Chapter Three

B’Elanna Torres blankly stared at the front view screen. Well into their second day of travel since they left Voyager, she and Tuvok were finally approaching their last nebula.

I should have never volunteered for this, thought Torres. She hated long shuttle trips, and having Tuvok along did not make the time pass any more quickly. She glanced casually at the dark-skinned Vulcan. He looked exactly the same as he did two days ago. While she was fatigued and maddened with boredom, he seemed as calm and relaxed as he always did. She closed her eyes to help control the angry surge of annoyance that built up inside of her. She wanted more than anything to reach over and break his-

Torres took a deep breath. That was happening too many times on this trip as it was. She needed to do something about her temper. We it Tuvok’s fault that she was half Klingon, and that half deeply resented being cooped up for so long in a shuttle? Where was the glory there? And her human half, just as antsy about getting out of the shuttle and back to the familiar surroundings of Engineering. Yes, she was certainly jealous of Tuvok’s perfect emotional control and endless patience. If only he wasn’t so stiff…

“Lt. Torres,” Tuvok calmly repeated. Torres snapped to attention. “I’m sorry Tuvok, what did you say?”

“We are about to come out of warp. Are you prepared to collect your samples for testing?”

“Yes, yes, one moment,” Torres’s hands scrambled over her terminal. Tuvok raised an eyebrow in passing interest of his crewmate’s recent inattentiveness, and returned to piloting the shuttle.

“We are now coming out of Warp,” he announced.

“Plowright Collectors are online. Ready to go, Tuvok.”

“I am commencing the harvesting pattern.”

Torres activated the makeshift gatherers that she managed to attach to the outside of the shuttle. She was thankful that is was Tuvok who would be piloting the shuttle, her duties now limited to making certain the Plowrights held together.

“Tests are all positive. We are all ready to go,” Torres reported.

“It will take approximately twelve point six hours for the collection process to be completed,” Tuvok reported. “I suggest you take this opportunity to rest,” he said, noticing the lines of fatigue on her face.

Torres glared angrily at Tuvok, resentful at the suggestion. Then she realized that she was tired, and calmed herself. “I suppose you are right, Tuvok.” She stood up. “I guess I could do with a couple of hours of sleep.”

Tuvok nodded, and returned his attention to the terminal. Janeway could have sent Tom, Torres thought to herself. But we wouldn’t want to make this mission too much fun.

The shuttle suddenly bucked violently, sending Torres flying into a bulkhead. Tuvok was jarred in his seat, but he quickly recovered and checked the sensors. Torres sat up, a bit bewildered by the flashing Red Alert lights, and wiped the blood off of her ridged forehead before it ran into her eyes.

“What the hell was that Tuvok?”

“Unknown. Sensors are inoperative due to interference from the nebula.” The shuttle bucked again, this time less violently.

“Impact off of the port bow,” reported Tuvok. “it appears to be an energy weapon.”

Torres was fuming, and angrily sat down. “Who would fire at us?”

“Unknown,” Tuvok replied.

Torres wiped a splotch of blood off of the terminal in front of her, and hurried to work.

“I can’t compensate for the nebula’s interference of our sensors,” Torres reported, perhaps a little louder than necessary. “We need to leave the nebula.”

“We will exit the far side of the nebula in one point three minutes.”

The shuttle bucked again. “That’s not fast enough!” roared Torres. “Shields are down to twenty seven percent!”

“One minute until we have cleared the nebula,” Tuvok calmly replied. “Initiating evasive pattern gamma.”

“Can we go to warp?” Torres demanded.

“That would be inadvisable while inside of the nebula.”

Torres growled. The shuttle bucked yet again, and sparks flew from the ceiling.

“Shields are down! Warp drive is inoperative!” Torres reported.

“Launching automatic distress beacon,” said Tuvok. “We are losing velocity.”

The shuttle shuddered, and began to rapidly decelerate.

“We are caught in a tractor beam!” Torres exclaimed. “I’m firing phasers, but I can’t get a lock on anything out there.”

“Phasers were ineffective. Tractor beam still at full intensity.”

The shuttle rumbled loudly. Sparks flew from various consoles around the shuttle. The lights flickered on and off.

