Disclaimer: I do not own the Star Trek Universe, or any of the characters from it. It all belongs to Gene Roddenberry as far as I'm concerned, then whoever owns the copyright rights. I'm merely an amateur playing in it for my own amusement because the guys who did it for money just didn't get it right.
Ulysses
Admiral Byzantium
"To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."
-Ulysses, Alfred Tennyson
Prologue
Since the beginning of the Dominion War, Captain Robert DeSoto had become increasingly uncomfortable before attending classified briefings. Now entering his twenty-fifth year in command of the USS Hood, DeSoto was not unfamiliar with combat situations, but he found these briefings constantly preceded being thrown off the deep end into combat engagements that he would have preferred to avoid. One briefing introduced him to Operation Return, where his beloved starship was nearly torn to pieces by a pair of Jem'Hadar cruisers – the Hood had destroyed one, but only the timely intervention of the IKS Rotarran had prevented her destruction that day. In another, Admiral Ross and Captain Sisko had briefed him about their planned final thrust into Dominion-held Cardassia, where the Hood found herself in a crossfire between the collapsing Romulan lines and the Breen and Dominion ships which had found their way into close range – a space-age equivalent of a knife fight, not something the old Excelsior-class Hood excelled at.
The only briefing that DeSoto thought back upon with appreciation was the one preceding the massacre at the Second Battle of Chin'toka. Admiral Ross had steadfastly refused to allow DeSoto to take his damaged cruiser into combat, instead leaving the Hood behind to command the small force defending Deep Space 9. While he had argued vehemently that a crippled Hood was as good as any warship, Ross had been insistent, and in the end had saved DeSoto's ship, if not his life.
But this was the first time DeSoto had been called to a high-level classified briefing in three years, and he was concerned. Not because he didn't want to take his ship back into another desperate combat situation, although he wasn't keen on turning the Hood into a burning hulk again, but because he shouldn't be attending one of these things.
The war is over, damn it. It's been over for three years, and we haven't heard so much as a peep from the Gamma Quadrant, or the Breen, or even the damn Romulans. What the hell is going on? DeSoto wouldn't even be on Earth, but he was overseeing a major refit and rebuild of the Hood – when they were done, the fifty-year old starship would have enough firepower to take on Jean-Luc's Enterprise.
The location of the briefing was almost as unusual as the fact that it was taking place at all – DeSoto had been called from Utopia Planitia on Mars to San Francisco, but not to Starfleet Command. A light cover of rain misted the sky as DeSoto strode through the front door of the Communications Research Center. He'd never been to this building – never had a need to be here – and he wasn't sure why a classified briefing would be taking place in Starfleet's primary long-range communications research facility. Then again, he was the one who had turned down repeated promotions to Admiral. If he'd really wanted to know, he could have accepted the promotion. I suppose that's the price you pay for wanting to stay on the bridge of a starship. You have to listen to the brass, no matter how ridiculous the orders seem, and they never tell you anything important until the last minute.
"Captain DeSoto?" The voice was warm and familiar, and DeSoto recognized it immediately. He turned back towards the entrance and was faced with three grey-on-black Starfleet uniforms, men he knew at once. The speaker was Will Riker, a man who had served as his first officer on the Hood for several years before transferring to the Enterprise. Aside Riker was his commanding officer, Captain Picard. On Picard's left was another Captain, Charles Reynolds of the Centaur. He wasn't sure what Picard was doing here, since as far as he knew as the Enterprise was on assignment, but Reynolds and he had spent some time together the last few weeks – the first Centaur had been destroyed by the Breen at Second Chin'toka, and Reynolds was overseeing the construction of a new Akira-class ship of the same name at Utopia Planitia.
"Will! Charlie, Jean-Luc. Are you here for the same reason I am?" DeSoto extended his hand, clasping Riker's in a firm handshake, before turning to acknowledge Picard.
"I suspect that we are, although I also suspect that we don't have any more specifics than you do yourself, Robert," Picard said, releasing DeSoto's hand. All of them turned and continued towards the turbolift. Reynolds opened his mouth to say something more, but all four of them stopped as the turbolift doors opened, allowing a man in an engineer's uniform with lieutenant's pips to emerge.
