PROLOGUE:

The Excelsior-class Federation Starship Crockett warped smoothly through Federation territory on a supply run to the colony on Psi-Beta III.  Along side it, matching speeds was the relatively new Norway-class starship Budapest.  Both ships were sharing the cargo load, as the load was one of the largest ever to be transported in Federation space without a convoy.  Most of the cargo of much-needed medical supplies and foodstuffs was aboard the Crockett, which had more space due to its larger design.  The Budapest was the Crockett's bodyguard.  So far, nothing had threatened the safety of either ship enough that the Budapest really needed to be there.  But orders were orders, and the crews were using the down time to rest and relax to their hearts' content.

Neither ship had any idea that anything was going wrong anywhere in the Federation, with the large exception, of course, of the Dominion War, which was still raging, now in its second year.  It was the single-most devastating war either side had ever participated in.  But the Federation worked harder and fought stronger just because of the knowledge that no one else had given the Dominion such a hard fight.  And while they said it was a hard fight, no one said that it was a hard win.  The Dominion would win the war, and Starfleet was going to become a merchant
organization so they wouldn't have to deal with budget cuts.  Right.

And so the Budapest and the Crockett were rather content with their current assignment, because it kept them the hell away from the battlefields of the Dominion Border.

It was the seventh day of the journey, and there were only four more, when the first hostile blip registered on either ship's sensors.  The call rang out on the Budapest first, as the ship was newer and had better sensing equipment.

"What is it?" the Captain asked, looking at the sensor display screens in confusion.

"I don't know, Captain," her science officer replied.  The Captain moved away from the sensor displays at the aft of the bridge, and looked forward.

"Put it on screen, maximum magnification."

The image that appeared confused them even further.  It was a great, boiling, seething mass of energy tendrils, all whipping and snapping at each other as they warped through space.  The Captain leaned against the rail of the upper deck, standing above her chair, and her First Officer, who was sitting in his own chair.  The XO stood up from his chair, staring at the main viewscreen as the image grew larger.  Whatever it was on the screen was getting closer.  He turned toward the Tactical officer, and said, "Go to yellow alert.  Raise the shields."

"Aye, sir."

The Captain came down from the upper deck to stand next to her XO, and they both stared at the viewscreen.  "Hail the Crockett," she said.

The Captain of the Crockett appeared on the main viewscreen, replacing the strangely foreboding image of writhing energy.

"Yes?"

"Captain, we've detected a strange energy field headed this way.  Raise your shields, and alter course to go around it," the Captain explained.  "We'll send you the coordinates."

The Captain of the Crockett nodded, and turned to make the orders, and disappeared from the screen before another word escaped his mouth.  The image of the energy field that was growing larger on the screen returned, casting an eerily unsteady orange glow over the shiny silver-blue metallic surfaces on the bridge.

Four days later, the people of Psi-Beta III were wondering why the two transport ships had not yet appeared on their sensors.

****

The Galaxy-class USS Venture was docked when the attack came.  Starbase 68 was caught completely unprepared.  Sixteen ships were docked, all heavily damaged after a Dominion attack.  Thousands of EVA crews were roving over the hulls of the ships, repairing outer hull damage, while inside, hundreds more were repairing internal systems.  But it didn't matter.  The creatures tore through the starbase and killed those starships like they were shooting fish in a barrel.  One ship tried to evade them while inside the starbase, and ended up smashing into the inner wall of the docking bay.  A massive explosion ripped through the hull of the starbase, and the inside of the docking bay filled with anti-matter fire.

****
A small fleet of Klingon merchant ships headed for Targus Six was torn to shreds, the only thing left was a small section of the hull with life support still functioning.  A Starfleet rescue ship picked up two weary survivors, both children, of the disaster.

****
Twenty-seven Federation starships and thirty-six Jem'Hadar attackers were slaughtering each other near the border when the strange blips appeared on their sensor screens.  Needless to say, the fight didn't stop until the creatures were done with the warriors on both sides.  The Jem'Hadar actually attempted to flee, but they were quickly run down and eaten by the creatures.  There seemed no escape the horrors these monsters were inflicting on the Alpha Quadrant.  No one knew where they came from, what they were, or what they wanted.  Except one ship.

The USS Voyager.
****

Janeway and Chakotay were the only somber people aboard the Voyager.  They walked down the halls with expressions worthy of the Borg toward the transporter room to greet their guests.  Cheering officers ran wildly down the halls, throwing confetti and drinking alcoholic beverages.  Janeway was nearly knocked over by a naked Bolian streaking down the corridor.  Chakotay helped her up, and she slapped her combadge.

