Cube G543-7825 ploughed its way through warp speed, keeping a reasonable distance behind its target. Only half a light year ahead, the USS Voyager continued to make its way through Borg space.
This particular cube was assigned to watch the Federation vessel from a distance, to make sure that they made it through Borg space as per the agreement that the Collective and Captain Janeway had: Voyager would help the Borg defeat Species 8472 in return for safe passage through their space.
Another reason for the cube to follow the Federation vessel was because some elements of Species 8472 may still be within Borg space, and the cube was assigned to protect Voyager if need be. Once they left Borg space however, they could assimilate the Starfleet ship.
UNIDENTIFIED ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED. PLOTTING LOCATION OF SOURCE… SOURCE DETECTED. ENERGY SIGNATURE ORIGINATING FROM USS VOYAGER NCC 74656 AT CO-ORDINATES 23416.45. COURSE OF ACTION: INVESTIGATE.
The cube picked up speed to catch up with their objective.
After several minutes of catching up with the oblivious vessel, something happened.
USS VOYAGER HAS DECREASED SPEED TO SUBLIGHT FACTORS. MATCH COURSE AND SPEED.
The cube left warp and moved slowly on impulse power. The energy signature that they picked up grew in intensity as the molecular structure of Voyager’s hull began to destabilize.
WARNING. MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF USS VOYAGER DESTABLIZING. POSSIBILITY OF WARP CORE BREACH HIGH. RETREAT TO SAFE DISTANCE AND OBSERVE.
The cube moved slowly back, as Voyager’s hull was now visibly rippling like it was made of water.
A lone shuttlecraft departed Voyager’s shuttle bay and sped away from the ship at full impulse. Naturally, the Borg scanned the ship.
MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF USS VOYAGER STABLIZING. WARNING, LARGE QUANTUM FLUX FIELD DETECTED AROUND ENERGY SGNATURE ONBOARD SHUTTLECRAFT. DISPATCH SPHERE E359-7024 TO INVESTIGATE.
One of the cube’s faces opened up to let a small sphere out. The sphere closed the distance between itself and the shuttlecraft quickly, but it was in vain. The shuttle rippled as it glowed white, before disappearing in a flash which engulfed both the sphere and Voyager, leaving the cube behind.
Voyager was thrown clear of Borg space, which confused the Borg greatly. The shuttlecraft and its occupant ascended to the next plane of existence, but the Borg did not know this. The Borg on the sphere, however, suddenly ended up twelve thousand light years from Borg space, with their link to the Collective severed.
The sphere had emerged in low orbit over what Starfleet would call an M class planet, rich with life. The sphere was unable to stabilize its orbit, thus it fell down to the planet’s surface, streaking across the night sky of the world below.
****
Twilight Sparkle gazed out at the night sky that covered Equestria through her telescope. She adjusted frequently as she jotted down notes with a quill and paper, which was being held by her magic.
As she adjusted her telescope again, Twilight caught a glimpse of something shining in the sky. Eager to investigate, she adjusted the telescope so that she could view the phenomenon. As Twilight jotted down more notes, the shining thing in the sky disappeared, to be replaced with a white streak crossing the sky.
“A meteor! it must’ve entered the atmosphere and now its burning up during the entry. This will make a fascinating report for the Princess!” Twilight thought out loud as the quill started to pick up speed as it wrote. The object that was streaking across the sky slowly curved round and soared above Twilight’s library.
Before she lost sight of it, Twilight had managed to get a good look at it, and was shocked to discover that it was an almost perfect sphere made of metal.
****
The sphere soared low above the canopy of a large forest before it crashed inside a ruin of a large stone structure. The sphere was mostly intact, aside from several patches where the exterior hull had been ripped away.
A hatch opened on the side of the sphere, and a Borg drone emerged from it, followed by five more. The six of them stood in front of their ship, scanning the area with their infra-red and eye-piece sensors. The six surviving Borg were still connected to each other, but their link to the rest of the Collective was severed. They were alone.
One of the drones, labelled as Three-Of-Ten, commanded the other five to assess the damage to the ship. The others moved back inside to perform their tasks. They reported over the link that the damage to the engines was so severe that it could not be repaired unless they cannibalized over half the ship to fix the problem.
Three-Of-Ten ordered the other drones to dismantle the ship and build a structure to house the regeneration chambers, power cells and communications relay. They all began to remove pieces of the ship and started to build their objective.
