Star Trek:

The Canine Voyage

part two

Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Iditarod. It's continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no dog had gone before!

Cast: Balto Mandrell- Captain

Boris Goosinoff- Commander

Kaltag- 1^st Lieutenant

Star Henderson- Helmsman

Steele Karzon- Security Chief

Jenna Alba- Counselor

Doc- Doctor

Stella Rahssi- Nurse

Nikki, Muk, Luk, and Kodiak- Security Personnel

Mel, Dusty, Sylvia, and Dixie- Engineers

Previously...

Balto however, was in Ops once more, talking with Sisko, when Dax said “Sir, we have something coming through the wormhole.”

“On screen.” said Sisko.

The wormhole opened up in a dazzling display of light and color. What came out, however, was not dazzling or colorful at all.

“Borg.”

and now the continuation.

Ops went into a frenzy of movement. Sisko was shouting orders to everyone. 'I've got to find my crew' thought Balto. He ran out of Ops, down hallways and everywhere he could. He finally found them all attending a party in the promenade. He was shocked by the immaturity of most of his usually stern-faced crew. Steele was dancing on top of a table with a bottle of beer balanced on his head, Jenna was tossing a phaser up and down... while running. And the engineers weren't doing much better. Sylvia and Dixie were passed out face down on the floor. Morn wasn't too active. He was sitting on a barstool drinking something.

“Hey! Attention, crew of the Iditarod! In case you hadn't noticed a Borg cube just arrived!” shouted Balto.

The promenade went quiet.

“Oh no.” said Mel, an engineer. “This is bad.”

Steele said “Oh, yeah right. A Borg? Why would they come back? We whooped them!” At that moment a phaser shot one of the docking pylons.

“Aw crap.” said Steele.

The promenade was no longer quiet. Everywhere people started panicking. Except Morn, who was still drinking. Over the speakers came Sisko's voice.

“Everyone, battle stations! Now!”

Suddenly everyone snapped into action. Except Morn. All began heading for their stations. Balto slapped his badge and said to Sisko “Commander! Permission to board the Defiant and pull her out of dock!”

“What for?” came Sisko's reply.

“To use it against the Borg!”

“Permission granted. Don't let us down.”

Balto called to his crew “Crew of the Iditarod! Meet in the airlock where the Defiant is being held!”

They were quickly there. “Alright,” said Balto “Who here has had experience handling this ship?” Only five raised their hands. Boris, Kaltag, Steele, Nikki, and Star.

“OK, that won't be enough. How about some engineers? Mel, Dusty, Sylvia, and... uh, Dixie! Hmm. Doc, would you and Stella come along? We could probably use you. Uh, that still won't be enough.” He slapped his badge again. “Sisko, do you have anyone you could spare that has experience piloting the Defiant?”

“Sure. How many do you need?”

“Uh, about half a dozen.”

“OK. I'll send them down.” Sisko then shouted orders to his team in Ops and broke off communication with Balto.

“Steele, could you bring some of your security team? We'll need help if the Borg manage to get aboard.”

“Yeah. Luk, Kodiak, and Muk! You're coming along!”

As soon as the six DS9 people showed up, they boarded the Defiant and took off. As they were flying toward the Borg cube, Muk said “Look! The wormhole is opening up again!”

When they saw what came out, the bridge went silent for a moment. It was two more Borg cubes!

“Great!” cried Boris. “Just what we need!”

“Star! Fly us directly toward the wormhole! Let DS9 deal with the first one. We'll tackle these two! Steele! Arm quantum torpedoes!” ordered Balto.

“This is bad! This is very bad!” said Mel.

“Don't worry. This ship was designed to fight the Borg.”

“Yes, but was Deep Space Nine?” Balto had to think about this one for a minute. He soon stopped as Kaltag said “The cubes are within firing range!”

“Fire at will.” Eight quantum torpedoes shot off with astounding precision, all hitting their mark. Balto then ordered to fire a few rounds of phasers while the torpedoes reloaded. Three phaser blasts from the Defiant where answered by a powerful volley from the Borg.

