Chapter 15
"Are you comfortable?" B'Elanna asked. "Want a drink?"
"Yes I am, and no thank you," Seven replied, wondering what was going on with her lover.
"Alright then, in that case it's time for us to talk," B'Elanna said while sitting down beside Seven. "Now, you know I love you, and I wouldn't think of doing anything else but fully supporting you while others are around. But now that we are alone... Why the hell didn't you tell me this? I deserve to know something like that."
"You deserve to know?" Seven asked, her voice making it very clear what she thought of that statement.
"Don't you even think about going there, Princess. You bet your pretty ass that I deserve to know. I'm your partner, your Mate, your lover, your other half. Call it what you want, I'm it. As such I deserve to know that you aren't just another drone. I deserve to know that there might come a day that the Borg would hunt you down. Damn it Seven, yes, I do deserve to know."
Seven looked at B'Elanna for a long moment, and the Klingon could clearly see that Seven was walking the fine line between retreating into her cold Borg armor or opening up to B'Elanna.
"Seven, don't get me wrong, I'll be there for you, I'll always be there for you. Knowing this now doesn't change how I feel about you, but yes, I did deserve to know."
"And when should I have told you?" Seven finally asked, making it clear that she had chosen to open that last dark part of her existence to her lover. "Beloved, in the beginning when I came on board Voyager, if I had told you then... you might not have voted to set me off the ship, but you would have shouted the loudest for extra security measures; making me a prisoner on this ship. Then we became friends, I could not tell you then either because once we were friends you would have reacted like you are now; saying that I should have told you. Then we became lovers, and any chance to tell you had long passed. I could not tell you, beloved, because there never was a good time to tell you. Besides..."
"Besides, what?" B'Elanna asked when Seven stopped talking.
"Besides... There is also the fact that I myself never really expected the Borg to come searching for me this actively. I assumed that if the number of replacement drones started to dwindle, they would simply train new drones to keep the number constant. I did not take into account the irrational mind of the Queen, who apparently found it acceptable to let the number of replacement drones drop like that."
"She probably thought that nothing could happen to her," B'Elanna guessed, seeing Seven's point. "I mean, here she was, having all the power of the Borg behind her, how could something happen to her? I think that this is also the reason why she was so close when they tried to assimilate the species that got her killed."
"Probably," Seven agreed. She sighed before continuing, "I am sorry, beloved. You are correct; you did deserve to know this. Even if what I hoped would have been the case, that the Borg would not come for me, then you still should have known this. It is just as I said; there was never a good time to tell you. Besides, in the beginning of our relationship I also feared that knowing this would turn you away from me."
"And do you still think that?" B'Elanna asked, knowing that at some point with her previous lovers it would have pissed her off to the extreme if they had assumed that they would know how B'Elanna would react. 'Guess true love really does makes the difference,' B'Elanna thought as she moved a little closer to Seven and put her head on the blonde's shoulder.
"I do not," Seven assured. "But..."
"But?"
"I... I do wonder if this will affect our physical intimacy."
"What do you mean?"
Seven lifted her enhanced hand and showed it to B'Elanna. "My implants have changed; most look different now."
B'Elanna looked at the metal bands covering Seven's hand and saw that they did indeed look slightly different. Without B'Elanna having to ask, Seven extended her assimilation tubes and there the difference was clearly visible. They were longer, a little thicker than before, and the color had changed from metallic gray to metallic blue. But the thing that had B'Elanna's interest the most were the changed heads of the assimilation tubes. Where before the tubes had reminded B'Elanna of snakes by the way they moved, now she could even see the faces of little snakes in the design of the heads, with a little imagination. She knew of course that this 'face' was formed by the indentations where different tools could come out of the tubes.
After a moment of examining the tubes, B'Elanna looked Seven in the eyes and winked with a huge grin on her face. "Remember how I told you that I have a little bit of a leather fetish? Well baby, I think I have a Borg fetish as well. Because let me tell you, the fact that I can examine active assimilation tubes from this close is turning me on like there's no tomorrow."
"I knew it; you only like me for my assimilation tubes."
B'Elanna looked at Seven for a moment in total disbelief before Seven started to smile.
"Hehehe," B'Elanna laughed a little sheepishly. "Well, that sure is an original line, and it packs a lot more of an impact than 'you only like me for my breasts.' But let me tell you, baby, I do like you for your breasts. I like you for that great ass you have. I like you for those wonderful lips you have. I like you for those beautiful eyes. I like you for that perfect brain you have. And yes, I like you for you assimilation tubes. I like you for your strength. I like you for your enhanced senses. But you know what? I love you for being you. I love you, Seven of Nine. I would still love you if you didn't have a single thing Borg about you, and I would love you if you still looked the same as the first day you were on Voyager. I love you, Seven, and nothing about any of your implants will ever change that."