After a period of time, one of the drones, labelled as Five-Of-Thirteen, spotted movement in the tree line beyond the ruins and the ravine. It scanned the perimeter of the forest for a whole minute before it returned to it’s task.
****
Twilight stood at the edge of the Everfree Forest, debating in her mind wherever it was a good idea to go into the forest at night to look for the object that had fallen from the sky. On the plus side, she would be the first to find some mysterious object that would change Equestria forever… she might even make first contact with an alien species! The down side, however, was that it was dangerous to enter the Everfree Forest at night and when you’re on your own. Also, there were pony-eating creatures in there like Manticores.
Should she go and wake the others? It would be safer if the rest of the Elements of Harmony were with her, but her curiosity and the thrill of discovering something that nopony has seen before was overpowering. And besides, she had left a note saying where she was going, and when the others found it, they could follow her.
In the end, her curiosity got the better of herself, and Twilight started to walk slowly into the dark and scary forest.
Twilight followed the path that she and her friends had taken to reach the ruins of the old castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. It was a good hour and a half before she neared the edge of the forest, with the castle ruins in sight.
A twig snapping behind her caused the lavender Unicorn to yelp in surprise and turn around sharply to face the direction in which the sound came from, but there was nothing there.
Something moved behind her, causing a similar reaction to before, but there was still no sign of the cause.
“H-hello?” Twilight nervously called out. “Is anypony there?”
No response.
After a few minutes of waiting, Twilight sighed and began to walk towards the edge of the forest.
Something leaped out of a bush, striking out at Twilight, but it missed by a millimetre.
Twilight cried out in shock as a Manticore towered over her, raising one of its paws to swipe at it’s prey. Twilight’s horn glowed purple as a protective barrier was formed between the wild animal and the Unicorn.
Not too far away, the use of magic attracted the attention of one of the survivors of the crash landing.
The Manticore swiped, pawed and headbutted the magical barrier that was Twilight’s only form of defence. Something moved in the shadows that sent shivers down Twilight’s spine and attracting the attention of the Manticore. For some reason, Twilight was filled with a strong sense of fear and terror.
The Manticore felt the same thing as it warily looked around.
Twilight screamed as a flash of green punched through the darkness and struck the Manticore, killing it instantly. She curled herself into a ball as the magical barrier faded away.
****
Five-Of-Ten approached the strange life form that was cowering in fear on the ground. The drone scanned the life form with it’s eye-piece sensor, making sure that the burst of energy did come from the strange life form.
With confirmation that it was the source, the drone picked up the life form by wrapping it’s left arm around the objective’s middle. It struggled and tried to use bursts of pure energy, but the drone quickly adapted it’s shields to prevent any harm. Five-Of-Ten walked across the rope bridge and stopped in front of the unfinished construct. The drone and the life form were surrounded by a haze of green light as they dematerialized from the outside and rematerialized inside the construct.
The life form was pathetically trying to save itself by babbling about how Spike needed it, or how Princess Celestia would come and burn the place down, or how it promised to do anything as long as it’s life was spared.
All the life form got in response was “resistance is futile.”
****
Twilight re-entered the conscious world after having blacked out due to the fear and terror of the situation she was in earlier. Twilight could’ve shrugged the events as a horrible nightmare, one that touched raw fear she never knew that somepony could experience.
But that wasn’t possible. Instead of finding herself back in her library, Twilight was lying on her back on top of a cold metal surface. She felt very cold, as if all of her coat as well as her mane and tail had been shaved. She couldn’t move her hind legs or her left foreleg, and she had no feeling at all in her right foreleg.
Twilight forced her eyes open, and found that she had been shaved of all her coat, mane and tail. Metal clamps held her limbs down, except her right foreleg, which had been removed and all that was left was a metal stump.
Twilight screamed as she thrashed about in a blind panic, completely forgetting about her magic. One of the metal creatures appeared beside her, bending down to place a metal leg onto the stump that was her right foreleg. As soon as it was connected, Twilight felt a surge of energy flow through her nervous system and could move the new limb around as easily as if it was the original.
Then another metal creature appeared beside her head, setting up some kind of contraption. When it was finished, the contraption came to life. A long, thin spinning rod of metal was slowly pushed forward towards Twilight’s skull as one of the metal creatures held her head in place.
Surprisingly, the Unicorn felt no pain as the metal creatures began to examine and perform experiments on her horn and head, then she heard the voices. The voices calling out, all alone.
Twilight could feel a darkness shroud her mind, and as a final act, she poured all of her knowledge of friendship into the link between herself and the metal creatures.
Then the darkness claimed her mind.