Disclaimer: Except for Yvarra, Kara and Andrew (they're MINE dammit!!) I do not own any of this. Paramount does, right down to Voyager's hypothetical deck plates. Don't sue me since I have no money anyhow.
This story is rated PG
Something had snapped again. Her brain was on fire. She could not think, logic and calm were gone. They were here again, they were ignoring her again, they were going to assimilate again. Her rage was overwhelming, millions upon millions of wrathful voices all compressed into one person's enraged cry.
She came up with a handful of black, futilely twisting cables, mechanic mindlessness driving them to seek the imperfect. She had ripped them from the back of the first drone's head as he had moved toward the shocked Captain. His brain and cortical array were disconnected from the major systems of his body. He link with the Collective was wrenched away with one sharp pull. He fell twitching to the floor, a soundless gape on his face.
Let us see them adapt to that.
The second drone turned to her, ocular implant whirring has he tried to determine what she had done to the other drone, but it was too late, and he was similarly assaulted, the precious connections ripped away. She looked downward, boiling with loathing, and proceeded to try to tear the exoplating from the first one as he gaped up at her.
Someone was restraining her, yelling at her to stop, they were dead. She didn't want to. She wanted the Collective to hurt . . . like she did. To lie there helplessly as she pulled them apart and made them into something different, to have their minds ripped out from under them. To feel it like she did, like they all did.
"Yvarra! Stop it now!"
Her knees gave way, and the Commander had to hold her up. She held a large chuck of the first drone's exoplating in one hand, and the cables of both in the other. She flung them down, howling in rage but no longer struggling. They were still out there! Still coming to kill and assimilate and rend the life from every-
There was a calm voice. "Captain, the sphere is disengaging." Why? The sphere would come back. With cubes . . . long range tactical cubes with impenetrable defences and thousands of drones who would-
"Yvarra!" the Captain cried.
Her face stung. The Captain had slapped her to bring her out of her hysterics. Yvarra hung, breathing heavily, in the Commander's grip. The energy drained from her, the rage dulled and realization set in as she gazed at the prone forms of the drones she had just killed.
"Wh-why did I . . . did we. . . . I did? We did. They were coming for us! They were going to . . . we had to. . . ." She babbled in shock. We had to, didn't we?
The Captain stared at her. "Who's 'we,' Yvarra?" she demanded. "You lost complete control! Of course I expect some reaction, but you weren't defending, you were murdering!"
"We . . . I . . . I did. I killed them. I-I ripped the . . . the primary corporeal connections, the main nervous response junctions . . . all the integral components of the cortical array's connection with the . . . I-I killed them." She was hyperventilating. "It was me. It was us . . . I don't understand what we . . . I am myself! I am singular! I . . . am an . . . individual! I am not . . . we are not. . . ."
"Take her to Sickbay . . . either she's snapped entirely, or someone or something has been tampering with her. Making a weapon of her, or something." The Captain was angry, concerned. Concerned! She ought to be. They were coming now.
Yvarra was stood on her feet, her legs protesting with strain. Sickbay! The Doctor . . . the hologram . . . her cortical node? The failsafe? The drones were dead.
"We killed them."
***
The Red Alert klaxons ceased, the ship stood down from what ever the situation was. Kara had not been assigned a Red Alert station or function, so she merely watched as the Engineering work crew had rushed out of the shuttle bay, leaving her to remove to heavy alcove component herself from the back of the small ship. Making sure she had a good grip with her nearly numb left hand, she lifted the heavy upper part of what had previously been Yvarra's alcove to the floor, and then picking it up again to carry out to the shuttle bay. Her muscles strained a little, but her Borg-reinforced musculature and skeleton held out against the abuse, moving a load that could easily require three people.
She set it down next to the first component she had removed, flexing her left hand absently. She wondered without real curiosity what had happened, and whether the work crew would return. There was an ominous feeling in the air, and for all her dismissal of premonition or "hunches" she could not shake it. She felt unaccountably belligerent for a few moments, as if expecting attack, but none came, and she mentally talked herself down from it. It was irrelevant. Red Alert was at stand down, there was no problem anymore.
"Janeway to Kara."
She tapped her comm badge. "Yes, Captain?"
"Report to Sickbay, something has happened to Yvarra."
"What has occurred?"
"Two Borg drones entered the bridge. She lost control of herself. Please come to Sickbay."
"I am on my way."
How had Yvarra lost control? It seemed unlikely that her friend of one and a half years would do anything categorized under "loss of control." In fact, Kara had always considered Yvarra as her example . . . how to allow emotion but not to the point of sacrificing other things. She had always exhibited control over herself, even when supposedly enraged aboard the Borg cube they had been on. It was impossible to imagine the other "out of control."
She hoped Andrew had been informed as well. He would never admit it, and neither would Yvarra for all her empathy, that there was something more than the apparent cool friendship between them. Andrew was not an open person, and preferred to be alone most of the time, but unless there was something better to be done he could always be found somewhere near Yvarra. He seemed to consider it his function to protect her. He would be angry if he were not told.
It turned out to be a non-issue. He had reached Sickbay before she, and was standing silently to one side, watching Yvarra struggling to collect her wits. The Captain was talking to the Doctor, and there were security personnel at the door. Yvarra must have become violent.
Kara went to the biobed upon which the upset-looking Yvarra sat. She made no effort not to appear concerned.
"What happened?" she asked point-blank.
"I killed the drones," Yvarra said dully, gazing at a bruised hand.
"So what? It disabled them, didn't it?" Andrew demanded in his usual insensitive manner.
Yvarra hung her head. "I pulled their main cortical connections right out. They were . . . already dead when I started trying to tear the exoplating from the first one. The Commander had to restrain me, I was overwrought and wouldn't stop and think until the Captain slapped me. I . . . wanted them to suffer, Kara. I wanted to hurt them."
Kara shrugged. "You are Klingon. Perhaps you suppressed your natural aggression for too long, and the sight of the Borg brought it out."
"I-I do not believe so. I was . . . not myself. I was . . . many things. It was not me."
"Was someone influencing you telepathically?"
"No."
"Through your Borg implants?"
"No."
"But it was not you?"
"No. It was not. Not entirely. It was different."
Kara did not understand. What Yvarra said did not make sense, but her opinion on such an experience could not be proved or disproved without drastic adjustments to the nature of their . . . connection. She hoped that the Doctor had medical evidence of something. Knowing what was wrong was the only way to find a method of correction. Maybe there was no problem beyond the fact that Yvarra had gone momentarily insane or something. She always maintained that her assimilation had not been as traumatic as others', but perhaps she was lying to them or even to herself. Assimilation into the Collective and subsequent disconnection was not something one came through completely unscathed. Trauma could not be discounted.
Kara shook her head. "I do not understand. Hopefully the Doctor does."
Yvarra glanced towards the Doctor and the Captain where they could be seen in the Doctor's office, talking earnestly with each other. "I hope I have not made the Captain reconsider her decision."
"The Captain does not strike me as a person who gives up at the first sign of trouble. In fact, she seems quite stubborn."
"She is," Yvarra confirmed. "Very stubborn, and that is not always a fault . . . but nor is it always an asset. Who is to say it will be drones next time?"
"Provided there is a 'next time.' And I'm sure the people on this ship can protect themselves if you grow violent. It is entirely probable that they had similar difficulties with Seven of Nine, and she probably did not want help at the time. You are willing to correct yourself if it is something that can be corrected."
"If it is."
Andrew shifted on his feet. "We will assist you."
"What if you cannot?"
"We will still attempt it. You are part of our Collective."
"Do not say it like that. It is discomfiting."
"It is true."
Yvarra glared at him. "Maybe it is, but I would appreciate it if you found a different term."
Kara flexed her hand. "Family?"
"Inaccurate . . but it is better than the other," Yvarra allowed. Her very posture sent warnings to Kara. It could be said that the Borg . . . promoted good posture in a person. Yvarra's shoulders were slumped, as if she were worn out or defending herself from something. Her eyes were downcast, as was her face. She was not looking at the people she was speaking to, and rather at the darkening contusions on her hand left from forcibly pulling away well-secured components from a drone.
"I must inform you . . . earlier, before Red Alert was called, I felt . . . strange. I expected an attack, I had a bad feeling about something. Perhaps . . . perhaps your experience was not isolated. Perhaps you merely reacted so violently because you were in close proximity to the drones. I was half way across the ship."
"Tell the Doctor," Yvarra said shortly, still inspecting her swelling hand.
***
"There's nothing to suggest she's in anything but perfect health," the Doctor said. "Beyond the previous condition of her cortical node, some hyperventilation due to stress and her obvious unsettlement, there seems to be nothing wrong with her at all. Traumatic stress is all I can offer you as an explanation." He looked over at his patient, who was conversing with her companions. "She's perfectly calm now, but still a little upset by it. She's even remorseful. In her place I doubt I'd have the capacity for it."
The Captain shook her head, frowning. "But that still doesn't explain some things. Why did she keep saying 'we' when she was talking? She sounded like a drone again . . . but then again she kept trying to assert that she was individual. I'm not sure if there was actually someone or something else . . . with her back there . . . or if she was just a little incoherent."
"It's hard to say, Captain. She hasn't been here long enough for me to make a judgement on what is normal for her, but this is the first indication that she is anything less than composed. Andrew however says he's never seen her do this sort of thing, not in the year and a half he's known her. There's no evidence of mechanical malfunction or tampering, no telepathic activity and I highly doubt it was empathic. I must conclude for now that she was under extreme stress, perhaps mentally altered for that moment because of it. It's hardly unheard of, and hardly something surprising knowing full well where she was two years ago."
Kathryn sighed. "So what will you do?"
"Put a cortical monitor on her, maybe observe her for a day and attach someone to her to watch for any trouble after I release her. It may be a one time occurrence, it could only happen when and if she encounters more drones or it could be the root of a bigger problem I haven't thought of yet."
"Any chance it's her cortical node?"
"If it were, shut her cortical array and brain down completely, not induce a psychotic episode. I just can't be sure, Captain. I'm sorry."
Captain Janeway stood akimbo, as was her habit. She was frowning more than slightly. She did not like this at all. They hadn't detected Borg activity in . . . how long now? That sphere had crept right up on them without so much as a blip on the sensors until it dropped the drones into the bridge. Perhaps they were being lax about the whole thing, feeling rather secure so far from Borg space. The Borg were everywhere, and always were you did not want them and always ready to cause trouble for anyone stupid enough to be seen by them. It did not seem like a coincidence that the Borg had dropped in only three days after their little crew addition.
But why had the sphere retreated so quickly? It had been a little out-gunned, granted, but the Borg were never known to back out of a possible victory. And there were surely other ships in the vicinity, maybe even a planet they had recently . . . occupied. Long range scans had shown little to no activity. It was dead space out here, nothing but planetless dwarf stars, the odd asteroid, a small nebula, a burgeoning red giant and a small cluster of blue stars far too hot to live near comfortably. Seven had started applying ever method of transwarp detection she could think of and only came up with the corridor opened by the sphere and the one that Yvarra and the others had been following them in.
Kathryn was not fond of feeling ineffectual. Aboard Voyager, there had only been a few incidents where she had possessed no inkling on how to proceed. Well, more than a few, but the protocols she adhered to usually gave her somewhere to begin. There was nothing in Star Fleet Protocol that applied to the scenario of possibly malfunctioning or tampered-with Borg crew members. The rule book hadn't seen her coming. It should have. There was the Doctor's plan, but the Captain was a firm believer in the idea that nothing ever solved itself and that to solve a problem, you had to know what it was. She didn't know what the problem was.
Kara approached them. She was apparently ready to offer something to this, and Kathryn was thankful for any bit of information.
"Captain, this morning in the shuttle bay, at approximately the same time that the drones boarded the ship I remember having an anxious feeling, and then an aggressive one. I believe in may be linked to Yvarra's episode, though I do not know how. Andrew says he noticed nothing at the time, but he was farther from the bridge than I."
That just added something else to the puzzle. The Doctor directed a tricorder at the Cardassian, tapped at the instrument a little, then looked at the Captain and shrugged eloquently.
She put a hand to her head. This was going to give her a headache, may as well try to help it now. "Then it's not just Yvarra. That's something."
"It might not be," the Doctor warned. "Yvarra is telepathic, Captain, and she and Kara are close. Perhaps Kara was even anticipating her. I don't know what it's like to be linked to the Collective, but I assume you know how Yvarra thinks."
Kara nodded. "I can predict her actions and opinions rather well yes. To a lesser degree with Andrew, because he was not part of my unimatrix. Yvarra was not either, but she was more closely linked. To a very small extent I can even hazard a guess as to the Captain's thought habits. Pardon me, Captain."
Kathryn shook her head. "No, no, I understand what you mean." She frowned a little more deeply. "But I suppose you wouldn't predict a breakdown from her."
"No. Never without evidence of something wrong beforehand. She is strong-willed and I believe her when she says that at least the link to the Collective was not invasive enough to her to cause her undue discomfort beyond the principle of it. Truthfully, I would more readily accept such an action from Andrew, or even myself, as opposed to Yvarra."
Well, Kara was qualified to make judgement if anyone was. But that only made it worse! What could cause Yvarra to do something, that to all accounts, was completely out of character? She shook her head, until there was more information, or some evidence of . . . something, beyond the act itself, there was nothing she could do but wait. Kathryn Janeway did not like that at all. She sighed.
"Well, it's serving nothing to stand here drawing blanks. Keep an eye on her, Doctor, and let me know if you find anything useful. I'm going back to the bridge."
She headed out the door, feeling the well-known gnawing worry creeping up in her and the makings of a monumental headache. She grit her teeth and resolved not to head straight for the ready room replicator. It would only let Chakotay know she was worrying about it. Not that he'd fail to notice anyhow, but she wasn't about to give him any help with it. She'd been avoiding Chakotay whenever possible . . . in order to avoid his concerned look and the weighty question that lurked behind it. What had she been about to . . . ?
You were about to kiss your First Officer.
She couldn't fight the strange feeling in the pit of her stomach as she entered the turbolift. The frightening thought was that it wasn't the very first time she had ever considered. . . .
Kathryn Janeway was not a quitter. She did not hide from her battles. She hid from herself though, on occasion. The Captain was an easy, familiar cover for the occasional weakness of Kathryn. Admitting that stung, but she wasn't ready to drop it either. The alternative was a little bit too imposing.
The turbolift moved upwards upon command, and her stomach felt leaden as it had for the last couple days when she approached the bridge, anxiety gripping her like a vice. The headache was in full swing now, it felt like someone was hitting her in the head with a piece of deck plating, or at least a spanner. She rubbed her temples. She couldn't let it get to her, she wouldn't let it get to her. Not if it affected her duties, not if it affected her very ability to speak to her First Officer as the Captain giving an order or otherwise.