"Janeway to Tuvok," she called.

"Tuvok here."

"Get some security down here, the crew is going nuts."

"Aye, Captain."

Six armed guards escorted Janeway and Chakotay the rest of the way to the transporter room.  They were having a hard time containing their feelings, Janeway could tell.  But Tuvok ran a strict outfit, and they did their jobs well, despite the circumstances.  She knew that she should be ecstatic.  After five years, she'd gotten her crew home safely, as she'd promised.  They'd lost a few along the way, and that would make any commander sad, and being stuck in the Delta Quadrant wasn't exactly part of the job, though they were still Starfleet officers.  She was excited, of course.  But the circumstances didn't exactly lend themselves to her stripping down and running naked through the halls.

The transporter room was filled with happy, cheering people.

"Get out of here," she shouted.  "All of you!"

The cheering immediately stopped, and the crew began to quietly file out into the halls.  Janeway ordered the security guards to keep them away, and to send them back to their duty stations or quarters.  She didn't want to open up the door and have their guests assaulted by their adoring fans.  She turned to the transporter technician, who was giddy as a school boy, and could barely hold his hands still over the controls.  Janeway nodded to Chakotay, and he took over for the young ensign.

"Energize," she ordered.

A moment later, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Lieutenant Commander Data stood on the Voyager's transporter pad.  Janeway smiled lightly, and welcomed them aboard.  She shook hands with Picard and Data, and then indicated toward the door.  The two officers walked out with Janeway and Chakotay, headed for the astrometrics lab.

"This isn't in Voyager's schematics," Picard said, looking around the rather planetarium-like room.  Computer screens showing various galactic formations, stars, nebulae and any number of other spacial phenomena were glowing brightly on either side of the room, but they were of little consequence.  The main attraction was the massive wall-screen on the opposite side of the entrance that showed a computer-generated image of the inside of the anomaly, the pocket-universe.  The view shifted every
now and then, moving smoothly from point to point to give them different angles on the inside of the anomaly.  It was a realistic image, too.  Before it was the main astrometrics console where the entire display was controlled.  Without too much inspection, Picard could tell that this area had been heavily refitted with technology that was decisively not Starfleet.  He could also see that Voyager's astrometric sensor equipment had been heavily upgraded.  He could only guess at the ship's sensor range, now.

"No," said the lovely young blonde standing at the console.  She wore a skintight body suit, brown in color, that hugged her amazing form in a very flattering way.  Without knowing, Picard's pupils dialated.  Seven of Nine caught the movement, as her own visual accuity was many times that of Picard's, and nodded slightly, raising an eyebrow.  "I designed it."

Janeway smiled, like a mother proud of a daughter's achievements, and said, "This is Seven of Nine.  Our very own liberated Borg."

"Borg..." Picard whispered.  Yes, it was quite obvious.  One of her hands had a Borg exoskeleton around it, and there were two visible implants on her face.  One on her cheek and the other above her left eye.

"Greetings, Locutus," Seven said, standing straight and clasping her hands in the small of her back.  She turned to Data, and said, "I also am familiar with you, Commander.  We were quite surprised by your deception."

"Thank you," Data said lightly, and smiled.

Seven nodded.

"Seven, what have you got?"

Seven of Nine turned to the master console, and began tapping in commands with her thin, lithe fingers.  The image on the massive viewscreen changed to a picture of one of the creatures.  Energy readouts and phase-variance diagrams were overlaid on it, disecting the creature and essentially giving them the creature's internal biology.

"A plasma-eater," she said.  "This is the original creature that attacked us, Captain, in its original configuration."  Seven tapped another sequence into the computer, and the scene shifted to a computer generated sector map.  A realistic graphic of the Voyager was situated in the center, slowly moving along a thick green line that streaked across the map.  When the Voyager reached a certain set of coordinates, it released a thick, pink cloud into space.  "When we dumped our warp plasma after initial
contact, the creature's size increased by fourteen percent.  The third dump decreased the size of creature by that same fourteen percent."

"Why did the dump decrease the size of the creature?" Picard asked.

"We laced the plasma with syrilium," Janeway explained, "and ignited it with our phasers when the creature ingested it.  It damn near blew the thing apart."

Picard turned to Data.  "I assume you're getting all of this?"

