((4900 Lightyears from Earth))

The USS Davis(named after the first US African American General, Ben O Davis Sr) had been dispatched on her long range exploratory mission about 5 months prior. As a Sovereign class ship she was well suited to this type of work. But the assignment on this extremely long range journey had neccesitated some modifications, and stocking as much gear, spare parts and supplies as they could possibly fit into the ship.

She was taking part in the first phase of a major Starfleet initiative. She and another Soveriegn class vessel on a parrelel course about 50 lightyears further rimward on the maps were en route to the same location near the border of the Alpha and Delta quadrants. When they arrived, they had orders to install a subspace relay network, and a ‘hikers shack’, essentially a small outpost stocked with supplies for a follow on mission to pick up from.

The follow on ships presumably carrying on to explore the quadrant border region or even pushing into the nearside of the Delta quadrant(an area that Voyager had transwarped past and not explored) . But that follow on mission would not arrive at the hikers shack for approximately 6 years. And the Soveriegns wouldn’t even begin building the shack for another 3.5 years.

The Davis and her sister ship further out from the Galaxy centre would leave the most important substances known to Federation Science in fairly large quantities at the outpost they were to build. Dilithium, Anti-matter and Dueterium were the lifeblood of almost all Warp cores. And they were usually the limiting factor for most ships when it came to their ‘range’ and ‘resupply cycle’ specifications.

To accomplish their mission the 2 Soveriegn class ships carried extra Dilithium, AM and 2H2O not only for the hiker shack, but also for themselves. Under ideal conditions, their mission was to take 8.5 years, 3.5 more years outbound, 6 months building and stocking ‘Forward Refit and Storage Outpost 1’ and 4 years back to SB 598(their departure point). About 4 years from now, the ships ops and engineering departments would perform an ‘underway re and re’.

Basically the ship would stop somewhere for about a week and reload the warp core, and perform a light refit of the ship before finishing the homeward leg of the mission. This type of thing had only been performed twice before, and both of those occassions had occurred entirely within Federation space, with smaller ships under controlled conditions. The Davis and the Abrams(her sister ship) would be the first Starfleet vessels to do this kind of thing in deep space.

As a secondary mission, the ship would perform her standard role as an Explorer, and survey and chart the regions of space they were travelling through on both legs of the trip. The Davis and her sister ship had both been modfied to carry an Aquarius class corvette docked in place of the ships Captains yachts. They would be left at the Forward Outpost to serve as recon vessels and emergency evacuation ships for the small all volunteers crew of 20 who would be left at the hikers shack on a 2 year mission.

Captain Herschel C Hayes, was the middle aged, veteran CO of the Davis. This was his third command, and 2nd long range exploration mission. But the shear size, duration, and scope of his ships current missions was a first for Starfleet. It was in keeping with the motto of ‘Boldly Exploring the Federations Frontiers’. He was married, and he and his wife, being intentionally childless had enthusiastically accepted the assignment. She was a Doctor, and served as the Asst Chief Medical Officer aboard.

The ships was fully manned, and had beefed up Tactical, Science, and Engineering departments, aswell as a 24 person attached construction and logistics team to help build and stock the ‘shack’.

Currently the ship was, as she would be for the majority of the next 3.5 years, at her maximum maintainable speed of Warp 9.75. The mission plans had been formed under the assumption that each ship would travel at warp 9.6 and each ship would stop for a few days and study 3 different areas of interest identified by the Federation Councils Science and Exploration standing committee.

Hayes and his counterpart on the other vessels had decided that they each could travel at warp 9.75. By doing this it would allow them to stop and investigate other scientifically intriguing regions or linger at the assigned areas for a few days longer if they wished.

The journey so far had been routine and they had remained at the binary quasars(their first assigned area of interest) for an extra day, to study the never before seen phenomenon that his Chief Science Officer had titled the ‘Vampire Quasars’. This name came about due to the fact that the quasars appeared to be metaphorically ‘sucking eachothers blood’, stealing lighter materials including ionized helium and hydrogen from beneath the surface of its neighbor. The Davis was about 14 months away from their next assigned area of interest, and his Science department was currently charting and surveying the areas of space around the ship they travelled through at blindingly fast speeds.

It would be a preliminary survey, charting the areas that they could conduct detailed scans of within a 15 lightyear circumference around the ship. The science department currently had priority on the use of most of the sensor systems to complete their task.

Unfortunately for the crew, this meant that it was the short range tactical targetting sensors that picked up the 2 targets pursuing them.

The tactical officer barked ‘Captain, we have two targets pursuing us, approaching from the aft, range 25000km.’ He was a veteran LCdr who had been hand picked by Hayes for his skill, experience and calm demeanor while under fire. Hayes sensed apprehension and urgency in officers voice, and knew that if these targets had him spooked, it was bad news.

‘Shields up, Onscreen Commander.’ Every member of the bridge stared at the viewscreen with dread and horror. Before anyone could react, the voice that all Starfleet officers had learned to fear began to speak.

‘We are the Borg, resistance is futile. We will add your technol…’ their pursuers were 2 Borg sphere. And where there is spheres there is cubes.

‘Red alert!’ Bellowed Hayes. ‘Load aft launchers with Quantum torpedos, full spread. Charge phasers to maximum, enable anti-borg frequency modulation…Terry(his comms officer)send a signal to our sister ship, tell them we have encountered the Borg. Send a message to Starfleet to, note the time and location’ The ship rocked as the spheres fired their opening salvo.

The tactical officer reported ‘Aft shields down to 84%’

Hayes mind was awash in options, responses, and possible actions they could take, but it was obviously what had to be done.

‘Return fire with everything we got Commander, target their weapons and propulsion systems.’ Hayes said as the ship was rocked again. He had an idea, but it was risky.

‘Sir, a 3rd contact is approaching from the rear, its a Cube!’

Well, that made up Hayes’ mind. Risky or not, they had to try it. If it worked, the Borgs sensors would be blinded for a several seconds. If the manuever wasn’t performed correctly and with perfect timing, the Borg ships would likely slam into the Davis at high warp. But they had to try something otherwise the ship would be crippled and his crew would be assimilated.

Hayes typed 2 messages furiously and sent them to his the tactical and engineering stations. ‘I’ve just you messages, we need to do this quickly people!’

Helm then send a message to his helm officer ‘Helm this is the course I need you to set when we drop out of warp. But before we drop out of warp you will need to begin the curving arc of the parabolic course I’ve sent you.’

The helm officer, a young hotshot pilot who had just transfered over from the Enterprise, smiled as he realized what the Captain was planning.

‘We’re gonna stop, turn and burn, roger that sir.’ The cocky by skilled young man said enthusiastically.

Hayes added ‘And before we burn were gonna set space on fire.’

The tactical officer responded ‘We’re gonna do what?’