The Killing Fields (Part 1 of 6)

It was 13:30 and Harris was sitting at his chair reading about the *Blake* on his arm con panel. Captain Devore sat in his chair and began tapping the console on his chair showing a slight uneasiness. The con panel read

"Captain, we have reached the last reported position of the *Blake*." Lieutenant Rhoukann, the Ops officer said. "Picking up the remains of two ships, however we can't tell too much from the debris due to the radiation."

"Slow to 1/4 impulse. Lieutenant Toran. Scan the debris for anything we can use to confirm or disprove that this is the *Blake*," Captain Devore said.

"Aye Sir." Toran immediately started an active scan of the debris field. There was a section of a federation saucer section. "Confirmed, sir. There is the remain of the *Blake's* saucer section. It shows heavy damage and no life signs. There are signs of a Romulan War Bird."

"Confirmed Captain. There are 13 faint life signs It looks like the Romulans manage to save a portion of their hull to create a light safety pod. The rest of the war bird looks like it took heavy damage, " Rhoukann said.

"Beam the survivors directly to sick bay. Barbara, prepare for casualties."

[Acknowledged, Captain.]

"Lieutenant Rashad. Can we get any information from the *Blake's* computers?" Devore asked.

"I don't know sir. I will get to work on it," T'Kul said getting up and going to station 2, the Intelligence Station. Lieutenant Harris followed her to help. The information was highly corrupted but T'Kul was able to savage some information. After about twenty minutes, the *Blake's* Tactical Logs and sensor logs were like an open book- an open book with some pages ripped out of them. But from what they did have they found some interesting things. However before Lieutenant T'Kul could reveal what she found Lieutenant Toran grabbed the attention of the Captain, "Captain we are receiving a distress call from Sector 439, Tares System. It's the Romulan 5th fleet."

"On Screen!" Devore ordered. On the screen came the bridge of a Romulan War Bird. The bridge looked like it had sustained tremendous damage and the Commander was bleeding from his forehead and seemed to have his eye gouged. He pleaded with whomever received his message to help.

[ We need help. We have lost 17 ships...... ' We are the Borg
lower your shields. Resistance is futile'.]

"Commander, this is Captain Devore of the USS Leviathan. Give us some co-ordinates and we can help you."

The transmission ended.

"Sir. We are receiving another hail. This time it is coming from the 2nd Fleet The Romulan command fleet. I am getting a similar message. 'Help', then the Borg's automated message. They are in sector 123, an uncharted sector in our computer banks," Lieutenant Toran said. Captain Devore walked over to Ops and looked around the bridge what could he do. He looked at Lieutenant T'Kul and saw that she had an idea of what was going on. Lieutenant Harris was over there trying to give her a hand and Devore noticed them to conversing.

"Well, Mr. Harris tell us what was found," Captain Devore said.

"The Borg ships have no shields. Their transwarp field acts almost like a force shield that we still haven't been able to penetrate. But when they do activate their transwarp fields they appear on sensors, so they don't activate their transwarp so they won't. However the lone drone still has their shields. The *Blake* reported five Borg vessels- four cubes and a sphere." Harris informed the Captain.

"Have you gathered enough information to tell me where they might attack next." The Captain requested.

T'Kul replied, "Well they just struck the most experienced and oldest fleet in the
Romulan Empire. Then followed up with an attack on Fleet HQ. They will continue on to the the Romulan homeworld taking out outlying planets on their way in. On Tarei IV is where the romulan army is located. Once those outlying planets are conquered, destroyed or assimilated, then they will destroy the remaining fleet and invade Romulus."

Solemnly, the Captain sat down at his chair and rubbed his chin. "Lieutenant Harris, I want you and Lieutenant Toran to come up with a battle plan. I want it on my desk in three
hours."

"Yes sir. Mr. Toran, you are with me. Let's get to work!' Harris said to Toran walking into the senior staff conference room.

"Um Captain?" Lieutenant T'Kul said. "I am an expert with the Borg Shouldn't I be with them?"

"No Lieutenant. I need you here on the bridge so that if we somehow encounter them prior to, we won't be caught unprepared."

"Yes sir."

Toran looked at Devore and gave him an icy stare. "Don't worry, Ensign. It is only temporary. You have the most tactical experience with the Borg as anyone else on this ship." Toran said nothing but followed Harris into the conference room.