STAR TREK: Strange New Worlds II

by Dean Wesley Smith (Editor)

Seven realized she must concede their professed distinctiveness or be caught in an endless loop of illogic. “Then who is this ‘Primary’ and what does he want with me?”

  “The Primary is the titular designation of the one who commands.” Ohm turned to the male. “Common reference in Starfleet terminology?”

  The male’s chin jerked. “Captain.”

  Ohm nodded, the motion stiff. “Yes: captain. Our captain wishes to speak with you.”

  “Then I shall proceed. There is no need for restraint. I cannot escape. Passage along this corridor will be more efficient if I walk between you.”

  Ohm nodded. Was that a smile? “Acceptable.” She released her grip, and with a look to her companion, he did likewise.

  Quick as lightning, Seven slapped her combadge. “Seven to Voyager.”

  [375] The only response was the ringing in her ears as Ohm backhanded her across the temple. Then, there was darkness.

  Janeway stood, fists on hips, glaring at the image of the Borg ship on the viewscreen. The Borg had just beamed Seven away from the bridge and had dropped speed, arcing starboard. Janeway could guess where they were heading.

  “Tuvok, can you get a transporter lock on Seven?”

  “Negative, Captain. I am unable to penetrate their shields.”

  “Then hail the Borg ship,” Janeway said.

  Janeway heard the communication tone. “No response, Captain.”

  “Keep trying. Tom, come about, match course and speed. Don’t let them get away.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Janeway dropped into her command chair. The lingering taste of coffee in her mouth had turned as sour as her stomach. She had always felt personally responsible for Seven of Nine, from the moment Seven had been severed from the collective and was forced to face her humanity. Now, Seven had been severed from Voyager. The Borg would erase her progress, purge the humanity from her. Would they hook the implants back up to Seven, shove that godawful pointed instrument back into her eye?

  Not on my watch.

  She inclined her head toward her first officer. “We’ve got to get her back, Chakotay. We have to follow them into the quantum singularity when they open it up.”

  Chakotay frowned, drawing the ancestral tattoo over his [376] left brow down like dark wings. “Kathryn, have you forgotten what happened the last time we entered one of these things? We had to eject the warp core. You’ll be risking the entire crew to save one. You know we’re no match for Borg technology.”

  Janeway fought to keep her tone low and calm. “I’d do the same for you, Chakotay.”

  “With all due respect, Captain, how do you know Seven wants to come back? For all of her human appearance, how much of her is still Borg under the skin?”

  “I won’t let them have her, Chakotay. Not now, not after how far she has come. I’ll chase them to hell and back if I have to.” She broke off the conversation by issuing quick commands. “Tom, ride right on their tail. Tuvok, I want all auxiliary and emergency power transferred to the shields. When they open the quantum singularity, we’re going in.”

  Seven sensed something cool press to her forehead. She rose to full consciousness, heard voices, kept her eyes closed. Location, unknown. Position, lying supine, hard surface. Atmospheric temperature, thirty-six degrees Celsius. Olfactory input, oily scent of Borg synthetic lubricant four seven eight one, epidermal moisturizer. Auditory input, low whine of servomechanisms and bionic hydraulics, distant hum of transwarp generator.

  “You shouldn’t have hit her,” a voice was saying. Proximity, point five meters. Tone, range of lower octaves, mechanical overlay. Species identified: Borg, male. Assimilated race: human.

  A second voice. “She was attempting escape. Your orders were for me to bring her to you. It was inefficient to continue [377] struggling with her. Human: impact to the cranial temple, unconsciousness is immediate. It was more expedient this way.” Proximity of second voice, one meter. Tone, range of midoctave, mechanical overlay, female Borg. Specific vocal frequency matched to known reference. The Klingon Borg named Ohm.

  The male voice. Irritation. “When will you comprehend that efficiency is not paramount? I specifically instructed you not to harm her. You were to harm no one.”

  “And I did not, though I do not understand what you need with her.” Unidentified emotional inflection in tone, conveyed with stress on any reference to Seven. “Observe increased respiratory exchange. She is now conscious.”

  Seven felt a warm touch to her hand. “Seven of Nine?”

