As the crew repairs and adapts the ship to fight the Borg, the visiting Commander Shelby turns up to lobby Riker for newly-vacant First Officer position. Riker’s just telling her she’s effectively got the job when he’s interrupted by a transmission from Starfleet. It’s Admiral Hanson trying to tell Riker where to regroup because “the flight did not go well” but before he can say anything the transmission is cut off. He’s probably fine.

After “reluctantly” promoting Shelby on the basis that Worf’s the only guy who can operate tactical and Data’s the only guy who can operate whatever the thing he sits at is supposed to be, Riker retires to the Ready Room to have a chat with an empty chair. He’s interrupted by Guinan, who gives him some advice about letting Picard go which Riker will later explicitly ignore.

Their conversation ends when the Enterprise arrives at Wolf 359, but it’s too late. They’ve missed the fight. Everything is wrecked, most pointedly the ship Riker previously turned down command of (proving his decision-making instincts were correct!) Meanwhile thousands are dead and only the Enterprise remains to save Earth.

Returning to a previous plan to misdirect Locutus, the Enterprise engages the Borg, then separates the saucer section (for the final time until Star Trek: Generations). Knowing that they’ll ignore the saucer, it provides cover so Worf and Data can sneak on board using a shuttlecraft and abduct Robo-Picard. Once again the Borg decide to leave in the middle of the fight and resume course for Earth, while the Enterprise gives chase. Riker gets Data, Troi and Crusher – the ship’s 3 best minds – to prod their former captain and see what they can figure out.

With options running out and too worried to simply disconnect Picard from the collective, the decision is taken to get out a serial cable and link up Data and Picard so that he can figure out how the collective works. The Borg enters the Terran system and is completely unfazed by the Mars defences. Luckily, it becomes clear that they can use Picard to implant a command in the collective. Fighting through his Borg brainwashing, Picard suggests “Sleep” (I’d have gone with “deltree /Y C:*.*”) and so Data does indeed command the Borg to sleep, just in time to stop Riker crashing the ship into the Borg in a last-ditch attempt at stopping them (it has to be said that as commands go, that isn’t the most successful way to end your first day.)