They were the best months of Sonya’s life.

Geordi wasted very little time in putting them on separate shifts. He had no problem with fraternization in theory, but he also wanted his people focused on their work, not on each other. So Sonya was put in charge of gamma shift, which was a promotion of sorts, since she was responsible for the entire engineering section during the “night” hours. Kieran, meanwhile, worked alpha with Geordi.

The relationship seemed to do them both good. Kieran received more commendations, and he said he was taking the initiative more. As for Sonya, gamma shift seemed to respond well to her leadership skills, which amazed her, as she hadn’t been aware she had any leadership skills. In fact, Commander Kurn, of all people—a Klingon who’d temporarily taken over as first officer as part of an exchange program—had given her a satisfactory rating for her work on gamma shift, notable for it being the only satisfactory rating he gave to anyone.

Working on alpha, Kieran tended to have the best stories, from him and Chief O’Brien unwittingly contaminating the ship with invidium—which led to Kieran being teased almost as much as Sonya had been after the hot-chocolate incident—to preparing a meeting room for the Legaran negotiation.

Not that it was all fun. Bernie Kornblum had been killed, shot by an Ansata terrorist who was attempting to blow up the ship, and everyone had believed Data to be dead as well, though that turned out to be a ruse. Several people had also been injured in an attack by a Romulan vessel during the encounter with “Tin Man.”

Still, things were going very well. The Enterprise did a lengthy survey of the Zeta Gellis Cluster, which included a rather bizarre first contact. Geordi started dating Christy Henshaw, which benefited the entire engineering staff, as it meant their boss was in a perpetual good mood. Kieran had joined the corner office, replacing Lian, who’d been transferred to the Hood, where she’d be the beta-shift ops officer under Riker’s former CO, Captain DeSoto. Wes had been given a commission to ensign, complete with red uniform and pip, an action that pleased everyone except Tess Allenby.

All was well on the Starship Enterprise.

And then the Borg returned.

It started with the New Providence colony on Juret IV, which had been destroyed in a manner similar to that of the planets the Enterprise scanned in system J25 in the Delta Quadrant. A Borg expert named Elizabeth Shelby had been detached to the Enterprise to verify the likelihood that the Borg were responsible, which she did in short order.

Sonya hadn’t been able to sleep the night before. Kieran, of course, slept like a rock. He’d been on board when they’d last encountered the Borg, but for him, it was just one more mission.

For Sonya, it had been a lot more.

When she came on for gamma shift, Geordi, Wes, Data, Marguerite Sherman, and Bigay Ampalayon were all standing around the main console, along with a blonde wearing a red lieutenant commander’s uniform. Sonya assumed this to be the infamous Shelby.

“Look at Commander Borg go,” Helga Van Mayter muttered when Sonya walked past her.

“Commander Borg?” Sonya said with a smile.

“Well, she’s supposed to be the expert. Never mind that we’re the only ones who actually saw the damn things, but hey, she’s the expert. You know, she beamed down early with Data? I heard Riker chewed her aft shields after that one—especially after she cleaned him out in poker.”

“She cleaned out Riker?”

Helga nodded.

Several hours into gamma, Riker came by asking for a report. “Everybody’s up late tonight,” Helga muttered.

“Can you blame them?” Sonya asked.

“Not really. God, I hope they’re wrong.”

“Yeah.”

“Commander, I think we should call it a night.” Riker’s voice carried across engineering. Sonya looked over to see that Riker, who had been sitting on the console’s edge in front of Bigay and Marguerite, was now standing. “That’s an order. We’ll reconvene at 0500.”

Four whole hours of sleep, Sonya thought, then realized she was being unfair. Besides, Geordi and Wes were the types to keep gnawing at a problem until they’d completely chewed it, and Data never slept anyhow.

Shelby then said, “Sir, if I may be allowed to continue with Mr. Data, who does not require rest—”

“You need rest, Commander,” Riker said.

For anybody else that would’ve been it. In fact, if Shelby had really gotten the reaming Helga had described, she shouldn’t have even gone that far.

Instead, she went further: “If we have a confrontation with the Borg without improving our defense systems—”

“If we have a confrontation,” Riker said firmly, “I don’t want a crew fighting the Borg at the same time they’re fighting their own fatigue. Dismissed.”

With that, Shelby left, quickly followed by the others. Geordi gave Sonya a nod, which she returned.

Hours later, at 0415, Geordi came running into engineering. His uniform was rumpled, as if he’d slept in it, and hadn’t bothered to change into a new one. All things considered, Sonya figured that to be precisely the case.

