Devil's Cradle

The Devil's Cradle is a dense region of space, well-known for containing dangerous space matter, intense plasma storms, supernovae remnants and gravitational fluctuations, bordering the Typhon Expanse. Starfleet advised all non-essential starship traffic to avoid the Devil's Cradle. Top-secret Starfleet research space station Starbase Expanse 12 (known as Dante Station) was located in the Devil's Cradle before its destruction in 2372. (: "An Innocent Time")

Starfleet placed Dante Station deep within the Devil's Cradle to allow top-secret research and development to occur without impediment or interference by other races. The spatial anomalies naturally occurring in the area also helped Drs. Henrik and Samantha Delaney (both assigned to the station) to test their folded space drive prototype in relative secrecy. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Directive"; : "An Innocent Time")

Starfleet Command ordered the Starship Cantabrian into the Devil's Cradle to investigate the radio silence from Dante Station in 2372. Upon closer investigation, the crew realized Samantha Delaney had booby-trapped the station with a folded space drive, used in this instance as a weapon. The station's crew had been subatomically ripped apart, and the folded space drive's triggering had caused massive time-space fluctuations within the Devil's Cradle. In order to download the research into their computers, the Cantabrian crew had to power-up the station, setting the device on an automatic countdown again. The device triggered after the Cantabrian downloaded the final research material, destroying Dante Station and causing further time-space instabilities. (: "An Innocent Time")

A Borg cube, nicknamed "Devil's Cube" by the Cantabrian crew, was found drifting in the Devil's Cradle. An away team found the cube was disabled with harpoon-like weapons, and was most likely drawn to the area by the folded space drive triggering. Once "Devil's Cube" started repairing itself, its adversary emerged from a subspace rift (most likely opened by the folded space drive triggering) and engaged the cube in battle again. The Cantabrian fled but not before detonating metreon gas in its wake to disable or destroy the ships and collapse the subspace rift. (: "Devil's Cube")