You do a good job with the Borg; their method of attack seems very similar to that shown in TNG with Q Who and The Best of Both Worlds.

Sweet mother of all that is metal and unnerving...

You did a great job of reacquainting us with a new -- and hopefully more terrifying -- Borg Collective. Excellent work building the tension only to suddenly have it break with the "oh shit" arrival of those Swedish cyborgs in Engineering.

Oh, and look, that romantic entanglement sub-plot you had worried so much about blended in quite nicely in a cliffhanger.

Which means... we all want more... now... please?

Author's Response:

The first line of your review made me laugh out loud.

Boy oh boy. Your story has from the start promised action because of the mission and the brief little snatches of Borg activity so far in the story has merely teased. Now here we are confronted with the mighty and very real presence of the Borg. Our Swedish friends have coem for a visit without an invitation and these are one party crashers no-one wants. So the build up to the Borg appearance somewhat had to have you under pressure to produce somehting epic in scale without being OTT or completely wrecking the possibility of escape or victory. It therefore should be categorically stated that you have suceeded in making the Borg Collective scary in how you've handled this big appearance. Their contact and behaviour [scanning and boarding to assess the technology] is very much in the mould of early TNG Borg - faceless and impersonnal. It makes them much more frightening and formiddable seeming. It also helps that you add multiple drama threads - with Icheb overwhelmed - eek how scary to be confronted with a personal nemesis and to hear the collective again - Adele trying to steer a path through the emotions of the bridge crew and face this daunting prospect that ahs to have filled her with dread from the very onset of the mission not to mention her own personal score with the Borg - to security John trapped outside Engineering helpless and wanting to do something at any time never mind when the person he kissed only the night before with a huge gumult of emotion and guilt attached trapped inside with four Borg drones. Scary and horrifying situations for all and then it comes to Maren!!!! Talk about a hangover from hell! I have a feeling after this she will either never drink again or decide to hit the bottle big time. Awesome drama. Oh and a little aside love the technical aspects of this [and before I forget - what did cause the slipstream to fail?? uh oh] from the slipstream failure and the pause before weapons and shields are operable - whilst a very vulnerable aspect to the Tesseract makes sense considering the huge power conserves it would require. We also get different persons using headsets to more readily access information and navigate the computers. Cool technology advancement in terms of the timeline development. OH and as much as a surprise as it is for the crew I imagine there ought to have been a few raised eyebrows aboard the Borg cude too when they meet a Borg cube of their own clad in Federation technology. So how will Adele manage with this emergency? How will John attempt to help Maren? What can Maren do? Her bravery has entrapped herself and doomed herself to a death or assimilation possibly? Are these Borg the same as the others we've met in the story? What is their score? What about Icheb? How did the slipstream fail? Was that the result of the bouy interference? So many questions! Agh!