nearby and provide support to the Sidereal’s survivors. Prism 99-Sigma-12 will take over patrol route 2-304-218.]

[email protected] nodded in understanding, then looked around. He watched the remaining Starfleet officers, those who hadn’t left during the altercation half an hour ago, quickly disperse and return to their quarters. Only Sina, Niko, and Rel remained, standing to the side of the stage some distance away, vigorously discussing amongst themselves. Even [email protected] was on her way out of the cargo bay, her white and blue long vest streaming behind her as she headed towards the nearest exit with long strides.

Tarik silently reached out to the sphere’s hive-mind. [Engage gravimetric anchor with USS Sidereal and project containment shell. Extend the integrity field and tachyon barrier around the wreck. Plot course to Sol III. Engage subspace slipstream at two percent power.]

He had barely finished the thought when the whole crew responded as one, a harmonic choir controlling the sphere’s actions in perfect unity. [Gravimetric anchor engaged and stable. Containment shell activated. Integrity field and tachyon barrier extended around USS Sidereal. Change course to two-one-four mark three-five-five. Distance to target: 83.11 light-years. Time to target at two percent maximum velocity: eight hours eighteen minutes forty seconds.]

A pale green flickering beam extended from Sphere 272-Theta-8’s dark gray and white surface and completely encompassed the Federation vessel, locking the wreck into a relative position towards the larger sphere. The blue glowing energy lines between the sphere’s armored hull sections began to pulsate softly, and a faint flickering shell extended outward from the Synergy vessel and surrounded the Sidereal before disappearing again, granting the demolished Akira class protection under the sphere’s shields and giving it the ability to survive the trip through subspace slipstream.

Again, Tarik could feel the slight shift in energy distribution as the sphere turned to its new heading, gently tugging the Sidereal’s wreck along. Then a moment later the vessel’s subspace slipstream drive activated and plunged the sphere and the Akira class into a tunnel of darkness and light. They were moving much slower now, taking their time to ensure the wreck was not damaged any further, but were still significantly faster than the Sidereal was ever capable of going on her own power. [email protected] looked back at Sina and her officers, still engaged in their discussions. He slowly walked towards them, intending to inform her when they’d arrive at Sol III.

As he got closer, Sina caught him approaching and waved him over. “Tarik! Want to join our little club?” The other three officers turned their heads to look at him, looking him over head to toe. “We’re talking about the meeting, giving it a quick retrospective. I want to apologize for what happened. I’m really sorry about how my crew behaved. I hope the Matriarch isn’t too offended by their lack of conduct.” Sina said, her smile more than a little unsure.

Tarik smirked and shook his head. “You don’t need to worry about it. The Matriarch is far too experienced and too busy to be offended over such a triviality. If she were angry about it, she would have said something immediately. And even if she were too polite to mention it during the meeting, at least afterwards the hive-mind could feel it. But the Synergy is relatively calm… well, as calm as it could be after your arrival, that is.”

Niko shrugged. “Guess it’s been a rough day for either side. And what she said… is it really that difficult for your people to talk about your history?”

[email protected]’s expression saddened as he looked at the Lieutenant Commander. “Yes, it is. You see, it’s not that we only remember this information as records in a book, that we know exist and where to look up the details. You must understand that unless great disruptive and destructive efforts are made, the hive-mind never forgets anything. It’s a permanent interconnected galactic network with trillions of peers and nodes.”

“So, you mean you-”

“Yes, Lieutenant.” Tarik answered quickly before Rel could finish his question. “We can still remember almost everything that had happened back then. We remember the countless billions killed. We remember the countless worlds destroyed. We remember the countless civilizations eradicated or subjugated. Long before I was born there was a proposition to purge those memories from the hive-mind. But an overwhelming majority rejected that proposal. Despite our kind leaving those atrocities behind and trying to make amends, we should never forget what happened.”

He took a deep breath and finished. “These memories shall be a permanent memorial to the terrible things that happen when we give up our individuality and liberty. When we become faceless… drones, nothing more than gears in the machine. That is the reason why it isn’t easy to talk about it.”

Suddenly the whole group had turned quiet, and Niko’s expression had paled slightly while Tarik was talking. He had to swallow hard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that.”

The engineer simply shrugged. “No worries, you couldn’t have known. But I guess the information the Matriarch revealed must have also been quite shocking for you, judging by the reaction of your fellow crew members.”

Rel answered first. “Oh, you can bet it was. Hearing that we’re not only in a parallel quantum reality, but also over a thousand years in the future, and in a world where the Federation never existed. That’s like three punches to the gut for the price of one. It means that we will never get to go home again. Or see our loved ones again.”

“You must not give up hope, Rel. I’m sure we’ll find a way, Voyager also made it home after all.” Sina tried to cheer him up a little, but even before she had finished her sentence she knew that it would miss the mark.

“But Voyager at least was in the same reality and in the same time.” Rel replied, his head and shoulders dropping.

After a long awkward moment of silence, Niko finally tried to steer the topic towards a less depressive topic. “So, what are we going to do next?”

“That’s a good question, Niko. But I don’t know if we should talk about it right now. I think the crew needs some time to cool down before they’re going to consider the Matriarch’s options.” Sina replied.

The Lieutenant Commander furrowed his brow for a second, but then chuckled. “Oh no, I meant what are we going to do right now. Like, now.”

“Oh.” Sina also laughed softly when she noticed the misunderstanding. “I think I’m going to bed. It’s about midnight, right? Guess we’ll have a long day full of talking tomorrow and I want to be ready for it.”

“Sounds like a really good plan.” Rel noticed, stifling a yawn. “I think I’ll also check out now. Good night. Sina, Niko. Tarik.” The Cardassian nodded at his superiors and Tarik before stepping away from the group and heading towards his quarters.

“What about you, Tarik?” Niko asked curiously. “Also calling it a day?”

[email protected] smiled, but slightly shook his head. “Not yet Lieutenant Commander. We’re currently in transit to Sol III and will arrive in approximately eight hours. I need to review the configuration of our assigned shipyard before we arrive, to ensure a proper mooring for the Sidereal.”

“Wait, we’re going to Earth? Right now? I didn’t notice.” Sina asked, her eyes wider than they were a moment ago.

