Editing Eian O'Neill (section)

===4. [[Once More Into The Breach]]===

[[File:Eian-Assimilated.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Eian after Assimilation]]

Late at night on Stardate 2414.1.14, Starfleet Command contacted Captains Durand and Salid and made them aware of a danger the [[Darson Deep Space Array]] had picked up.  A [[Borg Tactical Cube]] and a [[Borg Pyramid]] had been spotted near the [[Federation]]-[[Romulan]] border in the [[Beta Quadrant]], heading toward the [[Dovek II| Dovek System]].  Because the system was once home to an extremely advanced race of people called the [[Tkon]], there were disastrous tactical implications of the Borg acquiring buried technology in the deserted system.  The captains recalled all shore leave, ordered all non-essential personnel off the ship, including all civilians and animals.  Neither Eian nor [[Jessica Signos]] knew what to expect at that point, but they parted with a kiss before entering their respective ships and departing [[Starbase 989]].  The briefing that took place shortly afterward clued them in as what they were up against, and Eian began engineering tactical scenarios in his head.

When they arrived near Dovek II, a plan was put into place.  A previously launched away mission had crashed on the radiation-scarred planet Dovek II after their shuttle was attacked by the Borg.  Their original mission was to gather data about the weapon on the surface, and they succeeded.  With that information, the Boudicca and Rosenante launched another two away teams -- one to rescue the first away team, and the second to place an antimatter mine inside the weapon the Borg were attempting to salvage.  A 'scorched Earth' policy would be a better alternative to the Borg getting a hold of a weapon that had the potential to destroy an entire solar system, or worse.   Eian was assigned to the rescue mission, and they successfully landed on the planet while the Rosenante and Boudicca drew the Borg's attention by engaging them in battle.

While on the surface, Eian's commander [[Sanok]] was separated from the group and Eian temporarily commanded the rescue team until they were reunited.  He led the team to the survivors and played a critical role in getting everyone back to the shuttle safely.  After this, they used the shuttle and the survivors' spare power cell from the crashed shuttle to assist the mine team, also on the planet to destroy the ancient device that the Borg were attempting to salvage.  They rendezvoused with the mine team and Eian attached the power cell to the mine, enabling the device to blow and the technology to be destroyed.  He carried a critically injured [[Jessica Signos]] back to the now very crowded shuttle and the three teams were able to lift off the surface and escape the explosive wave that obliterated the planet's surface.

Once back aboard the Rosenante, all away team members were treated for radiation poisoning and whatever other injuries they suffered.  Although Eian briefly remained at Jessica's side in Sickbay, he returned to his duties.  The Rosenante engaged in battle with the Borg Cube and Pyramid, which were attempting to create a time vortex to travel back and salvage the sphere in the past.  During the battle, the Rosenante lost a nacelle and it hurtled into the Pyramid, destroying it.  The Cube was also destroyed.  However, the Rose was badly hurt and Eian took two junior engineers to attempt to 'tourniquet' the enormous energy flux on the starboard nacelle's 'stump.'  They were partially successful, but not before the Borg beamed aboard the Rosenante and began assimilating the crew.  

Eian's small team was attacked, and the other two officers with him were assimilated.  However, Eian was captured but not immediately assimilated.  He fought tooth and nail, shattering his ankle and collarbone in the process.  However, the Borg subdued him and secured him in a tightly restraining device to prevent further harm to himself.  The individual drone leading the Borg's mission, [[Volus]], wanted to study him to discover the nature of the human soul.  [[Volus]] questioned Eian on his religion and the concept of hope, and Eian answered after initial hesitation.  However, Commander [[T'Larah Sullivan]] entered and threatened Volus and the surrounding drones.  Volus assimilated Eian to prevent his knowledge from being lost.