Seven placed her second hand on her middle before speaking softly, "I have an abdominal implant again, and this time it is one that cannot be removed."
"Great, more to get my Borg fetish worked up about."
"B'Elanna."
"Come on, baby, how often do I have to say that I don't care? I'm sure that I will love it; I can already imagine placing kisses all along the bands. That's part of loving, Seven. Love makes it perfect. You know, before we made love, I hated it when a lover teased me. I just wanted them to get their act together and fuck me. But then you came along and love entered the picture. You like to tease, and all of a sudden I love to be teased. What I once hated, I now love. And where I loved to pay homage to that perfect belly of yours, I'm sure I now will love to pay homage to your implant covered belly. Come on, baby, can't you imagine me trailing my tongue along those bands? Me kissing the soft skin between the hard metal? I think that the real question is; does it bother you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I talked several times already about the fact that I don't mind you having implants, and you know that I really, really, like it when you use your mesh covered hand if you're fucking me hard. I really like the feeling of those ridges then, while I like it if you use your other hand if we make slow and tender love. I have never given you any indication that I have a problem with your implants... Let me correct that, I have never given you any indication ever since we spent that time in the brig. It's you who always brings up your implants. It almost sounds as if you do have a problem with them, where as I don't."
Seven opened her mouth to reply, only to close it again. After a long moment of silence she finally spoke up. "Maybe I do."
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why?" Seven asked. The reason seemed so obvious to her.
"Baby, don't get me wrong, I can understand why you hate having been a part of the Borg. It was because you had to do things, terrible things, while not having any say in the matter. But that doesn't necessarily make your implants a bad thing. There are millions that would love to have the implants that you have. Just look at what they enable you to do. They pretty much turn you into a super human. You can do things no other human can do, and the great thing is that they don't make you any less human either. You are still a loving person who can be the tenderest person I know. You value things that the Hive mind never found interesting. Baby, value what you have. You can value what you have while still hating where it came from."
"Maybe the problem is that I never had a say in the matter," Seven said after thinking about B'Elanna's words for a moment. "I can see, and agree, that a lot of people would like to have Borg implants if they could have them without having to go through the only way one can get Borg implants. The thing is that I did not choose it. Yes, if I had been Annika Hansen who would have received the offer of having the implants I now have, I think that I might have taken the offer, at least for some of the implants. But I never had a say in the matter. Even now, now that these implants have been set to the primary setting I have implants that literally are the best that the Borg has to offer, yet I did not choose them. If I had the choice, I may have taken the senses that are even more enhanced now, but which are now controlled in a way that I do not have the onslaught of information I sometimes had before. I would however not choose to have an abdominal implant again. I did not have a choice in the matter. Is that so much to ask for; a choice?"
"It's not too much to ask for," B'Elanna said softly. The tone of Seven's voice when she had asked the last question had cut into B'Elanna like a knife.
"I wish with all my being that you could have that choice baby, but the thing is you don't have the choice in whether or not you have the implants. This means that you have a different choice. You can choose to hate the implants because they are Borg, or you can choose to accept the benefits the implants give you, despite their origin. It's kinda the same with the Borg modifications that were done to Voyager. Remember back to when you came onboard. A lot of modifications were made to Voyager because we needed them to survive our battle with species 8472. A lot of those modifications were actually good modifications, things that Voyager could have continued to use. But the Captain decided to remove them, and at that point I agreed a thousand percent with that. We didn't trust anything Borg, including you, and we wanted those modifications gone, even though they made Voyager better. That was our choice then."
B'Elanna stopped for a moment to take Seven's Borg enhanced hand and entwined their fingers. "The thing is, since we removed those modifications, we've made a lot of them again when you presented them to us and explained the how, what, and why. About forty percent of those modifications were implemented again. The only difference being that we see how we can change Federation technology to do what the Borg enhancements would do. We had a choice. First we chose to not use the modifications because they were Borg. Since then we chose to use the modifications despite them being Borg. You don't have the choice of removing the implants, but you do have the choice of being happy with what they enable you to do."
"I do appreciate most of the benefits the implants give me," Seven finally agreed a little reluctant.