“Shields are at 84%” said Steele.

“Already?! After one volley? I thought this ship was designed to fight the Borg!”

“This is bad.” said the ever helpful Mel.

“Would you shut up? Kaltag, fire a few more torpedoes at the same spot the last ones hit.” After eight more torpedoes struck again, the Defiant flew up and circled around the cube to the back of it. They were now in between the second and third cube. “Kaltag, fire a phaser at the third ship and see if it returns fire.” Well, it did. Balto then ordered “Fire one more at it, then fly straight up as soon as the Borg fire back.” Phasers went off toward the Borg, then when the Borg fired back, Kaltag complied. He flew up just in time to dodge the blast, which then hit the other cube.

“Woo hoo! It worked!” cried Balto. “I'm not sure if it did much damage, but it worked! Fly back to the front and continue firing at the damaged spot on the front.” Now, normally, Borg cubes are extremely powerful ships, but sixteen quantum torpedoes in the exact same spot do wonders. And the Defiant fired eight more, completely destroying the cube. The crew cheered as it blew up, but they stopped when the third one came flying through the explosion of the second one. “Oh, well. One down, two to go.” said Star. But they completely lost hope when the wormhole opened again.

“We'll never beat that.” said Muk.

Eight more cubes came pouring out of the wormhole.

“Star. Open a channel with DS9.” Balto said quietly.

Soon a channel was open.

“Commander Sisko! Eight more cubes just came through the wormhole!”

“I know.” he replied. “Look, our situation is hopeless. Get out while you can. Get help!”

“We can't run! We need to stay and help!”

“It took an entire fleet to destroy one cube! There's ten here! We can't do anything to stop them!”

“But we've already destroyed one of them all by ourselves! We can help you save the station!”

“It took you, what, twenty-four torpedoes? The Defiant holds one hundred! You'll be lucky to get four of them!”

Balto sighed. “Alright. We'll head for the nearest Star base, reload, and send for a fleet or two.”

“OK. Go now!” And the Defiant was off in a flash. Unfortunately, two cubes were following them. As soon as the crew of the Defiant realized, Balto ordered them to turn around and fight them off. His strategy- turn, fire, run, turn, fire, run. Only one problem with that though. The Defiant's top speed was warp 9.3, whereas the Borg went warp 9.999. Finally Balto said “That does it! They're gaining to fast! Just stop and finish this!” So the Defiant stopped flying, turned around, and held it's position. When the cubes were within firing range, the Defiant's torpedo bays opened and started firing. After a few volleys between the Defiant and Borg, one of the cubes exploded, but the other was still operating. And the Defiant was in bad condition.

“Status report! I want a status report!” cried Balto.

Steele quickly told him. “Forward shields are at 18%, we have seven torpedoes left, and overall energy power is at 25%! We're in bad condition here!”

“Can we use phasers?” asked Star.

“They would do no good.” said Balto. “Our torpedoes are barely doing anything!”

“Then what can we do?” asked Star again.

“I'm thinking. Steele, what's our engine power?”

“Um, not good sir. Engines are at...”

“I don't want percentages. I want top speed!”

“That would be warp 6.8 sir.”

Balto thought for a minute. He slapped his badge and said “Dusty, would it be possible to take our last seven torpedoes and convert them into mines?”

“It might be hard sir, but I think we could do it.”

“Good. Have half your team work on that and the other half work on getting our speed back up to warp 9.3!”

At that point a powerful volley by the Borg brought their shields completely down, and in that instant three Borg beamed onto the ship. One grabbed Steele, another grabbed Kaltag, and the last one got Balto. Steele quickly broke free of the Borg's grasp, brought out his phaser, and shot him. Immediately he fired on the one holding Kaltag, but when he fired at the third one, it had adapted, then beamed itself and Balto onto their ship.

“Oh no.” said Mel. “This is really, really, really, bad!”