A little part of her resolve crumbled when the turbolift doors hissed open and a pair of brown eyes were turned on her. She marched right over to the other side of the bridge, hoping desperately to reach her ready room before-
"Captain?" his voice asked.
"Coffee," she said curtly. That was all the explanation needed. Frankly, she wouldn't have minded a sedative instead of a stimulant. It would put her to sleep, if nothing else.
The ready room offered blissful solitude and a good full foot of bulkhead between her and the bridge. And the bridge's occupant. She punched replicator control with her thumb, forgoing verbal commands. The coffee appeared and she picked up the mug. She considered telling the computer to lock the door, in case Chakotay followed her and guilted her into a conversation she did not want to participate in.
She went around her desk and sat down, absently picking up an Engineering report on the disassembly of their new crew members' vessel. She had read it already, Kara's first crack at the inaccurately termed "paperwork" of the ship. She had Star Fleet report standards rather well-catalogued it seemed. The thing was flawless, and fortunately, very concise.
She jumped when the door opened. There hadn't even been a summons! Of all the . . . She slammed the padd down on her desk as the doors closed behind Chakotay. He looked of a similar disposition, actually.
"This has gone far enough, Kathryn," he stated, crossing his arms.
She glared blackly at him. "What has?" she asked ominously.
"Whatever it is that's distracting you, making you ignore the crew and making you avoid me like the plague. It is me, isn't it?"
Damn him for perception. "It's about to be, if nothing else," she growled, rising to her feet. "Get out, Chakotay. I'm not willing to let you drag me into a fight because you're feeling a little slighted."
He made no move. "Why? Because you're afraid you'll lose? Afraid your almighty Captain-to-subordinate protocols will be violated somehow? Make no mistake, Kathryn, I know exactly what is bothering you. God forbid you were ever talk about it though." He began pacing in front of her desk.
She wanted to hit him. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to climb right over her desk and- oh no . . . she wasn't going to go there. She switched her line of thought. "How dare you come in here and expect me to-"
He stopped pacing, glaring right back at her. "You don't think I know it would be easier for you to continue hiding? You don't think it scares the hell out of me too? Because it does."
She was breathing heavily, containing a shriek of irritation. "I slipped, Commander, that's all there is to it."
There was silence for a moment. "And the walls came tumbling down," he said.
Well something did. She stared at him. He knew her too well, far too well for her comfort. He knew how to make her feel guilty enough to do things she loathed, he knew how to disagree with her and still appear reasonable even when she was operating as narrow-mindedly as humanly possible, he knew how to talk her out of coffee at regular intervals.
He knew exactly how to turn her brain and knees into mush simultaneously, his prime offense.
He watched her with equal ambiguity. "They did, didn't they? And it's getting to you."
"God damn you."
"I'll bet."
She did scream, whipping the padd on her desk away. It collided with the viewport.
He merely crossed his arms again, as if waiting for her to continue.
She collapsed into her chair. "Well, Chakotay? What do you expect from me? I'm a Star Fleet Captain, bound by Star Fleet protocols . . . one who gave a field commission to a Maquis Captain, making him her First Officer."
He looked unimpressed. "I don't refute that, but you want to hear the other part?"
She shrugged. "Will I be able to refuse?"
"No. You are a Captain. You do have protocol to consider . . . but you are also a woman who is stranded in the Delta Quadrant, who without some huge stroke of luck will be here until she's rather elderly. You're lonely, you're overtaxed . . . so much so that the Captain lost the fight to Kathryn Janeway for a moment."
"And so what? That's the way it is, Chakotay. We both know that. Now I'll agree with you in saying that I shouldn't let it affect my duties. That is just common sense, but storming into my ready room for an argument with me is not going to help the situation. We've got other things to worry about right now, like that girl down in Sickbay who is likely a partial witness to this whole exchange."
He took a deep breath and levelled a professional gaze at her. "Does the Doctor know what's wrong with her?"
"He has no idea. He suggested post-traumatic stress, but I highly doubt it. Kara said she was feeling a little belligerent this morning too, and that Yvarra hasn't got a murderous bone in her body." She sighed, leaning back in her chair. "And then there's that sphere that came swooping down for what seemed to be the sole purpose of dropping two drones in the bridge. And that cube that's still out there. I'm beginning to think we should leave it behind, I seems to be attracting bad luck. Have Seven and Ichep come up with anything from that data you downloaded?" She took a long drink of her coffee.
"They haven't reported anything yet. We should ask Yvarra once she's back on duty. She could offer a little insight, I hope."
Her brows knit together as she sipped her coffee. "Doesn't it seem odd to you that one person could disable a whole cube? She said she took all the communications systems offline on her own. She must have done something to keep it from regenerating too . . . I don't know how you could do that. Short of ejecting the central plexus and the vinculum off of the ship, I can't think of anything."
He shrugged. "I'm in no position to offer anything on that, but she wasn't alone, was she? She had the Ilaranorans, Kara and Andrew and whoever else she disconnected."
"But she disconnected them afterwards as a result as I understand it. And they'd all be well-nigh useless at first. They'd be too busy wondering where the others went to help anything, let alone disable the cube's systems. It wouldn't work unless she had some control over them."
"She is telepathic."
Kathryn shook her head. "Telepathy is a poor substitute for the Collective."
"But it's something."
"Maybe."
"Personally, I don't care how she did it. It got the Borg nervous enough to attack a drifting cube didn't it?"
"I hardly object to that. Chaos to the Collective is something I could drink to, but it's ominous all the same. It's got the Borg after us now, and that seems to have Yvarra in for bouts of homicidal insanity. What scares the Borg isn't necessarily a good thing for us either, as we learned. But I'm beginning to wonder if Yvarra's predicament, now and aboard the cube, isn't the result of some malfunction that the Collective is scrambling to snuff out before it becomes a real problem."
"It's been done before," Chakotay said, looking at her pointedly.
"Don't remind me," she said, shuddering. "But we have to consider the possibility. We have to consider all possibilities."
He made a wry face. "Of course we do . . . but that usually means you're at a loss, when you say that."
She glared at him. "Will you stop that, for the love of God. You're giving me the creeps. I just finish chewing over the Collective and you start acting psychic . . . It's positively eerie."
He smiled at her slightly. "That's helpful to know."
She pondered throwing the last of her coffee at him, then subsided, looking guilty over at the padd she had thrown across the room. "Truce, Chakotay?"
"Truce."
***
Andrew tapped away rather half-heartedly at the console. He had been assigned to Astrometrics in Yvarra's stead while she was under the Doctor's observation. They were still wading through the more recent bits of Borg data that the away team sent to the cube had collected. Now the prime focus of the endeavour was to discover the reason behind Yvarra's disconnection, and anything that could contribute to her condition if such data was available. Andrew found it uncomfortable to rehash information the Collective had forcibly downloaded into him during his sojourn with them, but his contribution speeded the process. Thankfully, they didn't need to translate all of it too, since all of the three in Astrometrics understood it in its original form.
Seven of Nine and Ichep spoke less than even Kara, who was known to be silent for long stretches. He couldn't help but feel out of place. They knew each other's work habits well, but he did not. He felt the strange desire to go sit in Sickbay with Yvarra again . . . like he had been doing, until the Doctor had asked him rather curtly to leave. Andrew realized in a logical way that he felt something rather specialized for the young woman who had saved him from the Collective. He was in no position to categorize it, however, and so let it alone, since dwelling on it made him a bit uncomfortable, as did many things.
He narrowed his eyes when he looked at the information scrolling on the console screen. "This is the report of Yvarra's malfunction into the Collective," he stated. "Failure due to damaged power conduits, maturation halted, regeneration of systems commenced, subject disabled. That's how it should have happened. The data records her status as temporarily disabled, not disconnected. Yes. The Collective thought she was still in the chamber."
Seven of Nine glanced over his shoulder. "An unlikely error, however we must conclude there was one. Damaged power systems would not account for that."
Ichep looked over at them impassively. "Unless the data was tampered with. Yvarra did have access to the central plexus and the vinculum."
"Yvarra did not tamper with them beyond their disablement," Andrew said, feeling unaccountably defensive, "and the error was initial to the chamber failure. The information was recorded long before she disabled the system."
"What do you remember?" Seven asked.
"Not over-much. But I can tell you the Collective thought she was within the chamber. The fact was not disproved until I heard her tell me to wake up."
Seven frowned. "Didn't you resist when you were disconnected?"
Andrew frowned. "I was ready to, but recall that Yvarra is telepathic. It was a moderating influence not to be totally alone. And she linked directly with me once, I became as convinced as she was that I did not belong on the cube."
Seven looked troubled at the mention of Yvarra's link. "How many others were . . . convinced in this manner?"
"The Ilaranorans did not require 'convincing,' having just been only partially assimilated. Yvarra was able to free thirty-two others . . . although two died of neural shock before we reached Ilaranora."
"That accounts for you, but not Yvarra."
Andrew shrugged. "I can offer nothing further. As she has said many times, the Collective didn't know she was there until it was too late. I can affirm the fact, as can Kara, thirty-two individuals of various species and roughly two hundred Ilaranorans."
"Two hundred?"
"It was a transport ship," Andrew muttered, turning back to his work. "I do not like to be reminded." He had assimilated some of them personally, and hated the fact. Some had only been children. The most troubling fact was that he had . . . enjoyed the feeling when he became aware of what they were aware of. He was remorseful now, but that didn't make up for the trauma he had caused.
They let it alone, understanding silently conveyed as they turned to their own work.
Sometimes, if it was quiet, and he was completely alone, he could still hear them, a thunderous whisper just beyond his range of hearing. He hadn't heard that sphere coming. He wondered if the same were true for Seven and Ichep. It was for Yvarra and Kara, as they had told him. For some reason, Andrew felt that Captain Janeway shared their problem. He couldn't claim to know her well, really, but he had the rather strangely acquired innate sense for . . . what "made her tick" so to speak. The Collective had taken special interest in Voyager and its Captain in the past years, and the assimilation of the woman who had caused them so much difficulty was something in the order of a relief at the time. They knew what she knew now, but somehow they knew after her escape that she would never be wholly predicable. The Collective liked "predictable" to say the very least, and Janeway's inconstant actions aggravated them to no end.
As far as he was concerned now, more power to her.
He looked up at the main Astrometrics display. While he and Ichep were muddling through slightly degraded Borg data, Seven was running continuous scans for Borg activity in the area. Andrew didn't doubt that caution was a wise course now that the Collective had shown an interest in them, but it gave him slight pause all the same. For some completely strange reason, he almost wished the Borg would come back, so he could exact some retribution.
***
The Doctor watched with surprise as Yvarra sat up on the biobed she'd been sleeping on and proceeded to blush quite furiously. Even in the dark he could see it. She had hardly been sleeping soundly, since she was unused to it still. Technically sleep was inferior to regeneration, but he had determined that she should stay within Sickbay for the night. She could survive a night of natural sleep, but whatever had woken her was obviously something strange.
He rose from his desk and walked around the partition. Yvarra was sitting on the edge of the bed, fidgeting nervously and blushing fit to put the Red Alert lights to shame. He took a tricorder from the tray that stood at the wall. She held up a hand, shaking her head emphatically.
"No scans," she asserted, beginning to sweat.
He frowned at her. "Is something wrong?"
She shivered slightly. "N-no . . . this has happened before. There's nothing to be . . . to be done for it. I must simply adapt."
"Yvarra, you're fidgeting, you're stammering, your flushed and your beginning to sweat. Something is obviously bothering you."
She grimaced. "I didn't say it wasn't bothering me," she said a little breathily. "I just said that nothing was wrong. There is a difference."
"So there is, but you can tell me, you know."
"No I cannot. You will ask embarrassing questions." She actually seemed quite nervous. Any trace of Borg stoicism was gone. To all observation she was acting like a Betazoid having one of their characteristic vicarious episodes. What kind of episode he couldn't be sure of without a scan. Either that . . . or she looked like a Klingon about ready to deal damage to someone or something.
"I promise you I will not. I'm your Doctor, Yvarra. This may be something you can avoid with some sort of suppressant."
She stood up and began to pace the Sickbay with great agitation. Muttering to herself. "If I was any kind of decent Betazoid I could block this out, and if I were any kind of decent Klingon I wouldn't have to deal with it in the first place."
"You lack the empathic checks?" That meant she was open to every emotion on the ship at all times. That had to be confusing.
"My DNA possesses many . . . quirks. Betazoids have more chromosomes than Klingons, as you must know. Klingons have no corresponding genes for the empathic one, so it was never paired. It leaves me a little . . . deficient, in some respects."
"I can imagine." He was beginning to have a hunch as to what was wrong with her. He had to admit, the prospect was rather embarrassing, in a social sense. Medically, however, it was quite intriguing. "Will you allow me to scan you?"
"If you want. All I know about it is that I cannot block out certain emotional responses. Do not expect me to let you in on the details."
"Perish the thought," he murmured as the waved the tricorder's scanner at her. As predicted, it revealed an interesting mélange of Klingon and Betazoid hormones in her system and a ponderous amount of brain chemicals related to such hormonal responses. The Doctor was immediately impressed by her restraint. "I see your problem."
"Ugh," was all he got as an answer.
"You said this has happened before?" It was an interesting phenomenon, to look at it objectively. It was not unlike what had happened to Lieutenant Torres so long ago. He was surprised Yvarra wasn't literally climbing the walls.
"Yes. The Ilaranorans were . . . less than restrained," she said heavily.
"How did you deal with it before?"
"With a lot of pacing and the occasional demolition of a room."
The Doctor took a startled look towards his carefully ordered trays of instruments and medical samples. He hoped she didn't feel like throwing anything now, because she was certainly beginning to look like she did. "You were never offered help with this?"
It was an innocuous question from his point of view, but she managed to take it the wrong way, blushing that much harder as she paced. "What do you think? Nobody wanted to get bitten, if that's what you mean."
He rolled his eyes. "I meant medically, Yvarra."
She rolled hers in kind. "The Ilaranoran doctors believed one's sexual responses were not something to interfere with, and they did not know anything about Klingon or Betazoid physiology or any combination thereof." That was to the point.
He retrieved a hypospray and thumbed the chemical controls. He approached her with it, and she shied away, but eventually allowed him to inject the neural suppressant. And if that didn't work . . . he could always sedate her. He didn't want his Sickbay torn apart.
She continued to pace, waiting for the medication to take effect.
After a few moments, she seemed a little less irked. "Any help?" he inquired solicitously.
"Yes," was all she offered, opting to sit on the biobed again.
Well there's gratitude for you. "Good. Get some rest now."
"Thank you, Doctor."
He turned away in order to return to his desk. Curiosity got the better of him however, and he had to ask. "Yvarra, who was-"
"No, Doctor," she snapped. "Contain your curiosity. It's none of your business."
He sighed. She would never relent on that, he knew.