"Of course, sir."

****

Captain's Log: Supplemental

We've been back in the Alpha Quadrant for six hours now, and all we've been getting over the coms is distress calls.  The plasma-eaters are slaughtering the denizens of the Alpha Quadrant.  We've sent out instructions on broad-band subspace on how to fight them, but I don't know how much it will help.  Captain Picard and I believe that the only way to stop them must be found inside the pocket-universe they originated from.  So the Enterprise and the Voyager will be going inside the anomaly.

The Voyager and the Enterprise moved in tandem.  Seven of Nine and Data, working together closely those six hours, had discovered a way to open the anomaly at will.  And so the two ships returned to the vicinity of SSE-4 (the debris of which was still floating around) and locked their systems onto the proper coordinates.  A massive burst of energy from both ships' deflector dishes opened up the anomaly, tearing through space-time where the beams intersected.  The beams cut, and the great anomaly lay before them.  It was quite beautiful, the anomaly.  It seemed almost heavenly, a bright white light, with just a hint of peach or pink around the edges.

With that, both ships quickly closed their plasma vents, and surged forward at maximum impulse, jumping through the waves of spatial disturbance that threatened to tear their hulls apart.  Inside, the crews were thrown about, much like popcorn in a popper.  Consoles exploded, bulkheads ruptured.  The ride was inexorably slow, but finally, finally, both ships sailed into the open chasm of the pocket  universe, looping quickly around the other side of the planet from the anomaly entrance to avoid
slamming into the walls of the pocket universe because they were going so fast.  The helm officers of the two ships put both into parking orbit above the planet, keeping the bows of the ships pointed towards the anomaly entrance, ready to move out in an instant's notice.

"We're going to the surface," Janeway announced.  "Seven of Nine and Commander Tuvok will accompany me.  The rest of you... carry on."  With that, she stood up and left the bridge.  The turbolift doors closed behind Seven and Tuvok after they filed into the lift after her, and they disappeared. Hopefully, Chakotay thought, not for good.

***
Meanwhile, near the Cardassian / Dominion border, the Federation starship Sutherland had run into some trouble.  A fleet of Federation starships lay ahead of them, destroyed, burned husks of  vessels that had once been the prides of their builders.  The crew looked on with sad hearts at the destruction that spanned out before them.  The bridge was silent, save for the clicking and beeping sounds of the ship's systems.  Something big had happened there, and they were too late.

There was excessive signs of weapons fire in the area.  But the only kinds of weapons fired were Federation weapons.  The crew of the Sutherland knew that this had been the site of a battle against the Jem'Hadar.  Yet, there were no Jem'Hadar remains, and no signs that the Dominion's shocktroops had fired any weapons.

Something big had happened there, and it was about to happen again.

***
Picard, Jan, Data, Janeway, Tuvok, and Seven materialized in the middle of a broad thoroughfair in the middle of the massive, sprawling city that comprised the surface of the planetoid.  The distant sounds of  massive electrical discharges rang through the street, catching their attention.  The group looked up, and saw the tops of the towers touching past the planet's atmosphere, sparking and coursing with orange tendrils of energy.

The street was silent otherwise, and completely deserted.  The bottoms of the buildings melded seemlessly with the concrete (or similar mixture) pavement, curving into the ground instead of meeting it. The doors were the same way, seemless portals that opened gradually.  There was one door in the center of each building, directly in the center and nowhere else.  The white walls were completely smooth and conical, without windows or any other kinds of openings except the doors at the bottom.

"Mr. Data," Picard said, his voice ringing through the broad, empty street, "are you picking up any life signs?"

"Negative, sir," Data replied.  "I am, however, detecting a slight EM imbalance in the building directly in front of us."

"Shall we go in?" Picard asked, looking over at Janeway.  The Captain of the Voyager simply shrugged, and started to walk forward.  Picard looked around at the other members of the group, and followed, phaser rifle pointed forward.  Janeway did the same, her compression-style rifle held straight out in front of her, ready for anything.  Data and Seven of Nine were both armed similarly, however, Data's rifle was slung over his back by a shoulder strap, and his tricorder was taking up use of his left hand.  A soft breeze blew through the open square, and they could feel it, cooly, as they approached the building.

Janeway stopped when she came right up to the white, flat, featureless door.  There was a single control pad on the left hand side of the door, which she tapped with her forefinger.  Without delay, the door slid open, silently, without sound.  The sound of the breeze moving across the open doorway began to make a soft whistling sound, until the entire group was inside the pristine white building, and the door had shut behind them.