“What do we do now? What?” asked Star.

Boris spoke up “It would be foolish to try to get him back. We press on and go to the nearest Star Base!”

“What?” cried Steele “He's our captain! We have to get him back!”

"Do you have any idea how difficult that would be? We might lose more men saving him! But if we keep going, we may be able to save him later.”

At that point Dusty's voice came over Boris' badge. “We've got engine power back on line! And those mines are ready as well.”

“Excellent. Kaltag, warp 9.3. Go!”

“Wait a minute,” thought Dusty “That sound's like Boris.” He asked “What happened to Balto? Is he injured or something?”

“No Dusty. He's been captured by the Borg.”

“What? How?”

“I'll tell you later. Now, drop two mines.”

The Defiant consequently dropped two of the mines, right in the path of the pursuing Borg vessel. Boris was quite satisfied when he saw two explosions in front of the cube.

“Nice job Dusty. Drop two more!”

Seconds later two more small explosions went off.

“Holy Shnykeebits. They haven't slowed down at all! In fact, they're gaining!” said Star.

“Drop two more!”

“But,” said Dusty “We only have three left.”

“I SAID DROP TWO MORE!!” shouted Boris.

'Sheesh. What a pill.' thought Dusty as he dropped the next two. And, again, two more explosions seconds later.

“Man! They still haven't slowed down!” cried Boris.

It was true. The Borg cube quickly recovered from the blasts and were only getting closer. Finally Boris said “Save the last mine. Kaltag, begin firing phasers back at them. See if that will slow them down any.”

Minutes later, it still hadn't. The only effect it had made was wearing down the phaser power. “Dang!” shouted Boris. “Can this day get any worse?” A rhetorical question, of course, but it was soon answered. Moments later, the Borg began firing forward at the Defiant.

“Dang! Steele, all power to engines and rear shields! We've got to outrun these freaks!”

Back on the Borg ship, a completely different conversation was taking place. Balto had been tied down to an odd looking table-thingy, and various Borg were walking around him, doing things. What though, Balto couldn't tell. Eventually, a different Borg walked up to him. A female. Ah, thought Balto. That must be the Borg queen. “What do you want with me? Why don't you just assimilate me and get it over with?”

“Because,” said the queen “We don't want you in our collective. Granted, we could get your entire specie's information, because you are the first of your kind we've gotten. But we have a much better purpose in mind for you.”

“And just what is that?” asked Balto.

“We want you to be the next Locutus. I presume you've heard of him. You know him as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. We've tried twice to get one, both from the Enterprise, but both times we've failed. Now we've got you.”

“Who was the second attempt?”

“Lieutenant Data. Heard of him?”

“Yes, but I have one question. Why me?”

“Because it fits in with our plan better.”

“What... what's your... plan?”

“I guess I can tell you, because you'll soon be one of us. We long knew of that wormhole of yours, but it leads from the Gamma quadrant to the Alpha quadrant. We, however, are from the Delta quadrant. But then, we found a stable wormhole that leads from the Delta quadrant to the Gamma. We realized we could then travel from our quadrant to yours in seconds. Those ten cubes we sent we the first of our invasion. We have four dozen more cubes coming. And after the battle we had with your fleet a year ago we realized we could crush your entire quadrant with that many cubes.”

“You're planning to take over the entire Alpha Quadrant?” Balto asked in horror.

“Absolutely. And don't think you'll be able to stop us. Remember, even if you somehow manage to defeat the cubes already there, and the four dozen coming, we still have hundreds more we could bring.” Balto began panicking. It was bad enough they were turning him into one of them, they were going to use him to help destroy the Alpha Quadrant! He just couldn't imagine personally assimilating his crew and his friends. With that, he decided he was getting out of there, no matter what happened!

The Defiant finally arrived at a Star Base. Boris said to Kaltag “Quickly open a channel with the Star Base!” As soon as the channel was opened, Boris said “I'm commander Boris from the Iditarod! We've got a Borg cube on our tail! We need assistance immediately!”

