Strange New Worlds 2016

by Various

  “I can still remember that other life, but it is easier to ignore. For now, I suggest we get to work, Commander.”

  “Species 3836. Lynnrali. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.”

  It was the most terrifying sound I had ever heard in my life. Andrest had fallen asleep at his desk one night, poring over government reports in one hand while cradling Eryet in his other arm. Even at his busiest, he never wanted to miss bonding time with our new daughter. I don’t know how he managed it. There were still days when I felt lucky if I could manage to get a shower for myself.

  I had gone into his study to take the baby to bed, found them both asleep in his armchair, and left them there while I cleaned up his desk. I accidentally bumped the screen on the desk and it began playing automatically. The volume was low, so Eryet thankfully didn’t wake up, but that made it even more terrifying for me, hearing that horrific threat come through in a soft whisper. It sent a chill straight through my soul.

  That quiet whisper of sound was enough to jolt Andrest out of his sleep. His gaze focused immediately on my horrified face and he pointed to the computer. “Eilara, turn that off. Now.” He had never once spoken to me in that tone, and I obeyed out of pure surprise. Normally he would never dream of speaking to me like that. He must have seen something in my eyes because he was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I snapped. I’m sorry you heard that awful recording.”

  “Is that something you received from them? Did . . . were they . . . ?” I didn’t even know what to ask, how to articulate my horror and terror. Andrest shook his head.

  “It was recorded from one of the satellites, many years ago. They were in orbit, just one ship, and they sent this message. Moments later, the ship was destroyed by a nebular storm. It is the first time we had heard about the Borg. You know all we have learned about them since. We have been lucky, living in the nebula. We have been shielded from them a little because of it.” He paused and shifted the baby in his arms. When he looked up at me, there was a vulnerability in his eyes that I had never seen before. “But this is why I do what I do. To protect you and Eryet. Because I am terrified. And I am furious, because there is nothing, nothing, we can do to stop them, and we have nowhere to go.”

  “How are you holding up, Seven?” Chakotay asked. They had successfully linked her cortical node to the computer after Seven had programmed her regeneration alcove to communicate with sickbay’s systems. The Doctor had refused to allow her to make the attempt outside of sickbay, so they’d had to compromise. Thus far, they had had limited success in accessing the wealth of knowledge that she retained about the Lynnrali’s warp technology. Additionally, the flashbacks to Eilara’s life were coming faster, further impeding their efforts. Seven was nearly apoplectic with frustration.

  “It is unacceptable,” she stated. “As a drone, I had access to all the information about Species 3836. It is still there. I must remember!”

  “As I’ve told you,” the Doctor said with thinly veiled impatience, “the Lynnrali implant created a DNA-specific bioelectric feedback loop. That is why you are reliving this woman’s memories rather than accessing more general and helpful information. Now stop obsessing about it and relax. You’re not helping.”

  “Fine,” Seven snapped. “I am relaxed.”

  The Doctor merely rolled his eyes and turned back to his screen. He had narrowed in on a small sector and was close to identifying the neural pathways that he needed to disrupt in order to stop her visions. He had made an unsettling discovery during his research, however, and he was wary of proceeding too quickly with a treatment protocol. He advised that the link would soon need to be disconnected, which was met with Seven’s expected resistance.

  “I will maintain the link between your cortical node and the computer,” the Doctor said, “for now, but only as long as you remain stable.” Seven began to object; the Doctor cut her off, a finger pointed at her threateningly. “I am the chief medical officer on this ship. I will decide if you are stable or not. If you’re in danger, I am breaking the link whether you have your information or not. My duty is to you as my patient, Seven. Is that clear?”

  Seven of Nine nodded tersely and returned to Chakotay’s side. She would not allow a flaw to stop her. She would prove to the captain and crew that she would not fail them, even if it killed her.

  “What if we tried your akoonah again? It seemed to intensify my visions, so might it not help us hone in on the information we need? Perhaps with the heightened intensity from the akoonah, I might be able to recall more valuable data.”