“Yes, Commander. We’re currently traveling with two percent engine power at a velocity of ten light-years per hour.” The engineer explained, with more than a little pride in his voice and smile. Sphere 272-Theta-8 is one of the older ships in the Synergy armada, and it had taken him years of engineering and specialized maintenance to ensure that she would be able to properly support sustained subspace slipstream at maximum velocity.

“Well, guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. You probably have a massive transwarp network spanning the whole galaxy after all those centuries.” Niko shrugged, still shaking his head in astonishment of the sphere’s capabilities.

“Actually, no. We discontinued the transwarp network shortly after the Synergy was founded.”

“What? Why would you do that? Wasn’t it a massive advantage to your empire?” Sina asked, now her brow was furrowed in surprise.

Tarik took a deep breath before he started his explanation. “The reason is quite simple. Nobody wanted to do the job of performing maintenance on the interspatial manifolds. Turns out that once people stopped being mindless automatons they cared about not having their organic components disintegrated by the hyperphasic radiation pulses emitted from the network’s manifolds. The Collective didn’t care, and simply sacrificed hundreds of thousands of drones every year to keep the network running.”

Sina and Niko looked at each other in surprise, then at Tarik. “But we had Federation ships use transwarp tunnels as well, and nothing happened to them or their crews. If there had been hyperphasic radiation we would have known about it. Are you sure?”

The engineer raised his left eyebrow at Sina’s remark, but then continued his explanation. “The problem is not the transwarp tunnel itself. It’s the interspatial manifolds that need to be constructed to support the geometric volume of the permanent corridors. Those manifolds generate pulses of hyperphasic radiation. The pulses are weak, too weak to affect passing ships but still strong enough to cause irreversible tissue damage to all organic life in close proximity. That makes it suicide to work on the manifolds.”

“I see. We didn’t know the manifolds were so dangerous. Now it makes perfect sense to abandon the network. But what are you using instead? Normal transwarp coils?” Sina replied sympathetically, shuddering slightly at [email protected]’s earlier remark about how many drones the Collective had sacrificed for the network.

Tarik could help but grin at the Romulan’s question. “Sorry, but again I have to answer with a no. Two hundred years after discontinuing the transwarp network we discovered that the temporary subspace corridors created by transwarp coils cause permanent ‘imprints’ in neighboring subspace domains. We didn’t notice this side effect sooner, because the tunnels supported with manifolds didn’t exhibit this characteristic. In effect it’s not unlike to how many people walking along the same path would inevitably cause a trail to appear in that spot.”

Sina looked at the engineer curiously, but with an expression of confusion. “And why are those ‘imprints’ so bad? Wouldn’t they be buried quite deeply in subspace?”

“Yes, but exactly that is the problem. They act as interspatial barriers and started to scatter the subspace signals of our hive-mind. If we had continued using transwarp coils to the same extent, we would have irreversibly polluted subspace with millions of those imprints and rendered our hive-mind useless on the galactic scale. We had no alternative but to immediately terminate the wide-spread usage of that technology, and reserve it for emergencies only.”

“Okay, but then the list of alternatives is getting quite short, isn’t it?” The first officer mused with crossed arms, thinking about Tarik’s explanations. “What are you using then? Coaxial warp? Subspace vortexes? Graviton null-space catapults? Quantum slipstream?”

[email protected] turned his head to face Niko and smiled. “While I don’t know all the concepts you mentioned, our now most commonly used propulsion technology is closely related to the last one you mentioned. We’ve modified the quantum slipstream drive with certain elements of our transwarp technology, which yields even higher velocities but without lasting impact on the subspace environment.”

“That sounds utterly fascinating.” Sina admitted full of excitement. The prospect of getting a glimpse at such advanced tech was fascinating to her. “At some point I would really like to try and learn some more about how this all works. My knowledge about subspace mechanics is a bit rusty, but…” She paused for a moment, looking at Tarik for a long moment while her enthusiasm faded from her eyes and the tone of her voice shifted towards disappointment.

Sina let out a heavy sigh. “Who am I kidding? Everything I know is a thousand years out of date. And even if I could make any sense of your technology, I would be unable to fully understand how it works. I only begin to realize how difficult the times ahead will be for us.”

[email protected] watched the Romulan woman intently with a strict teacher’s scrutiny, then shook his head. “I understand the situation is stressful for you, but do you always give up so quickly? I haven’t even shown you a single thing, and yet you already call defeat. How can you know you won’t be able to understand it before you’ve seen it?”

Niko raised his eyebrow and grinned at his CO, a soft chuckle on his lips. “He got you there, Sina. But on a serious note, you’re both right. If we’re really stuck here without a way home, then it will be challenging to adapt to this reality. But we also shouldn’t be giving up so easily. After all, we’re Starfleet officers. Our motto has always been, ‘to boldly go where no one has gone before,’ and not ‘to shuffle along hoping for an easy way out.’”

A soft smile curled the Romulan’s lips upwards as she looked at her XO. “Why do you always have to be right?”

“Because I’m your XO.” The German responded with a wide smirk in his face.

“Yes, of course you are.” Sina sighed softly. “It’s just… everything seems so overwhelming right now. Like insurmountable walls surrounding us on all sides and leaving us nowhere to go.”

“No wall is insurmountable or impregnable. There is always a way to solve a problem, but it often requires dedication, patience, and cunning to find.” [email protected] concluded after Sina had returned to her more optimistic mindset. “I need to confirm it with the primary hive-mind, but I’m sure there will be a way for you and your people to learn about our technology. After all, if you should choose to reclaim your vessel after we restored it, you’ll need to be able to operate and service its systems.”

Tarik turned his head, noticing how much time he had spent talking with the officers. “But that’s a topic for another time. I really need to leave now and attend to my duties. Good evening. Commander. Lieutenant Commander.” The engineer nodded a quick farewell, and with brisk pace headed towards the nearest exit.

[ Act Three ]

“Is everyone here?” Duncan asked, looking over the ground of people gathered in his quarters. Most of the seventeen faces huddled closely around him were anxious, some even grim. Everyone nodded, indicating that all who had mentioned wanting to talk about what had transpired during the assembly were present. “Good. While we’re in here I want an open discussion. No bullshit. Everyone fine with dropping the ranks?” Again, everyone nodded. “Great. So, who believes anything that ‘Matriarch’ said?”

