“You are correct, unfortunately. I’m hoping we are far away before the collective detects our presence. Tell me what you need and I can get you any power boosts that I can squeeze out of the main deflector,” Morgan told her.

"Understood," Rhiana replied with a nod. "Though I hope that will not be necessary."

“You and me, both, Rhiana. You and me both,” Avery said nervously. He tried to stay optimistic, but it became increasingly more difficult with the prospect of a mortal threat like the Borg.

Tiraa stepped onto the bridge and her eyes immediately fell on what was projected on the viewscreen. Her face remained completely passive and her expression was unreadable. She moved to her seat at Zedd's right side and slid into it calmly.

"Hm," she hummed a short syllable, "that does complicate some things."

Mei-Lin did her best to add some confidence to the situation "Well at least the Sabre class was built as a response to focus against the Borg threat so her design should lend to more survivability."

Cormus chimed in as well "And with Lindsy at the helm, we probably have a chance, at least in the evasiveness. Even the Borg aren't perfect in hitting targets and in what looks to be a crippled state, we have a little more going out way."

"That's all promising to hear, but at the end of the day we're still outnumbered and overpowered. So in the event anything does kick off, I want to make sure we can have everything planned out so we can make it onboard. There's a latinum mine in that thing." Zedd was happy to hear everyone's thoughts and the beginning of collaboration. "Tiraa will be running things here once we get into the ships infrastructure, I'm going to be leading the initial team."

Avery approached Sykes in an effort to get his attention. “Zedd…Captain…can we have a word?”

"Of course" Zedd replied. He made his way in the direction of his Chief Engineer.

Morgan gestured to Sykes toward the engineering bridge station. “A thought just occurred. It sounds a little unorthodox, perhaps bordering on crazy. Your data port….do you think you can use it to hack the cube? I can monitor you from here. Prevent you from getting too deep inside their network. Imagine what we can find….strengths, vulnerabilities, instructions given to the collective. I understand we’re not looking for a fight, but there could be an advantage for us. Take the battle to THEM. Adapt our systems, come out almost on equal footing.”

It wasn't something Zedd had considered, and it was a technology he'd never interfaced with, but it would give them a clearer picture once they got on board. "I'll need whatever expertise you have in their technology, it's all foreign to me so I'll need you to walk me through step by step. But anything is worth a shot. I'll just need to know where to connect and what all to expect." He wasn't aware of the hivemind and collective thoughts that he could end up hearing when someone was interfaced with the Borg.

“Of course. T’Vara can have you wear a cortical monitor to keep an eye on your responses. It would take some fine tuning, but basically the dataport would be turned into a subspace transceiver. The collective use a specific frequency band, often shifting constantly. We’d have to tune into that band. Whatever instructions or information is contained in their network would be….well, “heard” by you. It’s up to you, Zedd. You’re in command and this is your mission. If you’re up to it, I’ll help you any way I can. We can pull you out at the first sign of trouble.”

"We'll give it a shot. Go ahead and make the necessary preparations and puta quick brief together for me be fore we go in and connect. I'll give it a shot. Just let me know of any surprises I may run across before they happen, please." He turned to look over at Tiraa, wondering what her opinion may be on everything so far.

“Will do. I’ll put something together and have it ready within the hour. I want some input from Mei-Lin, too. Can’t hurt to have options,” Avery said. “Besides, she will probably have some interesting ideas. Smart girl, that one.”

"I look forward to seeing what you have put together." Zedd replied. He was a little uneasy at the idea of everything but was also curious as to his First Officers position on everything. He made his way over to where she was seated.

"So, do you know much about the Borg? I'm presuming with some of your resources you have available, you know more than I do about them for sure."

Avery interjected for a moment, just before Tiraa had a chance to answer. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to prep that brief I promised. And to bring Mei-Lin and T’Vara up to speed on what we’re doing. Captain, Tiraa….” Morgan stepped away from the command area and sought to get the attention of Mei-Lin and T’Vara.

Tiraa nodded to Avery in acknowledgement then turned her attention to Zedd once more while considering his question. "As a rule, we tend to be abundantly cautious when it comes to the borg or any of their technology. The amount of fail safes and what most would consider outright traps in their technology would make the most paranoid Cardassians and Romulans blush. I'm not sure it is a very wise idea for you to go and plug yourself into a Borg cube without anyone having a solid idea of what it might do to you, but the choice is yours. What I will say is it is very important that you do not trust that anything on that ship is actually inactive even with all the holes blown into it; the Borg are resilient and even now there could be a handful of drones actively repairing the vessel that we simply can't see."

He nodded as Tiraa made her points. "It sounds like we shouldn't wait too long to make our moves then. The longer they are in a crippled state, the better. I don't think this is a payday we can afford to skip over so early on, unfortunately. I'll see what engineering comes up with on the side for me connecting to their computer. I would be interested to see what information we can potentially get from them as well. I bet that would fetch a high price on it's own. I think it's important to get more on the tactical side ofthigns as well."

Zedd had noted Ragnar taking some time to himself to observe everything, and motioned the man over to join him and Tiraa.

Ragnar had stayed close to the rear of the bridge throughout the discussion, silent as the Engineers went through possibilities he was not qualified to consider. His attention moved between the injured cube and the officers gathered around the command section, noting the cautious voices, and the overall tension on the bridge. He shared it, even if he tried not to let it show. Whatever had disabled the Borg vessel had done a thorough job, but no one aboard the Dutchman seemed ready to believe it was harmless. Neither did he. When the conversation turned to entry, Ragnar instead began to consider the practicalities: possible ways in, defensible positions and how quickly they might have to get out again. The problem would probably be that if there was anything...alive...on the Borg vessel they would be in trouble. What he remembered of the Borg from Starfleet was the same thing everyone probably knew: weapons only helped for so long before they adapted. So. He thought about what weapon they had ready. He could probably do some damage with them if they were attacked. Enough to keep them back until they could be beamed out.