***
'Regeneration cycle complete.'
Kara stepped out of her alcove, flexing her stiff left hand almost unconsciously. Yvarra was not in the Cargo Bay, which meant she had stayed in Sickbay rather than regenerating. It was strange to "wake up" on Voyager, and stranger still not to see Yvarra immediately thereafter. That was irrelevant.
"Yvarra is not here," Andrew said, looking a little troubled.
Andrew had an enormous grasp of the obvious, she said as much, rather sarcastically.
"She must have stayed in Sickbay," he concluded, after directing a narrow look at her.
He was proving her point so well that she didn't have to.
"You're being disagreeable already," he muttered as they proceeded out the doors. Ichep walked somewhat behind them, silently. Seven, as usual, was already gone.
"So I am," she said coldly. "That can be attributed to poor rest."
"Nightmares again," he stated.
She gave him a cross look. "That is an assumption."
"Nevertheless, I am correct," he replied arrogantly. "I was having trouble as well."
Nightmares were not uncommon to them, and the strange thing was that they all seemed to have them at the same time, Yvarra included. Perhaps that was a product of their erstwhile link, or perhaps Yvarra's telepathy . . . maybe both. Either way, a rest-deprived ex-drone was not a pleasant thing to deal with. To top it off she had a small case of "the creeps" this morning. Her skin was crawling. She didn't know why. Perhaps the nightmares.
She flexed her partially numb hand. "That's unfortunate."
"And that was quite insincere. Your bad side is showing, Kara."
"Likewise."
She had to admit she was feeling disagreeable. Sometimes one just wants to lash out at things. They'd all just have to deal with it. Today was one of those days for Kara. She had them sometimes, and Andrew was never one to stand down an accept her bad moods gracefully like Yvarra did.
Today she would start to dismantle their small ship's engine. Lieutenant Torres was becoming increasingly difficult to deal with. She insisted the rest of the systems could wait for the engine, which was true . . . but the engines could wait with equal facility. The Lieutenant's attitude towards her personally was unmistakable. The Chief Engineer had been a member of the Maquis, and still seemed to hold their particular prejudices close to her heart. Kara was almost hoping for a confrontation today. She was in a fighting sort of mood.
She and Andrew parted ways without further comment in the corridor. Kara was alone as she stepped into the turbolift, and she stared rather stonily at the lift walls until it stopped at the doors opened. The Engineering crew was arriving just as she did, along with a distressed-looking Lieutenant Torres. The poor mood of the Chief Engineer was heightened by the fact that the Captain had forbidden her to do most of the manual work herself. Given the woman's pregnant girth it would have been quite difficult, but she continued to insist she was in no way hindered- even as she rubbed at aching muscles.
"About time you showed up," Torres snapped when she spotted Kara.
Kara glanced at her chronometer. "I am on time," she stated. Without further comment she entered the shuttle bay, feeling the other woman's glare boring into her back.
The crew had been waiting for her to arrive. Except for the Lieutenant, none of them knew anything about Borg technology, but they guessed with a certain modicum of accuracy. She gestured curtly to the two standing by the ship's open entrance. They followed her inside to the tiny, cramped engine room.
"These foremost components must be removed," she said, indicating six nondescript masses of Borg circuitry that were responsible for regulating the transwarp corridor in a myriad of ways. "Be careful with them. They are still required. Do not cut the cables, release them by pressing here." She indicated the thumb-sized release mechanisms.
The two crewmen nodded comprehension.
"If you require assistance, ask me or Lieutenant Torres. I will continue the work on the navigational console." She slid past them to the narrow exit.
The navigation systems were still a little too Borg for Lieutenants Torres' and Paris' liking. Kara was attempting to convert the amalgamated Borg and Ilaranoran controls into something a little more "Federation." She turned the power on, and the interior of the ship glowed greenly again. She retrieved the tiny tools she had left on Yvarra's customary chair and removed the panel on the bottom of the console, flipping herself into her back in order to manipulate the circuitry.
Someone entered the craft, an uneven stomp betraying Lieutenant Torres' presence.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
Kara did not emerge from under the console. "I am altering the navigational controls as you requested . . . to Lieutenant Paris' specifications."
"Why aren't you working on the engines?"
"With proper instruction, the work crew is competent enough to perform the simpler tasks themselves . . . unless you disagree?" She was unlikely to disparage her own crew.
There was a snort. "Just make sure it gets done."
Kara appeared from beneath the console, glaring at the other woman. "It will, Lieutenant, and must I remind you that while the work crew is yours, for the duration of this project I am not under your command. I am the one with the expertise here, and if you do not wish for my help, you can take it up with the Captain. I'm sure it will be hard justifying the waste of a transwarp coil."
Torres looked livid. She uttered a string of unsavoury Klingon curses.
"Your profanity is hardly impressive, Lieutenant. I know better words. Your dislike for Cardassians is also beyond the point. I am helping you of my own accord, and I will suffer no remorse should you force me to rethink my offer."
"Fine," she hissed. "I could do it myself anyhow."
"Doubtful," Kara replied, going back to her work. "Much of this technology is Ilaranoran, and Borg systems had changed since you escaped. You need my help. Admit that, and the situation will improve."
There was a long silence. "What else needs to be done around here?"
"The remaining alcove installments must be removed, but you are not permitted to do such work personally."
"I'm surprised you care."
"Your infant should not have to suffer for your stubbornness, Lieutenant." Kara stabbed rather irrationally at a circuit, causing a small shower of sparks. The console beeped protest for the assault.
"What did you do?"
"I cut a circuit. It is regenerating itself," Kara replied through grating teeth. "Go find something to do, Lieutenant. You are distracting me."
"God forbid," the other woman muttered sourly.
"Do you want this console operational, or not?"
Kara was startled when the Red Alert klaxon sounded, and Lieutenant Tuvok's impassive voice sounded over the ship's comm system. She had dropped the tiny tool she had been using, but quickly retrieved it and crawled out from beneath the console as the work crew rushed out of the shuttle bay once again. Lieutenant Torres shot her a look.
"Don't you have somewhere to be?"
"I have no Red Alert station . . . and I could ask you the same thing."
"The Captain doesn't want me 'exerting myself.' So no, I don't."
Kara rolled her eyes, and made no attempt to hide the fact.
***
Naomi Wildman had been sitting quietly in her quarters until the alarm sounded and her mother left. She had been rather carefully cutting out various coloured shapes from the bright paper she had saved her replicator rations for. She had a bottle of glue also -it had some long, involved chemical name, but she preferred to forgo that and just call it glue- and was busily pasting together a work of art for Neelix, whose kitchen needed some sprucing up.
The klaxon startled her slightly, but she had heard it before. She was left basically to her own devices, provided she didn't leave her quarters. Despite a little bit of nervous curiosity, she continued to cut paper at the coffee table.
Naomi didn't quite know what to make of these new crew members. She hadn't met them yet, but it seemed like they were more trouble than they were worth, from all accounts. The Klingon one was crazy, some said, and the one with gray skin, the Cardassian, was upsetting Lieutenant Torres. Not that it was hard to upset Lieutenant Torres. She hadn't heard much about the other one, except that he didn't like Chakotay much. But that was impossible. Everyone liked Chakotay. Now there was another Red Alert. Strange.
Naomi wondered what Seven thought.
Curiosity getting the better of her, she went to the door. It opened at her approach and she stuck her head into the hall. It was empty, though she could hear someone talking somewhere up the corridor. Sighing, she went back inside. Like as not, she'd never be told what happened when this was over, at least not fully, anyhow. At least the ship wasn't shaking . . . yet.
She sighed, putting the scissors in her pocket and going in search of her Flotter doll . . . just in case she needed him.
***
Yvarra fairly fell out of the turbolift and onto the bridge. Her hair was messy, she'd had no time to fix the problem. She had overslept a little, but the Red Alert had roused her, and a second thing had propelled her toward the bridge at record speeds. They were back, and whatever vehicle had conveyed them held more than drones.
"Yvarra?" the Captain asked, frowning.
"Transwarp conduit?" Yvarra asked at almost the same time.
Captain Janeway nodded. "Why are you up here? You're supposed to be in Sickbay."
"I had to be here. Captain, she's coming. I can feel it." Her skin was crawling too much for it to be a mistake. The stamp of the Borg Queen's presence was ingrained in her too well for mistakes.
The Captain took her meaning immediately, giving a little shudder of her own. "I'll take your word for it. Better safe than sorry I suppose. Make sure they can't transport over here, Mister Tuvok."
"Aye, Captain."
The Captain directed her look back at Yvarra. "I hope you can contain yourself."
"As do I," Yvarra replied. She couldn't predict it when she didn't even know what it was.
Harry Kim spoke. "We're being hailed."
"On-screen."
A morbidly familiar face appeared there, smiling gently at the tense group in the bridge. Yvarra's finely honed senses were not fooled. She shuddered eloquently. That woman was pure fear, her true name lost in the recesses of Collective knowledge long ago. She was the face of something that made whole quadrants shudder, and the nasty thing was that she liked it.
"Hello, Captain," she purred, her voice deceptively mild.
Captain Janeway made a face that was neither here nor there. It conveyed disinterest, even though to the empathically sensitive, she was wound rather tightly. "What do you want?" she demanded.
"Must you always assume I want something?"
"I know you. So, yes, I must."
The mood of the hulking entity beyond the hull shifted slightly, echoing the Queen's slight annoyance. "How very arrogant of you, Captain. However, you are also very astute. You always were."
"Thank you," the Captain said coldly. "So?"
"I want my drones back."
Yvarra felt suddenly cold. She didn't want to assimilate them again at all. She wanted to kill them, to dissect their brains for information like she had done to so many others. She wanted something from them. Something was scaring her badly, even though she hid it well behind her benign expressions and mild words. What did she want?
The Captain snorted. "I'm afraid I don't have any of your drones."
"My . . . fugitives, then, if you insist."
"You must be more specific. I have quite a few of those on my ship."
The Queen was annoyed with the Captain. "You are being difficult. You know what I mean."
"You're being surprisingly dense," the Captain retorted. "You know me well enough that I'm not going to give you anything but a headache."
"I'm disappointed in you. I thought you had more sense."
Yvarra began to laugh slightly. Oh, it was impossible . . . absolutely ridiculous. It's couldn't be true at all. She put a hand over her mouth. The Collective had never known she was there until it was too late. Malfunction.
"What is so amusing, Yvarra? Your future is at stake here."
Yvarra continued to laugh. "You fraud. Absolute fraud. I know full well what you're really thinking. You have not intention of re-assimilating me! You want to pull me apart so you can figure out what it was I started with my little exodus. You are afraid of me . . . you're afraid because I'm your big mistake, aren't I? So much for perfection."
"Yvarra!" the Captain hissed. "Are you all right?"
She ignored the question, fully latched onto the slowly shifting mood of the Queen. "How many so far?" she demanded of the Queen. "How many did I kick-start into leaving you?" It was preposterous, positively asinine that she -she- had managed to scare her would-be keepers.
"You only took two hundred and thirty-seven with you, Yvarra. Sorry to disappoint you."
"Liar."
The Queen gazed down at her with impassive eyes, all the while quite annoyed. "It is your mistake, Yvarra. Not mine." The transmission ended abruptly.
The Captain turned. "Yvarra, what the hell were-"
"Captain," Lieutenant Tuvok interjected. "Intruder alert, all decks."
So much for keeping them off the ship.
***
Naomi was very bored of sitting around now. She clutched her Flotter doll to her chest as she sat on the couch, waiting for Red Alert to stand down and the doors open to admit her mother. However, stand-down was never called. Instead, intruder alert was sounded. Eyes wide, she decided to hide behind the couch instead of sitting on it in the open. She set her doll down and pulled the scissors out of her pocket. They were no phaser, but they were something at least.
The doors opened once as she hid behind the couch, and the person it admitted was no one she knew. They did not call for her, and instead all she heard was a mechanical sort of whizzing sound as the person moved about the room. An intruder. She clutched the scissors and her doll tightly, trying not to let her quickened breathing betray her. The door opened again, and shut. The whizzing stopped.
After a long moment, very cautiously, she stuck her head up and peeked at the room. There was no one there. She panicked for a moment. She had to find someone. Her mother, or Neelix, or the Captain, or Seven. Someone. She scrambled out from behind the couch on her hands and knees and stood up, nervously approaching the door.
"Naomi to Ensign Wildman?" she whispered, tapping her comm badge. "Naomi to Neelix . . . Can anyone hear me?" The comm system was down. A bad sign.
The door opened quickly, making her jump, she looked up the hallway with wide, frightened eyes. There was no one there. No friend, but no intruder either. She slipped out, clutching her scissors with a white-knuckled hand. She crept as quietly as she could around the corner, heart beating far too fast.
Was that the whirring? She spun, brandishing her scissors in front of her, but there was nothing there. The ship rocked suddenly and she was thrown to the floor. Her eyes filled, but she stood up again and ran as fast as she could for the turbolift. There would be people on the higher decks. There always were. She decided to go to the Mess. She'd find Neelix there.
She scrunched down in the turbolift, opposite the door, frightened tears running down her face. The ship was being attacked, there were intruders . . . what if everyone was dead already? What if there was no one in the Mess Hall at all? The lights flickered, and went dark, the lift stopped.
"Nooooo," Naomi moaned, crawling blindly towards the turbolift doors. The emergency lights came on, but there were few of those in the turbolift. Her fingers scrabbled for purchase between the doors, seeing if she could pry it open. It was too hard for her, and she sat back down, sobbing quietly. What if they were all dead?
What if Life Support went off like the lights?
She hiccuped loudly, becoming panicked.
The ship lurched again, but this time the lights came on. The lift restarted. She took the opportunity to hit the emergency stop, and the doors opened to another empty corridor. She hadn't made it to the Mess, but maybe she could climb. Rising to her feet, she departed into to hall, red lights flashing in her eyes.
The whirring sound again.
She darted into the nearest room, which happened to be a small, unoccupied science lab. She picked the biggest console she could see and hid behind it.
"Computer, lights off!"
***
The component hit him in the back of the head with a dull, somewhat sickening thud. It was heavy, and produced predicable results. The drone collapsed where he stood, skull completely crashed in. He was not alone however.
"Run, Lieutenant!" Kara cried, pushing the protesting woman towards the door while the way was open.
Kara picked up another heavy chunk of metal from the floor, and threw it with deadly precision at the other drone. It caught him square in the solar plexus, the crunch nauseating to hear, but also surprisingly satisfying to her. Not taking no for an answer, Kara took Lieutenant Torres by the arm and propelled her out the door, pausing only to take the Lieutenant's sidearm and to survey the corridor beyond.
Torres wrenched her arm away. "No need to push," she growled.
"If you are going to put up a fight there is," Kara replied, indicating for the other woman to follow her. The Lieutenant did, though not without comment.