The man on the screen said “I'm sending our four most powerful ships right now. What condition are you in?”

“Bad! We've got one torpedo left, phaser power is drained, shields are at 12%, and life support systems are failing!”

“Dock immediately! And the ships are on their way.”

“Um.. I've got a stupid request. Could you not destroy the cube? Our captain is on it.” At that point the view screens in both the Star Base and the Defiant switched to a view inside the Borg ship. Boris almost choked when he saw Balto with machinery on him. He had been assimilated! Balto then said “I am Locutus of Borg. Lower your shields and prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”

“This is bad.” said Mel.

“I told you, four ships won't be enough to stop that thing!” said Boris. They had docked the Defiant at the Star Base, and Boris was now arguing with the Commander Bryon there. The cube had basically laid siege to the Base. It had just stopped in front of it and stayed there. Bryon wanted to send out the four ships he had promised to Boris, but Boris was now having second thoughts. It had wrecked the Defiant just destroying two of them, so Bryon thought that four ships could certainly handle one, but these ships weren't designed to fight the Borg. Finally Steele said “Look, we need to get a fleet to DS9, so wouldn't it be best to just risk it?”

Boris couldn't believe his ears. “Weren't you the one who wanted us to get the captain back?”

“Yes, but it doesn't make any sense just sitting here! We need to save the people on DS9, even if it means destroying the ship our captain is on.”

Boris sighed. “You're right. Commander Bryon, send out your ships. And also, get your fastest ship and go get a fleet large enough to take on nine Borg cubes!”

While Bryon's ship went for help, Steele made a plan. He began explaining it to the crews of the ships. “Boris, Kodiak, and I will board the cube, grab our captain, and beam back to the Defiant. As soon as we are off, you attack. We'll ready the Defiant and join you. It's a simple enough plan, so I assume you understand. Go!” While the crews went to their ships, Steele and Boris began briefing Kodiak as to how to handle Borg. Steele said “You stay on a frequency on your phaser until the Borg adapt. When they do, change frequency. When you've used all your frequencies, you'll have to switch to hand-to-hand, but be careful. Borg are strong.”

By time they boarded the cube, Kodiak was good and freaked out. But Boris said “Don't worry. Borg only attack when you threaten them. But when 'Locutus' saw them, he ordered all the Borg to attack. “So much for that theory.” said Steele, and for the next five minutes, they were stuck playing cat-and-mouse with the Borg. When they finally found Balto, the Borg had adapted to every frequency of every phaser they had. And they were closing in. Steele shouted “Grab him! I'll hold them off!” Kodiak and Boris grabbed Balto, and were about to run when they saw Steele swarming with Borg. “Just go!” he shouted. “You've got him! Don't worry about me! Just get back to the ship!” Then the Borg realized 'Locutus' had been captured, and they went after him. Boris and Kodiak had no other choice. Before they beamed back, Boris caught a glimpse of Steele getting something injected into his neck.

Back aboard the Defiant, Boris saw all the ships in attack position. Boris gave the order to attack. A few minutes later, the cube exploded. As Boris watched the explosion, all he could think about was Steele, still on the cube.

In the Sick Bay, Balto was on a bed recovering from surgery. Most of the machinery had been removed, but some parts had to be left so he could survive. His right arm, which was cut off when he was assimilated, was replaced with a robotic arm, but Boris had insisted it be covered with realistic artificial skin. And also, his right eye was also robotic, with a little machinery above it (basically he looked like 7 of 9, only he was a dog and he wasn't as cute). Balto slowly woke up. Doc and Boris were sitting beside him. “What happened?” he asked.

Boris told him the story about how him, Kodiak and Steele went to rescue him. Balto asked “Are they alright?”

“Uh... Kodiak got away fine, but Steele stayed behind so we could escape.” Boris told him that story too, including that the cube was destroyed.