“Damn! Inertial dampeners offline,” reported Torres.

“We are exiting the nebula,” Tuvok finally said.

As soon as the shuttle left the cloak of the nebula, the unknown enemy ceased fire. The shuttle was brought to a standstill. Inside, Torres and Tuvok remained silent, while scrambling to get some of the damaged systems online. Unexpectedly, the silence was broken by the enemy.

“Incoming message Tuvok, its from whoever is out there!”

“On speaker.”

A familiar monotonous voice filled the cabin.

“You are not Bint’Ari. State your nature.”

“Tuvok,” Torres quietly said, that-”

“This is Lt. Tuvok, of the Federation Starship Voyager. We are on a peaceful mission. Why have you attacked out vessel?”

“Your mission is irrelevant. You too will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.” the transmission ended.

“As I suspected. The Borg have a very distinct attack pattern,” Tuvok calmly said. “Status?”

The front view screen lit up on cue, showing a small Borg cube through the static.

“I’ve got shields up to thirteen percent, and maybe a couple of phaser shots. But against the Borg-”

“It is only a scout cube, no doubt looking for these Bint’Ari. What is the status of propulsion?”

“Warp drive is still down. Impulse is at eighty five percent,” Torres continued entering figures into her console. “We can move, that is, if we can get out of this tractor beam.”

“Tune the starboard phaser emitter to a random frequency in the upper EM band. Tune the other emitter to an inverse of that frequency.”

“One moment,” Torres hurriedly carried out the order. “Got it.”

“Target their tractor emitter, and randomly alternate fire between the two phasers.”

“No effect!”

“Remodulate the frequencies within the same guidelines and continue fire.”

The shuttle bucked under the barrage of the return fire. Sparks again flew from various systems inside of the shuttle.

“We just lost Life Support, Tuvok.”

The shuttle then surged forward, as part of the scout cube exploded. The tractor beam turned off, and Tuvok piloted past the cube.

“We can’t get too far Tuvok, that cube is a lot faster than we are. Where are we going to go?”

“I am piloting us back into the nebula.”

“What?” Torres almost leap to her feet, but her strong grip on the arms of her chair kept her in place. “So we can be totally defenseless against them?”

“The Borg have demonstrated similar sensor capabilities to standard Federation scanners. The nebula should conceal us,” Tuvok explained. “We are now inside of the nebula.”

“Tuvok, they found us in the first place, while we were inside of the nebula! What is to stop them from finding us again?” Torres found it difficult to keep herself from ripping the arms off of her chair.

“All stop. Powering down all systems.”

“Tuvok!” Torres leapt to her feet. Tuvok turned his chair to face her.

“The Plowright Collectors caused considerable eddy currents within the nebula. The Borg detected these currents, and determined that they were not natural. They assumed that we were one of these Bint’Ari ships they were looking for, and moved to attack.”

Torres relaxed a bit. “So, why have we powered down?”

Tuvok hesitated. “I was allowing for the possibility that I underestimated the Borg’s sensor capabilities.”

Torres smiled. “Afraid you might have screwed up, huh?”

“That is unlikely,” replied Tuvok, unshaken. “I was merely allowing for an error factor with the given data.”

“Oh, of course,” Torres chucked, as she eased back into her seat. “we appear to be safe for now, but we can only last without life support for a short time. How do we know when, or if, they have gone away?”

“We do not appear to be their primary objective,” explained Tuvok. “Their behavior suggests that they are hunting these Bint’Ari. Logic suggests that if they are unable to locate us within a given amount of time, they will continue with their primary mission.”

“I wonder who these Bint’Ari are.”

“Undoubtedly, they are a race that the Borg are currently endeavoring to assimilate.”

Torres considered the implications of what Tuvok had said. Assimilated? An entire species, victims of the Borg. She felt the all too familiar conflict emerge within her again. One part of her was thirsty for vengeance, wanted to go out and personally end each of the lives of the honorless Borg, vengeance for a fallen race. The human half, as it always did, tempered the flare of emotion, and that internal voice of reason usually won out.

