Star Trek: Voyager - 043 - Acts of Contrition

by Kirsten Beyer

  Her pain had passed relatively quickly. No doubt the Commander’s most recent patient had been reduced to dust shortly after the injection of Frazier’s catoms into his body. Seven assumed the Commander must be growing more desperate now. How long could he have had access to Frazier’s catoms before attempting a new therapy? She had only just arrived.

  Hadn’t she?

  “Axum,” Seven said softly, “one of us must leave and attempt to speak with the Commander directly. Now that we are aware of his actions, he must know that we will not permit him to continue doing this.”

  Axum turned to stare up at her. His eyes held longing as well as disappointment.

  “Can you teach Riley to ignore the pain as you do?” Seven asked.

  “Of course.”

  “But what of the others?” Seven asked. “Do you know where he would be holding them?”

  “The others?”

  “The rest of Riley’s people?”

  At this, Frazier’s eyes fluttered open. How long she had been listening, Seven could not tell, but she was obviously conscious.

  “The captain of the Viminal told me they would be housed outside this facility,” Frazier said.

  “Their location may not matter,” Seven insisted. “If the Commander has taken samples of their catoms, like ours, soon enough they will experience what we have, but they may not understand it.”

  Axum helped Frazier sit up. Her face was wan and her movements listless, but her eyes were clear and focused. She closed them for a moment, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly. After a few more breaths, her eyes opened again.

  “I can’t sense them,” she said.

  “Have you been able to communicate with them using your catoms since the transformation?” Seven asked.

  Frazier smiled bitterly. “We had an understanding,” she said. “Once our cooperative was no more, once the Caeliar restored our individuality to us, very few were interested in willingly returning to a joined state of being. The conflict that had driven us apart in years past no longer existed. There were so few of us left, and we all shared the same purpose. It took time for us to understand at all that any connection remained between us.

  “I was the first to find it. I was the first to experiment with it. I sensed you and Chakotay. And then I found you. Once you told us what our catoms were, and we had seen some of their potential, we debated quite strenuously initiating further experiments. We agreed not to. Some were frightened. Most were beginning to acclimate to their individuality and were loath to part with it.”

  “Whatever their choice may be, the potential still exists for the Commander’s experiments to affect them. They must be warned,” Seven said.

  “They will know, soon enough,” Axum said.

  Both Seven and Frazier turned to stare at him in confusion.

  Axum smiled faintly, his eyes staring at some distant point beyond them. “Shilea, Nocks, Jillant, Lezlin, Kilpora . . .”

  “How can you possibly know them?” Frazier demanded.

  “How can you possibly not know?” Axum asked. “Their desires are irrelevant. Had they mastered their catoms they might well be able to shut us out. As it is, they are open vessels, vulnerable to our will as surely as the Commander’s work.”

  Frazier rose unsteadily and reached for Seven’s hand.

  “We are one,” Axum said. “Our catoms will not allow it to be otherwise. This is our new gestalt.”

  Frazier turned to Seven with fearful eyes.

  Seven closed hers and, with great tenderness, reached out to the men and women she had met briefly on Voyager what felt like a lifetime ago. Just as Axum had said, they were present, but oblivious of the connection that now bound them to one another. It was almost as if they were sleeping and Seven dared not wake them.

  Sleeping.

  Unconscious.

  Seven turned back to Frazier. “How long have you been here?”

  Frazier’s brow furrowed. “We arrived this morning. At least, I think it was . . . I have been with you all day. I haven’t slept yet.”

  “I have been here . . . I don’t know how many days,” Seven said, “and I have never slept.”

  The truth had been hers for the taking since she arrived, but only now did Seven reach for it.

  “How long have you known?” she asked of Axum.

  “I knew the moment I arrived here,” Axum said. “This is not a Starfleet facility, Seven. This is all I remember of Mysstren before I was assimilated. My catoms created this world for me, for us. They work constantly, sometimes at my bidding, other times of their own accord, to make this condition as comforting as possible.”

