THE EDGE OF NEVER: Reaching the Azimuth Horizon

After almost ten hours of travel at maximum warp, the Spectre came into view of the fiery cosmic singularity ringed by a string of containement satellites patrolled by the USS Steamrunner of Captain Ramabai, the USS Wisconsin of Captain Onias and the USS Republic of Captain Wyatt. The first was the name ship of it's class, a compact, flattened rectangle of an escort ship capable of fast maneuvering and powerful offensive action to guard the anomaly's perimeter;  the second was a massive, curvaceous saucer with lower nacelles Nebula class with a top pod sporting a powerful sensor array for surveillance and numerous shuttles for repair and maintenance; the third an aging Excelsior class along the venerated cruiser lines of the most celebrated Starfleet designs, refited as a science ship for the purpose of monitoring and studying the anomaly.

As a primordial singularity akin to the one that had made the Big Bang, the Azimtuh Horizon distorted all matter and energy, space and time in it's vicinity as it also linked this universe with another smaller but similar one called the Eden universe, in honor of the first planetary system colonized on the other side. At one time, that anomaly had threatened to consume the entire cosmos and possibly beyond; only the valiant efforts of the entire Lotus Fleet had managed to tame it and made it a stable wormhole giving access to the pocket universe on the other side. And this portal was their current objective.

They were just about to enter it's event horizon when Jonathan Livingstone raised his voice in sudden alarm.

"Captain! I am detecting another ripple in the space-time continuum! Impact in forty-seven seconds!"

We will enter the anomaly in fifty-three seconds, present speed," Philter then reported from the helm.

"Helm, regardless of risk, increase to maximum velocity through this portal." Syntron commanded firmly yet without emotion.

"Going to emergency warp," Philter responded as his hand slided alongthe warp control. "Answering warp 9.6. ETA forty-six point six seconds."

"Talk about close!" the Deltan doctor exclaimed at the left of the captain.

"We cannot allow that next wave to come within proximity of this vessel." Syntron added. "Instruct the ships guarding this post to follow us in. Otherwise, they too will cease to exist. There is a high probability that there may be nothing remaining there to even guard once the wormhole has been impacted by this next ripple." 

"Steamrunner, Wisconsin and Republic acknowledging," Elliago confirmed from his comm panel. But they are too far away and slower than we are. They'll never make it in time."

They all watched as the cosmic portal grew before their very eyes, it's fiery orange and gold glow deceptively soft and peaceful; inside was a swirling maelstrom of primordial energies and neutronic masses that could destroy an unwary starship in minutes. Since the first voyage of the USS Artemis inside the anomaly, Starfleet had gained new knowledge and technologies to safely use the wormhole created by the singularity; but all of those never took into account the effects of a cosmic ripple in spacetime. 

They were just about to find out.

"Entering the Azimuth Horizon in three... two... "

The holographic helmsman interrupted himself and suddenly jerked on the controls, sending the ship into a wild rising curve. Right before them, the blinding fire of the anomaly was extinguished by a massive wall of greyish metal doted with innumerable grooves, protrusions, panels and ports. The metallic, irregular surface became a blur as the Spectre swirved wide and away from it while both collision alarms and red alert klaxons blared. Thanks to their Personal Inertial Dampeners developped barely a few years back by one of their engineers, the Lotus Fleet officers stayed in their seat as the deck tilted at an almost thirty degree angle to their right.

When the stars reappeared on their viewer, their comm speakers came to life with a voice they all thought they would never hear again.

"WE ARE THE BORG. LOWER YOUR SHIELDS AND SURRENDER YOUR SHIP. WE WILL ADD YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE." 

Livingstone's golden eyes were riveted to his sensor readout.

"Friends of yours?" Riker asked glancing over at Philter.

"Borg cube dead ahead! Standard configuration... it's blocking our way! I read a power build up... it's a tractor beam locked on us!"

Leône immediately ran her fingers on her panel as soon as she hear her captain's order.

"Deploying regenerative armor!"

There was a sudden jerk and again their PIDs saved them from being thrown across the bridge. before their eyes the image on the screen frozeon the vista of cold, distant stars. Then a shadow loomed form ovr them before their entire field of vision was again blocked by the geometric metal-puzzle like hull of the Borg vessel, seen through some strange iridescent dancing blue curtain of light. Then, a whitish beam of energy struck them and sinister vibration was dimly felt through the deckplates.

"We have dropped out of warp," announced Philter. "Coming to a full stop. Engines however are still fully active."

"We are held in a tractor beam," confirmed the X'Ell at the sensor station. "They are trying to carve us up with their cutting beam."

Rogers steadied himself against the keyboard in front of him as his fingers danced over the input, diverting power from the now docile warp plasma. "Diverting power to shields. Rotating frequencies!"

"Regenerative armor holding, now at ninety-five point three percent and dropping at a rate of five point seven percent per second on deck 1," the Orion woman at ops said with worry.

Again, their comm channel buzzed; but this time, it was not the scary multivoice of the Collective, but that of a woman.