  Her eyes flashed open. Her vision was blurred, but she squinted and hazy objects came into focus. A Borg male was leaning over her, his torso covered in black monotanium armor, his hand holding a damp cloth. Life-support tubes circled the top of his head, and an optical enhancement overlay his left eye socket, glowing soft green. But it was his human eye that was so disconcerting to Seven. It was focused on her and reflected far more than a Borg mind calculating optical input. It appeared to reflect ... emotion. Seven had never seen this in the Borg, but she had seen that same look in the captain’s eyes. Concern.

  Seven stiff-armed the Borg. “Get away from me!” She sat upright, felt her mind swirl from the concussion. Visual acuity blurred again. She focused hard on the male Borg, and some of the haze clarified. Adequate. “Return me to my ship. Now.”

  Servos whined as the male Borg regained his balance, [378] annoyance on his face. “We will respect your wishes after you have heard us out.”

  Seven winced, pain still throbbing at her temple. She pressed her palm to it and it subsided somewhat. “Who are you? Why have you abducted me from Voyager?”

  The Borg tilted his head, his features softening. “Do you feel better?”

  Seven frowned. She had no frame of reference with which to correlate a Borg inquiring of her well-being. It was disorienting. Irritating. Repulsive. “Physical comfort is irrelevant. Answer my questions. Who are you?”

  Ohm stepped closer, raising her fist as though to strike. “You will speak with respect when addressing the Primary!”

  The male Borg barked a command. “Ohm! Keep your place.” He watched Ohm lower her arm and step back. Nodding approval, he turned to Seven, placing his open hand over his heart.

  “I am Hugh.”

  Sitting in her command chair, Janeway clenched her hands into fists, felt her nails bite into the flesh of her palms as she glared at the Borg vessel on the viewscreen. It was stationary, rotating slowly, and had remained as such ever since they had followed it through the quantum singularity, entering this uncharted sector of the Delta Quadrant. It hadn’t been easy, but they had managed to avoid a warp core meltdown, and Voyager’s shields, though stressed, were still functioning.

  “Hail them again,” Janeway said to Tuvok.

  She heard the hailing tone. “No response, Captain.”

  Janeway felt the ship was just hovering there in its [379] impregnability to taunt her. They were now ten thousand additional light-years away from their true destination, home, which was all the more infuriating. Chakotay had said nothing, but he didn’t have to. Janeway could feel the crispness in his posture and features like the icy breeze of a winter morning.

  “Why aren’t they moving?” Janeway said, her volume indicating the question was open to all.

  “My guess is that they didn’t expect us to jump into the singularity with them,” Tom Paris said. “Most ships tuck tail and run as fast as they can from the Borg. We didn’t. They probably realize we’re going to track them wherever they intend to go.”

  She watched another side of the ship rotate into view. “I’ll be damned if they’re just going to sit there and ignore us. There’s got to be a way to get their attention and open communication. Tuvok, fire phasers. See if you can cycle the modulation faster than their shields can compensate.”

  Janeway heard the chirps from the tactical console as Tuvok entered the program, then saw the phaser lash out, a red spear of energy. “Captain,” Tuvok finally sai
d, powering down, “I have attempted the strategy with no apparent success.”

  “Then arm a photon torpedo. Modulate the frequency.” Janeway heard the chirps, then the hot tone. “Do it.”

  The torpedo sailed toward its target, a streak of blue light. Impacted. Borg shields flashed in a faint sphere of green. Then, white brilliance flared across the screen. As the light diminished, Janeway leaned forward.

  The pyramid of Borg technology still rotated in place. It almost looked serene in its movement.

  [380] “Again, Mister Tuvok.”

  “Captain?” Tuvok said. “I fail to see the effectiveness of a torpedo salvo. If one missile did not work, it is highly improbable the others will work either. It is obvious their shields can compensate at a rate superior to our torpedo modulation.”

  “You kick at a hive long enough, Mister Tuvok, and the bees are bound to come out. Again.”

  “Acknowledged.” He launched the torpedo. No effect.

  “Again!”

  She felt a touch to her hand. First Officer Chakotay. “Kathryn, I understand how you feel, but this is pointless.”

