One option for the story pilot would be the Romulans arriving along with Voyager, or close by. Romulans managed to take the long way around the Neutral Zone detectors, and are operating on a long-endurance mode. So they would have less weaponry, but are already designed for independant operations.
So Voyager gets there (maybe after them), and the Romulans are already talking to the Caretaker, and negotiating for rights to operate the Array.
Voyager decides to block their attempts, while telling the Maquis crew to stay out of the way. Voyager finally decides to attack the Warbird (if the Warbird attacks first, Voyager is dead), and manage to take out a few lucky hits.
But the Warbird begins openeing fire again, and Janeway knows that she cannot let the Array fall into Romulan hands, and orders the tri-cobalt wepons armed, and fired. A fraction of a second later, the Romulan torps smash through Voyager, destroying it. But the TC weapons destroy the Array, stranding the Warbird along with the Maquis in the Delta quadrant.
After that, the Romulans would have to decide what to do with them (kill them, and use their ships for spare parts, use them as allies, or something in between). Tuvok though, on board the Maquis vessel, is trying to think of a way to warn the Federation of what is going on, as the Romulans make treaties with the various powers present.
Even better, when Voyager managed to contact that Romulan Captain that was ~20 years in the past, they send ahead all their tech specs, to give Romulus a step up in the technological war. Of course those techs go straight to the Tal'Shiar, who use the advance in technology to develop ships similar to the Scimitar (ST: Nemesis).
Hey, it's Star Trek, we've got to have something involving time travel, right?
(Edited Dec 17, for atrocious spelling errors)
One Romulan Warbird in the Delta Quadrant
Moderator: Vympel
Nice idea, by the way.