People were nervously looking around, silently guessing who would be the first to speak. A young Human Crewman, Haroun Al-Tammar, was the first to speak up. “I don’t believe a single word that came out of that thing’s mouth. It’s all just too convenient, isn’t it? Out of the blue we stumble across this anomaly that leaves our ship defenseless. But they are around the corner to ‘help’ us. Oh, what a coincidence, isn’t it? And then her story about why they weren’t the evil menace the Borg are? What a load of crap.”

Duncan nodded in agreement. “I also have several doubts about this whole mess. And I really don’t like the captain or the XO getting friendly with them. Even if that story was true, we still should keep our distance and try to get things sorted out on our own. That’s the least we owe to the fourteen dead.”

A shadow of silence fell across the room for a long moment, when the Scottish Junior Lieutenant mentioned the casualties. Many people in the room had lost friends two days ago, and the wound was still fresh. Their loss had been so sudden and random, and seemingly without purpose, that many of the survivors were still struggling to cope with it.

Eventually Ensign Th’akianas, followed up with a rather weighted question, his antenna nervously shifting around. “We shouldn’t be too hasty and automatically rule it out to be the truth. We know about lots of weird and uncommon stellar phenomena, and I think traveling into an alternate reality is possible. I think the more important question we should talk about, is how do we get home from wherever we currently are?”

Haroun angrily shook his head. “Oh, come on, you can’t be serious! It’s retarded to-”

“Hey, hey, hey! Would you keep it cool?” Duncan quickly interjected, cutting the Crewman off mid-sentence. “Attack the enemy not each other!”

“Yeah, sorry.” Al-Tammar mumbled. “I just think it’s kinda silly to believe anything they feed us. We have zero reason to trust them. Zero!”

“And what about them saving our lives?” T’Sai asked. She raised an eyebrow and looked questioningly at Haroun. “Why should they have done any of what they did in the last two days if they were hostile? It wouldn’t be logical to waste so many resources for no reason.”

“Not for no reason.” Haroun replied. “Look at the situation and remember Occam’s razor. What is more likely? That we randomly encountered an unknown spacetime anomaly right in our flight path, and were left defenseless after escaping from it, and were somehow transported into a parallel universe, and one thousand years into the future, and the Borg in this universe were not hostile, and one of their ships was coincidentally in range to rescue us just in time, and they treat us like guests? That probability’s going to be so low, it’ll make the Drake equation look like positive infinity.”

He looked at the faces of his colleagues. “I think it’s more likely that this is some trick by the Borg.”

“Well, the Borg are not exactly known for being tricky. They are about as subtle as a Negh’Var.” Duncan reminded the speakers.

“I know. But if you think of it, it’s a perfect fit for them. The biggest issue for them has always been how strongly their victims feared and resisted assimilation, right?” Haroun waited for a couple of nods before he continued. “What if they managed to assimilate or create a neurogenic weapon that made their victims willingly accept it? And what would be better than a simulation where we were helplessly stranded in a foreign universe, and only a group of ‘Good Borg’ could help us?”

He continued without waiting for any reaction. “Mark my words. It won’t be long until they’ll ‘offer’ to help us some more, but we would need to accept some nanoprobes or implants from them. They’ll probably try our wounded first.” He added in a sarcastic and mocking tone, his hands doing air quotes to emphasize his opinion. “Oh, we can really quickly regrow your arm or skin or spine or whatever, but we would need to inject you with a few nanoprobes to help the healing process along.”

His words had a chilling effect on the group. Most faces frowned even more than they had before, terrified by the mere idea behind what their colleague had just described. Only one, T’Sai, shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. That’s nothing more than a conspiracy theory trying to explain what we currently don’t yet understand.”

Th’akianas furrowed his brow. “But he has a point. The Borg have done all kinds of devious things in the past, I wouldn’t call it beyond them to try and create such a weapon to deceive their victims into willingly accepting assimilation. And it’s not as if there were no precedents for something like it. Wasn’t it around stardate 45945 or so, when the Enterprise-D encountered an alien probe that forced Picard to live through several decades of experienced time in less than half an hour? Merely thinking about the Borg having that or similar technology makes my antennae itch.”

T’Sai looked almost annoyed and sighed. “Yes, the incident you describe did happen, on stardate 45944.1. But we have no indication of any kind that something like this was happening to us. Also, if the Borg really had developed such a weapon, why would they waste their time with a crippled Akira class that carried only a skeleton crew? We wouldn’t be a logical or useful target. After all, the Collective assimilates civilizations, not ships or individuals.”

The Vulcan kept explaining her reasoning with the familiar logic of her people, even though much of her effort was lost on the audience. “If the Borg indeed were in possession of such a weapon, as well as propulsion technology that again allows them to get this deep into Federation territory undetected, they would not send a single sphere to take over our ship. They would send a fleet of cubes to neutralize and assimilate key installations and planets across the whole quadrant without resistance before Starfleet could muster any kind of response.”

Duncan had remained in the background of the discussion so far, but now he spoke up again. “But we couldn’t rule it out. I also remember that Kataan probe from inter-stellar ethnology back at Starfleet Academy. To Picard everything seemed utterly real, he even had ‘children’ in this simulation. He only noticed something was wrong because he suddenly wasn’t on his ship any more. Could he also have distinguished a simulated Enterprise? Maybe after some time he’d have noticed his crew behaving weirdly.”

The Vulcan looked at her colleagues with a mix of irritation and entertainment. “Let’s assume for a second the stated claim was correct. What would you propose as the next course of action if this is a simulation created by the Borg? Our gathering here would only serve to expose us, since the Collective would certainly closely monitor their artificial reality. And even if you managed to escape this hypothetical simulation, you would most likely find yourself strapped to an assimilation table where a buzz saw was about to remove your arm.”

Crewman Al-Tammar stared at the Vulcan with anger and resentment in his eyes. “I don’t know. That’s what we’re here to try and talk about. But what would you suggest? Just lying down and letting them do with us whatever the hell they want? Resistance is futile, or what’s their slogan again?”

T’Sai was drawing breath for a lengthy retort, but Duncan quickly interjected before his colleagues went for each other’s throats. “Guys, please, keep calm. We know everyone’s stressed out but attacking each other won’t help us in any way.” Duncan let out a frustrated sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “So, any suggestions what we can do?”

The gathered crew members hesitatingly looked around, mumbling some words here and there. Eventually T’Sai spoke up again. “I would simply suggest to wait and observe. We are currently in no position to achieve much, if anything at all. Any confrontation will most likely only incur significant sanctions that would make our situation worse. Until we have more information about all aspects of our situation we should remain passive.”