“Geordi?” Sonya said quizzically.

“I got an idea while I was sleeping. Something I read about shield nutation modification.”

Sonya frowned. “You mean the talk T’Dar gave at the FES?”

Snapping his fingers, Geordi said, “Yes! That’s the one. If we modify the shield nutation, we might be able to hold off the Borg attack.”

Sonya thought over what the Vulcan scientist said at the Federation Engineering Symposium. “T’Dar’s hypothesis was that the emitters would have to be realigned.” She shook her head. “Geordi, that’d take days.”

“We probably don’t have days.” Geordi let out a long breath. “Okay, start on it, at least. At this point, every little bit’ll hel—”

Suddenly, without being entirely sure why, Sonya said, “The Klingons!”

Geordi gave her what might have been a penetrating gaze if his eyes were actually visible. “I’m sorry?”

Then it all came back to her, leaping forward from her subconscious, which had made her utter the phrase in the first place. “I just read a monograph last week by a Klingon engineer named Kurak—something about altering shield configuration. JAWM translated it and ran it. Computer, call up monograph from the most recent Journal of Applied Warp Mechanics by Kurak, daughter of Haleka.”

The screen in front of Sonya and Geordi lit up with the text from the journal. She started scanning it. “There we go.” She highlighted a paragraph and enlarged it.

Geordi read it over, seeing that it was a program for remodulating shields that would not require realigning the emitters. The intent was to be able to modify shields in battle. “This’ll work—we’re not reconfiguring, we’re remodulating, but the theory should still apply.” Grinning, Geordi gave Sonya a pat on the arm. “Nice work, Sonya.”

Beaming, Sonya said, “Thank you, sir.”

“You and Van Mayter get on this right away. And then, when gamma’s over, you all go to bed.”

Sonya hesitated. “But if we’re not finished—”

“Give it to Duffy and Barclay. What Commander Riker said to Shelby applies to you, too.” Sonya was about to object, pointing out that she hadn’t been able to sleep in any case, when Geordi said, “Trust me, we’ll come across the Borg soon enough, and when we do, I’m gonna be asking two hundred percent from everyone. Until then, though, I want you all rested. That’s an order, Lieutenant.”

Those last four words were said in as formal a tone as Geordi La Forge ever used. Straightening, Sonya said, “Yes, sir, Commander.”

Geordi relaxed again. “All right. I’m gonna see what we can do about phasers. Higher EM frequencies might mess up their subspace fie—”

“Commander La Forge, report to observation lounge.” That was Riker.

Tapping his combadge, Geordi said, “On my way, Commander.” He looked at Sonya. “Get to work, then get some sleep.”

Sonya nodded.

“Sealing doors to core chamber. Warning: inner hull failure. Decompression danger, deck thirty-six, section four. Sealing main engineering.”

The computer’s announcement sent Sonya rocketing awake from a fitful sleep.

Kieran!

She leapt out of bed, still in full uniform, having feared that this very thing might happen while she slept, and not wanting to waste any time getting on duty where she was needed.

As she entered the turbolift, her combadge chirped. “La Forge to all off-shift engineering personnel, report to Lieutenant Duffy on deck thirty-six. I’ll be on the bridge.”

Relief washed over Sonya at the news that Kieran was okay. Maybe they were lucky and they were able to evacuate before engineering was sealed off.

Kieran was waiting when she arrived at the main engineering console. The core chamber was behind a blast door. Also present were about a dozen engineers, plus some people from security. Sonya tried not to think about who she didn’t see: Alfredo Della Guardia, Denny Russell, Bigay Ampalayon, Beth Bracken, Cliff Meyers…

When everyone arrived, Kieran—sounding more grave than Sonya’d ever heard him speak—said, “The Borg cut into the deck, causing a hull breach. Nineteen people were unable to get out of the area, of which we’ve scanned eleven outside the hull.”

“Lieu—lieutenant?” That was Reg Barclay, who was standing over the navigation display. “We’re—we’re moving. According to—to this readout, we’re headed for the Paulsen Nebula.”

“Captain’s probably hoping to lose ’em in there,” one of the security guards said.

“All right,” Kieran said, “let’s get to work. We need to seal the breach and get this damn blast door back up.”

They were the worst days of Sonya Gomez’s life.

The loss of Denny Russell had hit her the hardest. They’d been classmates at the Academy, after all. His deadpan calm had always been a welcome contrast to Sonya’s nervous enthusiasm.

