Standing firm and resolute, Two of Three declared, "I am Two of Three of the Borg Cooperative. You will cease hostilities at once." The three Pakled drones stared at him, attempting to compute this anomaly standing before them. "Your attempts at assimilation are futile." As he lifted his prosthetic arm, a blue beam shot from his wrist, shocking the three Pakleds as they sputtered and sparked, falling to the ground dead.
"T!? What are you doing?!" Anzyl cried out, not recalling giving the command to fire.
"They were delaying your advancement, Captain," T explained, his calm and collected demeanor back. "Buying as much time as needed to complete the subspace beacon protruding from our hull."
Nudging the dead Borg with his feet, Veirik asked, "You killed them. You didn't want to liberate them into your cooperative?"
The crew looked down at the three fizzling Borg Pakleds, then up at Two of Three.
"They were Borg but are now Pakled…" Two stated, then looking at the Captain, "Do you REALLY want three Pakleds who now 'Have Much Power!' on board the Nexus?"
Everyone shook their heads and nodded. There was a reason no Pakled was on board the Nexus. Also, no Pakled showed up to the Nexus summit because they couldn't find Planet Earth on a current interstellar map. (It was the bright blue planet labeled in large letters, Earth.)
Bringing the crew back to the mission at hand, Anzyl motioned the team to proceed into the assimilated portion of the ship. The waste management room was now fully entrenched in Borg technology. Black wires and tubing covered the small room, and screens displayed black and green Borg language.
A sparkle of green light flickered as three Borg Pakleds materialized in the room, arms extended and ready to assimilate.
"Open fire!" Anzyl ordered, pointing at one of them. All four of his noulith beams fired in red, blue, green, and teal. The beams overwhelmed the systems of one Borg, disintegrating it into dust.
Veirik, Zide'Mok, and Eroga opened fire on the other two, and they fell over dead.
"They haven't adapted yet," Anzyl stated, moving to a panel, "we need to dislodge this section before they do." He then tapped his combadge, "Captain to Tey'un and Nolan."
"Yeahp?" Tey'un responded through the badge.
"How severe is the Borg infection? And what's the impact of severing and isolating the infection from the rest of the ship?" Anzyl inquired.
"Got both good and bad news," Tey'un conveyed over the comms while swiftly typing at the engineering console.
"Start with the bad."
"Bad news is, the infection has penetrated deeper, spanning about 4 decks, and it's leeching power from the ship to enhance their beacon."
"And the good?"
"It appears the Borg have only assimilated biomatter waste from 4 decks, seeping into the biomatter reservoir," Tey'un explained. "We can eject the entire reservoir and waste management system in one go. That would cut off the beacon's power supply and halt the infection from spreading throughout the ship. The only drawback is that replicators and the front-half systems will be offline."
Anzyl nodded gladly about the good news, "I'll tell the Melting Pot to be prepared for some extra hungry bellies to fill. Anything we need to do?"
Nolan chimed in, "I would advise getting out of there, and stopping further spread."
"Don't have to tell me twice," Anzyl nodded, "Get started on jettisoning the infected sections, we'll hold the line."
---
The team dispersed around the waste management section of the ship, each taking charge of a different hallway and entrance into the infected areas, shooting and repelling any creeping wires and tubing. Surprisingly, there were no more Borg drones teleporting aboard.
"Tey'un to Captain. Done," he chimed over the combadge.
"Just give us the word, and we'll jettison that whole section, sir," Nolan suggested. "I also recommend you retreat beyond the forcefield barriers, unless you can breathe in the void of space."
"You heard the Doc; everyone back up," Anzyl commanded as the team retreated to safe distances. "We're clear. Go ahead!" Anzyl said, standing behind a bulkhead in the hallway.
A fizzle of light and a force field barrier appeared, blocking the hallway. Sounds of dislodging couplings and unhinging bulkheads and pipes roared through the hallway.
Slowly, the floors ahead of Anzyl began to creak and float upwards as the entire section of the ship dislodged and slowly rose up and away.
"Anzyl to Neil, I hope you're seeing this."
"Sure am."
"When you are able, activate a reverse tractor beam and get that Borg infection the hell away from our ship!" Anzyl commanded, peering down the hallway as if an elevator door was wide open, witnessing the floors of the section rise up and away.
---
Outside the ship, a tall black and mechanical claw held a small Pakled vessel in its grip, and the entire section where the beacon and claw emerged was slowly floating off and away from the gargantuan Nexus. The Nexus then unleashed a conal blue beam at the small Borg beacon, pushing it away from the larger bulk of the hull.
---
Looking out a window of the Nexus to the outside, Anzyl observed as the infected section of his ship, the mechanical claw, and assimilated Pakled ship were propelled into deep space away from the flotilla. Satisfied with the results, he tapped his combadge, "Anzyl to Neil."
"Yes sir," Neil reported back.
"Why am I still seeing a Borg infection and not a pretty light show?" Anzyl sarcastically asked.
"Just a sec," Neil replied. While still looking out the window, Anzyl witnessed eight multicolored beams from the Nexus firing at the small infection, resulting in a small explosion that disintegrated the Borg into nothing.
"That's better!" Anzyl clapped victoriously. "Good work, team!" Anzyl congratulated the efforts of his crew. "First round is..."
"Communications to the Captain!" Heluna interrupted, desperation in her voice.
"Go ahead," Anzyl frowned, having his bubble burst.
"Incoming vessel at high warp, sir, and it's big."
Sulking his head in disbelief at the day he was having, "Let me guess..."
"Borg Cube on an intercept course at high warp," she stated. "It seems that the beacon did just what they needed it to do."
Anzyl began walking steadily towards the nearest teleport pad, tapping his combadge, "Red Alert! All hands to battle stations. This is NOT a drill."
On the outside of the flotilla, a flash of green light, and a tremendous black metallic Borg cube appeared. Its immense size dwarfed all the ships in the flotilla, even the Nexus.