***
"Commander," Ensign Paris said, looking up from the helm, "we've lost their signals."

Chakotay jumped up from his chair, slapping the combadge on his chest.  "Chakotay to Janeway.  Come in.... Chakotay to Seven of Nine.  Respond!"  He looked over at Tuvok, who stood at his normal position.

"Nothing," the Vulcan said sternly.  "It appears that they entered one of the structures.  The buildings on the surface are impervious to our scanners."

"Maybe the Enterprise can break through," Kim offered.  "It's almost two years younger than Voyager. They're bound to have more advanced technology than we do."

Chakotay glanced back over at Tuvok, and said, "Make it so."

***
The building had only three floors, each one of them a massive hall like the one below, only slightly smaller due to the conical shape of the building.  The top was the tallest of the rooms, the ceiling ending at a point consistant again with the shape of the building.  The walls and the floor were stark white, with no features what-so-ever.  There seemed no distinguishing marks on anything in the entire building. Janeway doubted that there were any differences anywhere on the entire planet.

"The EM imbalance is located on the third floor," Data reported, still staring down at his tricorder display.

"How do we get up there?" Janeway asked.

"Uncertain," came the succinct reply.  Their words echoed across the great hall, bouncing back and forth.  "The acoustics in this room are amazing."  These words too rebounded endlessly off the walls, creating a torrent of sound.

"Mr. Data..." Picard began.  The echoes continued to build and to add to each other, crescendoeing into a maddening cacophony that threatened to burst their eardrums.  "No one talk!" Picard shouted. Everyone nodded their reply, clapping their hands over their ears in a futile attempt to block out the sound.  Data simply deactivated his auditory sensors, and began scanning the area with his tricorder.  Then, he came over to Picard, cupped his hand around Picard's ear and whispered, "Sir, I cannot locate an access to the upper level.  We must retreat to the exterior of the building!"  Picard nodded, and  waved to the other members of the group.  They ran towards the door.  When they got there, Data attempted to force the door with his hands, but was unable to do so.  Janeway and Seven levelled their phasers at the door, and let loose a full-powered blast at the exit.  Nothing.  The material of the door absorbed the phaser energy completely, not even a scorch mark was left to indicate that the door had been assaulted.

Data looked around, trying to find anything they might use to bash the door down, but met with no success.

Then something changed.

The floor began to tremble and quake.  The noise in the room was beginning to disrupt the infrastructure of the building.  Data pointed his tricorder's scanners upward, through the floors and to the roof of the building and beyond.  His eyes widened in an approximation of shock, and he turned the display towards Picard.

"Sir, if this continues the structural integrity of the building will fail, and since the top of the structure goes beyond the planet's atmosphere, we may be subject to explosive decompression."

"We're on the ground floor, Mr. Data."

"Yes, sir, I am aware of that.  However, it is safe to assume that the outer walls of this building are much more capable of withstanding the pressure from within as we're putting on it now than the floors are. These floors will collapse.  And it is likely that should the outer integrity fail, it will be at the top of the structure, where air pressure is the least.  We are in grave danger, if we remain, sir."

Picard looked up at the ceiling as a section of it came crashing down on top of him.

"Look out!" he shouted, and dove.  He tackled Janeway, and they slid across the floor as the huge section of concrete-like material came smashing to the floor.  The sound it created was massive, and it deafened them as it ricocheted off the walls of this room and the room above.  Across the entire hall, thick cracks were spider-webbing their way across the ceiling.

Data muttered, "Ohhh shit."  He holstered the tricorder, and picked up the phaser rifle.  His super-quick android reflexes played an immense part in what happened next.  He kept moving and firing at the falling chunks of ceiling that threatened to crush his team.  Picard tackled Janeway and they crawled over to where Data was standing.  Seven of Nine stood next to the android, firing upward also.  Dust and small chunks of the ceiling rained lightly down on them as their phaser blasts smashed apart the hunks of concrete that were loosed from above.  The shaking of the ground beneath them and the building around them grew to a crescendo as the entire floors of both levels above collapsed downward, and the outer shell of the building began to crack open like an egg.

Picard looked around at the walls, watching the massive cracks travel up along them, intersecting and moving apart again like a great spider-web being constructed with intense speed.  He levelled his phaser at one, and fired.  The crack split open, and the section of wall that was there blew apart.  Light from outside flooded the room through the hole.  Picard grabbed Janeway and they began to run.  Data and Seven covered their exit, and then they, too, jumped out the hole and into the street.