"Just don't touch me."
"Fine."
They proceeded silently up the hall, not even speaking to the occasional passing crewman. Kara knew where she was going. Sickbay, to find Yvarra, or failing that, the bridge. In fact, she wasn't sure why she kept the Lieutenant with her. It would be easy enough to leave her with the security personnel who rushed about. The ship gave a large lateral heave. Reflexively, Kara reached out to support the unbalanced Torres.
"I thought I said don't touch me!"
Kara's lip curled back. "Would you rather I had let you fall? We have better things to worry about. In fact, we should probably go to Engineering, although I was planning on Sickbay."
The other grunted. "Either is fine."
"Sickbay then," Kara stated as they approached the turbolifts. Unfortunately their way was blocked. The female drone slowly turned her head to regard them, and then started forward.
"Get back, Lieutenant!" Kara snapped, pushing her aside.
She took one second to reset the phaser and shot it at the drone. It barely hurt her, but it gave her pause long enough for Kara to rush her. She did a little more constructive dismantlement, relieving the drone of her neural connections as Yvarra had done.
"Will you stop that!" the Lieutenant screamed at her, as she continued to wrench components from the inert drone. It was a macabre endeavour, to be sure.
"Do you want to be assimilated again?" Kara asked coldly as they entered the turbolift, dropping writhing Borg items to the floor. "Do you want to be forced into labour and your infant placed in a maturation chamber? Because I could have left you down there."
The air left her lungs in the wake of a string of curses as Torres punched her hard in the ribs.
"I . . . assumed as much," she gasped. "Now . . . stop causing me trouble . . . when all I'm doing is trying . . . to keep the interface filaments and the nanoprobes out of your neck."
And the ship went dark, the turbolift stopped and the Lieutenant swore again.
Kara refused to panic or give in to the boiling anger that was rising in her. She moved forward, able to see quite well even in complete darkness and attempted to get her fingers between the doors. When she was unsuccessful, she hit the door with both fists, inflicting a large dent in the thin panel. It afforded her the handhold she needed, and the pulled the doors open with little effort. Needless to say they had not reached Sickbay.
There was a slight step down into the hallway, and the Lieutenant nearly fell, with only her feet to guide her until the emergency systems came on. Unfortunately, Kara had to catch her before she tumbled to the floor in the worst possible position. Instead of protesting, she groaned as Kara set her on her feet. Kara wanted to pretend she hadn't seen or felt the muscle spasm that took Torres.
"Lieutenant? Are you all right?"
Torres glared, even in the dark. "Yes, I'm . . . no, no I'm not."
Kara resisted the urge to utter a few obscenities of her own when she discovered her comm badge was not in working order.
***
She never saw it coming, but Chakotay did, although not in time to get her out of its path. A ceiling bulkhead fell, fortunately not taking her in the head, but it did knock the Captain to the floor with a thud, the strange angle of her lower leg from her knee proclaiming a break as she scrambled painfully to her feet, or rather to one foot.
"Mr. Tuvok, fire again. Hit that power subjunction they've got hanging out their side." Kathryn had been spouting a chilling amount of Borg terminology for the last few minutes, more chilling still, Tuvok knew immediately what she meant. It reminded Chakotay of other tense times.
There was a rather serious-looking gash on her forehead where a cable had struck her, and it began oozing blood. Without thinking Chakotay pulled the medkit from behind the command console and took out a piece of gauze. He when to her and pressed it to her head gently, since he knew she hadn't noticed it yet. She twisted away from him, glaring.
"What are you doing, Chakotay?"
"Trying to stop the bleeding," he said reasonably, applying the gauze again. He wished the bridge kit contained a dermal regenerator. "Hold still." He stepped closer to her, and the ship rocked, throwing her against him.
She blushed slightly and took the bloodied gauze, pressing it to her wound. She stepped purposefully away from him . . . or rather hopped on one foot. She needed to go to Sickbay before she went into shock, and she knew that's what he was thinking, and she was going to try her damnedest to stay on the bridge because of it.
"Tuvok, what's the status of that subjunction?"
"Damaged, but not destroyed."
"Fire until it is. Mr. Paris, when that cube powers down, get us out of here, maximum warp. It won't take them out for long, so find us a hiding place as soon as you can."
"Yes, ma'am."
The Captain stumbled over the fallen beam that had nearly brained her and sat in her chair, taking a rather panicked look at her leg, the lower part of which was turned in the wrong way entirely. Chakotay went to her and put a hand under her arm. He'd be damned if he was going to let her sit there until she fainted from shock, whether from the blood she was steadily losing from her head or the break.
"Sickbay, Captain," he said.
"But the cube! Let go of me! I have to stay here until that cube is disabled or better." The ship rocked under another volley of Borg fire. "And there's drones crawling all over the place down there." She managed to look about as moveable as an ossified tree.
He moved her anyhow. Strictly speaking, she was no match for him, unless one counted the blackest glare he had ever seen on her face. "Your knee is broken," he said, pulling her to her feet and making sure she didn't injure the joint further. "You're bleeding and you need to go to Sickbay. Tuvok can take care of it."
She wrenched her arm away violently, until she realize he was her source of balance and had to grab his wrist again. "You stay here then!"
"I know less about fighting the Borg than he does. Come on, Kathryn."
"No, dammit! Tuvok, is that subjunction disab-"
He had had enough of her. In the midst of a very un-captainly string of obscenities, he picked her slight form up and carried her struggling toward the turbolift.
"You are going to go now, while the lift system is still active." The power systems had been rather unpredictable, going off on several occasions already.
"Put me down," she hissed ominously, looking about ready to bash his skull in if he did not.
He continued towards the turbolift. "Calm down. Nobody's watching you humiliate yourself. If you were being reasonable, this would be much easier. But as it is, you are going to Sickbay, whether you like it or not."
"Fine," she growled, as they -or rather he- stepped into the turbolift. "But at least put me down." The doors swished shut.
"No," he replied after directing the computer. "Your leg is broken."
"That's an order!"
He set her on her feet rather expressionlessly, but kept a steadying arm under hers. Why was it that she always became the most unreasonable when it was her who was hurt? She put the damned ship before everything, even a knee that had to be painful enough to make her sick to her stomach, judging from her pinched look. She was going to kill him this way, some day.
"Chakotay, if you ever do that again I'll-"
"Save it for someone who will listen," he said. "Your forehead is still bleeding."
She produced a handkerchief from somewhere and wiped at the blood streaming down her temple. "You had better listen, Commander. Next time I won't go so easily."
"Next time I'll relieve you of duty and get Tuvok to call security personnel to escort you. Blood loss can cloud your cognitive ability, you know, and for your sake Tuvok would convince himself I'm right."
"The ship and the crew's more important than a cut!"
He gave her a level look. "And where would either be if you let something as stupid as blood loss and shock kill you before you would go to Sickbay?"
She winced as she pressed on the gash. "It wouldn't go that far."
"You're stubborn enough to let it without being dragged own here . . . Listen. The warp engines are online. Looks like Tuvok's smart enough to shoot the phasers without you."
"Shut up . . . why is it so cold in here?" she demanded.
"It's not. You're going into shock."
"You say it so blithely for someone so concerned," she grated.
"I'm still concerned, and I'm angry because you're so idiotic about things like this. Don't you think anyone is willing to take over for you when things like this happen? Or do you think none of us are smart enough to do it right? You don't have to wage war on the Borg all by yourself, you know. And didn't we call truce?"
She shivered slightly, and he resisted the urge to pull her closer to him. "Hell with truces! And yes I know, Chakotay, but what good am I as a captain if I can't captain my ship without pausing for every little problem?"
He made no attempt to hide is aggravation with her. "Broken bones and shock are hardly 'every little problem', Kathryn! That, and it wasn't so long ago that you were crying from exhaustion and worry. I told you then to let us handle it once in awhile. That's what the crew is here for, Kathryn, to do the work so you don't have to all the time."
She was silent for a moment. "You said to let you worry for me, not the crew," she corrected quietly.
"So I did. It doesn't make a difference. Either way, you need to realize that you aren't invincible at some point. I may be the only other person on the ship besides the Doctor who realizes that on a regular basis though." The problem was, while she was being taught never to back down, along the way she forgot how to, and when it was really all right, if not completely reasonable.
Thankfully, the power didn't go out again, but the comm system was still down. The ship was still on Red Alert, so the lights in the corridor beyond the lift were dim. And there were still drones on the ship, he was sure. He hoped no one had been caught by them.
There were a few people in the corridor outside the Sickbay, and against his better judgement, Chakotay spared Kathryn the apparent indignity of being carried. She instead used him as she crutch. To his eyes, she looked far more ridiculous hopping than being carried. Such was the nature of misplaced pride.
Three security officers stood outside the Sickbay doors with phaser rifles, ready to defend the location if it was necessary. They looked surprised when they saw the Captain, but merely acknowledged them with a nod as they went inside.
The interior of the Sickbay was somewhat crowded, though Chakotay was thankful that no one appeared to be afflicted with nanoprobe infusions, just cuts, bruises and other such things. A path parted for the Captain, triage submitting voluntarily to rank for a moment. Thankfully, she didn't try to protest, but merely told the Doctor to hurry up and move on to more pressing matters.
The Doctor squinted at Chakotay once as he ran a scan of the Captain's knee. "Have you heard anything from the lower decks?"
"Communications are down right now, why?"
"Lieutenant Torres is down there, along with Kara, by the accounts of the work crew that left them at Red Alert. Neelix was here for a while, looking for Naomi. Most of the crew is somewhere up here, and they say the power is still offline down there for the most part."
"Maybe B'Elanna and Kara went to Engineering. I'm worried about Naomi though. She was probably left alone," the Captain said, wincing as the Doctor shifted her swelling knee in order to do a visual inspection. "It's a good thing you were able to transfer to the mobile emitter."
"I always do on Red Alert," he stated. "I'm sorry, Captain, but all you managed to do was dislocate the joint. And the best cure for that is the oldest one, I've noticed."
"How could I dislocate a knee?" she demanded. Sighing, Kathryn ground her teeth and gripped the edge of the biobed. "Get on with it then."
"If it's at all possible, humans will dislocate anything," the Doctor muttered in a long-suffering tone of voice. "Commander, if you don't mind, I'm going to need your help. You must brace her from behind. This is going to require some pulling."
The captain looked uncomfortable as she moved back to the other edge. Chakotay slipped both his arms under hers, gripping her shoulders with his hands. He'd had to do similar things for the rather woefully medically inept Maquis he had served with, but none of them had ever blushed about it. "Hold my wrists, Captain," he said, bracing himself. "And try to stay seated."
She looked a little scared. "W-what about an anaesthetic or a-"
"Afterwards," he Doctor said, preparing himself. "Ready?" he asked Chakotay.
"Ready."
The Captain's eyes widened. "Wait a minute, I'm not r-"
She screamed once as the Doctor twisted her lower leg around to the right position. With an audible pop, the offending joint slid back into place. Chakotay let go of her as the Doctor pressed two hyposprays to her neck consecutively.
"That should take care of the pain . . . and the shock. Stay off that leg, Captain, until I have time to speed up the healing process some more. And I'm serious. I'll put you in restraints if I must." He picked up a dermal regenerator and took her chin in his hand, turning her head for access to the wound. "If anyone on this ship is likely to try walking around on an injured knee, it is you."
She eyes were slightly teary from the "relocation" of her joint, but she managed to look contrite as her wound was closed. "I don't need both of you after me. I'll stay off it until it's healed."
The doors opened, and the Doctor looked up, as well as Chakotay and the Captain.
It was Andrew, blood on his shirt and his facial implant bent in an appalling manner, having taken the flesh of his cheek with it. His eye was almost swollen shut, but he didn't seem to care, since when he turned he was quickly followed by Ichep who was supporting a very pale, staggering Seven of Nine.
"What happened?" the Captain demanded, moving off the bed on her one good foot so the young men could deposit Seven there.
Andrew looked more than injured, he looked a little panicked as his eyes searched the Sickbay. "Where is Yvarra?" he demanded.
"On the bridge," Chakotay replied, "and in better shape than you. What happened?"
"Three drones broke into Astrometrics," Ichep said, his eyes following the Doctor as he hovered over the prone Seven. "Andrew and I were able to disable two of them, Seven was not so lucky." His eyes wandered back to her.
That was when Chakotay noticed the exact nature of Seven's pallor and cringed. The veins in the right side of her neck and face stood in stark contrast to her paling skin, awash with dark nanoprobes. The two circular holes in her neck bled slightly. She was not unconscious however, and lifted her head to look at the panicked-looking Doctor and the Captain, who was on the verge of tearful rage at the sight of the mottled condition of Seven's face.
"Do . . . do not allow them to take Yvarra." Seven said, rasping slightly due to her forcibly inflicted tracheotomy.
"Why not Seven?" the Captain asked. "Are you linked with them?"
"Partially." Seven shuddered slightly. "They will kill her and extract her cortical node . . . since she was the first . . . to show the condition. During an assimilation a new technology was acquired that could . . . improve the cortical node's function . . . unfortunately . . . it compromised the failsafes, as the Doctor terms them. Any drone . . . assimilated within the last three years . . . has the malfunction . . . and it is spreading to the other drones . . . as they are upgraded. The empathic and telepathic ones . . . disconnect from the Collective and-"
Her eyelids drooped suddenly, and it seemed as if her train of thought was interrupted. "I am . . . Seven of Nine," she rasped desperately. "I am . . . an individual . . . I am Seven . . ."
"Fight, Seven!" the Captain said through clenched teeth. "Show them what we're made of!"
"I am . . . We are the . . . I will not comply! I . . . will . . . not . . ." She fell unconscious as the Doctor pressed a hypospray to her neck. If the hologram had been predisposed to crying, Chakotay thought the Doctor would have been. He was more than a little suspicious that the Doctor's feelings for his protégée ran a little deeper than the hologram would admit.
The Captain was crying, though angrily. Woe to the Borg for this. "Can you stop the process, Doctor?" she demanded, at once furious and hopeless-sounding.
"The assimilation nanoprobes have already reached her brain, but . . . they will not progress now. If I can extract the majority of them, we can rely on her immune system to do the rest for her. The biggest problem is keeping her original systems from cooperating with it."
Andrew, who had initially only seemed interested in where Yvarra was, emitted the closest thing to a human snarl as Chakotay had ever heard. "This is not the how we are supposed to be!" he yelled, slamming a fist on the Sickbay wall. "They will not do this again to us! And not once to anyone else! I'll pull the connections out of her skull myself! She cannot do this to people!" There was little doubt who the "she" was that he was referring to with that last statement.
The Captain looked almost equally enraged. "Not without my help, you won't."
Chakotay merely looked down at Seven. "What was she going to say?" he asked quietly. "What happens to the empathic drones? What do they do?