Balto was silent for a while. He finally said “Odd. I was always under the impression he didn't like me. He really did that?”

“Yes.”

Balto said no more. Boris then began explaining their plan to get back to DS9. Suddenly Balto said “No! That won't work! Before I was assimilated the queen told me their plan!” Then it was Balto's turn to tell a story. He told them about the Borg's plan. Then he said “I know how we can stop them.”

“How?” Boris asked eagerly.

“You won't like it at all. We need to collapse the wormhole.”

Boris couldn't believe it. “How do we do that?”

“How many mines do we have left?” asked Balto.

“One.”

“We chuck it down the wormhole's throat, then detonate it!”

DS9 was in terrible condition. Parts of two pylons were blown off, and the Borg had begun boarding. And, to make things worse, the Borg had adapted to everything they had, and over half the station had been assimilated. The only person who wasn't fighting off the Borg was Morn, who was still drinking. Sisko was fending off a Borg in Ops when Dax said “Sir, there's some ships coming in!”

Sisko knocked over the Borg and looked at the screen where he saw a massive fleet of Federation ships.

“The crazy dog actually did it!” he said.

Soon the huge fleet began beaming men onto DS9 to help get rid of Borg, then the ships went after the cubes. All of them, that is, except the Defiant. It flew straight through the battle and toward the wormhole. When it was just close enough to open it, Balto ordered the ship to stop. Boris asked why, and Balto said “To wait for the Borg army to enter.”

“But... how are we supposed to know when that is?” asked Doc.

“You aren't. I am. I was one of them, remember? Wait.”

So they waited. “Um,” asked Star. “Why are we going to wait for the fleet to enter the wormhole?”
“ Because if we do it now, it will just collapse the wormhole. If we wait until they enter, it will destroy the fleet.”

They continued waiting.

“NOW!” shouted Balto. The mine went flying into the open mouth of the wormhole. Soon thereafter there was a loud explosion. “You hear that boys?” asked Balto. “That's the sound of the Alpha Quadrant becoming safe.

It took several days to weed out the remaining Borg, but it was soon accomplished.

“Thank you very much, crew of the Iditarod,” said Sisko “You saved us all and our station. We can never fully thank you.”

"Captain Balto?"

Balto reached up and touched his comm badge "Yes, what is it?"

"You have a person on board who wishes to see you" said Major Kira. It was a few days after the Borg had been defeated and the station was getting back to normal.

"Who is it?" Balto was sure he could her Kira sigh over the comm.

"I am Kai Winn" said a voice behind him. He turned around to look and saw a very regal looking Bajoran standing there. And she was not happy.

"May I help you?" asked Balto

"You should be ashamed of yourself! Collapsing the wormhole without my authorization!" Already Balto didn't like this lady.

"Look you idiot, it was for the good of Bajor." Balto walked off, vowing to never talk to this lady again. Kai Winn watched Balto walk off and mumbled to herself "Hmm. My own best line used against me."

Fortunately, there was some good news. As Balto was walking away, he was passing through the promenade, where there were many people staring out the windows.

"What's so exciting?" he asked a teenager, whom he realized was Jake Sisko, Benjamin's son.

Jake replied "We were just watching the wormhole open. I always like seeing it."

"Ah." said Balto, and he started walking again. Then he paused. He went over to a window, and saw something he couldn't believe. The wormhole! It was opening!

"How can this be?" he thought. "We collapsed it!" He ran toward Ops. He burst in and shouted "The wormhole opened!"

"What?" asked Sisko. "You made it collapse!"

"I know, but it opened! Do you have any idea how that's possible?"

O'Brien spoke up. "What exactly did you use to make it collapse?"

"Just a quantum torpedo rebuilt into a mine."

"Hmm. Sir, maybe the charge wasn't powerful enough, so the wormhole only temporarily collapsed."

"Well, however it happened, we should be thankful.''

Later, the Iditarod was entirely repaired, and was off for their next mission. But that mission would have its trials. Some very odd trials.

The End