  She jerked her hand away. “Again, Mister Tuvok. Fire!”

  Nothing.

  “Again!”

  Chakotay had swiveled in his chair, facing her. He looked like someone studying a madman banging his head against a wall.

  I’m mad, all right. “Again!” The torpedo flashed.

  Tuvok’s voice. “Captain, we are receiving a transmission.”

  Finally. “On screen.”

  “The transmission has linked with our receiver and has somehow manipulated the circuitry to access our computer database.”

  “Shut them out, Mister Tuvok.”

  “Unable to comply. The Borg have overridden system security and have now decoded our encryption. They are accessing Starfleet mission archives ... stardate 40000 ... stardate 45000... they are now retrieving a file from stardate 45855.4 ... U.S.S. Enterprise-D, under Captain [381] Jean-Luc Picard’s command ... the file is marked ‘Classified.’ ”

  Janeway watched the viewscreen go blank, then light up with a recording from the file. The scene was aboard the Enterprise in a room with a single adolescent Borg, held in a containment device that resembled a cage. The ship’s chief engineer and doctor were standing before him, and the stardate showed at the bottom of the screen, ticking away in tenths of a second as the scene progressed.

  Janeway had studied this recording before. It was open only to the rank of Starfleet captains and above. There was never any official statement of why it was classified, but the reason was obvious. Starfleet took the position that the Borg were one collective machine, not individuals, certainly not persons. After this incident where Captain Picard had returned to the collective a Borg who had discovered his individuality, Starfleet policy strictly forbade further attempts to rehabilitate other members of the collective. Starfleet became all the more adamant after those members of the Borg affected by individuality broke away from the collective and destroyed some colonies in their confused state. Starfleet’s position had then crystallized diamond hard—no quarter, no mercy. To maintain that policy, they could not allow any members of the Federation to develop sympathy for the Borg.

  But if this little scene got into public hands, it would be damning to Starfleet.

  So would the arrival of Seven of Nine. If the Voyager crew ever made it back—when they made it back—Janeway secretly knew Seven would not be welcomed by all. In fact, in all likelihood her life would be in danger, but Janeway had [382] always planned to help Seven across that catwalk when they came to it.

  Now, she might not have the chance.

  The video progressed to the portion Janeway knew by heart. The officers on the bridge were silent as they listened. Janeway’s thoughts raced to why this scene was being played.

  The adolescent Borg was speaking. “Do I have a name?”

  The redheaded doctor replied, “I’m Beverly, he’s Geordi, and you ... you ...” She looked at a loss for words.

  “No, no, wait a minute,” Geordi said. “That’s it. Hugh!”

  “We are Hugh,” the cyborg said enthusiastically. He was no longer a member of the collective. He had a name.

  Then Hugh did something Janeway had never seen in the file. He turned, as if he was looking through the viewscreen, and stared directly at her.

  “I am Hugh. I am Primary of the Independent Nation of Borg. We mean you no harm. Cease your inefficient waste of energy.”

  Startled at first, Janeway addressed the image on the screen. “I am Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Starship Voyager. You have abducted a member of my crew. I want her back. Now.”

  “I cannot do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Seven of Nine has not made her decision yet.”

  “What decision?”

  “Whether she wishes to join the Independent Nation of Borg. She is, after all, one of us. You do believe in freedom of choice, do you not, Captain Janeway?”

  “I didn’t see your people offering Seven many choices [383] when you boarded my ship. You’ve got a long way to go when it comes to manners, mister.”

  Hugh tilted his head and his eyepiece flashed green. “I apologize about the method employed, but it was the only option.”

  “Really?” Janeway rolled the word with cynicism. “You could have asked to talk to Seven.”

  Hugh’s gaze dropped to the floor. When he looked up, the eyepiece flashed red. “Would you honestly have allowed me? Every race we come in contact with either flees out of fear or fights out of hatred. It’s one of the reasons we had to leave the Alpha Quadrant.”

  Janeway sighed. “If you are indeed the Borg Hugh from the Alpha Quadrant, how did you find out about Seven of Nine and locate us?”

  “Allow me to finish, Captain Janeway, and the answers will become apparent.”