Andrew proceeded to stalk out of the Sickbay. "I know what they do!" he cried wrathfully. "They get angry like Yvarra did and they transmit!" He stormed out of the room, having no care for his injuries.
"Where his he going?" the Doctor demanded.
The Captain flexed her fingers like claws. Apparently she was taken by whatever had affected Andrew, though to a lesser degree. "He's going to commit some productive murder," she said. "And I'd like to join him if I didn't know that you and Chakotay would sit on me if I tried."
Chakotay frowned. "But, if that's what's wrong, why did they just leave those other drones on some M-class planet?"
Ichep passed a hand over his eyes wearily. "They didn't. They killed every last drone on that cube that did not take well to disconnection. Two-hundred and thirty-seven people killed roughly ten thousand other drones."
"How do you know?"
"Seven told me when the Collective accessed her as we were coming here. Yvarra didn't disable the interlink systems initially, she merely relieved it of its users."
"Then she was lying to us?" Chakotay demanded. He had a person who had led the murder of thousands on this ship?
"No. She can't remember, neither can the others. The malfunctioning failsafes were activated at first by their anger, but only served to alter a few memory anagrams at the time. Yvarra remembers being angry, and disabling something. Andrew remembers Yvarra speaking with him telepathically, and linking with him upon his disconnection, nothing more. I have not heard Kara's story, but I assume it is fragmented as well. They also left the drones on an M-class planet, but dead, the beacon serving as a message to the Borg."
Chakotay, found himself having to restrain the Captain as she muttered dire implications about the Borg. "Such convenient amnesia."
"It is the truth, Commander. It was a malfunction, as Seven said. They could not help it. They remember all things subsequent to that though."
"But why rage?" the Doctor demanded. "Of all the things an empath could pick up on a Borg ship, why not fear?"
Ichep shrugged. "Perhaps rage is more easily registered. Perhaps it is because not all those assimilated showed fear, while almost all but the ones with Vulcan-like qualities felt anger. I cannot say. Only that it is happening, and it is felling drones by the hundreds of thousands now, if not millions."
The Doctor seemed to think of something. "You know . . . Yvarra has a genetic deficiency that does not allow her to block out certain emotions. She also seemed assume the feeling herself . . . perhaps she registers anger that way. She is Klingon, after all."
Chakotay frowned. "What other emotions does she have trouble with?"
The Doctor winced. "She wouldn't want me to tell you." It was left at that.
After a moment, the Captain was somewhat calmer, though only somewhat. "The loss of so many people is unfortunate, you know . . . but I doubt I'm going to find myself intervening on behalf of the Borg. If it cripples them like it must be to have the Queen so scared, I can hardly object to it. We will not let her have Yvarra, not even if they take this ship out from under us."
***
"You must be calm, Lieutenant," Kara said, supporting the distressed woman as she paced back and forth in the dark science lab. The power was still not reactivated, and Kara was forced to guide Torres by the arm.
"Calm? Calm!? How can I be calm?" she demanded, breathing quickly.
Logic kicking in, Kara started a verbal inventory. "I do not have a medical tricorder, however the one over there can read measurements and life signs. I do not have clamps, I do not have blankets, though our garments may suffice, I do not have water, I do not have scissors or any other cutting device-"
"Will you stop it! You are not delivering my baby!"
"You cannot climb Jeffrey's tubes in your condition. The turbolift is inoperative, and we are not anywhere near Sickbay. I am forced to ask what our alternatives are."
Torres was silent but for her panting.
"I have scissors," came a small voice.
They both stopped, Torres squinting ineffectually in the dark and Kara watching a small figure emerge from behind a large work console. "Naomi Wildman," she concluded verbally. The only child on board . . . at present. "What are you doing here?"
"I was . . . hiding from the intruders. I couldn't find anyone. I was trying to get to the Mess Hall, but the turbolift stopped, and the comm didn't work and the intruder came back and I hid in here." It all came out in a rush. "Who are you? I know Lieutenant Torres."
"I am Kara."
"Oh . . . is she gonna have her baby?"
Kara reached out to stop the approaching child before she ran into them, remembering that neither of her present companions could see in the dark. "Unless circumstances change, yes. You said you have scissors?"
"Yes . . . why do you need scissors?"
"To cut the umbilical cord when the infant is born. It is an unrefined method, but outside of a medical facility it is the only means available."
Torres elbowed her sharply. Kara was vaguely grateful for Borg reinforcements. "You are not delivering my baby!!" the gasping woman said again. Torres put her hands to her lower back, gasping. There was a small sound, that Kara was sure only she heard, but the Lieutenant was the one who felt it, and she swore sulfurously. The Lieutenant's erroneously termed "water" had broken.
"I think that maybe I am going to have to, unless you do not want assistance?"
Torres groaned. "Shut up."
"Stay here for a moment," Kara said. She went to the side console and retrieved the tricorder. She directed it at the Lieutenant, and the device cast a little light on her face. The other two in the room looked at her with surprise.
"You must continue walking, Lieutenant."
"Why?"
"Because it is good for you," Kara snapped. "And it may speed dilatation. I must admit I know little about a combination Klingon/Human birth process. Just walk Lieutenant, as you were. I will tell you if you are about to bump into something."
"I can barely contain my relief."
So Torres paced, occasionally pausing for her increasingly frequent contractions. Kara was slightly impressed by the other woman's resolution, vicariously gained birth experiences floating through her memory. Few were especially pleasant, even if only hazy. The memories belonged to other people, after all. Torres continued to pace until she was too tired, and which point she settled painfully to the floor with Kara's help. Naomi merely appeared a little frightened at the woman's groans of pain, though a little curious also.
Kara turned the tricorder on again. "You must remove your lower garments."
"Wha-at?"
"It will be difficult to give birth with your pants on, Lieutenant," Kara said.
"Oh."
"Do not worry. It is dark. Do you require assistance?"
"No," came the embarrassed reply.
Kara did inventory once again, becoming rather nervous now. Naomi Wildman's scissors, the Lieutenant's pants, the tricorder. Nothing to tie with, not clamps. She could do that with her fingers, provided Naomi Wildman would cut the cord. No water. She needed something to wrap the infant with, and something to clean it with. She took her own shirt off. It was dark anyhow, and the infant would need it more than she did.
"Naomi Wildman, I will require the ribbon you are wearing in your hair."
The girl reached up and pulled it out without objection. She was far more tractable than the Lieutenant. "Should I hold B'Elanna's hand?" she squeaked.
"No, she's likely to break it."
The woman in question grunted indelicately.
Kara glanced at the tricorder. She wished the power would come back on. "Naomi Wildman, keep attempting to contact Sickbay, or anyone, while we are here. Lieutenant Torres, you are fully dilated. You must push when the contraction takes you. Do you know if the infant has turned?"
Torres nodded in the dark, gasping slightly. "Yes. The Doctor told me she had a while ago."
"Good. Push, Lieutenant."
***
The bridge was quiet with the Commander returned. Harry Kim tapped rather dejectedly at his console. Power was down on five decks at least, they were trying to hide from the Borg and the Commander reported that Sickbay was rather full, with Seven of Nine having been attacked by a Borg drone. Tuvok's console still proclaimed intruder alert, but on a higher note that the security teams were having great success in disabling the drones, since for some reason they did not adapt to the phaser fire very well.
He could tell Tom was getting nervous. There was no news of B'Elanna, and Harry had a terrible hunch that his friend's wife was on one of the disabled decks. Of course she may have made it to Engineering. . . . At any rate, things were not looking so good. That cube wouldn't stay disabled forever, and it would come looking for them soon enough.
Yvarra stood near the Captain's chair, frowning at intervals and glaring at nothing at others. Harry had never been quite sure of her, but now less than ever. She seemed distracted, perhaps by something she sensed, or by something she was thinking of. The fact that she had laughed -laughed!- at the Borg Queen suggested there was something strange going on. That, and the Borg Queen had, in retrospect, seemed really anxious to get her hands on Yvarra.
Communications were still down, unfortunately, and Chakotay seemed impatient to hear word from Engineering, and perhaps to get some commentary from Sickbay, where he had left the Captain.
"Tom, have you found us anywhere to hide?" Chakotay asked.
"Uh . . . I've set a course for a red giant. It's got enough of a magnetic field to mess up anyone's sensors, including ours. I'll have to do this manually, but if we get close enough it should hide us pretty well."
Harry shook his head. "But we'll be flying blind."
"That doesn't matter for now," Chakotay said. "All we need is a good hiding spot, not full sensors. It'll have to do. It's pretty empty space out there anyhow. Right now I'm more concerned about whatever drones are still on the ship."
"There are fourteen remaining," Yvarra offered. "One has been disabled however."
"Just now?" Chakotay asked.
Yvarra nodded, looking slightly troubled. "By Andrew, actually. He's faster than the security teams. Commander . . . I apologise for putting your crew and ship in this situation. Apparently it is my fault."
The Commander nodded slowly. "So you know now what happened?"
"Andrew told me what Seven discovered," she said, looking distracted again. "Perhaps it is better that I do not fully remember the event."
Harry had no idea what they were talking about, but it was obviously important if it made Yvarra think it was her fault the Borg were after them. It seemed unlikely.
"Maybe. But it isn't your fault. It's theirs . . . how come the Captain was affected?"
Yvarra shrugged. "The anger is largely her own, however I may have influenced her unintentionally. I apologize for that also."
The Commander turned his attention back to the view screen. It would have been nice if someone had offered an explanation for that. The Captain was affected by what? Why was Andrew on some kind of warpath on the lower decks?
Suddenly, Yvarra jumped slightly, brow furrowing. "Commander!"
"What is it?"
"It's Lieutenant Torres!"
Tom nearly fell out of his chair as he turned to look at Yvarra. "What? What's wrong with her?"
Yvarra shook herself, staring at nothing. "Nothing is . . . wrong with her. She is in labour."
Tom moved so fast out of the bridge, Harry nearly missed the movement. Chakotay stared at Yvarra instead, his own concern apparent.
"Is she alone?" he demanded.
"No. Kara is with her, and Naomi Wildman, I believe. Lieutenant Paris will never reach her in time to . . . not until power is restored in that area. I cannot pinpoint the exact deck."
Chakatoy sat heavily in his chair. "Take the helm, Yvarra. And tell me if anything happens to B'Elanna."
Harry swallowed convulsively. The day was just getting worse with every minute. Next thing he knew the drones would be in the bridge or something, if this sort of luck held out. He couldn't tell what kind of progress was being made on the power failure, or even whether any was being attempted. This was one of the worst possible times not to know such things. The view screen and half of his console went blank.
"Sensor dark," Yvarra murmured from the conn. "We have entered orbit of the star."
"Are we close enough for there to be problems?" Chakotay asked, looking with a frown at the dark screen.
"No. We are far from the star itself, but the magnetic interference here is sufficient."
Chakotay nodded, his stress finally showing as he lifted a slightly shaking hand to his forehead.
***
Naomi Wildman was scared. She couldn't see anything of course, but she could hear, and B'Elanna was screaming. She thought the Lieutenant might even be swearing, from the tone, but she didn't know any Klingon. Kara was not calm anymore. Her previously level voice shook a little as she coached B'Elanna in the darkness. It had been hours already.
Naomi clutched he scissors tightly. Kara had said she would have to help eventually, but she couldn't see! Or at least not anything but the tricorder Kara had set on the floor beside her. She sat with her back to a console, wincing when B'Elanna screamed.
Nervously, she tapped her comm badge for what seemed like the five millionth time. "Naomi to the bridge," she said. "Naomi to anyone. Please respond."
Kara said something under her breath.
"What!?" B'Elanna demanded, breathing heavily.
"The infant has become entangled," Kara muttered. Naomi heard her move.
"Is she choking?" B'Elanna asked desperately.
"No. However the cord is around the infant's neck."
"Then how can you tell she's not choking!?"
"By her colour. She is not lacking oxygen. I must cut the cord now. Your scissors, Naomi Wildman."
Naomi proffered them into the darkness, and they were quickly taken. She snatched her hand back, crossing her arms about herself. She wanted her mother. She didn't know much about what happened when babies were born, but was it supposed to hurt B'Elanna so much? It didn't seem worth it when it required screaming for hours. The scissors clicked, and there was a strange sound.
"Once more, Lieutenant."
B'Elanna grunted heavily, and there was a gross sound.
Kara was working fast in the darkness, her arm obscuring the lighted tricorder at quick intervals. Was the baby born? Weren't babies supposed to cry?
"Why isn't she crying?" Naomi asked.
"Her airways are obstructed."
B'Elanna sobbed. She never cried.
"It is nothing adverse. I can clear them. Do not worry." There was tense silence for a moment, and a small breath from Kara. Then there was an outraged wail.
"Take the infant, Naomi."
"Me?!" She didn't know how to hold a baby. She couldn't even see the baby!
The baby was put in her arms. She was warm, and wrapped up in something. Naomi shuddered a little when she discovered that the baby's skin was slightly damp. The baby was still crying, and Naomi felt a small fist hit her chest lightly. She was afraid to hold her too hard, but also afraid of dropping her.
"You are doing fine, Naomi Wildman," Kara said reassuringly.
"What are you doing?"
"You do not want to know."
So Naomi waited. What were they going to do now? Shouldn't the baby and Lieutenant Torres go to Sickbay? But B'Elanna couldn't climb all the way up there, and someone would have to carry the baby too. The communicators still weren't working . . . What if they were the only ones left on the ship? What if the Doctor was gone?
"What are we going to do now?" she asked in a small voice.
"We will wait until the power is reinitialized and we can use the turbolifts."
"What if it never is?"
"The power will come back on. Yvarra knows were we are at least."
"How?"
"She is telepathic. Please cease your questioning."
She sounded like Seven on a bad day, only nervous. "Are you scared?"
"No."
"What happened to Lieutenant Torres?"
"She is exhausted. She has lost consciousness . . . which is probably a good thing since I imagine she is in a great deal of pain right now."
Naomi held the baby, who had ceased crying. She thought she must be asleep too. "The baby doesn't have a name."
"Names can wait."
"What happened?"
There was a pause. "Specify. When do you mean?"
"What happened to Voyager?"
"The Borg attacked and boarded the ship."
"Are they gone?"
"I do not know," Kara said with a note of finality. "Please be quiet now."
Naomi thought Kara was tired, or at least she sounded tired. She leaned back against the console, holding the baby in her lap. Not that she knew anything about it, but she imagined that the baby would be hungry soon. After all, she hadn't eaten yet, not ever.
She wasn't the only child on the ship anymore. What a strange thing. She was still the first one born there, but now another baby had been born in the Delta Quadrant on Voyager. In a science lab. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, she didn't think. The Doctor was supposed to deliver babies . . . but it was a good thing Kara had been there, even if B'Elanna didn't like her all that much. Maybe she would change her mind now. Or maybe not. Lieutenant Torres was stubborn.