***
"Commander, I think we have a new problem," Harry Kim said, looking up from his console with a worried expression on his face.

"What is it?"

"On screen, sir."

The huge swarms of creatures that were roaming about the inside of the anomaly all turned in unison, and started toward the planet.  The deck began to quake beneath him, and he was forced to sit down as the red alert klaxons sounded, and the bridge lights dimmed.  The shields flared brightly as the creatures past, glancing hits.

"Can you get a lock on the away team?"

"No!  Transporters are off line!"

"Ready a shuttlecraft!" Chakotay shouted, hanging on to the arms of his chair for dear life.  "Mr. Paris,
get moving!"

Paris nodded, and jumped out of his seat for the turbolift.

"Commander, some of the creatures have found us!"

"Evasive maneuvers, pattern omega.  Ready photon torpedoes."

The ship ducked as fifty of the creatures converged on her position.  "Full impulse!  Move! Move!"  The lead creature formed a tentacle from its main mass, and swiped at the Voyager.  The ship was struck hard, and bucked.  Chakotay was thrown from his chair and into the helm console.  Behind him, the master station control exploded, throwing three crewmembers over the rail and on top of him.  Attitude control failed, and the crew began slipping and sliding all over the place.  Sparks flew, and fires erupted.

Inside the turbolift, Paris was thrown hard against the bulkhead, and then up to the ceiling of the lift as the ship flipped end over end without the internal stabilizers that kept the crew on the deck.

"Unh!" he exclaimed, the wind knocked out of him.  The door opened, and Paris fell out into the corridor, which had suddenly turned into a long, dangerous shaft that moved endlessly downward. "Ohhh shi------t!!" he screamed as he fell meter after meter down the hallway.  Instinctively, his hand reached out, and snagged on the lip of a door.  His body swung to the left, and slammed against the wall.  Pain shot through him, and the air escaped.  "OOMPH!"  Paris pushed his other arm slowly up to the lip of the door to hang on with two hands, but his left hand began to slip off.  With both hands on the lip of the door, and slowly slipping off, he looked around.  The door controls were near his head, he could almost reach them, but he didn't dare let go of the door.

He looked around to make sure no one saw him, he didn't know why but he did it anyway.  Then, he leaned his head toward the control, and tried to bump it with his nose.  When that didn't work, he stuck his tongue out, and licked the control.  With a beep, the door slid open with a hiss, and Paris began the slow, arduous hall upward.

***
Awaken.

Drone 8 of 12, Secondary Adjunct to Unimatrix 12.  A spatial anomaly has been detected.  Initial scans indicate the presense of Borg within.  Adjust course to intercept.  50 other cubes will join at the coordinates of the anomaly.

Initiate.

***
Janeway coughed up a whole lot of dust onto the street.  She looked around, clearing her eyes by blinking hard and rapidly.  Data was the only member of the group still standing.  He brushed dust and chunks of the concrete-like material off his shoulders, and then bent down, extending his hand to Seven of Nine.  He helped the ex-Borg drone stand, and then turned and did the same for Janeway.  It was then that they realized they weren't alone in the world.

"So, after all this time, you finally came," the voice said.  It echoed across the street, filling the cavernous openings.  Yet, it sounded softer than the echoes inside.  There was much more open space, and the echoes were less severe.  But it gave an eerie feel to the entire place, as though it were the voice of the dead speaking softly in the darkness to them.

"Who are you?" Janeway shouted.

Silence ensued.

"Well?"

"Hang on a minute, I'm thinking... OK, here's who I am."

Above them, a horrendous crack of thunder exploded through the atmosphere.  Hundreds of millions of the plasma-eating creatures writhed about wildly, snapping at each other.  They filled the space between the buildings, a great, huge swarm of them that filled the entire sky like a swarm of locusts over an Earth city.

The group looked on in silent astonishment at the amazing sight.  Two of the creatures spiralled down out of the sky and twirled about each other, hovering just inches above the ground.  They converged on each other until they became a shimmering ball of bright orange, writhing energy.  And with a flash, they were gone.  In their place, however, was the most incongruous of images.

A small human child, wearing a simple white t-shirt and jeans pants.  He cocked his head, looking at the group from this new perspective.  They seemed so much larger and more daunting to him now, even though the child knew he possessed enough power to wipe them off the face of his planet.  The child strode forward until he stopped to stand a meter away from Data.