"Will! Oh… oh I mean Commander Riker. Captain Picard! Oh, you're here. Oh, oh good. This way, Sirs. There's something you need to see at Project Pathfinder. Yes, we have to hurry, Captains, oh, and Commander." Riker's face twisted into a wry smile and turned, meeting Picard's eyes. The two of them shared a glance as the party moved into the turbolift.
"Maybe you'd better start explaining, Mr. Barclay, what exactly was so important to call the Enterprise back to Earth on such short notice, and take Captains DeSoto and Reynolds away from their ships," Jean-Luc said wryly.
"Oh, sir, I wish I could, but it's classified, you understand, I'm not allowed to speak to anyone about it, not yet." Barclay stuttered, clearly uncomfortable. "You'll… you'll be told in just a minute. In fact, I believe Admirals Paris and Hayes are waiting upstairs to fill you in, but I'm… I don't have a high enough clearance to even know what I know… I can't possibly tell anyone else what I know. I'm not permitted." Barclay suddenly lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, staring at Riker's shoes while his own twisted uncomfortably. "Don't… don't worry," Barclay said, still looking downward. "Admiral Paris will fill you in."
Who is this guy, and if he doesn't have a high enough clearance to know what he apparently knows, then how the hell does he know? DeSoto was uncomfortable enough being away from his ship, much less being in a situation where he was in a turbolift with a stuttering engineer who was either completely crazy or completely socially inept. Probably both. The lift stopped, and Barclay started forward before the doors were even open. The officers behind him had to accelerate their pace to keep up. DeSoto caught Riker's eye, but Will waved him off and mouthed that he'd explain about the eccentric lieutenant at another time. Riker caught the door, oddly not a typical sliding door, as it shut behind Barclay, who was now at least three paces ahead. DeSoto walked in first, noting the emblem of the Pathfinder Project on the door before coming face to face with two Admirals and one shattered looking Commander, as well as Lieutenant Barclay.
"Picard, DeSoto, Reynolds, good…" Hayes muttered as they entered. He wasted no time with pleasantries. "Gentlemen, welcome to Project Pathfinder. You happened to be senior and convenient, as well as battle-hardened, and you have to understand that nothing I say goes outside of this room. This is an official Starfleet briefing, and this briefing is classified. What you are going to hear is not to go outside this room until Starfleet decides to release the information to the fleet at large. Am I understood?" The officers nodded, and Admiral Hayes let out a breath. "Admiral Paris, Commander Harkins, I'm turning this briefing over to you."
Admiral Paris didn't say anything, merely nodded at Commander Harkins. Harkins also said nothing, but he turned around and punched in a security code to the computer terminal behind underneath the viewer. The viewscreen was silent for an instant, and the silence filled the room. Paris turned away, apparently unable, or unwilling, to watch this for a second time. Barclay looked distraught. Then the instant was gone, and the screen came back to life. On it appeared a bridge, darkened with battle damage and glowing red as the red-alert status lights pulsed. It was scarred, large gaping holes blown through the back of the bridge. The woman on the viewscreen looked haggard, and was wearing the old red and black uniform of a command officer.
"Project Pathfinder, the following transmission is to be classified. Remove any non-essential personnel from the room." Her voice was husky and dark, and DeSoto heard Riker gasp quietly. "Kathryn Janeway?" he murmured. DeSoto took a second to glance at Riker as Janeway fell silent, waiting for her command to be followed, but Will said nothing more. Harkins punched another button on the console, and the recording jumped forward.
Janeway had turned away from the viewscreen and was pacing across the bridge of what DeSoto now recognized to be an Intrepid-class starship. Captain Janeway? The ship lost in the Delta Quadrant, right? On the recording, Janeway stopped suddenly, shook herself, and turned back to the viewer. "Starfleet Command, if the room is not yet cleared of all non-essential personnel, then pause this recording." She paused again. "Admiral Paris, I regret to inform you that if you are receiving this message, then in all likelihood my entire crew and I are dead. We constructed an automated beacon and recorded this message in order to ensure Starfleet Command would be aware of our fate. It should avoid detection long enough to fulfill its mission."