She heard Kara stand. "We are going to move out into the corridor."
"Why?"
"Because in the event that someone must come looking for us, it is more efficient to be in an area they are likely to look. That, and there are emergency lights in the hall way. Do you know of any place in this area were we could procure flashlights?"
"No. Sorry."
"You must carry the infant. I will move the Lieutenant."
"Is it safe? I mean for her? You said she was unconscious."
Naomi heard what must have been Kara lifting B'Elanna from the floor. When she was disturbed, the Lieutenant groaned.
"She will not be damaged. She is not bleeding, and is merely exhausted and experiencing a buildup of lactic acids in her muscles. She is in pain, but she is all right. Do not worry. Be careful when you stand."
Naomi clutched the baby to her chest, standing a little unsteadily without the aid of her hands. She could feel Kara's eyes on her, even in the dark, making sure she was able to rise without dropping the baby. The newborn wailed, protesting at being moved.
"Turn ninety degrees to your left, and walk straight ahead. There is nothing barring your path," Kara offered as Naomi squinted out into the blackness.
She did as she was told, and started tentatively forward, following the sound of Kara's footsteps. They had to stop so Kara could push the unpowered door open a little wider to allow her to carry B'Elanna out into the dim corridor.
Naomi's eyes had to adjust to even the infinitesimal light in the hallway, since she had spent hours in the pitch darkness. She took the moment to look down at the baby. The infant's forehead was almost smooth, but a slight shadow showed some ridges. She had a little bit of dark hair at the crown of her head, and Naomi noticed that her head was slightly peaked. She hoped it wouldn't stay that way. Looking at Kara, Naomi grimaced. The ex-drone's gray-coloured arms were covered in something that looked unpleasantly like blood and something else, all the way up to the middle of her forearms. She was also bare to the waist except for her undergarment, since her shirt was wrapped around the baby.
"Isn't that kind of gross?" Naomi asked, sitting down carefully on the floor.
Setting the sleeping woman down, Kara proceeded to wrap the pants around the Lieutenant's lower body in an attempt to cover her. B'Elanna's stomach was much flatter now. "Gross . . . ? It is unavoidable, and probably cleaner than many things. It is not 'gross,' really."
"Well I think it is."
"Then we are fortunate you did not have to deliver the infant." Kara glanced down at herself, making a small face. "However, I'm must admit I am hardly presentable."
"It doesn't matter. Anyone would understand . . . but you don't get embarrassed, do you?"
Kara shrugged slightly. "I have never been in a situation that seemed embarrassing to me."She sat down, leaning against the opposite wall from Naomi. She had never gotten a good look at Kara in the few days they had been aboard, and her immediate impression was that the ex-Borg was very tall and broad shouldered. She supposed maybe that was the way Cardassians were, but she had never met one before Kara. Naomi didn't understand why some many people had taken an immediate dislike to her. She didn't seem so bad at all. A little Borg-ish, maybe, but so were four other people on the ship for that matter, and that didn't really bother Naomi all that much.
"Well that's good," Naomi concluded. "Being embarrassed is bad."
"Yes."
"But you just said you've never been-"
"Prior to my assimilation I was as easily embarrassed as anyone. It was taught not to show it, however. My father considered such things a weakness."
Naomi didn't know her own father. She didn't know quite what it was like to have one. She had Neelix of course, but she thought that must be a little different. "That doesn't sound nice at all."
Kara raised an eyebrow. Did all freed drones do that, or was it just her imagination? "It was not. My father was not a nice man. I respected him because I had to . . . however I do not like him nor do I hold to his ideals."
"That's sad," Naomi said, shifting the baby in her arms so her crossed legs could do more of the work. "People should like their fathers."
"Ideally, yes, but not all fathers are good ones. It is a fact of life."
"Who is your father?"
"He was a Cardassian soldier. Now he is Four of Twelve, Secondary Tactical Subunit of Unimatrix Five Zero Eight Five."
Naomi blinked. "He's a drone?"
"Yes. It's part of the reason I reject his principles. I know exactly what he thought and why he did things. He didn't love me any more than I him. He is an unworthy individual. He makes a good tactical drone, however."
"That's not nice at all, Kara. No one deserves to be a drone."
"He hasn't done anything in his life to warrant freedom. But I suppose you are correct."
Naomi looked down at the baby, who was sleeping. "Well, at least she'll have a good father."
"I do not know Lieutenant Paris, but I assume you are correct on that point also. The infant has also entered a very large family, I think."
"Yeah."
There was a sound at the end of the corridor. Kara produced a phaser from somewhere, and stood, gazing down the hall. There was a bumping sound and a low curse, and the sound of someone falling to the floor, most likely from a Jeffrey's tube. Not a drone, anyhow. Someone had found them.
"B'Elanna?!"
That someone was Tom Paris. Naomi thought this was one of those times to use one of her mother's old expressions -speak of the devil. It had taken him long enough . . . although he must have had to crawl through most of the Jeffery's tubes on the ship to have found them.
Kara put the sidearm away. "Your wife is unconscious, Mr. Paris," she said as running footsteps sounded in the hall. Tom emerged from the shadows, looking panicked.
"What?" he demanded, looking at Kara and his sleeping spouse alternately.
"Do not be alarmed. She is merely exhausted. You have a daughter, Lieutenant."
Tom turned very slowly to look at Naomi and the small person she was holding. Despite Kara's assurances, he did look alarmed as he beheld his child. He ran a shaking hand through his hair.
"Do you want to hold her?" Naomi asked, preparing to lift the infant.
His eyes widened. "I-I'd drop her."
Kara rolled her eyes. "No you wouldn't," she stated.
"She's so small!"
"Most infants are small, Lieutenant," Kara replied mildly, as if he were the child.
Naomi had a thought. "Give Kara your jacket," she told Tom. "She gave her shirt to the baby."
Lieutenant Paris agreed wordlessly, to distracted to object as he shrugged the coat of his uniform off and gave it to Kara, although never taking his eyes off the baby. He looked dumbfounded, to say the least. Naomi stood up unsteadily, and held the baby out. Her arms were tired anyhow.
"You hold her," she said.
He could hardly protest. He reached down and took the newborn with shaking hands, eyes wide enough to fall out of his head. Naomi giggled. Tom was funny like that, sometimes. He could be so collected and then suddenly so awkward. She shook her arms out a bit.
"W-we have to go to Sickbay," he managed.
"How would we get your wife there, Lieutenant? I can't carry her up a Jeffrey's tube, and nor can you carry the infant up."
Tom Paris stared at the Cardassian as she pulled his jacket on. "Thank you," he said finally.
"For what, Lieutenant?"
"For saving my family."
"I did not save your family, Lieutenant. Besides, could I have done any less?"
He looked back down at the baby, wrapped in Kara's dark-coloured shirt. "You certainly could have. Just accept it, Kara. It'll make me feel better, if nothing else."
Kara sat back down on the floor. "Fine. You are welcome, Lieutenant."
And the lights came back on.
***
The Captain wished the Sickbay had view ports. It made it feel that much more cramped without them. She also wished the comm system was working. At least that would have afforded her some warning before a rather careworn group consisting of B'Elanna, Tom, Kara, Naomi and their newest yet-unnamed crew member had burst in. They had caused quite a commotion at first. No one had expected a birth at a time like this.
The Doctor proclaimed both the mother and the baby in fine health, thanks to the efforts of one Cardassian ex-drone, who stoically replied that women had been having babies long before there was medical practises to aid them, and that she had done nothing that would have changed the outcome. The Doctor disagreed however, and Kara endured the praise heaped on her by the crew in the Sickbay silently. Maybe this would be the turnaround in some of the crew's attitude towards her. Kathryn liked that prospect.
Kara's reaction to Seven's condition was somewhat strange however. She stared at the unconscious woman for several minutes, grinding her teeth audibly before letting out a long breath and settling to the floor beside Seven's biobed, staring at nothing for a while, apparently lost in thought.
Due to the slight crowding, Kathryn was relegated to sitting on the floor as well -for hours now- with the Doctor stopping by at intervals to check her knee and run various little tissue regeneration devices over it to repair torn cartilage, stretched tendons and ligaments and the like. It was still sore, and more than slightly swollen, but it was better than before.
She leaned back against the wall. She hated inactivity. Positively hated it . . .especially when the comm was down and there was no way to contact the bridge or Engineering or anyone outside the room she was in for hours on end. It was ridiculous. She didn't know how people had done it before communications technology was invented, but she bet is caused the people in charge a lot of aggravation. Of course those hazy historical types of people would never have been stranded in the Delta Quadrant on a starship that was presently hiding or attempting to hide from the Borg. Surprisingly enough, she didn't have a headache yet. Maybe it was just the Doctor's painkillers.
It was not that she didn't trust Chakotay to get the job done and done well, as he had suggested earlier, annoying man that he was. Far from that. The fact merely remained that she didn't like to be out of commission. Never had. Never would. Never . . . despite his protestations that she needed to give herself a break now and then. She probably did, but what kind of person thinks of taking breaks when every other time is a time like this- when you've got the Borg breathing down your neck or some such? She wouldn't be much of a Captain that way, that was for sure.
And why was he so concerned anyhow? Couldn't he just let it be until it seemed serious? It wasn't serious at all, not enough to warrant all the nagging she was subjected to.
Maybe he thinks it is serious.
The Captain jumped slightly, then frowned. Just her luck . . . she had thought that up all on her own. Even her own mind was disagreeing with her. She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. She had neither the time nor the patience for this. Well, given her present location, maybe there was time. But she didn't want to. Chakotay could just go bury it, for all she cared.
Assuming at the moment that I don't like his constant henpecking . . . what would I do if he stopped it? Seemed indifferent to me?
That did it. She slammed one fist on the floor. "Doctor!" she demanded.
He approached her, looking down from where he stood. "Yes, Captain?"
"By any chance do any of these drugs you've been forcing on me cause impaired judgement?" They had better, or she was really and truly going crazy now.
He blinked. "No, Captain. Star Fleet medical protocol prohibits the use of impairing treatments on crew members, especially senior officers, unless it is absolutely necess-"
She waved him off. "I get the picture, Doctor. Go back to what you were doing."
Maybe it was just caffeine deprivation. That was known to make her act a little strangely on occasion, especially when deprived and pursuing her fix, which she wasn't now, but the fact remained. Or maybe she was just crazy. That was always a possibility.
And then again I might not be. Can I avoid this forever?
She would have sworn at herself if she had been alone. Hell yes, she could avoid it until she died if she had to, coward that she was. Here she was quite ready to face down the Borg personally if the need came, but at the while she was equally ready to cringe and hide when anything so much as hinting at personal crept up on her. Some brave Star Fleet Captain she was. She hit the floor again, frustrated. And this was no time to be thinking about it either.
But why won't I concede anything?
She was going to stop right now. The Borg were out there probably hovering right over their heads and she was tearing herself apart about her First Officer?
Well there's something. But I can't even admit anything to myself?
Admit what?! What the hell is there to admit?
That I'm lonely?
. . . Sure. I'm in the bloody Delta Quadrant! Of course I'm lonely.
Arguing with herself. She was going crazy, if not there and back already.
Admit it Kathryn Janeway, you let it get to you.
"Let it get to me?" she muttered.
His smile.
She resisted the urge to cross her eyes in a juvenile display of exasperation she had rid herself of years ago, and instead just tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling of the Sickbay. Chakotay had been right. There were two people named Janeway. The Captain and Kathryn. Damn him. He was always right. Did he know that, or was it just innate? It had better be innate, or she was going to kick him.
The Doctor was treating Seven again, hovering over her with an expresssion on his face that was painful to look at. He would never forgive himself if he couldn't save her this time, that Kathryn knew for certain. Despite his protestations to the contrary, Seven was a favourite of his, if not something more. He was as bad as she was about that sort of thing. She hid behind the Captain, he his behind his programming. It was that simple.
"How's it going, Doctor?" she asked quietly.
He looked up from his charge almost reluctantly. "Well enough, all things considered. I still have a lot of nanoprobes to extract. It's a good thing I remember how to differentiate between them and her own."
"Well they look different, for one," the Captain supplied absently.
"And they behave differently," Kara murmured from her side. "And when scanned emit a different signature."
Tom Paris looked over at them from where he was treating a crewman's lacerated hands. "Will you guys stop that? You're creeping me out."
Kathryn smiled her crooked smile. "I had no idea you were so sensitive, Mr. Paris. I'm sure if she was awake, B'Elanna could even offer something."
He looked slightly hurt, and she immediately regretted her statement. She was in an peculiar mood at the moment. "Don't remind me," he said.
"Sorry, Tom," she said. "I'm just feeling a little strange right now."
Kara nodded, either in comprehension or agreeing to something unsaid. "It's because they're so close. Too close. We have noticed it before. I can almost hear them."
"Like whispering," Ichep said from where he had been standing silently for what seemed like hours.
"Or a crowd through a wall," Kathryn said, closing her eyes.
"Hmm," Kara said nodding. "I suppose it never leaves you. The uncomfortable thing is that I sometimes find myself trying to hear them. I do not know why."
"Please," Tom begged from across the room, not even turning to look at them.
"Sorry," they all said at once.
"That's worse!"
Kara sighed. "Like I said. They are too close, and I think Seven's predicament is making our turn of thought a little morose."
"No one talks about the Borg because they want to," Ichep said in his quiet manner. "They just come up."
"Stop!"
Kathryn made a face. "Calm down, Tom. You can cope with a little creeping, I think."
"Not when I don't have to," he muttered, grabbing a medical tricorder.
The Captain turned her attention back to the Doctor. "You know, Doctor, we could save you some of the trouble of keeping her systems from accepting the nanoprobes, if Kara is agreeable. She's the only one with interface abilities anymore." Why hadn't she thought of this hours ago?
The Doctor looked up. "I'm listening."
"Seven's systems are so well integrated that you had to leave most of them intact, while for I example was easier to remove implants from. She retains the ability to do a little assimilating of her own, on the small scale. With a little outside instruction she could absorb the assimilation nanoprobes into her own systems." Her mind was awash with Borg knowledge for a moment. If she'd had the mechanical ability, she could have done the job herself. "You know what I mean, don't you, Kara?"
Kara stood. "Yes, Captain. I am surprised I did not think of it myself."
"See, Tom? Good things can come from mulling over the Borg."
The pilot-turned-medic grimaced at her for a moment, and resolutely turned his back as Kara linked herself to the prostrate Seven, who stirred slightly at the intrusion. Kara could be seen flexing the numb hand she held near to the blond woman's face, brow furrowed. The Cardassian had been doing a lot of work today, and the strain showed as her mind visibly toiled to force Seven's Borg implants into submission.
"Trouble, Kara?" she asked when the previously stoic young woman bared her teeth in nothing short of a silent challenge.