"You're not like the others," the child said, his small voice barely audible to the human contingent of the group, "on the inside."

Data simply nodded, and replied, "You are correct, sir."

"Why?"

Data shook his head, and shrugged.  "I do not know.  It is just the way things are."

"Why don't you change the way things are?"

"Because I can not."

"Why?  I can."  With that, the child turned, and waved his hand across the street.  All the buildings in that direction suddenly collapsed, melting into a translucent orange energy / goo, and spread across the ground in a new shape.  The buildings were basically the same in style, but were of completely different design now.  "I can do whatever I want.  Why can't you?"

"I do not have control over my universe as you do," Data replied.  "It is the nature of things where I come from."

"My nature is different than your nature?"

Picard stepped forward, and said, "Yes, it is very different.  Do you see those?"  Picard pointed upward at the sky, to the great writhing masses of energy creatures.

"Yes.  I am those."

"Exactly," Picard said.  "But those creatures don't hurt you.  They hurt us."

"Is that why you destroyed them?"

"Yes.  We were only defending ourselves," he explained.

"As was I.  That's why I sent them to your part of the realm.  I needed to keep you away."

***
Paris beamed himself into the Delta Flyer from where he'd pulled himself into the door.  Voyager was still disabled, listing to the side, turning floors into walls and walls into floors and ceilings.  The hallways became dangerous life-or-death climbs over endless abysses.  But at least the Flyer had a self-sustained attitude control inside to keep his feet on the deck.  He sighed as he sat down, and quickly began to run through the warm up checks.  The Flyer normally asked for a crew of 3, but he was all the Voyager could spare right now.

The big shuttle lifted off the deck and soared out into space behind the Voyager.  He closed the warp vents, and angled his course toward the planet, blasting the engines at full impulse.

***
"They're trying to pick you up," the child said.  "Your's has spawned another."  He pointed at Janeway when he said that.  Janeway instantly knew: Voyager had launched a shuttle.  "No matter," the boy said now, "it will not reach us.  I shall have it destroyed, OK?"

"NO!" Janeway shouted.  "Don't!"

The boy was confused.  "Why?  You destroy mine."

"We didn't mean to destroy yours," Janeway said.  "They were hurting us, and it was all we could to to keep them from destroying us."

The boy shrugged.  "That's not my problem."  Then, he waved his hand at the sky.

***
The anomaly is ahead.  Cubes 459-393020 through 459-393070 are instructed to enter immediately.  Close warp plasma vents.  Arm all anti-matter based weaponry.

Initiate.

***
Across the Alpha Quadrant, the creatures stopped whatever they were doing.  Several of them held starships in their grips, ready to snap them apart, and feast upon their insides.  Those starships were set free, and the Captains of those ships did not hesitate to use all available power to get them away from the dangerous creatures.  But the creatures stopped dead in their tracks, and turned in the direction of the anomaly.  And then they rushed home.

***
Paris noticed all of a sudden the huge wave of creatures that were rushing up from the planet's surface to greet him.  His eyes widened, and he punched the controls, sending the Flyer into a harsh "upward" spiral in space, towards the wall of the pocket-universe.  The creatures mirrored the move, and raced up behind him.  Paris launched a small volley of missiles behind him, and felt them detonate.  The shockwave pushed the Flyer off its course, and he fell toward the wall.  The wall reached out, like it had a mind of his own, and grabbed at the Delta Flyer.

"Oh jeez!"

He pulled back hard on the controls, throwing the Flyer downward and away from the wall.  The tentacles reached out further, and he saw one coming up from his side.  He dipped the Flyer beneath it and rolled up over the other side, then shot forward away from it, leaving a missile behind for it to play with.  A single keystroke and the missile exploded, shattering the tentacle that held it within its grasp.

The creatures came up fast, and Paris evaded wildly, throwing the Flyer every way he could see a clear path.  But no matter how good his piloting skills, no matter how fast his engines, he just couldn't get the Flyer any closer to the planet.  Finally, he decided a warp burst would be worth the risk.  Programming in the course with one hand while slapping the keys to evade the creatures with the other, he began to formulate a plan in his mind.

"Computer.... Engage!"

The Flyer twisted gracefully toward the planet, and elongated into a bright streak of gray and blue.  For several seconds, to the creatures, it appeared that the Flyer was in two places at once.  Confused, they struck out at the place where they had last truly seen it, but their tentacles passed through the image, and the image faded.