  “No,” replied Chakotay and the Doctor in unison. Chakotay continued, “Seven, using the akoonah somehow initiated the bioelectric feedback. I’m not willing to risk further injury to you for this. If we can figure it out on our own, that’s great. But not at the cost of your health. I’m about to pull the plug on the whole thing as it is, no matter how much the Lynnrali technology can improve our warp drive.”

  “It is my health to risk.”

  “The answer is no. That’s an order,” he commanded. For a moment, Chakotay saw a belligerent lift to Seven’s chin, then she sighed in resignation and nodded.

  “I understand. You did everything you could.”

  “Sorry?”

  “He is gone. Was it fast? He didn’t suffer?”

  The surgeon looked at me with sympathy. She seemed kind. I couldn’t remember her name. Only that she had just told me that my husband was dead. I didn’t feel anything. Shouldn’t I feel something? I only felt a howling numbness rising up to enclose me.

  “Doctor!” Chakotay’s voice jolted Seven, and she jumped, startled. He was cradling her against his chest, and she was puzzled to realize that he was carrying her to the biobed.

  “I’m fine,” she tried to say, and was horrified when inarticulate grunts were all she could manage. Chakotay gently placed her on the exam bed and moved aside to make room for the Doctor, who closed the diagnostic console over her. Seven’s body began convulsing uncontrollably.

  “She’s aphasic and seizing. Her neural pathways are aggressively misfiring, and I don’t know why, but it’s causing a rapid decline of her body’s systems. Quick, hand me that hypospray.”

  Chakotay gave the device to the Doctor and watched helplessly as the hologram injected its contents into his friend’s slender neck. The effect was immediate; Seven stopped convulsing, and her eyes slid closed. “What’s happening to her?” The Doctor ignored him and placed a small device on her forehead. The device emitted a soft beep as the Doctor activated it, and Seven’s features went completely slack. Chakotay thought she looked peaceful, and young, and very, very innocent. “Doctor, report!”

  “We have a problem. I need to talk to Captain Janeway.”

  Lieutenant Tom Paris was the last person to enter the conference room. As he took his seat at the glossy black table, his glance toward the captain alerted him that she was concerned and trying not to show it to her crew; he could tell by the set of her shoulders and the way she folded her hands before her, gripped together as though she was holding on to a cup of coffee that was no longer there.

  Ensign Harry Kim leaned toward him. “Where’s the Doc and Seven?” he whispered to his friend. Paris shrugged theatrically.

  “That’s why we’re here, Ensign,” Captain Janeway stated, hearing Kim’s aside. “Seven is in sickbay; the Doctor will be joining us shortly. We have a situation.”

  “Is Seven all right?” asked Neelix. The small Talaxian leaned forward, his concern writ large on his expressive face. Of all the members of Voyager’s crew, he had been among the first to accept Seven for herself, to welcome her and try to help her to integrate her lost humanity with the woman who had been created by the Borg. He genuinely cared for every member of the crew, Janeway knew, but he had a special fondness for the form
er Borg, which had been all the more surprising to her since Seven’s arrival coincided with Kes’s departure. Janeway had worried Neelix would forever link the drone’s arrival with that unhappy event.

  “No, she’s not.” Chakotay’s normally soft-spoken voice was sharp, highlighting his worry. “She had been having what she thought were nightmares. I convinced her to go on a vision quest. Now she’s in a coma in sickbay.”

  “A coma?” Kim exclaimed, leaning forward on his elbows. “From what? What happened?”

  Chakotay shook his head in helpless frustration and motioned to the large screen on the wall. The Doctor’s visage appeared from sickbay, looking distracted and harried. He had been looking back over his shoulder, checking on his patient, when he linked in to the conference room, and now he turned his attention to the officers gathered around the table.

  “Yes, Ensign. I induced a medical coma in Seven a short time ago to preserve her higher brain functions. Until I can come up with a treatment to stop her visions, which were somehow activated by Commander Chakotay’s akoonah, her neural pathways are degrading and shutting down her body functions.”