But all of them were devastating losses to the Enterprise. The eight whose bodies hadn’t been scanned were found wedged into odd parts of engineering after they sealed the breach. It hadn’t been easy—working in a nebula with the Borg searching for you made for difficult and tense work—but they did it. Nine of the nineteen were the security guards assigned to engineering when the ship was at red alert, who would not have left until all the engineers were out. The ten engineers’ names were imprinted on Sonya’s brain from seeing it on a display: AMPALAYON, BRACKEN, BRUNER, DELLA GUARDIA, EL’SRYK, FRIEDEL, MEYERS, RUSSELL, T’LOTA, ZELENETSKY.

As soon as engineering was back online, Geordi came back along with Data and Wes, and shared with the others the plan to modify the deflector dish to emit a high-EM phaser blast big enough to take out the Borg cube. What was left of all three shifts of engineering was tasked with this, and some people from security were brought in to assist.

Still, the names flashed in Sonya’s vision, but she refused to let it get to her, not when they were forced to leave the nebula, not when the Borg subsequently attacked them, not when the Borg kidnapped the captain, and not when the Borg cube broke off and made a beeline for Earth.

We’ll have time to grieve later.

Shelby had taken a team over to the Borg cube to get it out of warp drive, and possibly rescue Picard. Once they were at impulse, the ship’s warp power had to be transferred to the deflector so they could use the weapon. Sonya was standing at the warp core, her hand hovering over the control that would execute the program she and Reg Barclay had hastily written to perform the transfer. For now, they were pounding away at warp nine-point-six just to keep up. In less than an hour, they’d have to shut down the warp engines anyhow, just to keep the structural integrity field from failing. As it was, Kieran was standing over the SIF readout with the same nervous tension that Sonya hovered over her console, keeping an eye on it to make sure it didn’t break down sooner.

Then the Borg ship went out of warp. Wes took the ship to impulse, and as soon as the warp engines stopped, Sonya ran the program. “Power being diverted to the deflector.”

Kieran smiled grimly. “SIF reading nominal.”

From the tactical systems station, Marguerite Sherman said, “Deflector at seventy percent power and rising.”

A feed was coming in from the bridge. Sonya had been barely paying attention to it until the away team reported back. What caught her ear were Worf’s words, in reference to the captain, whom they did not rescue: “He is a Borg.”

Oh my God.

Reg shot a nervous look at Sonya. “He—he is a Borg? What does—what does that mean?”

Sonya shook her head. “I wish I knew.” She shuddered. “No, I take it back, I don’t wish I knew. Not even a little.”

Riker was arguing with Shelby and Crusher about getting the captain back versus firing the weapon—with Riker on the side of firing the weapon—when the Borg hailed the ship.

The voice technically belonged to that of Jean-Luc Picard. It was the voice that Sonya still heard in bad dreams about hot chocolate saying, “Yes, Ensign, it’s all over me.” But now, the voice that had distressed her a year and a half ago was a dull, mechanized montone.

“I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service us.”

Riker’s voice followed. “Mr. Worf—fire.”

Marguerite said, “Power’s building. Energy discharge in six seconds.”

Everyone in engineering moved to stand behind Marguerite to see the weapon that would devastate the Borg.

The energy beam hit the Borg cube.

And had no effect.

“No,” Sonya muttered.

From the bridge, Worf confirmed: “The Borg ship is undamaged.”

“It can’t be.” That sounded like Shelby.

“We’re losing the coolant!” Reg said.

That was followed by the computer’s confirmation, which was scarier in its matter-of-factness than Reg’s hysterical ranting. “Warning: Warp reactor core primary coolant failure. Warning: Exceeding reactor chamber thermal limits.”

Marguerite said, “Warp engines shutting down—weapon powering down,” which matched what they were saying on the bridge.

“They couldn’t have adapted that quickly,” Riker said.

“The knowledge and experience of the human Picard is part of us now. It has prepared us for all possible courses of action. Your resistance is hopeless, Number One.”

Hearing Locutus’s dry, mechanical tones speak with Picard’s voice chilled Sonya to her toes. We’re dead.

Kieran said quietly, “The Borg ship’s leaving.”

Or not. Sonya wasn’t sure why the Borg didn’t finish them off, but gift horses had bad breath, as her sister always said. “All right, we need to get warp drive, deflectors, and shields back online. Let’s move it, people.”