Paris jumped the Flyer out of warp inside the planet's atmosphere, and shot down toward the transport coordinates of the away team.

***
The fleet of Borg cubes filled an immense amount of space within the pocket-universe.  There was barely enough room to maneuver, he saw.  But he had to make the best of it.

"Sir, the Borg tractor beams have locked on to the Voyager!" Lt. Jan called.

"Helm, get us there now!"

"Aye, sir."  The Enterprise darted through the thick throngs of plasma-eaters, spearing her way through to the disabled Starship Voyager.  Riker saw it on the viewscreen as they rounded the last cube.  A thick green haze had enveloped the ship, but it could barely be seen over the harsh orange glow given off from the pocket-universe walls, and all of the creatures in the area.

"Lock quantum torpedoes onto the tractor emitters," he ordered.  "Fire when ready."  A moment later, three white orbs (though tainted orange) shot up from the bottom of the viewscreen, and slammed into the side of the Borg cube.  The explosion they produced was massive, and it rocked all three ships.  Voyager began to drift away from the cube, tumbling end over end through space.  All the Borg cubes turned their attention to the Enterprise-E now, locking tractor beam after tractor beam onto them until it seemed as though the ship were being pulled apart from every direction.  The deck shook hard beneath Riker as he frantically tried to form a plan of escape.

"Open up the plasma vents, and get rid of everything we've got!  Spray it on the cubes!"

"Aye sir!"

Within minutes, the cubes were being torn apart violently as the creatures dug their hungry tentacles into the hulls of the Borg cubes.  The Borg fought back as valiantly as their soulless collective allowed, launching torpedo after torpedo, and locking and relocking tractor beam after tractor beam.  Riker watched as every cube around him exploded brilliantly.

"Get us out of here!  Maximum impulse toward the planet, while the creatures are occupied!

"Aye, sir!"

***
"No!" Janeway shouted.  She ran forward and tried to stop the child, but he simply knocked her back.

"Why?"

"Because you can't just go around killing people!"

"But this is my realm.  I can do whatever I want here."

"We are not of your realm!" Janeway protested.

"So?"

"We are not subject to your laws or your rules here as we are in our own realm," Data tried.

"Not true.  While you're here, I can do whatever I want to you.  Soon, I'll be able to do the same in your realm."

Picard stepped foward now, demanding, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, that as soon as I have learned to adapt myself to your realm, I'll take it over.  Much like I did this one."

That confused them.  "What," Janeway asked, "you mean this isn't your realm either?"

"Of course it is.  But it is not my first.  I am much like you, moving from realm to realm and take it over."

Janeway shook her head.  "That's not what we do."  The child was getting smarter, she realized.  It must have been reading their minds.  They had to get away quickly, and seal this boy in, before their universe became like the pocket-universe: a desolate wasteland that was once quite beautiful.  It was like a beautiful country that had been ravaged by war.  "We promote peaceful co-existence.  We ask people of other places to join us.  We don't rule them."

"How hypocritical you sound," the boy told her.  "Of course you control them.  Your culture mingles with their own and eventually takes over.  It takes a long time, but I have seen it.  I've been watching your realm for a long while.  And I decided that it was worth taking."

"We'll stop you," Picard said sternly.

"No, but you'll try," the child told him.  "It has been fun talking to you.  Bye bye."  With that, the boy turned and started to walk away.  Janeway pulled up her phaser, ignored what her mind told her about what she was about to do, and fired.  The beam caught the boy square in the back, but didn't do anything.  The boy waved his hand behind him, and Janeway's phaser exploded, badly burning her body.  She was flung backward several meters, and landed with a dull thud on the street.  Seven of Nine and Picard knelt over her to see if she was still alive.

But Data raised his phaser against the boy, and fired.  The beam struck the boy's head, and did nothing. He tried again, aiming for the wall of a building the boy was walking past.  The wall crumbled, huge chunks of the concrete-like material slamming down on top of the boy.  One of the hunks flew back, and Data leapt out of the way as it crashed to the ground where he stood.  He landed in a roll, and jumped back up to his feet to fire again.  This time, the street beneath the boy disappeared in a flash of orange phaser fire.  The boy fell under the ground.  Data turned and jogged over to where Janeway was lying
unconscious on the ground.

"She is dying," Seven reported.