DeSoto looked up at this woman. Her bridge was a wreck, and her uniform was torn and tattered, but she still radiated an inner strength that he recognized, even over subspace. "Admiral, two weeks ago Voyager detected a huge number of Borg transwarp signatures, along the lines of forty to fifty full size Borg tactical cubes. It did not take us long to track them to a nebula not far from the location of this transmission beacon, and we discovered a Borg transwarp hub – one with Alpha Quadrant exit apertures. With this hub active, the collective has the capability to land a full size invasion fleet it the middle of Federation territory with little or no warning. Why the Borg did not utilize it during their previous assault on Earth via Wolf 359, I do not know, but at this point it is, as they say, irrelevant. Using Borg transceivers from former drones, my crew and I were able to collect intelligence on the collective's activities and learn that the Borg were planning a full scale invasion of the Federation sometime in the following days. The cubes we detected were designated to come out of transwarp at Wolf 359 and proceed directly to Earth. Their orders were to assimilate the planet if possible, but destroy it at any cost."
The officers in the room were dead silent. Picard had inhaled sharply when Janeway had first mentioned the massive number of cubes, but had been quiet ever since.
"We had no time to wait and get a message to Starfleet Command. Voyager attacked the Borg transwarp hub using a specially designed virus and our own conventional weapons. Through the sacrifice of a young man by the name of Icheb, who allowed himself to be assimilated in order to infect the hub with a pathogen specifically designed to combat the Borg, Voyager was able to destroy the transwarp hub and prevented the immediate invasion of the Alpha Quadrant." A small, sad smile came across her face. "I officially nominate Cadet Icheb for all the highest awards for valor with which Starfleet can honor his sacrifice." The smile faded. "Icheb disrupted the hub's defense system, and Voyager was able to destroy the hub with conventional weapons and escape barely intact in the ensuing chaos. Admiral Paris, I regret to inform you that the majority of my crew was killed in our attack on the hub, including your son, Lieutenant Paris. The few of us who remain are struggling to ensure that this message beacon successfully transmits to Starfleet Command." She paused for a second. To the right, silent tears ran down Owen Paris' face, as he'd lost the battle with himself and was staring at the viewer, unable to tear his face away.
"We are making this transmission not so that our families know our final fate, but because while we stalled the Borg threat, the collective has not been defeated. Admiral, the Borg have already begun to reconstruct the hub, and although my staff predicts the process will take upwards of twenty years to complete – recovery from the pathogen will require some time and a great deal of caution and the hub itself is little more than wreckage at the moment – once it is operational again there is no way the Federation can prevent the Borg from wreaking havoc inside of the Alpha Quadrant. With the hub they will be able to place vessels at any location in Federation space in a matter of hours. Moreover, Admiral, the Borg have directed the force that was to go through the transwarp hub and assault Earth to head to Federation space using more conventional methods. I believe that the Borg will hold off on any direct combat with the Federation until they have amassed a fleet of enough strength to annihilate the Federation in a single blow – I'd estimate you have ten years, Admiral, at the most. The Borg believe Voyager was destroyed, and while they know we had the ability to communicate with Starfleet Command, I doubt they are aware that we managed to get this message through. The beacon is set to self-destruct as soon as the message is transmitted to ensure the Borg don't discover it."
"Included is all of the data we have on the Borg. Everything we know is there in this transmission and hopefully you can use it to plan some kind of defense against the impending invasion. This is now in your hands, Admiral – Voyager and her crew have done all we could. Don't let the Queen win, Sir."
Janeway's command mask finally cracked as she came to the end of her report. A single, solitary tear descended the left side of her face, and she gritted her teeth and wiped it away vigorously with her uniform sleeve.
"Tell our families that we love them, Admiral. Janeway out."
Admiral DeSoto sat stoically in the command chair he had occupied for forty years. The bridge was silent – a silence which DeSoto had become familiar with during his years of command. It was the same silence that had permeated the bridge of the Hood nineteen years before, when Captain Sisko had desperately led six hundred ships against twice their number. This one's for you, Kathryn Janeway. Thank you for giving us a fighting chance. DeSoto's sat up, resting his back against the captain's chair.
The USS Hood, accompanied by thirty of Starfleet's finest vessels, made her way under cloak towards what Starfleet Intelligence had eventually dubbed "Galahad Point." Oh just and faithful knight! DeSoto thought wryly, Ride on! The prize is near.
Outside, the silence of space was undisturbed as the ships skated forwards, invisible to sight and sensors alike. But a pair of eyes stayed open, and watched as space shimmered for a second, and then the Centaur dropped her cloak and dove into the nebula, howling down towards the battlefield. The other ships followed, armed with time the crew of Voyager had bought with their lives.