"Spectre, this is the Wisconsin; prepare to move out. We're covering you. You are now the last ship of the United Federation of Planets. Sail away with all our hopes, Spectre. Onias out."

"The Wisconsin is attacking the cube flanked by the Republic and the Steamrunner," said the chief science officer.

There was a series of explosions and beams of orange energy lancing at the monstrous vessel. Another powerful jerk shook them and both white and blue lights outside disappeared.

"We are free and clear to navigate," the holographic helmsman said. "Resuming original course and speed."

Again the metal wall of the immense Collective vessel slid away as the Spectre went hard about and jumped again to warp, right at the fiery gold and orange glow of the Azimuth Horizon.

The image shifted to the aft. In silence, they watched as the large ellipsoidal saucer of the USS Wisconsin lost it's massive top torpedo pod ans part of a nacelle under the powerful beams of the colossal cubic vessel. The Republic, battered and limping at low impulse from blackened nacelles, swerved away after emptying her additional burst-five torpedo tubes. Then the Steamrunner, savagely battered and leaking plasma from every deck like a bloodied, dying beast, angled itself straight at the titanic cube and went to full impulse, ramming it from behind. There was a formidable, blinding explosion of light and debris, leaving a vast cloud of fiery dust. Through it, they all saw the old, wounded Excelsior class of captain Wyatt move itself between the crippled Nebula class of Captain Onias and nine other Borg cubes suddenly emerging from subspace.

After letting out the breath he had been holding since the cube first appeared, Redding said "Philter, Hansen protocol, stand by."

Philter input the data instantly without even a thought. "Standing by."

"Captain, there's no reason to assume that these Borg have any knowledge of the Hansen shield protocol, I suggest we utilize it at this time sir."

While not a well know tactic, this was proven to completely blind the Borg for extended periods of time, until then captain Janeway was discovered using it by the Borg.

Then everything was lost in a golden field doted with dark neutronic debris, streaked with orange fire and whitish streaks of lightning in a swirling maelstrom of chaos surrounding them.

"Warp field collapsing," Philter said with like a hint of sadness from the thought of all those lives sacrificed to allow them to escape. "Switching to full impulse. Course and speed steadying. ETA to anomaly's edge four minutes forty-seven seconds."

The silence on the bridge was so heavy, they could almost beleive that they could hear the tornado of fire raging around them as they plunged into it's eye.

"I thought the Borg were no more..." finally whispered Elliago, still pale, perspiration on his bald head.

"They were... in our timeline," Jonathan answered with a calm he did not really feel as he read the report from the computer. "In this new timeline, Nero, commander of the Borg-altered mineship Narada, did not warn his people as any half-intelligent person sent back through time would simply have done. He did not save the Romulan empire to become it's greatest hero, not to mention it's greatest Praetor by giving them advanced future technology with which to conquer the rest of the galaxy. He captured Ambassador Spock's Jellyfish experimental scoutship when it too went back through time. Aboard, he seized the red mattter Spock had carried to create the singularity to swallow the subspace supernova threatening Nero's homeworld. And because Spock failed, he used the red matter in an act of ridiculous, meaningless, absurd vengeance to implode Spock's own home planet of Vulcan. And because Vulcan was destroyed, billions were killed... including the ancestors of one Half Vulcan named Brandon Jori."

They all knew who Brandon Jori was; he was the Lotus Fleet medical officer that had devised the virus by which the Federation had put an end to the Collective when the Borg had launched their full scale invasion against the galaxy. It was the aftermath of that invasion, a Borg galaxy, they had just witnessed before plunging into the timeless fire of the Azimuth Horizon.

"Without Jori's virus or the nano probes from Lieutenant Sorripto and Commander Sisko that carried it, the Borg would never have been defeated." Riker added. "I am going to guess that, without many Vulcans, there was never a full peace negotiated between the Federation and the Cardassians either. So, Lieutenant Sorripto would never have been in Starfleet either. Who knows how far this butterfly effect rippled through the timeline."

"And how come we remember this?" the Deltan doctor asked.

"We were already past the anomaly's event horizon and almost within the singularity itself when the ripple in time hit us," explained the Avian science officer. "The Azimuth Horizon does not experience gravity; therefore, nothing of the spacetime, which means time itself. We were consequently out of time, to put it quolloquially, and unaffected. The T1 circuit installed aboard our computer however recorded the alteration within the twenty light years of our sensor range, so we are now also aware of the altered timeline."

"That would explain why all our Vulcan crew members are still here." Riker said, relieved.

Silence spread again across the bridge. They were all shaken by what they had witnessed. And much worse was to follow when the next timewave would hit.

 David sat looking at Captain Syntron. Only the position of the ship itself, ahead of the ripple in time, had saved both himself and Syntron from being erased from the new timeline. The captain, because his ancestors on Vulcan may have been wiped out by this Nero, and himself because his Romulan mother may have perished in the Hobus catastrophe.It was a very sobering thought.