"Our commbadges are still non-functional."  Just then, they heard a huge crack of thunder from above, and snapped their heads to look up into the sky.  The Delta Flyer streaked in at warp, and dropped to impulse only a few kilometers above them, racing straight down towards the ground.  Paris pulled up quickly at the last second, putting the Flyer into hover and then setting her down on the ground.  The outer airlock opened, and he ran out with an emergency stretcher.  Picard and Seven lifted Janeway
onto the stretcher, and they quickly shuffled into the Flyer.  Paris jumped behind the helm, and ordered Data to take the tactical console.  Data did, even though it wasn't right for an Ensign to be giving orders to a Lieutenant Commander.

The Flyer lifted off, and shot up into the sky.

***
"What the hell is that?" Kim asked quite loudly, pointing at the screen.  On it, the planet had disappeared, replaced by a massive, writhing ball of energy.  It looked like one of the creatures, only it was huge, the size of an entire planet!  In front of it, showing up as a tiny speck that was struggling to get away, was the Delta Flyer, holding their dying captain aboard.

"What have we got for engines?"

"Other than warp... Maneuvering jets is it," Lt. Rollins reported.  "What are your orders, Commander?"

Chakotay wasn't sure.  The question stumped him.  What could they do?  "Report our status to the Enterprise, ask them to pick up the Flyer."

"Aye, sir."

***
The Flyer rocked and rolled beneath them.  The huge energy reading from behind them was coming up fast, and there was nothing he could do to escape.

"We're not gonna make it!"

Just then, the Enterprise ripped across their view, firing a long line of photon and quantum torpedoes into the maw of the creature.  The torpedoes didn't have much effect on it at all.  It cleared the way to the Voyager for the Flyer.    Paris lowered the shields, and beamed their guests to the Enterprise.

"We'll see you in a bit," he said.  Picard nodded before he dissolved in a light blue haze.  Paris dove toward the Voyager, where he saw the shuttlebay door opening.  He docked as quickly as he could, and then he and Seven got Janeway to sickbay as fast as they could.

Chakotay watched Paris jump to the helm on the bridge, and then ordered a course set for the anomaly exit.

"We'll do it the fast way, warp speed."

"Aye, sir."  He watched the Enterprise warp out ahead of them, and then ordered the engines to engage.

***
Drone 46 of 120, awaken.

Do not allow the Federation vessels to escape.

Initiate.

***
The Enterprise leapt out of the anomaly at maximum warp, and dropped out at a safe distance, and waited for the Voyager to follow.

"Sir!" Jan shouted.  Both Picard and Riker turned in surprise at the outburst.  "The anomaly has closed!"

"Did the Voyager...?"

"No, sir..."

Picard lowered his head in sorrow.

***
Chakotay swore when he saw the anomaly disappear in front of him.  "Alter course!  Head for the other exit!"

Paris nodded, and swore softly to himself as he turned the Voyager toward the Delta Quadrant.  The huge creature loomed ahead of them, blocking the exit.  The exit began to close, and they only had seconds to get out.  He knew that if he tried to go around it, they would never make it out in time, so he held his course, driving the ship into the gut of the creature.

"Release warp plasma and anti-matter load!"

A huge cloud of plasma exploded from the back of the ship, filling up the inside of the creature.  As the creature began to digest it, Tuvok fired the aft phasers, igniting the plasma and the anti-matter.  The creature screamed so loud that the ship shook, and exploded.  The entire pocket-universe began to fill up with fire as the creature was engulfed.  The Voyager rode the shockwave at warp speed, and tumbled out into normal space through the exit, just as it closed.  The edge of the anomaly knicked the warp nacelle of the Voyager, tearing through the hull and ripping the nacelle apart.  The Voyager rocked
harshly, throwing the crew about inside.

***
Captain's Log: Supplemental.

Although we're all extremely disappointed about being banished to the Delta Quadrant once again, the spirits of the Voyager crew have risen a great deal.  Even being home for that short while was enough to boost our hopes of some day getting home.  Now, all I have to do is get some sleep...

Janeway put her cup of tea on the table, and laid down on the couch.  She sighed, brushed some hair away from her forehead, and looked out the window.  Stars streaked by casually, trailing rainbow lines. She gave the void a soft smile, and leaned her head back and closed her eyes.  Her breathing slowed, and a soft feeling of relaxation set in.

The lights dimmed of their own accord, and she didn't notice.

"Red alert!  All hands to battle stations!"

Janeway sat up on the couch, and her shoulders sagged.  "Awww sh--"

END.