“Well, I suppose while we are waiting, we should try and get some of these systems back up,” she suggested. “But we won’t be able to use the warp drive until we can repair the nacelles. And, since we don’t have any environmental suits onboard, we are going to have to land the shuttle to do that.”

“Before we entered the nebula, sensors detected a small M-class planet surrounding a nearby star,” said Tuvok. “Perhaps we will be able to land there, and effect repairs.”

“That should do. We can land, repair the nacelles, and only be a few hours late for our rendezvous with Voyager.”

Tuvok nodded in agreement. “We will power up systems again in two hours. The Borg should have resumed their search for Bint’Ari ships by then.

Torres began repairs to the sensors, trying not to think about the fact that they were using the Bint’Ari as a distraction for the Borg, while they tried to escape.

---

“The large cube has left, sir,” Yipu reported. “There still seemed to be two or three smaller cubes, which are hunting down out ships in the nebula. There is no way of knowing how successful their efforts are.”

Good news and bad news. To Ira, it seemed that there hasn’t been too much of the former at all in the last several cycles. Finally he had come to his own secure command center in Xenin, after seeing Yavitz to hers in Pinch’Ece. Yipu, of course, had accompanied him, to coordinate the Guards resistance to the Borg. So far, that resistance was laughable.

The Borg had already taken almost all of the Pianit’Uchi Providence, and half of Sympek. With the use of blades rather than chargers, Guard units had managed to kill a significant number of Borg, but it seemed as if there were endless numbers of them. Kill a hundred, and a hundred and fifty would appear in their stead. And the reports of Bint’Ari becoming Borg was unbelievable. How could his own people join with such an enemy? There hadn’t been any serious protests against the government in many seasons.

“How is the evacuation of the cities going?” Ira asked.

“Well,” Yipu nervously answered, “not too well. Before we could get word to Aoex, the Borg took it. We lost five hundred fliers there. The Borg have began their invasion of the Banik’Uma Providence at the base in Hopach’an, and a hundred fliers escaped to Oja island. The base on Mali’Chor was taken before we realized that a full scale invasion had begun.”

“How is it,” began Ira, “That in under a day, the Borg have managed to take almost half of our world?”

“Their technology is a factor,” responded Yipu. “The fact that we can’t shoot them has been a tremendous advantage. Since we have to fight them hand-to-hand, assimilation are common. When we lose one man, the Borg gain one. Their teleportation is an advantage as well. We have units willing a battle one minute, then to be overwhelmed the next by a hundred Borg suddenly appearing within their ranks. Ever since the Borg cube left though, I have heard reports that both the assimilation and the teleporting of the Borg have ceased.”

“Perhaps we killed too many of them,” suggested Ira. “Maybe they are fleeing.”

“Maybe they are getting re-enforcements.”

“Nothing like positive thinking, Yipu.”

“I am simply trying to prepare for the worst, sir.”

“As it is your job to,” Ira sighed. “Re-enforcements aside, can we handle the Borg that are already here?”

“I’d say we have a good chance, based on the reports,” explained Yipu. “Several resistance groups have formed among the civilians. These groups should be harder for the Borg to fight, because they tend to use a more guerilla style of attack.”

“If guerilla warfare is so much harder to combat, why aren’t our Guard units utilizing the same method?”

“I said they were harder to fight, but they aren’t enjoying any more success. They score a quick couple of kills, then they are forced to retreat because they are overwhelmed by the Borg. But, they are helpful. The more groups that are fighting the Borg the better. If we can put the Borg on the defensive, we may have a chance of winning.”

“Well, it sounds somewhat promising. Let’s just hope these Borg don’t throw any more surprises our way.”

“Agreed, sir.” Yipu made a hasty departure from Ira’s makeshift office. Certainly the Minister of he Guard had more important things to do than shoot the breeze with his boss. It made Ira feel more confident that Yipu had not fallen to pieces over this whole invasion. That meant that there was still some hope that the Borg could be beaten. He just wasn’t certain how.

To think, a week ago, Ira thought that this was perhaps one of the best times in all of history to be alive.