"I'm having to . . . fight with the Collective a bit. That, and Seven herself is stubborn, even when unconscious. I think I have you to thank for that, Captain," Kara muttered, grating her teeth again slightly.
"No problem."
The Doctor looked positively delighted as Seven's colour slowly -very slowly- returned to some semblance of normal. The dark streaks in her face and neck receded into nothingness, and Seven's eyes flew open, glaring deep blue murder at Kara. Kathryn was torn between crying and laughing at her. She'd never seen such an expression on Seven's face.
Kara shook her head. "Do not do that. It is bad enough the Collective was trying to get me through you. Verbalize." She did not however, terminate her link to Seven.
The other subsided a bit, looking pointedly at Kara's hand where it was poised above her eye. "If it bothers you, go away."
Kara rolled her eyes. "I'm not done yet. You know that."
The Captain did laugh at them. Leave it to Seven to greet freedom with an argument. They were acting like children, actually. Kathryn supposed they both now knew each other a little better than they wanted to. Why hadn't she thought of that solution sooner? It was so simple, and fast it seemed. The Doctor was well nigh turning backflips. He fumbled for his tricorder.
Kara disengaged her black link filaments from Seven's facial implant, once again flexing her hand absently and looking with what seemed like different eyes at the crew members around her. Come to think of it, her expression was much like one Seven often wore.
"If I ever have to do that again, I'm going to warn her first," Kara muttered, settling to the floor again and blinking her eyes like she'd just woken up. "My mental ears are ringing, if that makes any sense."
"Welcome back, Seven," Kathryn said as Seven sat up on the biobed, trying to work the stiffness from her neck.
"Strange greetings you send me, Captain," she said, looking strangely at Kara, who merely looked straight back. "It seems congratulations are in order for you, Lieutenant Paris." She hadn't even looked in the direction of B'Elanna and the baby, nor at Tom, who glanced at her with surprise. Kathryn didn't have to ask how she knew. Seven stood up.
The Doctor gave them all a look. "Sit down, Seven," he snapped irritably at his charge. "You're not ready to go back to work yet."
"I feel fine," she said.
"That doesn't mean you are. Sit down. I have scans to run."
Seven was seated again, silently.
It had to be asked, even though the Captain didn't like it any better than Seven would. "What did you learn?"
Seven managed not to look uncomfortable. "Ichep has already told you about the malfunction. At the moment I left the Collective, only about three hundred thousand vessels were completely unaffected. Not every . . . mutiny is successful, but most are. In three years, the upgrades have had time to reach even the merest subunits, and in the year and a half since Yvarra's escape so has the malfunction. It is out of control, and the Collective knows it."
"The end?" she asked, point blank.
"The unimatrices closest to the Queen will survive, and the ones on the vessels who are able to overcome the defective empathic drones but . . . if it continues as it is within about two years' time the Collective will be reduced to a few hundred thousand drones, all with potential defects still in them."
"A few hundred thousand . . . down from a few hundred billion," Kathryn murmured in slight awe. "That's damn close to the end, I'd say. What will capturing Yvarra serve though?"
"She is the origin. Her Klingon and Betazoid background made her highly susceptible to assuming vicariously gained rage. In most cases of hybrids like her, the empathic ability is nullified, however hers was not. If it can be determined how the mechanical error originated, repairs could be made. The error has mutated over time, and is slightly more complex than Yvarra's . . . the Collective requires the derivation of the problem to find a cure."
The ship suddenly rocked laterally, throwing many to the ground. The baby at the other end of the room began to cry. Some had to be helped to their feet.
Seven raised a eyebrow at the Red Alert lights. "However, presently they still do pose a threat." She wouldn't have time to get over the shock of near assimilation it seemed . . . nor to outward observation did she appear to need it.
They'd been found. Wherever they had managed to hide hadn't been good enough, and now the Queen's cube was upon them again, with who knows how many reinforcements on the way. What she wouldn't have given to have that transwarp coil installed right then. The Captain pulled herself to her feet, hopping towards the door.
"Captain!" the Doctor protested.
"I don't care! I'm going to the bridge!"
Almost immediately, she was supported on both sides, on one by Seven and on the other by Kara, with Ichep following close behind. For some reason, Kathryn knew that they felt the same as she.
They had to see it, even if it meant dying. Outright fear in the Borg Queen was too precious a thing to miss due to a few injuries.
***
"God dammit! Get us out of here!"
Yvarra grit her teeth, hands moving across the conn. "Commander! With all due respect, I am flying blind! We cannot very well out-run them and I would thank you to let me do this uninterrupted!" The tension she felt emanating through the whole ship was getting to her, and the more aggressive part of her psyche was translating it all into anger, the last thing she needed.
More by sixth sense that peripheral vision, Yvarra saw Andrew stumble out of the turbolift. He was more than a little worse for wear, the side of his face bleeding slightly, as well as his arm. From his sense of satisfaction, she knew that all the drones on the ship were dead. It was a small comfort as sensors came back online, and the huge hulk of the cube came into view. The vessel seemed to be stained the colour of human blood by the hot light of the red giant behind Voyager. It turned as cubes were wont to, and powered its weapons again.
Yvarra punched mercilessly at her console.
The Borg volley hit empty space as Voyager pulled away from the magnetic field. Lieutenant Commander Tuvok fired at the known weak points of the cube with some success, disabling one of the cube's weapons arrays. The vessel merely turned again, levelling another broadside assault at Voyager.
Yvarra felt some inexplicable form of pride as Voyager showed that at sub-warp speeds, it was faster than that great leviathan outside, since it was smaller. Automated evasion sequences were insufficient, so she did it herself, finding that she could predict the Borg course of action with chilling accuracy. She wished for her interface.
"Yvarra," Andrew said.
She ground her teeth again. "What, Andrew?"
"They're dead."
"I know, Andrew." What? Did he want her praise? For all his Borg-instilled logic he was still a hopeless as any human male at times. "Go do something useful." She punched at the console some more, eyes locked on her sensor readings.
"Will this help?" he asked, in a muted way feeling rather proud of himself. He approached her and placed a square dark metal object on the console before her. It was the interface junction from their ship, intact and active.
"Yes, I think it would!" she said, placing it squarely on the console. "Though Lieutenant Paris will never forgive me." She put her hand to the small device and linked herself to it. It in turn plunged six cables into the console, which flickered in protest and then accepted the "upgrade."
She saw with Voyager's rather impressive sensors, the Borg cube a big glaring obstruction in her field of vision, her cortical array attached itself to the helm system, and gave her reasoning centres control of the ship. This was far better than manipulating the conn manually, although she couldn't see the bridge.
"You're welcome," Andrew murmured.
The Captain, Kara, Seven and Ichep entered the bridge behind her, a small bundle of recognizable emotional presences. She heard the Commander utter some protest at the Captain for leaving Sickbay, but she wasn't really paying attention. Voyager was grazed by another Borg barrage, and shook slightly.
"Yvarra, what did you do?" the Captain asked.
"Andrew retrieved the junction from our ship. I am interfaced with Voyager."
"Couldn't you have asked first?"
"Would you have said no?"
Yvarra turned her attention back to her flying, working on putting the red giant star between the ship and the cube. Borg cubes were not made for manoeuvrability, since the Collective had grown so confident of itself in recent times that it had determined such things as irrelevant. The small battles were not especially important to them, until now. Until now, brute force worked, but their own were working against them. It was a two-fronted war. She made it with little trouble, and in passing, Tuvok had dealt a severe blow to the cube's shielding array.
"Don't get too confident. I'll bet reinforcements are on their way," the Captain murmured from directly behind her.
"Yes, but you know, she will not risk having us crash into the star. I'm too important to her," Yvarra replied, eyes darting.
She knew the Captain was nodding. "Do you know why?"
"Yes. She wants to put her hands on the defect in my cortical node. I will ask the Doctor to extract and destroy it before I let her do that."
"It won't come to that."
"Let us hope not."
The ship rocked forward, and Yvarra felt the Captain's tumbling form hit her chair. The sensors showed that the cube had released an auxiliary vessel, a small but heavily armed sphere. She hadn't even known it was there until it hit the ship from behind. The cube was circling slowly around the star, and powering weapons.
"Aft shields are failing," Lieutenant Commander Tuvok reported.
Feeling a little Klingon in that moment, Yvarra threw a blind punch at the console before her, and connected solidly. She should have seen that sphere. The ship rocked forward again and the computer blared warnings into her brain. She let out a small cry.
"I've lost the engines!" she said, brain scrambling for the controls it knew it should have. She disconnected from the now-useless conn, blinking it the dim light of the bridge. The Captain stood behind her with a hand on her chair, looking with quiet resolve at the approaching cube.
"It's done," she said. "They're done no matter what happens here."
The tactical console bleeped. Tuvok looked up. "There are three transwarp signatures approaching our position.
It was done.
Yvarra stood up numbly, trying to draw resolve from the Captain, who looked at her rather sadly.
"I'm sorry, Captain," she said. "I should have seen that sphere."
The ship rocked forward again, and the Lieutenant Commander reported hull breaches. The Captain put a hand on her shoulder. "It's all right, Yvarra. It's not your fault."
Yvarra nodded, and headed for the turbolift.
"Where are you going?" Andrew demanded.
"To space myself."
***
Andrew stood gaping a little blankly at the turbolift for a moment, Yvarra's quiet words still hanging in the tense air of the bridge. Kathryn was crying again, but stood straight behind the conn watching the cube approach on the screen. The console in front of her flickered, and emitted a few sparks where the Borg device had integrated itself. She was visibly steeling herself for the death that was upon them.
"Mr. Kim," she said, voice heavy. "When she activates the transport . . . make sure her matter is dispersed."
Chakotay felt a moment of pain for her. What a thing to have to order.
Andrew seemed to choke on something. "Just like that?" he said, almost whispering.
The Captain nodded tearfully. "Just like that. The Queen will not have her. She knows it's necessary. Don't think I like it any better than you do."
Then something Chakotay had never thought he'd see happened. Andrew broke down right then and there, Borg dispassion crumbling visibly as he sank to the bridge floor, sobbing like a child. Kara, who stood beside him, wavered also, her previously cold eyes filling as she flexed her left hand almost spasmodically.
Even Seven looked slightly upset, but more to see the Captain so visibly distressed than anything, Chakotay thought. He had to admit he found it hard to take also. Kathryn looked back at the screen as the sphere that was their doom came about, and the cube moved inexorably forward. Then she turned back to them and moved forward from the conn painfully, gazing at her crew.
"I'm sorry this had to happen. I wish there was more I could-"
Harry Kim, who looked to be on the edge of tears himself, interrupted his Captain for one of the only times in his entire life. "It doesn't matter, Captain," he said. "At least we know we did some good out here."
Chakotay watched the cube approach. Why was it so damned slow? What sort of sadistic urge made them take their time like this? He supposed efficiency went out the window when the Queen was gloating. He'd never have to worry about going home to a war now. Andrew could still be heard sobbing.
There was a burst of static. "Doctor to the bridge." It was garbled, but there.
"We hear you, Doctor," Chakotay said, seeing that the Captain was too choked up to answer herself.
"What's going on up there?"
"How many people can hear you?"
"I'm in my office. Just me."
"The ship is disabled. We lost, Doctor."
There was a long pause. "And Yvarra?"
"Is . . . indisposed. The Borg will not capture her."
"I see. I hope you'll forgive me, I . . . don't really know what to say."
Chakotay sighed. "That's all right, Doctor. Inform who you think should know."
"All right. Doctor out."
Kathryn stumbled up towards her chair, limping sorely on her bad leg. She paused, using the chair as a crutch, and fixed him with the sort of look he'd only dreamed of seeing.
"I'm so sorry, Chakotay," she said softly.
He shook his head. "There's nothing to be sorry for, Kathryn. Nothing."
"Yes there is. I'm sorry I was so stupid. I just-"
He sat down in his own chair, putting his face in his hands. "Don't, Kathryn. Don't you dare say anything now."
When he looked up, she seemed visibly hurt. "I'm just sorry, Chakotay."
He reached across and took her hand. Such a small hand. "Like I said, don't be."
The tactical console beeped loudly, heralding the arrival of the other Borg vessels. It made the picture that much bleaker, to see four cubes bearing down on them. He was scared, he couldn't deny it. Would they kill them, or just assimilate them?
Kathryn looked up at the screen sharply, her eyes narrowing.
"Captain," Harry Kim said quietly. "Yvarra says she's ready in Transporter Room One."
"Tell her to wait," she said, her tone of voice automatically feeding hope into the entire bridge. "Tuvok, Seven, Kara, all of you -look at the screen and tell me what you see there."
"Four cubes," Seven replied automatically, though intrigued to know what the Captain saw as anyone else. "One damaged."
"What about the others?"
Kara's eyes narrowed as the Captains did. "Two are along beside, one behind. The course of the damaged cube suggests-"
"That it doesn't know the other three are there," Seven finished in the exact same tone. Suddenly those two seemed a lot alike. Maybe it was just his imagination.
Andrew looked up. "The one on the left . . . it's turning."
Tuvok's console beeped. "And powering weapons. Captain those cubes-"
"Are not with the Collective," Kathryn finished triumphantly, bringing a fist down on the back of her chair.
Chakotay wasn't so sure. The three other cubes were not closing on the first one, but they were closing on Voyager rather quickly. He stood.
"How can you be so sure those weapons aren't meant for us?"
"They won't risk Yvarra," they all replied at once, except of Tuvok. Chakotay shook his head. These people . . . the Collective still permeated them, even the Captain. To face them in a group was strange.
The Captain looked back at Tuvok. "Divert power to forward shields. They're going to be cutting rather close I think."
And the first volley was fired, as predicted, at the Queen's cube. Chakotay watch with something akin to wonder as he saw three cubes tearing into another. The one side of the first cube erupted in fire as the barrage was focussed on one point. The Queen's already battered cube attempted a counterattack and merely resulted in an increased attack from the other two rogue cubes. The one on the right swung around to the front, placing itself between Voyager and its target, and the three steadily drove at the first cube, forcing it into the red giant glaring below at an implacable pace. A few deadly shots were levelled at the sphere as it tried to escape the battle as well. Voyager shuddered with the shockwaves of the confrontation.
The turbolift doors opened behind them, and Yvarra emerged staring straight at the view screen, looking a little tearful herself. Wordlessly, she went to sit beside Andrew on the floor, who still sobbed even as he watched the confrontation beyond. Just as silently, she took the blond boy's hand in hers.
It occurred to Chakotay that he was still holding Kathryn's hand in his, and that she was returning the gesture rather forcefully. His knuckles were beginning to hurt.
"Captain, we're being hailed," Ensign Kim said.
Kathryn let go of his hand, a little regretfully, he liked to think. "On-screen," she said.