"Well then, go with that, baby. Accept what you have, and use it to make sure that the Borg don't get what they want."
Seven slowly moved closer and kissed B'Elanna. "I..." Another kiss. "Love..." Kiss. "You." They shared a long kiss this time before Seven continued. "Thank you for being there for me, beloved."
"That, I promise you. I'll always be there for you, baby." B'Elanna sighed before continuing. "Now, I think it's time for us to go to bed. We need to get some sleep so that we can come up with a plan tomorrow to outsmart the Borg."
"Very well," Seven agreed and they moved off the couch and into the bedroom.
Seven peeled off her biosuit and was just about to put on her sleeping outfit when B'Elanna spoke up.
"Wait. Would you mind if I had a look?"
Knowing only too well what B'Elanna meant, Seven placed her hands on her abdominal implant before looking at B'Elanna with a raised eyebrow. "Borg fetish, you said?"
B'Elanna laughed a little sheepishly before winking at Seven. "Well, while I'd really love to indulge my Borg fetish and show you just how much fun it can be if I pay homage to your abdominal implant, we just don't have the time. We need our sleep. This is actually simple curiosity; I want to see what you look like."
"Very well, you may have a look."
"Thanks." B'Elanna kneeled in front of Seven and took a closer look at the blonde.
"Be careful, remember what happened the last time you kneeled like that to examine my abdomen?"
B'Elanna looked up to see Seven smiling down. "Oh, I know only too well. But do you really think that I would ask you to leave this time? Damn, I really do wish we had the time."
With a sigh B'Elanna looked back at the implant in front of her. Where Seven's assimilation tubes had reminded B'Elanna of snakes, the abdominal implant reminded her of a spider. There was a diamond shaped plate where Seven's navel had been, and four metal strips on both sides moved up in a diagonal line to meet up at Seven's side, with similar metal strips coming from Seven's back.
"Turn around please."
Seven did as she was asked and presented her back to B'Elanna.
The design on her back was pretty much the same as the one on the front. The only difference was in the size of the diamond shaped plate. Where the plate at Seven's front was only five centimeters across (two inches), the plate at her back was about four times as big. "Damn baby, how can you even move with that attached to your back?"
Seven twisted to look behind her, mainly to show B'Elanna how she could still move. "The plate you see is nothing more than a flexible cover plate. The implant actually exists out of segments that are attached to each other. These segments can move individually. Therefore they do not actually hinder my movement, even though one would assume that they would."
"I'm glad to hear that. For a moment I was afraid that it meant that I could only make love to you in certain positions from now on."
Seven turned around all the way and extended her hand to help B'Elanna to her feet. "Far from it. In fact, this implant makes me more... flexible... than I was before."
Seven stepped closer and molded her naked body against B'Elanna's equally naked one as she took the Klingon into a lover's embrace.
"And I cannot wait to show you just how... flexible... I am." She put one of her legs between B'Elanna's and moved it up against her lover's center. "Are you sure that we do not have enough time to make love?"
"Um, well, maybe we do have time for a little loving after all," B'Elanna said. There was no way that she could say no to Seven, especially since the blonde had the ability to set B'Elanna on fire with nothing more than a single touch.
"I thought so," Seven said as she stepped away, and closer to the bed; never letting go of B'Elanna's hands.
"You know what I'll miss?" B'Elanna asked as she followed Seven.
"What?" Seven asked as she put one of her legs onto the bed.
"Your bellybutton. I loved to kiss and lick your bellybutton, but now I can't anymore."
Seven stopped moving, one foot still on the floor. And after a moment she tilted her head a little with a small smile on her face. "Do you want to see an interesting trick?"
"Um, sure," B'Elanna replied, confused by the question.
Seven pointed to the diamond shaped plate on her belly and said; "Now you do not see it..." Suddenly the plate started to move and then it disappeared into the sides of the diamond form. "...And now you do see it," Seven finished, tapping her finger against her now visible bellybutton.
"What the hell?" B'Elanna asked, her voice full of surprise.
Seven followed the diamond shape with her finger. Now it existed out of the same metal bands as the rest of her implant.
"Most of the technology of the implant is in the diamond shape on my back, and also under my skin, which is why it can no longer be removed. A part of my spine has been removed and part of the implant now takes that place. Also, the new Borg spinal cord that replaced my old Borg spinal cord now actually passes through the implant. The plate on the front however was nothing more than a cover plate designed to protect an implant that I do not have. So I could change the design of the implant to remove the plate in I wanted."
"You can change the design of your implants?" B'Elanna asked in disbelief.
