The maintenance access was exactly where Mei-Lin had expected it to be, though calling it an access point felt generous. Borg plating had grown over most of the opening, leaving only a narrow seam where a person could force their way through. Zedd studied it for a moment before looking toward Cormus.

“Can you get that open without announcing us to half the cube?”

Cormus crouched beside the seam and ran his scanner over it. “Probably. There is no active lock and no power running through this section. Give me a few minutes.”

“Take them.”

While Cormus set to work with a compact cutting tool, Mei-Lin moved farther down the corridor and began another slow sweep of the surrounding systems. Zedd stayed near the junction, rifle low but ready as he watched the darkness beyond their small pool of light. Nothing moved. Nothing spoke. The cube simply sat around them, enormous and silent, as though it had forgotten they were there.

That was what bothered him most.

After several minutes, Cormus pulled the final section of plating loose and guided it carefully to the deck. Beyond it was a cramped compartment packed with dead conduits, processor nodes and a central assembly that still pulsed with a faint green light.

Mei-Lin stopped beside him, her expression tightening as she studied the readout.

“There it is,” she said quietly. “The control assembly is intact.”

Zedd looked past them into the compartment. “Can we take it?”

Mei-Lin did not answer immediately. She stepped inside, scanning each connection point before looking back toward the two men.

“Yes,” she said. “But not quickly. If we disconnect the wrong conduit, we could lose the entire unit.”

Cormus looked toward the cargo sled waiting farther down the passage, then back at the assembly. “So we are going to need the sled.”

Zedd nodded once, his attention returning to the corridor behind them.

“Then let’s get it. First real piece comes home with us today.”

Hunt made his way through the Cube, placing one explosive device after another. The Borg was moving all over the place and as far as he could tell were more focused on getting the Cube up and running, that they completely missed him. Though, he was being extremely careful, taking cover when the need arose. In all honesty, Betes had never encountered the Borg until now. The Borg were a group that you seriously didn't play with or take chances. This was going to be fun, he told himself. When the hall cleared, the Combat Chief began moving again. In the back of his mind, pressure he placed on himself to ensure the team on the Cube made it back to the Dutchman in one piece.

A drone walked right by him to a panel and began going to work. This was the perfect example of everything that he had read about the Borg. Until considered a threat, they were nonchalant. Observing the panel the drone was focused on, it was clearly more focused on trying to this operational. Based on what he saw on the panel, it was only a matter of time. But he wondered if some essential equipment had gone missing. Would that suddenly shift the drones focus, causing issues for the away team?

The Security Chief looked at his watch which had hit the eight minute mark that had been a indicator that they been in the cube for a bit now. Back away, Betes looked over his shoulder as he created distances between the Borg and himself.

Returning back to the crew after going missing the last ten minutes. Hunt a look of satisfaction. "Everything is in place in case this all goes to hell. And to let you know, these Borg are working like crazy to get this place up and running sooner than later."

-- 1400 Hrs--

The teams had been continuing to remove parts from the cube, it almost seemed like if they could carry it, they took it. In addition a series of sensor components and processing nodes had been stripped, Zedd knew those were likely worth more than they considered.

For the most part everything had been quiet, aside from one or two crewman getting uneasy when a drone walked by one of the outer perimeter corridors, but they had been ignoring them. So far.

It all seemed to be going well. Almost too well.

Zedd decided to have all of his leads check in with him. The ones on the cube could talk in person, anyone over the ahip would like be a comms chat.

"Zedd to leads, check in please. If you can, meet me by the processing station near the Reach. I'd like a status update on how things are going."

"All quiet here," Ragnar's voice came through. "Will proceed once I have done a final sweep."

Po acknowledged the Captain's message and made his way back to the meeting point. Mainly because he didn't want a search party sent after him. "Captain," Po said, announcing his presence. "This vessel is remarkable. In all my years, I have never seen anything like this. I'm making progress in identifying Borg devices as you've asked, but I'd want to run a couple more tests first.

"Do we really have time to run tests in this place?" Betes inquired. "We're literally in the belly of the beast here."

"Not full tests but is is important to know if what we're hauling away is worth it, no sense in wasting time on scrap. As long as the Borg and aren't bothering us Betes, I figure it's worth taking the extra moment or two" Zedd replied.

Hunt gave a light sigh. "From what I have observed, the Borg are increasing their efforts to repair this ship. I assume they're not comfortable being in a vulnerable state. Though I am certain comfort is not the proper word to describe the Borg. My security recommendation is what were doing here needs to be a done a bit faster. Before we pull something they need to get this ship going."

"Well do our best to be quick but I also don't want to send off what ends up becoming scrap. This is quite a find here..." Zedd replied. He appreciated the honesty from Hunt but also knew that people don't work for free.

"Send the inventory of what you have so far over to the ship," Tiraa's voice rang out over the comms after a moment once the rest had checked in. "We'll start preparing over here to review and sort, and we may be able to get a rough estimate on the profit."

That was what they were there for after all. Thankfully, Tiraa didn't much mind simply sitting on the bridge and waiting. Most good things required patience and no small degree of waiting. She was, however, still on edge being here and eternally skeptical that this could possibly continue to go as well as it had been. When they returned to Ferenginar, she was obviously going to need to go have a discussion with a few certain gentlemen.

Zedd listened to his First Officer "I'll get it over in a moment, there should be some hardware already in Cargo bay one that can start being processed and secured. Just not sure if Avery has had a moment to get through much of it yet, some of this stuff is pretty complex. Plus I think there's a few surprises mixed in."

He was looking forward to seeing all of het latinum they'd be making....