Later on, when she would tell people about it, they would say it was anticlimactic. Sonya thought that was insane, and said so. They chased the Borg—who plowed through a Starfleet armada at Wolf 359—to Earth, managing to bring Picard back home along the way. Or, rather, Locutus, as the captain was still a Borg drone. But Data was able to use Locutus—with some subconscious help from Picard himself—to put the Borg to sleep. The cube exploded over Earth shortly after that.

The first person to give the anticlimactic declaration was Belinda, whose face on the comm screen looked disappointed. “That’s the best you guys could do.”

“I’m not about to argue with the results, Bee.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re home, at least, mija. You gonna come down and see us?”

Evasively, Sonya said, “I don’t know…depends on the repair schedule.” Belinda’s soccer career had come to an end due to a knee injury, and she was back living with Mami and Papi—which, unfortunately, was tense for everyone, as Mami was not pleased that her eldest daughter had come home. Sonya really didn’t want to face the familial strife after barely surviving the Borg.

“How’s that boyfriend of yours?”

She broke into a huge smile. “He’s wonderful. It’s been great—we just get along so well. We can talk about anything, really.”

“But you just talk about engines, right?”

Sonya was about to tartly answer in the negative, until she thought about it, and realized that she and Kieran did talk about work a lot. Then she remembered their last date before the Borg mess. “No, that’s not all we talk about. I loaned him my Brautigan book.”

Belinda’s eyes went wide. “The one Papi gave you? Wow, this must be true love.”

When she turned fifteen, Sonya’s father had given her a twenty-first-century leather-bound edition of The Complete Works of Richard Brautigan, which had become her favorite book. She had told Kieran about it, and he asked to borrow it, see what all the fuss was about, especially since he’d never heard of Brautigan.

“So how’s he like the book?”

“Don’t know, he hasn’t read it yet. Anyhow, things are going great with Kieran.”

“Glad to hear it, Ess. Looks like you’re doing well on that luxury liner.”

“It’s not a luxury liner!” Sonya said defensively, and proceeded to give a lecture to a laughing Belinda about the state-of-the-art nature of the Galaxy-class vessel.

Eventually, they finished, and Sonya signed off, giving another evasive answer about whether she’d be able to get down to Vieques to visit the family. Then she went down to engineering, since her shift was about to start.

She came across Kieran in the corridor. “I can’t win,” he said without preamble.

“What is it?”

“I’m finally back on Earth for the first time in years, so I figure, great, I can drop in on Mom and Amy, see how they’re doing. There’s only one problem.”

Smiling impishly, Sonya said, “They’re on vacation on Betazed?”

“They’re on vacation on Betazed. I completely forgot about that.”

Kieran had told her about the vacation his mother and sister were taking two months ago. Somehow, Sonya couldn’t bring herself to be surprised that she remembered that and Kieran didn’t.

“So now I’ve got nowhere to go, unless you have a better offer?” Kieran waggled his eyebrows.

“Honestly, I don’t,” Sonya said quickly, trying to ignore the pit that opened in her stomach just then. “Belinda and Mami are at battle stations, and—”

Kieran held up a hand. “Say no more.” He’d heard her stories about the on-again-off-again war between Guadalupe Gomez and her oldest daughter, and therefore knew that when it was on again, it was best to be elsewhere. “Tell you what. I suggest that we suck up mercilessly to Geordi and volunteer to stay on board during the repair cycle.”

Sonya grinned. “Suits me fine.”

Turning around, Kieran joined her in walking back to engineering, where they found Geordi talking to someone on a comm screen. They waited patiently until he was done, and when he turned around, Sonya saw a look he hadn’t had on his face since their trip to Starbase Montgomery a year and a half ago, which was also the last time engineers who didn’t report to Geordi got their hands on his engines.

Seeing the two of them, Geordi quickly put on a happier face. “What can I do for the two of you?”

“Sir,” Sonya said, “we’d like to volunteer to stay on board during the repairs—help you keep an eye on McKinley’s people.”

Kieran grinned. “Make sure they don’t turn the warp core upside down or anything.”

All the tension seemed to leave Geordi’s body. “You don’t know how glad I am to hear you two say that. I didn’t wanna ask anyone else to stay behind, but if you’re volunteering—”

“Absolutely, sir,” Kieran said.

“Thank you. I won’t forget this.”

“Just name your firstborn after us, sir,” Kieran deadpanned.

Geordi chuckled, and walked over to the warp core.

Sonya stared up at him incredulously. “Are you nuts? Sonya Kieran La Forge would make a terrible name.”

They laughed together, kissed quickly, and then Kieran headed off to his quarters while Sonya went on duty for the last formal shift before the repair cycle began.