  “Wait a minute,” B’Elanna Torres interrupted, suspicion dripping from her voice. “I’ve gone on a vision quest too. They aren’t dangerous; why should it affect Seven like that? Shouldn’t her Borg implants prevent anything like this from happening?”

  Janeway stifled a sigh. Torres was a brilliant engineer, the best she had ever worked with. However, her half-Klingon heritage made her among the most difficult to work with as well and, unlike Neelix, she had yet to accept a former Borg drone as a crewmate. The Doctor huffed slightly. The captain was uncertain if he was put out that the Borg technology had failed Seven, or if he was offended that Torres seemed to be questioning his medical expertise. He sighed and ran a hand over his bald pate as he replied.

  “Normally, yes. From what Seven was able to tell us before her condition deteriorated to dangerous levels, the Lynnrali created a program specifically designed to cause this sort of bioelectric feedback loop within the Borg’s mainframe.”

  Kim shook his head, his bright black eyes sparkling with curiosity. “Captain, if the Lynnrali managed to create this advanced a program, down to the genetic level, why didn’t it cause the feedback loop in the Borg when they assimilated it? Why is it affecting Seven so much, and why now?”

  “It was a minute alteration, which is why it seems not to have had any impact on the Borg as a whole. Whether it will allow us, or anyone else, to take advantage of it in the future has yet to be seen. As for Seven, the Doctor thinks it was not fully integrated into her Borg systems before she joined our crew. But for now, that isn’t the main concern.” Janeway tapped the interface before her and an image materialized on the screen beside the Doctor. Alien script flowed across, indecipherable to the universal translator but apparent to all that it was a highly complex mathematical equation. “This is a partial recording from Seven’s cortical node. She was working to help Chakotay retrieve it before the Doctor placed her in the medical coma. We were trying to access her Borg memory of the Lynnrali. Specifically, their warp mechanical theory.”

  “Why, Captain?” Kim asked, voicing the thought the other officers shared. “What was Seven doing to cause this? I don’t understand what could be so important that she would risk her life like that.”

  “I asked her to,” Janeway said. Kim blinked in surprise. “I never would have if I had known it would become so dangerous to her, but . . .”

  The captain stood and paced to the screen, staring intently at the equations before her as if sheer force of will could compel her to understand them. She turned to face her senior officers, her blue eyes burning with determination and hope.

  “The Lynnrali warp mechanics were more advanced even than the Borg transwarp conduits. If we can interpret this information from Seven’s cortical node, Voyager could get home in a matter of weeks.”

  “I don’t trust this, Chakotay,” Torres said. “I mean, how likely is it that the Borg would assimilate a whole species like they’ve done god knows how many times, and only now does it affect the one drone we happen to be traveling with? Seems pretty convenient.”

  Torres and Chakotay were heading to cargo bay two and Seven’s regeneration alcove. Harry Kim was already there, studying the fragments of Lynnrali data, working to directly link the computer to the regeneration unit. He and Torres hoped that working directly with the Borg technology in the alcove would allow greater efficiency in accessing the information buried in Seven’s cortical node, bypassing the bioelectric loop caused by the Lynnrali chip.

  “Of course, it could allow greater efficiency in assimilating us,” Torres continued as they entered the cargo bay. Chakotay and Kim exchanged a subtle glance. “What?” Torres demanded. “You never know. How do you know she wasn’t sent here by the Borg to assimilate Voyager?”

  “Come on, B’Elanna.” Chakotay sighed. “Seven’s been with us for months. She’s part of our crew now. If she wanted to assimilate us, I’m sure she would have done so by now. Starting with you.”

  “Very funny. I just don’t trust her,” Torres grumbled.

  “Doc says she’s in a coma,” Kim said. “She’s not going to fake that. Or visions.”

  “Honestly, Starfleet,” she retorted, using her pet name for Harry, “you’re too trusting.”