A Borg drone of sorts appeared there, but many of his implants were removed. He was of some indeterminate species, with deep olive-toned skin and fluted facial structure. He inclined his head to the Captain.
"Captain Janeway," he said, voice deep.
She stared at him. "Three of . . . Akaran! It's you."
"I am pleased that you recognized me, and more pleased to have made it here in time."
She was showing the beginnings of a wide grin. "Not as pleased as I am. How can I . . . can we thank you for this?"
"There is no need." He grinned a sort of feral grin. "It was task that needed doing anyhow."
"Do you need anything? Medical help, supplies . . .?"
"No, no. We are based on a planet some distance from here. It is good to see you again, Captain Janeway." He looked back into the dark confines of his ship and grinned again. "I believe our work is done. Do you need help? Your engines are down."
"No, we can deal with it. Thank you, Akaran."
He nodded, looked back at something again and his grin fell. "We did not get her. The sphere escaped."
"She's slippery. Don't worry about it for now."
"Don't you worry. We will keep her . . . off your back, I think the expression is."
"Thank you again, Akaran. I hope we meet again." The Captain looked positively beatific.
"As do I. Goodbye, Kathryn Janeway." The transmission ended.
The Captain stared at the view screen, watching the cube disintegrate in the star's corona and the other three disappear into their corridors. She grinned openly through her tears, taking his hand again.
"Who was that?" he asked, curious to know whom they had to thank their lives for.
"Akaran. He was . . . part of my unimatrix." She smiled a small smile. "It's good to know at least he escaped."
***
B'Elanna and Kara showed that a little cooperation went a long way. They made quite a team down in Engineering, and it was noted by B'Elanna that ceding a little authority to the other produced -efficient results to say the least. In the down time that they took to make repairs to their rather badly battered ship -two days- Kara had managed to have the transwarp coil installed even before the original engines were back online. Lieutenant Torres' feelings about Cardassians may never have changed, but she seemed to trust Kara now, which was something. She'd named her baby for the woman even. The new arrival was in short order officially named Karalyn Paris, which B'Elanna peremptorily deciding to forgo middle names.
The Engineering staff in general were a little sour about the fact that the liberated Borg who had saved them made no offer of more transwarp coils, but Captain Janeway knew it was because even they didn't have technology to spare in times like this, no matter how friendly they were feeling. They did however, as promised, keep the Borg off their backs as they drifted in space trying to bandage their wounds.
These things accomplished, Kathryn was finally taking some down time herself, before she was either ordered to by an irate Doctor or nagged into submission by a doleful-looking Chakotay. She didn't know why she was feeling so worn out. In point of fact she had done next to nothing . . . Yvarra had accomplished the fall of the Borg one year and a half ago. She still found herself feeling more than a little self-pride over the feat. And she had done next to nothing besides giving Yvarra a place to hide and nearly having her ship destroyed in the process.
She had taken a hot bath, which did wonders for her still-stiff knee and was now rather happily ensconced on her couch with a large book and a full cup of coffee -which was also liberally laced with chocolate since she was feeling acquisitive at the time. It had cost her the last of that week's rations, but upon first sip she decided it was worth it.
This had its good points. It beat pacing the bridge on a sore knee at least, and for once she was comfortable. She had an undisclosed grievance with standard Star Fleet issue uniforms in the simple fact that at times they itched. So many advances could be attributed to man kind, yet no one had ever invented a completely tolerable uniform. The trials of service.
The door emitted its familiar double tone just as she was really and truly getting into her book. Even when she was looking for peace she couldn't get it. She sighed.
"Come in," she called, sitting up and setting the book down regretfully.
Chakotay entered, which gave her a slight start because until then she had thought he was on-duty. It looked like he had work to do at least, judging from the collection of padds he carried. He smiled slightly at her purposely sour expression, and she was vaguely glad she wasn't standing up since he had so effectively made her legs useless again. Damn him.
"The transmission back to Star Fleet is on its way. I included a full report on this week's happenings."
She rolled her eyes. "This week's indeed. It seemed like much longer than a week. I feel like I know them already. Hell, there are namesakes! It's insanity how easily people can slip into this crew."
"It was hardly easy, Kathryn," he said, looking towards the replicator on the other side of the room. "I was wondering if you'd like to join me for lunch. My treat."
"Good, because I have no rations left nor any inclination to grin politely trough Neelix's commentary. I'm too exhausted to deal with him."
Chakotay set his work down and walked across the room. "He's awful proud of Naomi, you know. You'd think she delivered B'Elanna's baby herself to hear him tell it."
She snorted indelicately. "He's too much. And I think Tom's about ready to walk into an open airlock if Kara asked him to. Babies have an odd effect on this ship, and if it wasn't so funny, I'd give serious thought to having a stop put to it." She reached for the stack of padds Chakotay had left.
"Stay out of those, Kathryn! You're off-duty and you are going to stay that way."
She made a mock salute, skimming the contents of the first data padd. "Aye, sir," she muttered. Engineering report, Engineering report . . . medical supply report? She held it up. "Why is the Doctor issuing prescriptions for neural suppressants?"
Chakotay shrugged. "They're for Yvarra, he said. So 'she doesn't have to come running to Sickbay all the time' were his exact words. Some empathic trouble, I gather. He didn't explain more than that. You'll have to ask Yvarra if you want to know."
She shrugged. "Maybe. It's really none of my business, I suppose. What's on the menu?"
"Nothing special, just a salad of sorts. I'm finding myself a little low on rations too." He set the meal on the table as she rose to join him.
She grinned. "Maybe we should do a little ration calculating."
"Now that's not fair, Kathryn."
She sat down across from him, picking up her fork. "I don't have to be fair all the time."
He laughed. "What has facilitated this change?"
"What?" she asked around a mouthful of salad, which was surprisingly good.
"A week ago you'd have been shocked at that thought. Ration stealing."
Making a face at him, she stabbed the fork back down into the salad. "Let's just say I'm not in a sharing mood right now. The Borg can do that to a person."
"Selfish captains-"
"I'm not being a selfish captain," she said petulantly. "I'm just being selfish."
"So Kathryn won again, huh?"
"Oh, don't you start on that again," she warned, feigning dire meaning.
"I might as well go space myself now . . . you know that will never work on me."
"What won't?"
He grinned at her. "Your god-awful acting. You're absolutely terrible, you know."
"Thank you, Commander," she replied primly, taking another bite of salad. "You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were flirting with me." I'm now really and truly crazy.
He gave her a strange, half-amused look. "Likewise."
Both crazy. She coughed on her salad a bit.
He just laughed at her, as if he'd won on some small point. "Now see? I've finally found your weakness. You're quite ready to tease, but you can't take any of your own. I used to think you were afraid of me, now I just think your afraid of yourself."
"Maybe," she conceded.
He looked slightly surprised that she had.
She suddenly didn't feel hungry anymore. She set her fork down and rose, heading back to her couch. The coffee was cold. Damn. And she'd spent the last of her rations on it . . . She forced herself to look back at him.
"I'm going to try to say this again, Chakotay, just so you're sure it wasn't impending death making me do it. I want to apologize for myself."
He suddenly didn't look so hungry himself. "And I told you there was nothing to be sorry for."
"I think there is. I'm sorry that I've been hiding behind the Captain for so long. I've decided that you are and were right . . . I'm afraid of myself. I'm afraid of what I'll do . . . but for a moment back in Sickbay I was more afraid of what I'd do if you didn't nag me all the time, and if you weren't there waiting for me on the bridge every shift. That cube just made me more sure of myself."
He stared silently at her for a moment. A long moment. Finally, he rose from his chair and stood, looking as if he were working himself up to something. "It's good that you can see that . . . and I have to say that I wouldn't know what to do with myself if you weren't around to nag either, or to wait for . . . but, Kathryn . . . there is more to than that. For me, at least."
She wanted to hide again. "Chakotay-"
"I love you, Kathryn. I have for a long time, and I think you know that."
It was her turn to stare at him. Goddamn him! He was . . . anticipating her or something! Wasn't that what she had been going to-
Wait a minute, was I?
She was sick of herself. Abandoning thought, she rose also and went to him, if only to alleviate the rather desperate expression in his eyes. Putting her hands on either side of his face, she looking him straight in the eye.
"Knowing me as well as you do, I'm surprised you can," she muttered, pulling his head down. Their lips barely touched, but it was enough to make her heart start to race more than it probably should. "I love you, Chakotay . . . and don't ever let me make you forget it."
The next kiss could hardly be described using the word "barely."
***
Never was Yvarra so happy for a hypospray. She did not fancy being this ship's emotional barometer, and the fact also remained that it embarrassed her to no end. It was none of her business what people were doing. If she had had a penchant for cursing, she would have directed a few at her errant chromosomes.
As it was, she was feeling empathically numb as she entered the Mess Hall, letting her eyes tell her where people were rather than her sympathetic sense. The suppressant didn't do a complete job, however, and it felt as if there was a dull roar were other people's emotions ought to have been.
Neelix was serving something strange for lunch, but that was irrelevant. Appearance had no bearing on nutritional value, nor did taste . . . if it came right down to that. She accepted the meal offered to her with a murmured thanks, and when to join Kara and Andrew, who were sitting by the view port silently. Neither of them talked to each other very much. It was just their way.
There was no need to ask whether she could join them. Acceptance was just implied. It always had been. It felt good to be back to work on the ship again. Yvarra could deal with contingencies, but did like routine nonetheless. It was good to be able to predict things again . . . even if it involved the occasional numbing of her senses for discomfiture's sake.
Andrew looked up from the data padd he was reading, fork pausing in the air for a moment as he regarded her. "Your eyes look . . . slightly glazed, Yvarra."
Her mouth twitched. "I'm feeling a little glazed, actually. I had to take a suppressant."
He winced, knowing her meaning. "Oh."
It was not a subject Andrew liked, despite his protestations that he was still quite beyond discomposure due to odd situations. It stemmed from the fact that once, while they were on Ilaranora and she'd been in a high state of agitation, he had asked her what was wrong, stood too close to her, and had subsequently been bitten. It didn't take Collective knowledge for either of them to discern the meaning of that. For an impassive person, he avoided it with deft facility.
Yvarra switched topics. "I understand that the transwarp coil has been installed."
Kara flexed her left hand. "Yes. We will be on our way when the ship's main engines are back online. The coil is slightly overused. It has been transferred from ship to ship too many times. It will only save us roughly four years."
Yvarra nodded vaguely, looking down at her meal. "Well, that is something at least . . . What is this?" She poked her fork at something that looked rather gelatinous.
Andrew looked uncertain. "It consists mostly of fructose. I am not sure."
"Gelatin dessert," Kara supplied. "Useless as basic nutrition, but good for simple carbohydrates."
Yvarra tasted it. It wasn't so bad really, if one discounted the texture. "I have noticed the human tendency to consume excess sugar. I suppose we will also, now that we share the menu. What are you reading, Andrew?"
"Astrometrics readings we took today. There is not much in this sector."
"But we already knew that," Yvarra said, sitting up slightly and reading the data upside down as easily as she could have right side up. Borg ocular implants were good for that, at least. He was right. The report was rather . . . epigrammatic. She decided she was going to have to lose language like that, or she'd start confusing people. "What about Borg activity?"
Andrew shrugged. "They are gone."
Yvarra felt a stab of satisfaction with that. "Gone" was one of those words she loved to hear applied to her former keepers. "Dead" might have been better, but she would take it as it came. To all observation, the balance of power in this quadrant and others was going to take a mighty shift in favour of the individual. She liked that.
"Good," was all she offered, looking back down at her meal. It was not the most appetizing thing she had ever seen, but she needed to eat despite it and she had seen far worse. Her Klingon family had not been very picky about what they would eat, and had looked upon her dislike of Klingon cuisine as a weakness during her brief stay with them in her childhood. It was just that she could not bring herself to willingly eat something that still looked half alive. "I find myself unenthusiastic about this," she muttered.
Andrew shrugged. "Eat it anyhow . . . or go replicate something."
Yvarra took a resolute mouthful of something that appeared to be a vegetable of some sort. "There is no need to waste food," she replied, after swallowing. There was an unpleasant taste in her mouth, and her expression must have shown it, because at that moment, Lieutenant Paris- who was seated at the table behind them- chose to laugh at her.
"That's quite a face, Yvarra," he laughed. "I've seen some good ones in here, but that has got to be the most interesting reaction to leola root I've ever seen."
Feeling frivolous for a moment, she smiled at him. "Happy to have brightened your day, Lieutenant." That should do something.
And it did. The Lieutenant appeared mildly confused. He wasn't used to the Borg contingent smiling at him, she supposed. He then frowned slightly. "Yvarra . . .what did you do to the conn station? I went to the bridge this morning to find some crewman working on it."
"I used the interface from our ship on it during the battle. It made it easier to navigate. I'm sorry if I disrupted your console."
"Disrupted . . . ? You put holes in it. I got shocked by it this morning."
"Were you damaged?"
"No."
"Then it is no matter," she replied, raising her fork again. She grimaced and shifted in her seat uncomfortably for a second. No, the suppressant didn't do a complete job. Adapt, she told herself. "The helm system is undamaged also. Do not worry, Lieutenant Paris."
He leaned back in his chair. "I wasn't," he denied.
"I don't need to be an empath to tell you that you were, Lieutenant." And she didn't. He acted well, but she knew the signs.
He didn't reply, only looking slightly amused as he turned back to his own meal. Yvarra heard a small shift in the customary low hum of the ship. The engines were online, finally, and they would be on their way. Tom Paris apparently heard it too, and stood.
Kara looked up. "I should report to Engineering to help with the transwarp systems," she said, and left swiftly without further comment.
Lieutenant Paris looked back at Yvarra. "Are you going to take the helm when we open the conduit?" he asked.
She rose, leaving most of her lunch untouched. "If you do not mind, I probably should." She nodded at Andrew briefly and followed the Lieutenant out of the Mess Hall.
He rubbed his hands together with something like anticipation. Yvarra tilted her head slightly, thinking. "Are you waiting for something, Lieutenant Paris?"
He grinned. "Well, this is the time when we actually set our course for home. Now that can last for months, but usually only a week or so."
"And then?" she asked as they entered the turbolift.
"And then we find some more trouble to get into," he said, rather happily. "Bridge."
The turbolift began to move upwards. More trouble to get into? Surprisingly enough, that didn't seem like such a bad prospect . . . provided she had a ready supply of those neural suppressants of course. She smiled slightly.
"Perhaps the Alpha Quadrant can wait," she said.
He shrugged, still grinning. "Always has."
***
Review please! PLEASE! I want to know whether anyone thinks I'm any good at this, self-centred as that is. Tell me if you want to hear more about Yvarra and Kara and Andrew, cause in the writing I've grown rather attached to them, and am wondering if I shouldn't give them a little more background . . . but maybe that would be too much. I don't know! You tell me.
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