She took a deep breath and looked around, judging the others with her stoic expression. “When, or maybe rather if, we find any sufficient clues or even conclusive proof of any insidious intent of this ‘Synergy’ we can act then. I still trust Commander D’raxis and Lieutenant Commander Heisenberg. They have never let us astray in the past, and I seriously doubt they will start to do now in this crisis. We should restraint ourselves before condemning them, or worse.”

Duncan, Shrass, and, after a moment of hesitation, even the hotheaded Haroun nodded in support, and one by one the rest also agreed. After a few more minutes, people started to leave, and only Duncan, the Vulcan, and the Andorian remained in the room. The room was now significantly less crowded, and with most of the chairs gone, the remaining individuals finally had enough space to stretch their arms and legs a bit.

Eventually the Andorian stood from his chair and looked at his colleagues for a moment, before he started pacing up and down the room. “So, if our suspicions are correct, we’re completely screwed no matter what we do.” His voice was strained, and one could see the serious expression on his face and his slightly twitching antennae. “And if we’re wrong, we’re still screwed either way.”

“Maybe, we don’t know yet. So far, we have nothing but speculation and wild theories on the one hand, and the reassurance of our captain on the other.” Duncan sighed tiredly and leaned back into his chair. “And I’m worried about Haroun.”

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow and looked at the Scotsman curiously. “In which way?”

“You can’t not have noticed how anxious and agitated he was? I don’t want to say he went off the tracks, but his behavior wasn’t normal.” Th’akianas brooded, nervously scratching his pale circle beard matching his white hair. “And this idea he’d been concocting since we got here, that the Borg had built a mind control weapon to trick us into being assimilated… I don’t know…”

Duncan gestured towards the Andorian and nodded in agreement. “That’s what I meant. Under other circumstances I’d strongly recommend he go and have a chat with our counselor, but Jeffrey’s still in… sickbay or whatever they call it here. As far as I’ve understood the XO, he’ll also have to stay there for a few more days before they’ll release him.”

T’Sai pressed her lips together and looked from Duncan to Shrass and back. “After some consideration, I’ve concluded that we shouldn’t dismiss his points as mere ramblings. While his behavior may be influenced by shock or a stress condition, his arguments do have some merit to them, which is quite difficult for me to even admit.”

“Wait, you think he’s right?”

“That’s not what I said, Shrass. I said his arguments had some merit. Indeed, he is right in at least three points…” She started to count down a list of arguments, supporting each with a raised finger of her left hand. “First, this whole situation is indeed quite unlikely, so a simpler explanation should be preferred if both are equally plausible. Second, there have been several usages of similar technology as you’ve mentioned an example of such. And third, the Borg are certainly ruthless enough to attempt something like this to advance their cause. Given our limited understanding of the situation, all of those arguments can’t be refuted for now.”

The Andorian raised his hands in defeat. “Okay, okay, I’ve got your point.”

“You know, that sounds all nice and dandy, but you both forgot something.” Duncan added, sprawled on his chair. “The Borg don’t give half a Mugato fart about their drones’ mental or emotional wellbeing. The Collective simply doesn’t care enough to put any resources on making assimilation any more… comfortable. The only ‘issue’ resisting assimilation causes them is the inconvenience of people fighting back or committing suicide instead of simply lying down and surrendering to their fate. I think Haroun blows this completely out of proportion. It’s not a do-or-die matter for the Borg, if it’s even on their sensors at all.”

Shrass laughed heartily, his deep bass filling the room. “Yeah, if you put it like that, it sounds somewhat unlikely that the Collective suddenly discovered their considerate side.”

Even T’Sai’s lips curled upwards in a slight smirk. “Indeed. But we still should remain vigilant. The situation is unclear, and right now we’re at a severe disadvantage. And what are we going to do about Crewman Al-Tammar? His current mindset is dangerous and unhealthy. He already received a formal ‘dressing-down’ from Lieutenant Neirrek about thirty hours ago.”

“Wait, really? For what?” Duncan asked, suddenly returning to a more normal position on his seat.

The Andorian Ensign grinned from ear to ear, and chuckled as he echoed that event. “He tried to sell the CTO the same conspiracy story about mind control Borg, with the added suggestion to mess with the fabricators to create some weapons. The Lieutenant wasn’t too amused about the idea of risking not only the Synergy’s hospitality and goodwill, but also potentially ruining our only food and water supply.”

“Yeah, that sounds like an incredibly stupid thing to do. Hopefully Haroun can keep it together until Jeffrey’s back to talk some sense into him again. Otherwise, we still should keep our distance. Back onboard the Sidereal it was our ship, our problems, our rules. In my opinion we should tell that ‘Synergy’ a quick thank you and get back onto our own ship asap. The less with have to deal with those guys the better for all of us.”

Those last sentences were something all three crew members agreed on nodding, before finally closing the meeting and returning to their own quarters.

[ Act Four ]

Rel was up early, already setting his plan into motion to keep the crew busy. He was searching for Tarik or Hiora but couldn’t find them in the cargo bay. He mumbled to himself as he headed towards one of the exits, his light gray training uniform scooping softly with each step. “Would have surprised me to find either of them around here at this time.” The Cardassian approached the massive gate, which almost silently slid open to both sides as he got close.

The five meters wide corridor on the other side was paneled with the same smooth gray alloy as the inside of the cargo bay, only interrupted every ten meters by a thin dark gray slanted column halfway inserted into the wall. The hallway with a plain rectangular profile met another corridor of the same type at a nearby intersection and stretched on for over 300 meters in the other direction before ending in a T-junction. It seemed cargo bay three was located near the north-south axis of the sphere, and the number of neighboring bays of apparently identical size only hinted at the massive size of the Synergy vessel.

Rel left the large reconfigured hall and started searching for one of the sphere’s crew members. While the survivors had not officially been confined to their quarters and could theoretically move freely onboard the ship until told otherwise, the clear majority didn’t want to go snooping around either out of various concerns or respect. But since Rel needed to check something with their hosts, he had little qualms of exploring a little while searching for a contact person.