---

Hopeless, thought Harry Kim, as he sat staring out the front of the shuttlecraft. He would, every now and again, take a quick glance at Seven, who was seated next to him. She sat, almost unaware of his presence, at the helm of the Hesoid. Harry had tried several times to start a conversation, but to no avail. Small-talk served no purpose for her, so it was pointless to try and engage her in it.

She was like a rock, a mountain. So unattainable that it made him want her even more. Why someone as shy as he was always was after the women so far out of reach was beyond him.

“Ensign,”

Seven’s call snapped him out of his unproductive woolgathering.

“Seven! Yes,” Harry stuttered.

“I suggest that you pick up your scans in this area,” Seven said. “This area was targeted for assimilation by the Borg, though it had not been completed at the time of my separation from the Collective.”

“You didn’t feel the need to mention this before?” Harry exclaimed. “We could be walking right into a nest of Borg activity and you didn’t say anything about it to the Captain?”

“Most of this region had been targeted by the Borg for quite sometime now, Ensign,” Seven replied. “The Captain knows this. It would be futile to point out to her every area that there might be a Borg presence, because every area we have yet passed through has a high probability of Borg activity.”

“If you say so,” said Harry.

Again, Seven lapsed into her focused efficiency.

As she worked, a strange feeling came over her. She paused her work, and remained motionless for some time.

“Seven?” Harry asked gently, placing his hand on her arm. She snapped her head around, and glared at him intensely.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I am not certain,” Seven replied.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked.

“I do not know,” she replied, hesitantly. “I can feel them.”

“Who?”

Seven didn’t reply, but Harry didn’t really need an answer. There could be only one “them.”

Harry’s hands flew over his sensor console. “I thought that the Doctor disconnected the implants that allowed them to make contact with you. I’m not detecting any ships on long range scanners, but the readings may be disrupted by the nebula. Are you certain it is the Borg?”

“I do not know. It is like nothing I have ever felt before. A memory of what the Collective sounds like, only more intense.”

An alarm sounded, and Harry directed his attention to the sensor readout.

“Borg scout cube closing on an intercept course! I’m taking us into the nebula,” Harry cried. He turned towards Seven of Nine, who’s attention was locked on the view screen. “Seven?” prodded Harry, after he inputted the course change.

Her face remained fixed on the screen in front of her. Her face became more intense, an almost snarling expression crept over her. She felt a strong desire to return-

This was the chance she had been waiting months for. She could go back to the Borg. She would no longer be ‘one.’ She accessed the shuttle’s helm from her console, and changed the course of the shuttle so that it would intercept the scout.

“Seven, what are you doing?” Harry demanded, as he struggled to regain control of the shuttle.

“Resistance is futile!” she snarled. Her arm lashed out and struck Harry square in the jaw. He fell back, out of his chair, and spilled on the floor. He leapt back to his feet as Seven bore down upon him.

“Seven!” Harry cried as he dodged another of her blows. A rage filled Seven of Nine. One lonely human would not stand in her way of her return to the Collective.

Suddenly she was afraid. She could not explain it, but something was holding her back. She could not kill Ensign Kim, the only obstacle in her rejoining the Collective.

Seven of Nine stumbled forward, and fell to her knees. She began to mumble to herself. Harry inched towards her, and tried to help her to her feet.

She shoved him aside and made her way towards the helm of the shuttle. Harry watched in awe as her hands moved faster than he had ever them seen before.

The scout approached rapidly, only slowing at the last minute to come to a halt in front of the Hesoid. It attempted to grab the shuttle with a tractor beam, but it was easily deflected by the shuttle’s shields. The small shuttle lashed out, whipping around the cube and firing full phasers along one side of the scout.

The scout returned fire, but its disrupter shots bounced harmlessly off of the shuttle’s shields. The shuttle continued fire, and soon the small cube exploded. Seven then slumped, exhausted, atop her console.

Harry was stunned. He never thought he would be able to flee from the scout, let alone destroy it with the limited punch that the small shuttlecraft packed. He went to check on Seven, and found her unconscious. He carried her to the rear of the shuttle, and set to work undoing all of the modifications she made to the ship’s systems. Less than an hour later, the shuttle was heading back towards Voyager.

Star Trek, Voyager, and related properties are © Paramount Studio, and the author makes no claim towards them.

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