  “Just as our collective nanoprobes once created Unimatrix Zero?” Seven asked.

  Axum nodded. “Here, as there, every individual brings something of themselves.” Axum gestured to a low table beside the sofa. To Seven’s amazement, a small rucksack she had never seen before rested there. Frazier followed her gaze and inhaled in surprise.

  “That’s mine,” she said. “Those were my tools on Arehaz. I don’t remember bringing them with me.”

  “What did I bring, Axum?” Seven asked.

  He turned his head toward the patio.

  Seven stepped past him and searched the familiar landscape, the exterior of buildings she had assumed were conjoined with this space. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to the balcony she had tried to access. A light still burned.

  “You said you sacrificed perfection and paradise for me twice,” Seven said.

  Axum bowed his head, unwilling to meet her eyes.

  “I thought you meant Unimatrix Zero and the Caeliar gestalt, but you didn’t, did you?”

  “Unimatrix Zero was hardly paradise,” Axum said. “We knew what we were. We knew what we would do once our regeneration cycles ended: that we would assimilate others, destroy their homes; that our lives as Borg were our only reality. Unimatrix Zero granted us temporary relief, nothing more.”

  “You believe this is paradise?” Seven asked.

  “It could be,” Axum pleaded. “At least this place will always be ours now. That makes it real.”

  Seven looked again at the light.

  “No,” she said softly. “It doesn’t.”

  “I don’t understand,” Frazier interjected, placing herself between Seven and Axum.

  “You will,” Seven assured her. “Axum will explain.” Stepping past Frazier, Seven stared directly into Axum’s eyes. “You could have ended this long ago.”

  “I love you,” Axum said.

  “This is not love,” Seven said. “Never again attempt to deceive me while calling it love. Love is not meant to be so used.”

  Seven turned abruptly and moved to the wall connected to the balcony. She needed a way up. The moment the thought entered her mind, a sturdy ladder appeared before her. Seven began to climb, throwing her legs over the side of the balcony as soon as she came level with it.

  There was no door separating the exterior from the light burning within. Nothing could tempt her to turn back now. Squaring her shoulders, Seven stepped forward.

  The next thing Seven knew, she was lying prone inside a confined space. Her eyes took a moment to forget the blinding brilliance she had just entered and adjust to the dimness now visible through a transparent window directly in front of her.

  Seven reached up. The lid of the chamber . . . a stasis chamber . . . was locked. Instantly terrified, she began to pound on it from the inside.

  The Commander was working late, as was his wont. Thirty-four new sets of catomic data were now his to master, and he intended to take full advantage of them. Initially, Riley’s catoms had revealed an entirely new set of permeable sites. He had rushed to take advantage of them, but, obviously, in his enthusiasm, he had been too hasty. He would not make the same mistake again. He was now in the process of running several complicated cross-analyses of the entire data set with Axum’s and Seven’s catoms. He had expected to find immediate differences.

  No useful on
es were apparent thus far.

  A faint alarm sounded from his console. Entering his access codes, he searched for the source and shot to his feet the moment he found it.

  “Breathe,” a calm voice suggested from the front of Seven’s mind. Her primitive brain had other ideas, but, as none of them had proved effective, she forced the panic it was generating to stillness and inhaled deeply.

  Had she still been unconscious, living in Axum’s shared gestalt, she could have released the pod’s locks with a thought.

  But this was the real world.

  Finally.

  A new thought occurred to her. The chamber’s locking mechanism normally had a manual override. Running her fingers along both sides, she finally discovered a metallic bar. Grasping it firmly, she felt along it until she found the cross beams securing it. Just past them, embedded in the casing, was the manual release.

  The chamber opened with a loud hiss. Seven clambered outside of it immediately. Once freed, she studied her surroundings. She stood in a cavernous room, larger than most cargo bays. A single door was embedded into the far, smooth wall. Between Seven and that wall were five rows of stasis chambers. Each row but the last contained ten chambers.