He headed away from the intersection and walked the length of the hallway towards the nearest T-junction, which he assumed would lead to a ring running around the hull. As he walked, he passed two smaller corridors, each still three meters wide and leading to more cargo bays on either side of the hallway. Trying to mentally map out what he saw, Rel concluded that on this deck there were probably twenty-four of those compartments, grouped in four quadrants with six holding areas each. “This thing is massive!” He muttered to himself and turned the corner into the ring corridor.

As he turned the corner he almost collided with a Synergy crew member, which looked at him a bit irritated with her completely white cybernetic eyes. The pale green Cardassian woman Rel had almost run over mustered him for a moment. “Lieutenant Neirrek.” She eventually said after a moment as a simple statement while she slightly furrowed her brow, making the silvery-white metallic bars embedded in the ridges around her eyes wiggle a bit. “Can I help you with something?”

Rel quickly took a step back, holding out his hands in front of him as a gesture of apology. “Uh, yes. When could I talk with Tarik or Hiora, please? I would like to discuss something with them. And I’m sorry for almost hitting you. It was my fault.”

The Synergy member looked at the CTO for a long moment, before she nodded briefly and responded with a tentative smile on her lips. “[email protected] will contact you shortly in cargo bay three. And no apology is necessary, Lieutenant. No harm done. Do you need anything else?”

Rel shook his head. “No, thank you. I’ll discuss my question with Hiora then. And again, sorry for bumping into you.”

The female Cardassian shot Rel a gentle smile and nodded softly before she continued along her path down the ring corridor running along the outer side of the massive cargo deck. Lieutenant Neirrek watched after her for a few moments, his thoughts briefly wandering to her flawless figure beneath her skin-tight silvery jumpsuit, before turning around and returning the way he had come.

A few minutes later Rel again entered cargo bay three and already saw Hiora standing near one of the octagonal terminals in front of their quarters. He quickened his pace, and swiftly closed the distance to the Human female. “Hello. I didn’t expect you to come so quickly, hope I didn’t interrupt you at anything?”

“No, Lieutenant. [email protected] mentioned you had a question for me?” Hiora flatly replied, casually shifting her weight from one leg to the other in her impeccable suit of pitch-black armor.

“Oh, right. I wonder if there was a way for us to do some PT?” The Cardassian officer replied, his eyes admiring the view of the Secondary Security Adjunct’s body armor. He silently mused about the apparent similarity between Hiora and Shori, both being security officers seemingly married to their body armors.

“PT?” [email protected] replied flatly. “I’m not familiar with that term.”

“Sorry. Physical training. It’s a standard Starfleet exercise regimen. I’d like to run our crew through some of it to get them off their asses and keep them busy, instead of sitting in their quarters all the time.”

“We have no need for physical training, so we don’t have any default facilities for it. The nanites and implants in our bodies ensure perfect functionality and condition of all organic components and systems. But if you state the requirements you need, we can most likely accommodate you.” The Human woman replied, looking a little bored but bearing the discussion with stoic neutrality.

“The only real thing we need is some space. A long circular path for running would be ideal, even better if it’s reasonably clean for some in-between ground exercises like push-ups and sit-ups. And if possible, some hanging bars for pull-ups.” The Cardassian explained, hoping that his list wasn’t too disruptive for the sphere’s normal operations.

Hiora slightly tilted her head and looked right through Rel for a second, then her gaze focused again, and she responded. “Your state request is no problem. You can utilize the outer orbital on this deck. We have reconfigured the ring corridor to meet your requirements. Its radius is 320 meters, giving it a circumference of 2,010.62 meters. You’ll also be uninterrupted for three hours. Is that sufficient or do you need more time for your training?”

Rel shook his head. “Perfect! No, that’s enough. Thank you. I hope it’s not too much of a hassle for you.” He said, watching Hiora shake her head with a seemingly emotionless face.

“Guess I gotta go fetch the crew for some PT.” He smiled and nodded, but before he had fully turned he heard her voice.

“Just out of curiosity. I would be interested in joining your training. To see how your crew exercises. Would that be acceptable for you?”

Hiora’s request surprised Rel somewhat, as he would have never expected her to want to deal with the rescued Starfleet crew any more than necessary. But now he happily nodded. “Of course. You’re welcome to join. I want to start in about thirty minutes, at 0815 hours.”

“I’ll be ready.” [email protected] flatly replied, and then turned away and headed to the nearest exit from the cargo bay.

Lieutenant Neirrek looked after Hiora, shrugging while walking towards the fabricator. He touched the smooth brushed metallic surface of the device, and the holographic interface immediately sprang to life. Blinking into existence in front of Rel’s eyes, the display showed the status of the terminal as well as the available options and waited for his command.

“Copy existing uniform patterns, apply pattern Neirrek-PT-One, and save as new patterns using existing name schema as template. Start replication cycle of newly created patterns, matching previous replication shapes and sizes, sequenced in alphabetical order of pattern owner.”

The display flawlessly mirrored his commands, and Rel grinned satisfied seeing that now every member of the crew could replicate a fitting exercising uniform. A moment later, the device’s tray sprang to life, and linear fractal streaks and streams of silvery-white light formed into the first set of training clothing in the device’s tray, growing from seemingly nothing. One by one the fabricator created the uniforms, and Rel continued to carry them from the device to the table to put them down in order.

Suddenly he heard a voice from behind. “Good morning, Lieutenant. What’s this all about?”

Rel turned around to see Ensign Th’akianas slowly walking towards him. The Cardassian grinned from ear to ear as he replied to the Andorian. “Good morning, Ensign! Perfect timing. These are our new training uniforms. We’re going to do a little PT this morning. Your uniform is over there, bottom row, second from the left.” He pointed at the end of the long table, indicating the training suit’s location.

The Andorian astrophysicist’s antennae twitched briefly, and he let out a deep groan, the regret of having asked clearly audible in his voice. “Damn it.” He mumbled, shuffling over to grab his uniform.

“If you see the others, please tell them to grab their uniforms and change. We’ll start in twenty minutes. If we must wait for anyone, we’ll pass the time with a few easy additional push-ups.”

“Oh please no.” Shrass muttered before returning to his quarters in quick jog.

Less than fifteen minutes later, the whole crew, including the other senior officers with Niko and Sina, stood in triple rows in front of the fabricator columns. Their training suits glistened softly in the ever present omni-directional lighting, the synthetic fiber shimmering and scooping as if it was finest silk.

