She was having trouble concentrating with that incessant beeping coming from the proximity sensors, but she didn’t stop working. The Borg Cube was closing in. They hadn’t sent any members of their hive onto the ship, but that was hardly reassuring. The rest of the crew aboard the USS Heritage was currently unconscious and that left Ensign Meva Skogland the lone soldier.
She wasn’t entirely sure why whatever knocked out the crew hadn’t affected her, but she thought it might have something to do with her being in decontamination at the time the Borg ship had appeared. She’d have to remember to ask Doctor Syversten about it when this was over…assuming they all survived. What a terrifying thought.
Meva’s hands flew across the console as she assessed the damage to the ship, checked weapon and shield statuses, and monitored the Borg Cube, which was now currently maintaining its’ distance. Whatever the Borg had done had disabled the Heritage’s warp engines, so they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Everything else, however, seemed to be functioning properly, the most important system being life support.
Meva had never seen a Borg ship in person before, had never seen the Borg themselves at all, but all the reports said the same things. The Borg disable a ship, send over their hive minions to leech data from the ships computers, and assimilate all members of the ships crew. Not necessarily in that order. Then they move on. Another ship. Another crew. Gone. Assimilated.
So…why weren’t they doing that? Why were they just sitting there? Sure they had disabled the ship just like previous reports said they would. But they hadn’t started the rest of it.
“Shit. What am I supposed to do with this?” Meva muttered to herself. Speaking out loud to herself made her less out of control. She was just an Ensign who worked in the Science Department. She was fresh out of the Academy. Everyone else on board, literally everyone, outranked her. Except now everyone else was out cold, which left only her. And she knew procedure. They trained you for hostile situations. But you weren’t prepared. Not entirely.
Of course she had basic training in the use of the weapons systems. Everyone on the ship did. Every good Captain insisted on it and Captain Miles was a good Captain.
“He’d be a better Captain if he was awake.”
Meva wasn’t confident in her ability to use the ships weapons systems against this particular enemy and survive. She needed a plan. She worked in the Science Department. Maybe she could science a way out of this. For now it seemed she had the time. The Borg were just sitting there. It was creepy.
“Alright then. Let’s see if we can get these warp engines running. Or at least get it to impulse power. If I can’t do that maybe I can figure out how to wake Syver. Or the Captain. That would be nice.”
Meva grabbed a Data PADD so she could continue to monitor the consoles on the Bridge and headed for Engineering. There were crewmembers all over the place. Many had simply fallen wherever they had been standing when the attack came. Some sporting bruises from hitting the walls, the floor, each other. Some were lying in odd, and obviously uncomfortable, positions. She wished she could help, but with no proper medical training she didn’t even know where to begin.
‘This is one hell of a first assignment,’ she thought as she headed for the turbo lift. She sincerely hoped that the turbo lift didn’t malfunction. She didn’t need to be trapped in an elevator on top of everything else. Then they would all be screwed. ‘As if we aren’t already.’
Meva Skogland had been so excited to be given the chance to serve her first Starfleet assignment aboard the Heritage. It was the ships’ maiden voyage through space and a spot aboard was as coveted as a spot aboard the Federation Flagship Enterprise.
She reached the nearest lift and, surprise surprise, it wasn’t working.
“Great. The Medical Bay it is then.”
Heading toward Dr. Syversten’s office she tried to remember anything she may have learned at the Academy that might help with this. The Kobyashi Maru maybe. Except she failed that test. Everyone did. If she couldn’t wake Syver then she knew it was over.
She reached the Medical Bay in record time. Just like the Bridge and the hallways the bay had personnel laying and sitting wherever they had been. She found the Chief Medical Officer sitting in his office chair, his head lying on his desk like a kid who had fallen asleep at school.
“Doctor?”
Meva shook the doctors shoulder, as if that would do any good. It didn’t. She began looking through drawers and in cabinets. Assuming everything was properly labeled, which it always was, she was hoping to find anything that might be used to wake someone up.
While she searched for something, anything, that would help she continued to monitor the Data PADD. There was still no change from the Borg Cube and Life Support Systems were still functioning. Good. She still had time, but that could change at any moment.
Finally she found a stash of hypo sprays. She looked through them until she found one labeled ‘Epinephrine’.
‘Well, this will either wake him up or give him a heart attack.’
She read the label of the hypo spray, checked Syversten’s medical record in the ships’ computer to make sure he wasn’t allergic to anything, and then, taking a deep breath she stuck the hypo spray into Dr. Syversten’s neck and waited. It didn’t take long. The Doctor’s head shot up as if he’d just had a bucket of water dumped on him.
“What the hell…” he muttered. He was looked groggily around the room.
“Doctor. Are you alright?” Meva asked.
“Ensign Skogland? What’s happening?”
“The ship was attacked, Sir. I think. A Borg Cube sent out some kind of energy pulse that shut down the warp engines. It also seems to have rendered the crew unconscious. Everyone except me anyway. And now you. I was going to try to get the engines back online, but I can’t get down to Engineering. Thought I would try to wake you up instead. I’m really glad it worked.”
“The Borg? They’re here? Why haven’t they taken the ship yet?”
“I don’t know, Sir, but they’ve been here for several hours now. They disabled the ships ability to move, but haven’t done anything else. I’ve been using the time to try and either get the ship away from here or wake up someone who can. That’s where you come in.”
Dr. Syversten got up and looked around. “What did you use to wake me up, Ensign?” he asked.
“I used a hypo spray labeled Epinephrine. I only have Starfleet’s basic first aid training. I was kind of guessing and hoping it worked.”
“I’m very glad you guessed correctly, Ensign. Were you able to wake anyone else?”
“No, Sir.”
“Alright. Well, the best course of action then would be to wake the Captain and the rest of the bridge crew. They’re better trained to handle these sorts of situations. That will give us the time, hopefully, to start taking care of the rest of the crew.”
“Hopefully is right. The Borg haven’t fired on the ship yet, which goes against every report I’ve ever read about them. Granted there aren’t many so we’re probably missing information. We need the Captain.”
“Okay. Let me grab what I can from here and we’ll head to the Bridge.”