  Just behind Seven, Axum rested peacefully in stasis. His face was far more disfigured than she had previously seen. His scalp was bald but for a few tufts of white hair.

  Seven did not need to examine the other chambers to know what they contained, though she did pause over those housing the children of Arehaz, some still less than a year old. After assuring herself that the children’s vital signs were normal, she started toward the door.

  She still had several meters to go when it slid open and a figure shrouded in shadow entered, allowing the door to shut behind him.

  “Hello, Seven of Nine,” a male voice said.

  Seven risked an educated guess. “Commander.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  VESTA

  The eyes of Isorla Cin were filled with misgivings. The eyes of her first consul, Lant Dreeg, were filled with amused resolve.

  Janeway did not need to consult Lieutenant Lasren to know that this was Dreeg’s work. He had presented his opening offer but, like any good gambler, hedged his bets. For all she knew, he had made contact with Meeml or Kashyk, without Cin’s knowledge, well before she attempted to negotiate with him. Dreeg believed, foolishly, that Janeway, the fleet’s commander, was the only thing standing between him and the technology he intended to acquire. She must be removed or repositioned to enhance his hand. Whether or not the suggestion to take her prisoner had been Kashyk’s idea or Dreeg’s didn’t matter. Dreeg assumed those she commanded would part with anything to secure her safe return, and everything Dreeg had asked for would now be included in the price for the Confederacy’s aid in freeing the admiral, should she be captured by Kashyk and his Kinara. No matter what happened here, Dreeg won.

  The admiral could not allow that to happen.

  Was it possible, however, that there was any truth in Kashyk’s words? There was a first time for everything. Had Kashyk been instrumental in forming the alliance now arrayed against the Confederacy for his own ends? Had they come, as he and Meeml had said, seeking only access to the Confederacy’s streams? Were they willing to negotiate a peaceful settlement in order to guarantee that access?

  Had she, simply by her presence here, scuttled any hope the Confederacy might have of ending these attacks on the Gateway?

  “Admiral,” Captain Farkas said softly.

  Janeway turned to her.

  “Jepel, cut the audio on the channel,” Farkas ordered.

  Once the ops officer had complied, Farkas said, “I’m not sure what you’re thinking, but my feeling is that we have now officially worn out our welcome here.”

  “I agree,” Cambridge said from his position just above them.

  “They say they want peace. Let them work it out,” Farkas suggested. “We don’t have to be a part of this.”

  “We are a part of this, like it or not,” Janeway said.

  “No, we really aren’t,” Cambridge countered. “The Confederacy is not bound by agreement to defend us. No alliance exists here. They have proven themselves capable of routing these attacks on numerous occasions. Whatever they decide to do here is no concern of ours or yours.”

  “Rigger Meeml spoke of resources they intend to access beyond Confederacy space. If that’s all they want . . .” Farkas began.

  “Aren’t you even a little worried about what resources could be so valuable to them that they are willing to sustain such heavy losses to acquire them?” Janeway asked. “You were the one who pointed out how inconvenient it could be for our fleet to count all of these species as enemies while we are here, and how much more challenging will it be if they become allies of the Confederacy?”

  “We’ve been through worse,” Farkas said. “Let’s deal with that reality if and when it becomes necessary.”

  “You can’t give Kashyk what he wants, Admiral,” Cambridge said. “You can’t turn yourself over to him and hope for a fair trial.”

  “Is that too high a price to pay to ensure the safety of our fleet in addition to billions of Confederacy citizens?” Janeway asked.

  “Yes,” Farkas and Cambridge replied simultaneously.

  “Have you ever known Kashyk to be on a first-name basis with the truth, Admiral?” Farkas asked.

  “There will be no trial,” Cambridge added. “I’d say a quick execution is the most you could hope for.”