Rel had replicated a simple whistle which he’ll be using during the PT. Right now, it dangled lazily from the cord around his neck, swinging softly as he walked and turned in front of the gathered crew. Many a grumbling and complaining had been heard, but eventually the whole crew had followed the order, changed into the exercise suits, and assembled next to the community area.

“Rel, I think we’re all here.” Sina said as the Cardassian passed her.

“Not quite. We’re still waiting for someo-” He replied but was cut off by the distinct sound of a dimensional shift. A brief blue-white flash illuminated the cargo bay, and Hiora appeared out of a swirling dissipating black maw next to the octagonal column. She had removed her armor and replaced it with a skintight black jumpsuit imprinted with a pale blue circuitry pattern. Her usually wild and loosely dangling hair was tied into a neat braid that wouldn’t get in the way.

“I am ready.” She simply mentioned and stood in front of the Cardassian. “Where should I join your formation?”

Rel’s eyes mustered their guest from head to toe, admiring how shamelessly and carelessly she wore the jumpsuit in front of them. He quickly gathered his senses and pointed to a place behind the first column, meaning she would run along in the first row right next to Shori.

Once everyone was in position, Rel blew his whistle and addressed the training unit. “Good morning everyone! I’m glad you all managed to make it. We’re going to do PT set one today, so no surprises and nothing fancy. We’ll leave the cargo bay through this door, turn right and follow the corridor to its end, then turn left into this deck’s ring orbital. Any questions?”

Nobody said something. “Good, then let’s do a quick warm up.” After twenty minutes of warm-up with focused walking, several strides along the full length of the cargo bay, and a good routine of dynamic stretching including but not limited to skipping, butt kicks, and jumping jacks, everyone was good to go, and the group assembled once more in formation.

“Right-face go!” Rel shouted, turned, and started marching in a straight line towards the designated exit door. The crew turned right on his command and fell into line with his pace, following him out onto the wide corridor. The steps of sixty-two pairs of boots echoed in the empty hallway, and the noise picked up as Lieutenant Neirrek picked up the pace. “On the double!”

The fast-paced jog of the crew sounded through the corridor, and a short time later they turned left into the ring hallway. The orbital was just as wide as the intersection corridors and offered enough space for the crew to space out a little. “Okay people, let’s go!” Rel shouted, picked up the pace again and started chanting the Sidereal’s running cadence song.

“The UFP we serve with pride.”

“Its founding charter is our guide.”

“New life and cultures we observe.”

“All hope and freedom we preserve.”

The crew echoed each of his lines in the cadence of their steps, turning their jog into a powerful thundering march. During the first verse Hiora simply jogged along the other crew, silently wondering how this exercise would turn out. She raised an eyebrow and looked over to Rel when he’d started chanting the cadence verse, but simple shrugged and silently continued along.

“Star-fleet!” Rel shouted.

“Boldly go!” The crew responded.

“Star-fleet!”

“Warp glow!”

“Star-fleet!” His loud voice thundered.

“Sidereal!” Came the echo of the runners.

“Star-fleet!”

“Empyreal!”

After the refrain he continued with the second verse, keeping the crew going. By now the group had fallen into a harmonic rhythm, matching the fast-paced jog the Cardassian offered. To the utter surprise of everyone in the first three rows of the group, Hiora started chanting along with the verse lines. Sina, Niko, and Shori all smiled and briefly exchanged looks, and even Co-Yor turned his head in slight surprise.

“Support and friendship’s our creed.”

“We’re going out helping those in need.”

“We’re stalwart defenders of our home.”

“The Alpha Quadrant is where we roam.”

The voices during the refrain had become louder, and it seems that the group exercise with the whole crew had managed to motivate and engage them all, even those who had been grumpy or without drive initially.

“Star-fleet!” - “Boldly go!”

“Star-fleet!” - “Warp glow!”

“Star-fleet!” - “Sidereal!”

“Star-fleet!” - “Empyreal!”

By the time the third verse came around everyone but [email protected] was already quite warm and some already had the first spots of sweat on their shirts.

“Daringly go where no one’s been.”

“To see the stellar sights unseen.”

“To make new friends where we arrive.”

“In unity we all will thrive.”

Lieutenant Neirrek kept chanting more and more verses, keeping the spirits of the runners high and their rhythm in sync with the group’s cadence. After the first loop around the outer ring corridor in a bit less than thirteen minutes, the group stopped for two sets of crunches, climber taps, leg raises, and elbow planks.

The group made four more loops around the outer corridor. Each was completed with a short break and two sets of exercises for various muscle groups and body parts, including push-ups, pull-ups, jump squats, squat thrusts, and lunge kicks. After the last one Rel guided the group through fifteen minutes of cooling down and stretching, and then dismissed the group from the PT unit.

Thus, about two hours and thirty minutes after leaving the cargo bay the crew flooded back into it, soaked in sweat and exhausted from the training. People quickly dispersed towards their quarters to take a shower and change clothes. Even Rel himself definitively felt his muscles after ten kilometers fast paced jogging and fifty minutes of intensive body weight exercises. Shori paused for a moment next to Rel as she entered.

“Now that was interesting. It’s been quite some time since we’ve done set one, hasn’t it?” She then quickly added with a smirk and a laugh. “And now I again remember why many don’t like it. I know I’m going to feel my shoulders and my butt tomorrow.” The Caitian playfully punched Rel’s shoulder and turned to head to her quarters.

“Indeed, interesting is an appropriate term.” Hiora’s voice suddenly sounded as she turned the corner to enter the cargo bay and approached Lieutenant Neirrek.

“How did you find it?”

“The exercises themselves were quite simple and insufficient for a thorough stimulation of all muscle groups. According to my estimation, only seventy-one percent of an average humanoid body’s muscles were targeted by this regimen. But I think it could be considered adequate since I assume this training unit is supposed to be repeated in regular intervals?”

The Cardassian nodded to confirm and looked at [email protected]’s face which was a little flushed, but not nearly as soaked as his own or those of his colleagues. “Well, I guess your nanites made it quite easy to keep up?”

“That is correct. To properly challenge my physique, I would have needed a significantly higher load. However, I must admit the use of your chanting was… curious. You managed to focus the whole group onto a singular task with this technique, giving it one purpose.” Hiora looked at the Cardassian and mused. “It was almost like a rudimentary form of a primitive emotion-based hive-mind. Inefficient, but still curious.”