"I can, within limits. Is this also one of those things that you deserved to know?"
"That depends, are you going to mention it in the report that you still have to write for the senior staff about your implants?"
"I am."
"In that case, no. There are bound to be more things that I don't know yet. I'll find that out in the report. But, um, what do you mean by 'within limits'?"
"There is now a nanocomputer in my cranial implant. Its sole purpose is to keep my implants at peak efficiency, or as efficient as possible if I am in a situation where peak efficiency cannot be maintained. It will allow any changes that do not affect the implants in a negative way. Removing a cover plate that is not covering any implant does not affect my implants negatively, therefore I could remove it. I would not be able to change the form or the positioning of the bands, for instance, because this could mean that when the force-field is activated it would not cover me fully."
"Then why doesn't this nanocomputer activate the other implants? I know that you don't have implants that normal drones have. Wouldn't activating those mean that you would work at a 'higher level of efficiency?' Take the eye piece for instance; I know that your enhanced vision could be improved even more by giving you a protruding eye-piece again."
"That too will make it into my report. The short version is that the Hive mind and I reached an agreement. They would not set my nanocomputer to start making implants that I did not already have at the time that the agreement was reached, and I would not terminate my own existence. Unfortunately my abdominal implant was already created by that time."
"What?! Seven,"
"B'Elanna, I do not want to die," Seven interrupted. "But I also do not want to be a Borg drone again. If I have to choose between the two, I will choose my termination."
B'Elanna closed her eyes for a moment, but didn't reply. Though she couldn't bear to think of losing Seven, she too would not want to live as a drone and she would probably make the same choice. "Alright, fair enough. But promise me baby, that is an absolute last resort."
"I promise," Seven assured. "There would truly have to be no other option before I would even think of ending my life, and thereby giving up any chance of living my life with you."
"Alright, as long as we got that settled, back to your implant... why don't you have a new eye piece?"
"Because they had not yet replaced the implants gathering information, only the one processing it. I still have the artificial eye that the Doctor made for me, and the old Borg implants that enhance my sense of smell and hearing. Unlike with a normal humanoid, that information does not go directly to my brain. Instead it goes to an implant that enhances the information gathered. That implant has been replaced and the new one is thirty percent more efficient than the old one. Therefore my senses have been effectively enhanced by almost that number."
"Kinda like how we improved Voyager's sensors some time back by enhancing the computer processing unit, and not by actually touching the sensors themselves?"
"Indeed," Seven agreed.
B'Elanna peeked around Seven to her back, and Seven helped by twisting slightly so that her lover could see more of the blonde's back.
"You know, I kinda like the location. I mean, yes, the small of your back is covered by the diamond shape. But it stops above your ass, and at the same time is low enough to still leave most of your beautiful back bare."
"With the exceptions of the bands," Seven reminded.
"They don't really cover your back," B'Elanna disagreed. "Yes, the top one is a bit high, but honey..." B'Elanna trailed one of the bands down to the diamond shaped base with her fingers, and then up the other side. Then she moved her hand over Seven's back. "Maybe you should have a look in the bathroom mirror tomorrow. But for now, feel how much of your back is uncovered? Besides, yes there are the bands, but they're only two centimeters wide at best. So it's not that those four bands cover all of your back. I think that if you take it all together, the bands and the diamond shape, it still covers less of your back than that leather top that you were trying on yesterday."
That seemed to be good news to the blonde. "Really?" She asked with a smile.
"Really." B'Elanna moved her hand over Seven's back some more. "And the best part of it is, it leaves all of the right places free, see? Your shoulders and back, even the sides below your ribs because the bands move up like this. Honest, the only thing I'll miss is the really cute small of your back that's covered now. I always liked to place my hand there when we were in Engineering and I came to stand beside you to look at stuff. A great place for an innocent and totally allowable touch, yet it still clearly showed how close we are because I was allowed to do it."
"True," Seven agreed. "I liked those touches, and I will miss them."
"Maybe a change is needed," B'Elanna said thoughtfully. Then she shrugged. "We will adapt, as you like to say. I can start touching you more to the sides now. Still on your back, but just like I said, more to the side; below the bands."
The fingers moved as B'Elanna started to follow the edges of the implant. "But despite the fact that you didn't have a choice in it, I personally think that it was a pretty decent deal. We lost the small of your back, but we got a really sexy implant back. I never saw you nude with your old implant, and maybe this is just my Borg fetish talking, but honest babe, I think it looks damn hot."