  “Enough!” Chakotay barked. “We have a job to do, and a crew member who needs our help. We need to figure this out, and maybe if we’re lucky, we can all be back in the Alpha Quadrant soon instead of fighting for every single breath we take out here.”

  Torres had known Chakotay longer and better than anyone left on the crew. To hear such an atypically tired and defeated sentiment from him told her more than anything how deeply guilty he felt about Seven’s condition. Without another word, she turned to her work. She may not like having a Borg on board, but she did respect Chakotay more than anyone else she had ever known, barring, perhaps, Captain Janeway. She would do her best for him.

  “Commander, we’ve got it,” Harry said a moment later. He tapped the work station that was set up in the cargo bay near Seven’s alcove and data began flowing across the monitor. “This is amazing. I don’t know what half of these equations are at all.”

  “And they are incomplete,” Torres added. She pointed. “See, here and here. It looks like a complete file but it isn’t. What is that?”

  The three officers watched the screen as data scrolled past, elegant mathematical equations blended with what appeared to be musical notation.

  “Eilara was a musician. These are her memories. We need to clean this up, get to the general data, not the specific memories,” Chakotay said, entering commands into the terminal. The images on screen shifted and distorted with each new set of commands. Chakotay’s task was thankfully becoming easier as the computer learned the encryption of the Lynnrali implant. Soon, it became second nature, and he was able to pay closer attention to the images on the screen before him, scrolling directly from Seven’s visions. The vision quest he experienced with her had been brief, and his role had been to be her mentor and guide. He hadn’t had as much time to observe as he did on a typical vision quest, and he was struck again by the uncanny resemblance between Eilara and Seven. He forcibly pushed the observation from his mind. He didn’t have time to be distracted. Seven didn’t have time.

  “Argh!” came Torres’s frustrated cry. “Commander, this file is simply too incomplete for us to continue. We can’t decrypt data that isn’t there. The Doctor sent through the last bit he was able to retrieve from the connection he made to Seven’s cortical node, but it simply isn’t enough!”

  Chakotay pushed away from the console, his muscles stiff from sitting in one place for so long. He’d had no sense of time passing; somehow, hours had gone by while he and his officers had sifted through the massive amount of data. Even
with the computer’s help, it was a tedious process. He sighed.

  “All right. Return to your posts for now. I’ll report to the captain.”

  Chakotay entered the captain’s ready room at her invitation. He walked briskly toward her desk but hesitated when he realized she was sitting on her couch on the upper level, staring absently out into space. “Captain, are you all right?”

  “Commander Chakotay,” Janeway replied, evading his question, “you needed to see me?” Chakotay nodded.

  “Yes, Captain. Status report on the Lynnrali data.” He handed her a padd, which she reviewed as he quickly gave her his disappointing report. “At this time, we are unable to fully analyze the Lynnrali equations for use in Voyager’s systems. However, once the Doctor is able to treat Seven’s visions, I’m certain she will be able to assist us and provide the rest of the information we need. B’Elanna and Harry both believe we are only missing a couple more pieces of the file.”

  “A couple pieces.” Janeway huffed a humorless chuckle. “A couple digits in a warp equation is a lot, Chakotay.”

  “It’s better than needing a lot of digits,” he said doggedly. She smiled crookedly.

  “Touché.” She waved him toward the couch and settled herself at one end. Chakotay recognized the body language. His captain needed to talk, and he probably wasn’t going to like what she had to say. “The Doctor just gave me an update. He has a treatment for Seven.” She quickly held up a hand. “Before you get too excited, hear me out. He can treat the neural pathways that are causing her visions, stop them entirely. But doing so, he believes, will completely eliminate any memory Seven has of the Lynnrali. All we will ever know about them or their warp mechanics is what we already have in the computer now.”

  Chakotay sat on the couch beside Janeway. “Okay. So what’s the problem? You have a sick crew member and you have a treatment for her. Seems simple enough to me.”