She turned towards the exit again, but then stopped for a moment and turned back to Rel. “Thank you for letting me participate. I think I now understand your people better than before.”

The Cardassian simply nodded. “You’re welcome.” He mumbled while watching Hiora leave the cargo bay with swaying hips in her skintight jumpsuit.

[ Act Five ]

It was shortly after noon, and Sina stood in the separated temperature-controlled cabin of her shower. The shower’s nucleonic beams rained down on her from all sides, softly tickling her flushed skin as they carefully vaporized dirt, grime, and sweat. The invisible feelers of the beams caressing her skin elicited a relaxed giggle from her lips, as she stood and enjoyed having the traces of the training wiped from her body. The Romulan let out a soft sigh and let her head drop, taking deep breaths as she relaxed in the radiation shower covering her form with shimmering brightly glowing green radiation.

A few minutes later she stepped out of the stall and slipped into a clean set of freshly replicated standard Starfleet issue underwear, the cool pale blue fabric feeling so nice against her warm skin. She still grinned thinking back at the PT. When Rel and Shori had suggested doing group exercises to her it sounded unnecessary or futile, but now she had to admit that it had been a great idea to keep everyone busy and distract them a little. And with a sore butt getting riled up over things would be just that much more inconvenient that maybe tempers would stay cool for a little bit longer.

Sina was about to finish dressing, and just pulled the sleeves of her duty uniform’s jacket over her arms, when the door signal sounded a soft chirp rang through the room. The Commander immediately turned to face the entrance to her quarters and called out. “Enter.” The door silently slid open to reveal Tarik standing there in his familiar baggy engineering clothing. As he looked at the Romulan, he noticed the undershirt of her uniform hugging her body, casually revealing the contour of her flat and firm belly.

He blushed slightly and cleared his throat, quickly averting his gaze. “My apologies. I’ll return at a later time.”

When Tarik was about to step away from the door, Sina called out to him while putting the zipper rows of her jacket together, sealing them with a quick rubbing of her fingers. “Wait, it’s okay. I’m ready.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mean to intrude or inconvenience you.” The engineer replied, carefully returning his eyes to face the Romulan woman.

“Yes, it’s fine. What can I do for you?” Sina asked while grabbing a half empty glass of water from the table in the living area and finishing it with three large gulps.

“I wanted to tell you earlier, but you were… busy.” Tarik started. “I must admit your exercises are rather unconventional. I’ve been following Hiora’s participation from the corner of my consciousness while performing some other duties.”

“Really? I wouldn’t have guessed that you’d be so invested in our PT. Why, what’s so interesting about it?” The Commander asked while slowly walking towards her visitor. Before she reached him, she grabbed the small bundle from the floor containing her used training suit. Glass in the left hand, bundle in the right hand, she finally reached Tarik.

“Oh, you have no idea. I wasn’t the only one sharing [email protected]’s body. Billions of people had joined to observe and experience your training run. You and your crew are quite the phenomenon in the hive-mind. Even though we don’t require exercising like that, since our nanites will keep our bodies in perfect health, I’m already hearing dozens of millions of people across our empire setting out to imitate your ‘PT.’” [email protected] explained, while stepping away from the door so that they could walk away side by side.

As they slowly walked towards the fabricator column, Sina smiled from ear to ear. “Wow, I really wouldn’t have expected that. It’s an everyday activity for us, completely normal and nothing extraordinary. I guess we both have things that are normal for us, but foreign and fascinating for the other.” They chatted casually for a bit before reaching the terminal. “But what did you want to tell me? I guess you didn’t come to see me for small talk.” The Commander quipped as she placed the glass and the bundle in the tray to recycle it, watching them disappear in cascades of silvery-white streaks of light.

Tarik laughed and nodded vigorously. “Indeed. I thought you wanted to know that we’ve reached Sol III about four hours ago. The Sidereal is already safely moored in shipyard Gamma.”

Sina paused for a second. Earth. Her home, so close and yet so incredibly far away. Would Earth look significantly different? She had seen images of what the Borg did to the worlds they assimilated, and wondered how much, if any at all, of the damage the Synergy could have undone. The Romulan took a deep breath, and slowly tilted her head towards Tarik. “Can I see it? I mean Earth?”

[email protected] looked at the woman next to him, noticing her shift in mood when she asked her question. “Of course.” He replied, and after a moment’s pause continued. “Come. I’ll show you to the astral observatory, I’m sure you’ll like the vista. I know that I do enjoy looking at the various worlds of our empire, and especially my place of birth.”

Sina looked at Tarik in surprise. “You were born on Earth?”

The engineer nodded. “Yes. I’m from a medium sized nexus on the southern continent on the western hemisphere. I think you would call the place ‘South America?’” [email protected] led Sina away from the fabricators and out of the cargo bay. As they were walking, Tarik continued the conversation. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve been home.”

“Don’t you miss your parents and your friends? Or do you not have those concepts?”

“Oh no, we do have families and friends. And I regularly see them. Just because I’m not physically home, doesn’t mean I’ve lost contact with the people there. The Synergy, our hive-mind, binds us closer together than you can imagine.”

Sina sighed, the talking about family and friends painfully reminding her of their misery. “It must be nice to be able to talk with your family and friends whenever you like. We didn’t have that luxury. I haven’t seen my mother in person for over a year, often only exchanged video messages and letters. And now…”

The engineer looked at his guest and nodded softly. “I’m sorry.” They walked in silence for a few more moments, when Tarik stopped in front of a huge sliding double door. “This will most likely be a somewhat irritating experience for you, but I think you should become also familiar with this technology.”

“What is it?” The Romulan woman asked, raising an eyebrow while her gaze traveled between Tarik and the still closed massive door.

“Our way to quickly move from one part of the ship to another. You might not have noticed it yet, but we don’t use anything like your turbolifts.” [email protected] took one more step towards the door, and its massive wings effortlessly slid open, revealing a circular chamber with several other similar doorways.

Sina blinked and stared at the door. She took a few steps back and peeked around the hallway’s corner trying to understand what she was seeing, then turned back to Tarik. She slowly approached the large frame again, and carefully looked inside the apparently impossible room that was larger on the inside than on the outside. “How?”

“Spatial folds. The door’s frame uses self-sustaining subspace entanglement to create a spatial fold to its entangled partner. These folds are stable only over brief distances but require no additional energy supply once established. We use several hubs to connect all sections of our ships through a tree structure. Even on the largest cube with 600 decks, you can get from any section to any other by traversing at most seven of these rooms.” Tarik stepped over the threshold into the room and gestured her to follow.

