Episode 33: "The plot thickens..."

Oh my...

 The view Captain McMillan had of the damaged, battered structure was... disconcerting, to say the least.  It was damaged severely, as if someone had attacked it from orbit. Several of the doors in this room were blocked, beams had fallen from the cealing and fire was spreading everywhere. Nevertheless, that wasn't what worried McMillan the most.

This place was definitely Borg.

"Alright people, explore this level... but be careful." McMillan knew the risks of the Borg better than most people. Two years ago, he had been assimilated by the Borg on a routine away mission. He'd only been Borg for a few weeks, but it'd been terrible. And now he had found out that the Borg hadn't only assimilated him: they had also extracted some of his DNA, thereby cloning him. They had violated him, in more ways than one. He hated them for that... but he also knew that he couldn't let this hate guide him. He and his crew had a job to do, so they would do it.

Right now, their job was to explore this structure, even though there was the danger of debris falling down from above. It didn't take the crew long to discover some strange features about this Borg base. First of all, it was damaged badly, and there were no drones to repair the damage. Second, there were small Borg ships leaving the base at high speeds, ignoring even the Gibraltar. And third...

"Captain, you should come here, we've found something." The voice of Commander Westland rang through the internal communications system of McMillan's EVA suit.

"Report, Commander?" he queried.

"Sir..." Westland simply gestured at one of the consoles. Borg who used consoles like these... that alone was mind boggling, but what was displayed really blew McMillan's mind. On one console, there were logs. Not that the Borg used logs, so these shouldn't even be here. On the second console though, McMillan saw a picture of the Gibraltar.

"These," Commander Westland so adequately described, "Are the crew files of the Gibraltar. All 183 of them."

It didn't make any sense. Why would the Borg have copies of the Gibraltar's crew manifest, and their personnel records? For a moment McMillan wondered if he was dreaming, but that wasn't the case. This information was definitely here. But why? What would the Borg want with all of this?

"Captain!" Now, it was Fearguis, who demanded his attention, just as Mr. Thunderstorm came back with even more sensor logs. McMillan dismissed Thunderstorm, letting him know that they had to go over the logs when they got back, and quickly made his way to his XO.

Apparently Fearguis had tkaen it upon himself to climb the fallen beams up to the next levels. It was a dangerous climb, and McMillan nearly fell off. When he got to the top level, he wondered why his XO would have risked falling down... until he saw what Fearguis was so excited about.

A Federation PADD. How the hell did that get here? Sure, Borg often took technology along from races they conquered, but they would assimilated that technology as well. That hadn't happened with this PADD, since it was perfectly intact. "Sir, there's more." Fearguis commented, adding to McMillan's shock. "This PADD had Federation encryption codes. Ms. Zwilling and I managed to decipher it, and we now know where this PADD originated."

The pause was almost too much for McMillan. "Well? Out with it man!"

"Sir..." Whatever the news was, Fearguis sure took his time in saying it. "The PADD... it belonged to the USS Gibraltar. Our ship, Sir."

McMillan remained silent for a few moments. How did a PADD, from his ship, make its way down to this structure, without the Gibraltar ever having been here in the first place? "Bring it along, Commander." McMillan finally ordered. They'd have to study the device when they returned to the ship.

It was becoming clear that this place wasn't as it seemed: a conclusion Commander Westland confirmed. "Sir, this place isn't just Borg in origin." she started to explain, after having opened a small panel. Behind it sat two bio-neural gellpacks: definitely Federation technology. "It's Federation as well. And not assimilated either."

Before McMillan or any of the crew could say anything, an alarm suddenly sounded. "Based upon these readings," Westland quickly reported, "the self destruct system has been activated. We have to get out of here."

There wasn't much time. The crew hurried to get back to the beam-in point, so that the Gibraltar would be able to beam them up. All around them, consoles and panels exploded, debris fell and the ground seemed to open up from underneath them. Lava started pouring in. It was now or never. "Gibraltar!" McMillan shouted through the communications device, "Energise!"

Just as the blue beams grabbed the crew, the entire structure exploded, and turned into a big pile of rubble. As the Gibraltar crew rematerialised on board, they realised that they'd been lucky. "Come on." McMillan said, just after he took a quick breath to recover, "We need to get to the bottom of this." As he removed his helmet and started walking towards the Bridge, he realised that this mission had created more questions than that it had brought them answers.

The plot, so he thought to himself,  thickens...