  “Make it quick, Hugh.”

  “Acknowledged. We had to escape the Alpha Quadrant. Even Starfleet vessels were unwilling to differentiate between independent Borg and collective Borg, firing at will. This, in spite of the good report Captain Picard made to Admiral Nechayev about our people saving him in the battle against the android, Lore, and the Borg he controlled. Starfleet just wouldn’t listen—you yourself know what your directives are in any Borg encounter, what you’re ordered to do if you capture individuals from the collective.”

  Janeway knew all too well. Poison the individual with an invasive paradox virus and send that Borg back to pollute the hive. She shuddered thinking about it, because it was what she should have done with Seven. One of the few privileges [384] of being cut off from Starfleet by over sixty thousand light-years was not having to account for your actions to a superior officer.

  Hugh continued. “We escaped to the Delta Quadrant through the Borg’s transwarp conduits. From there, we searched for an uninhabited sector to call home, a place where we could live in freedom instead of being treated as the freaks of the galaxy. We found such a place. Today, we run covert missions to help other Borg break free of the collective, as you were able to accomplish with Seven of Nine. It was through those saved that we found out about Seven. Then, when you tapped into the network of relay stations stretching across the Delta Quadrant to send messages home, we located Voyager.”

  Janeway’s temper had been cooling until the mention of Seven. “Hugh, I sympathize with your cause. Now tell me how Seven is doing.”

  Hugh spoke in mechanical tones, but his human eye glowed bright with compassion. “Seven is well. She is touring our new flagship with myself and my Secondary even as we speak.”

  Janeway smirked. “Show me.”

  Hugh blinked, and the screen suddenly transformed into a jerky image of a corridor scrolling past to the accompaniment of the whine and hiss of bionics, the metallic clank of boots. The image kept shifting in spectral tints, and Janeway assumed Hugh was somehow transmitting through his optic enhancement and Borg implants. The view stabilized and the sce
ne panned left. Seven of Nine came into view.

  “How are you feeling?” Hugh asked.

  [385] Seven scowled. “I told you previously, personal comfort is irrelevant. Can we proceed? Stopping to converse is inefficient.”

  Janeway was so relieved by Seven’s response, she almost laughed.

  The image of Hugh’s face flashed back on the screen. “As you can see, Captain Janeway, Seven is functional, though perhaps a bit ill-tempered. I must concede, I intended to show her our star system, but your persistence forces me to plead our cause without her experiencing the fullness of our vision.”

  “Your cause is your business, Hugh. My crew is mine. I need to know that you intend to return Seven to us.”

  “I cannot do that.”

  Janeway felt her temperature rise. “Why not?”

  “The choice to return is not mine.”

  “Explain.”

  “It is Seven of Nine’s prerogative.”

  Janeway felt a lump in her throat. “What if she doesn’t want to join your cause? She’s mostly human, after all. What if she wants to return to Voyager?”

  Hugh paused, tilting his head to one side. The optical implant over his left eye glowed amber. “What if her wish is to remain with us?”

  Seven stood in the torus chamber suspended over the center of the atrium; it served as Hugh’s command center. Hugh and Ohm were beside her, on a balcony adjoining Hugh’s quarters that overlooked the vast courtyard. Seven had completed her tour of the vessel, had even walked within a Borg holograph of their homeworld, and she had to concede that [386] Hugh and his independent Borg allies had the cohesion necessary to construct a new nation for their kind—if they could continue to keep their homeworld hidden from the collective. As intriguing as their ideas seemed, it was nothing compared to the conclusion of the tour. Standing on this balcony, Seven had just witnessed what she judged would be the most incredible event she would see in her life.

  A Borg concert.

  The courtyard had been filled with Borg musicians, some replacing arm implants with sophisticated bows, using hands to support a variety of violins, cellos, bass, and other instruments from worlds across the quadrants. In some, their very implants had been reconstructed into instruments, breastplates that moaned like bagpipes and accordions, collars that shrilled like flutes and recorders. And the entire pyramid vessel—electrical conduits, plasma discs, even the transwarp core—had thrummed a resonant bass line for the symphony to dance upon like a stage.