Eian's assimilation didn't come easily, though.  A combination of a newly developed preventative drug that he was given to slow assimilation, and his natural brain chemistry that depended on stimulation, allowed him to retain his focus and control of his mind despite his complete loss of control of his body.  A significant internal struggle ensued, where Eian was bombarded by the Borg's attempts to draw his focus away from his individuality, but his ADHD made every physically painful and mentally exhausting effort only strengthen his focus.  Finally, the Borg realized that Eian was gaining focus from stimulation, and so they took away all stimulation.  They turned off his optical implant and bolted a metal eyepiece onto his skull over his other eye, blinding him.  They turned off the auditory implants they had installed, and the electronic voice box with which they had replaced his vocal cords.  They turned off his nerves, leaving his consciousness floating in nothingness.  With absolutely no stimulation, his mind had no choice but to gravitate toward the Borg, and he was effectively assimilated.

Eian became 2 of 5, and was initially assigned to a basic repair that required only pre-programmed commands, not sight, hearing, speaking, nor feeling.  Somewhere deep in 2 of 5's consciousness, Eian felt total sorrow and wished to die.  He could have dealt with his physical fate, if he still had a connection to God.  But the Borg had silenced the brain function that made his feelings of joy possible when he thought about God.  He had no joy, no feelings of awe.  For the first time in his life, he was completely and totally alone.

[[Volus]] took advantage of this loneliness, and allowed Eian's mind to lose its sharpness during the time he was isolated, and then presented himself to Eian as a God.  Using the same language and same arguments Eian was used to in his Christian religion, Volus appealed to Eian's brain structure, which was formed from birth to be strongly religious.  Because Eian's brain structure was used to worshiping and he had been starved of this function, he was like a starving man who was offered a morsel of food.  It didn't matter what it tasted like--Eian accepted Volus as a god without much thought, and was successfully brainwashed to believe that the Borg were wonderful.  He was then ordered to assimilate Jessica and bring her willingly into the "loving" Collective.

Thankfully, Jessica was able to disable Eian instead of becoming assimilated herself.  She shot a power conduit with a phaser, and the explosion severely damaged 2 of 5.  His armor was charred, some of his implants melted to his skin and armor, and the tricorder Jessica brought that emitted a frequency that blocked the Collective was fused to his back.  This blocked Eian's Collective signal, and enabled him to think clearly for the first time since his assimilation.  His thoughts were racing, though.  His ADHD was difficult to deal with because of his lack of a stimulant in too many hours, and he was latching onto any stimulation he had.  The pain of his injuries and the emotional pain of being alone and watching his friends, especially [[Ben Soma]] capture him and prepare him for experimentation, was enough to drive him to begin to concentrate on his actions.  He started to think about how Volus was maybe not a god...but came to the conclusion that because the one true God did not rescue him, God must not exist...

His thoughts on that avenue were cut short when his coworkers prepared to extract nanoprobes from him.  Their plan was to use the nanoprobes against the Borg, to find a way to either slow assimilation to a halt or to make the nanoprobes kill the Borg.  The process was painful but brief, and Eian continued his philosophical ponderings in the hours that followed.  He successfully regained his individuality and separated his own mind from the Collective philosophy, but was unable to gain back the faith he had lost.  His mental battle ended when his body, devoid of functioning nanoprobes or a connection to the Collective and also devoid of vital organs, shut down.  Eian would have died very quickly if it had not been for Commander [[Jennifer Caskie]]'s quick thinking.  The first officer of the Boudicca put Eian in a stasis pod at the last second, preserving his life.  He was rushed to Sickbay where CMO [[Kimiko Ichijo]] began to work on him.

At the end of the mission, the Rosenante and Boudicca were able to stop the Borg from destroying the human race when the Borg sent the T'kon Sphere back in time to the Cretaceous era.  [[Jessica Signos]], [[Ben Soma]], and [[Sanok]] were able to kill the Borg on the sphere including [[Volus]] and beam out before it crashed into the planet Earth, which triggered the event that killed the dinosaurs and made the existence of the human race possible.