“You don’t need to be afraid, it’s perfectly safe. Much safer by principle than your transporters.” The engineer smiled at Sina, while behind him dozens of members of the sphere’s crew crossed between the various gateways. Eventually, after a moment of hesitation, Commander D’raxis took a deep breath and braced herself before resolutely stepping through the door.

She didn’t feel anything as she entered the chamber, and looked back through the door a bit surprised, unsure whether she had really crossed the threshold. She saw a part of the corridor which led back to the cargo bay, before the door closed again. Once Sina turned around it became obvious to her that she was no longer on the cargo deck, but rather somewhere else.

The panels lining the floor, walls, and ceiling of the chamber were the same as in the corridor she had just left, but the doors around her led into adjacent chambers like the current one, each having many exits arrayed on their respective walls. The sight of the impossible geometry in front of her eyes started to give her a slight headache the more she tried to image how the rooms were positioned and connected to each other. Sina closed her eyes and let out a soft groan.

“Are you okay?” She heard Tarik’s voice right next to her.

“Yes, I’m fine. It’s just… I should probably stop trying to imagine how these hubs connect to each other. Thinking about it makes me dizzy. Can we just continue, please?”

The engineer nodded and offered Sina his hand. “Certainly. If you want I can lead you, so that you can keep your eyes closed if it offers you relief.”

Sina hesitated for a moment, musing at the apparent silliness of being led by her hands, but then took the offered hand and closed her eyes. “Thanks.” Tarik gently squeezed her hand and started to lead her through the circular non-Euclidean maze of the sphere’s gateway hubs. Only a few minutes later [email protected] stopped walking, and the Romulan opened her eyes again. Sina looked around and found herself standing in a large dome-like room, the dull dark gray ceiling with embedded golden hexagonal circuitry reaching its apex twenty meters above her head. “Where are we?”

“This is the astral observatory. It doesn’t see much use anymore since some of our developers created a superior version of it as a virtual environment. But still we keep it around since it doesn’t require much maintenance and it comes in handy at times. And of course, it is quite useful for guests without neural implants.” Tarik explained, slowly walking towards the chamber’s center as he spoke. His voice echoed deeply inside the empty dome.

The Primary Engineering Adjunct mentally reached out for the controls of the observatory, and the golden circuitry lighted up for a moment before plunging the chamber into darkness. With a gentle swirl a holographic projection of Sphere 272-Theta-8 appeared in the center of the dome, dominating the observatory with its bright white and dark gray hull plating, circled and crisscrossed by glowing blue energy lines.

“This is the ship we’re currently on? It… looks so different than what I would have expected.” Sina remarked, walking closer to the projection, inspecting the delicate details of the sphere’s surface area. She looked back at Tarik. “Do all Synergy ships look like this?”

[email protected] nodded. “Yes. If only to distinguish our vessels and show everyone that we are not our ancestors. And we think they indeed look much nicer in white-gray-blue, instead of brown-black-green.” He added with a grin on his lips. “But I think you’re more interested in this…”

Again, he reached out with his neural implants to command the observatory controls, and the projection shifted. It zoomed out, and the sphere rapidly shrank to a much smaller size next to several light gray spider-like structures. In one of those, Sina could see the Sidereal’s wreck, securely wrapped in ten of the shipyard’s segmented arms. Only now it occurred to her how extensive the damage to the ship was. The torn hull, stripped of its armor plating in almost all sections, exposed much of the ship’s inner structure. It almost looked like a skinned corpse, she morbidly thought.

Several spots of the hull were scorched, clearly indicating where the uncontrolled plasma fires had ravaged the ship before the Synergy’s engineers managed to extinguish them. Finally, she noticed how far the port nacelle pylon had been bent out of alignment, standing off to the side like a badly mangled extremity. Sina let out a deep sigh. “We would really have all died there if not for you…”

“But you didn’t. And in a few months your ship will be restored, and she will be in better condition than ever before. Stronger, faster, safer.” The camera moved again, and the shipyard assembly line shrank in size. Even the larger docks building or repairing spheres and cubes grew smaller and smaller, until eventually Earth appeared.

“This is… Earth?” The Romulan Commander stammered while she stared at the projection. The planet’s atmosphere was a deep blue with streaks of black, and long and thick white clouds swirling across it. Most of the landmasses were covered in what almost looked like gray and green circuitry, but she knew these were massive nexuses and complexes. The icecaps at the poles were there, but much smaller than she’d have expected.

But the vista shocking her the most was Earth’s ring. A massive, chakram-like superstructure about 150 kilometers thick and over 600 kilometers wide, orbiting the planet over its equator at about 2,000 kilometers. The sprawling hive of millions of white and gray interconnected cubes and spheres and cylinders and pyramids and prisms cast its shadow across Earth’s surface, ranging from horizon to horizon. “And what is this?” She pointed at the ring in awe and trepidation.

“This is Sol III’s annulus. It’s a combination of habitats, recreational facilities, artificial biomes and arboreta, factories, laboratories, storage, shipyards, and defensive installations. It is home to fifteen billion people, in addition to the thirty-one billion on the surface. Earth probably looks strangely different from how you remember it, but we hope it will get better eventually. We’re still in the process of trying to undo the ecological damage inflicted by its assimilation. This world, and tens of thousands of other worlds are making good progress. But restoring a devastated ecosystem takes a long time and a lot of effort, even for us.”

Tarik made a simple gesture with his hand, and the projection of Earth’s system and all installations started to rotate slowly. As the camera turned to the night side, the blue glow of the annulus’s energy lines and conduits appeared, like a fine mesh of glowing steel wool strapped on an invisible ring. Suddenly a thought sprung up in Sina’s mind and she started looking around the holographic dome. “Where’s the moon?”

Tarik slowly shook his head. “Gone. Strip-mined and eventually completely disassembled by the Borg to construct their invasion fleets and the annulus.”

“But without the moon…”

“Commander.” The engineer took a deep breath. “They didn’t care. For them everything was just a tool, the means to an end. It will take centuries, or even millennia, to restore Earth and the other devastated worlds to even a sliver of their former glory. But no matter how much progress we make, we’ll never be able to fully undo the damage. We can only try and hope for the best.”