  “I do not believe we are responsible for bringing this threat to the Confederacy,” Janeway said. “If Meeml spoke the truth, it was coming, whether we were here or not. But we can’t be responsible now for allowing this to disintegrate into all-out war if we can stop it.”

  Cambridge shook his head. “It’s not our war, Admiral.”

  “I don’t think the Devore, the Turei, or the Vaadwaur are going to appreciate the distinction,” Janeway said. “And if we leave now without answering the presider’s questions, she will be predisposed to believe Kashyk’s version of events.”

  “Run and we look guilty?” Farkas asked.

  “I can live with that,” Cambridge said.

  “Your concerns are noted,” Janeway said, “and appreciated,” she added more gently. “Restore the open channel to the presider only.”

  Farkas nodded to ops as Janeway rose from her chair and approached the main viewscreen. “Presider Cin,” she said.

  “Your translation system is malfunctioning, Admiral,” Cin said. “We have been forced to rely on Mister Grish for the last few minutes.”

  “I apologize, Presider,” Janeway said. “I needed a moment to confer with my crew. My offer still stands. Let us both retreat to your territory and I will provide you with the entire story of the Federation’s interactions with the species assembled here.”

  “First, I must know,” Cin said. “Did the Federation destroy the Borg?”

  “Not exactly,” Janeway said. “The Borg invaded the Federation. Billions died during their attacks.”

  “Then you have come seeking reparations for what they took from you?”

  “There are no reparations to be had, Presider,” Janeway said. “We have come to explore former Borg space, not to annex it. We did not destroy them. Even with our advanced technology, we couldn’t. The species that unknowingly gave rise to the Borg thousands of years ago returned. The Borg were transformed, accepted back into what they called their gestalt, and have departed our galaxy for parts unknown. Our mandate in returning here is to confirm this data. Thus far, it appears to be true.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Cin demanded.

  “The fate of the Borg had nothing to do with our discussions, Presider,” Janeway insisted. “Given the comparative states of our technological advancement, sharing that intelligence might have been seen by you as an attempt to assert superiority over you. I would not have you accept us as an ally under threat of force. Had you seen us as th
e conqueror of your ancient enemy, would you not have feared meeting the same fate were you disinclined to pursue our negotiations?”

  “We have been completely honest and forthcoming with you and your people since you arrived, Admiral,” Cin said.

  Janeway shook her head. “You, perhaps, but your first consul?” she asked. “These are complicated situations, Presider. Every choice may be seen in hindsight as a misstep. But you must believe that, from day one, I have done everything in my power to protect the possibility of an alliance. I was sincere in my hopes and willing to set aside many significant cultural differences in the name of peaceful coexistence and mutual support. It was your first consul who presented terms he knew I would be unable to accept. But I was even willing to overlook his impatience to assist you in managing this crisis.”

  “Are you still willing to do so?” Cin asked.

  “How?”

  “I want to believe you, Admiral. I want to believe that Inspector Kashyk is determined to divide us because he understands, as I do, how powerful our alliance would be.”

  “That is certainly a possibility,” Janeway agreed.

  “A protector is being dispatched now to cloak your vessel. Move your ship to the coordinates we provide and wait there,” Cin said. “Our forces will eliminate the current threat. When that is done, you and I will have much to discuss.”

  “Very well,” Janeway said. To Farkas, she added, “Take us to red alert.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Farkas said.

  Inspector Kashyk again appeared on the viewscreen. “Have you reached a decision, Presider Cin?” he asked.

  “I have, Inspector,” Cin replied. “Although your claims are troubling, I cannot allow you to muddy the issue by making any agreement between us contingent upon your past disagreements with the Federation. My offer still stands to select an appropriate neutral location where we may continue our discussions. But I will not purchase my own safety at the cost of another’s freedom.”

  “You might have chosen peace, Presider. Instead you have chosen your own destruction for a most unworthy ally.”

  “So be it,” Cin said.