"But which one would you prefer?" Seven persisted. "The implant, or no abdominal implant?"
"If I truly had a choice? Then I would prefer what you want."
"B'Elanna,"
"It's your body," B'Elanna interrupted. "And my choice would be that you would have had the chance to actually choose. I love your body without the implant, and I love it with the implant. I love you, so to me it doesn't matter if you have the implant or not, as long I'm allowed to touch you, love you, feel you. I love you, Seven. You say that you have no choice; the implant is here to stay. So, that means that I love it, that I find it damn hot, and that I think it looks damn sexy on you. End of discussion. Well, not really end of discussion; that was just a saying, like saying, 'I love you, period'."
"And I love you, my Mate. But you are correct, it is end of discussion. I have no choice; I have to live with the implant from now on. So, going with the 'look at it from the positive side' approach I can only say that I really like having the implant because I know that my Mate finds it sexy as hell."
"I do," B'Elanna assured with a grin. Then she sighed. "Alright, that's enough question and answer for tonight. It's time to go to bed. Um, Seven... I know I just said that I wanted to make love to you, and believe me I do, but the conversation did cool me down a little to the point where I can ask you again if you don't mind if we just go to sleep. Tomorrow we have to work on a way to make sure that the Borg don't take you, and I'd much rather work on that rested."
"You are correct," Seven reluctantly agreed. "We do need our rest."
She moved until she was lying on her side of the bed. "It will be interesting; this will be the first time we go to sleep without making love."
"Don't you want your sleeping clothes?" B'Elanna asked as she moved to the replicator.
"B'Elanna, we never wear sleeping garments when we fall in sleep after making love, why would I wear some now? I think that we have proven by now that I do not need the sleeping garments the Doctor designed to get a good night rest; all I need is to be able to hold you."
"You have a point," B'Elanna agreed. She moved back without replicating her PJ's and crawled into bed. If Seven was going to sleep naked, B'Elanna sure as hell wanted to feel all of her lover's warm flesh against her.
They lay facing each other for a moment before Seven put her hand on B'Elanna's bottom to indicate that she wanted her to come even closer. B'Elanna did so, sliding one of her legs between Seven's and smiling when she felt Seven slide her un-trapped leg between hers as well. Soon hands were resting on each other's rears and they were touching all along their bodies.
"This feels great, but I doubt we'll be able to sleep like this," B'Elanna said with a very un-Klingon like giggle.
"A giggling Klingon, I think the crew will love to find out that you can giggle like a little girl. And I know that we cannot sleep like this; we will move in our sleep and find more comfortable positions. The point however, is that we can fall asleep like this, and that is what I want."
"If you ever dare to mention to anyone, anyone, that I giggle, I'll... I'll..."
"You'll, you'll... what?" Seven asked, deliberately shortening her words to mimic B'Elanna's.
"I'll.... ah. I'll cut you off. No love making for a whole month."
"What?!"
"You heard me, Borg."
"Hmm, Borg. That reminds me. Did I tell you that the implant that regulates my hormone levels is also improved? If I need to I can actually go without for a month, the question is... can you? Could you really cut me off for a month while I am walking around in here with nothing on but a leather thong and the smallest of top's Fawza made for me?"
"Um..."
"Um?"
"How about this? Seven, please don't tell anyone. I'll do anything you want."
"Anything? So now you do not threaten to cut me off, instead you promise to do anything I want?"
"Hell yeah," B'Elanna laughed. "Because I'm sure I'll love the 'everything you want', but I wouldn't survive a month of not making love to you."
"I will think of a proper 'everything I want' as a payment to keep your secret, but you do realize that you are easy?"
"Only for you baby. Tom sometimes really had to beg to get some, but I love giving some to you."
"I was not talking of that kind of easy. But come to think of it; B'Elanna, you are easy."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm easy. I love to make love to perfect, former Borg, six foot blonde sex bombs; somehow I don't think I'm the only one in the universe."
"Probably not," Seven agreed with a smile. "But you are the only one in the universe who will make love to this particular perfect, former Borg, six foot blonde sex bomb. Now go to sleep so that we can work tomorrow on making sure that we will continue to be together for the rest of our lives."
"Yes Princess."
~~~~~~~~~~{}~~~~~~~~~~
"Alright, before we begin, Seven, how's that report coming along?"
"It is not, Captain. We worked on the shields yesterday and I was planning on writing the report on my implants after this meeting, while Lieutenant Torres and Ensign Kim test the shields."
"Good," Janeway agreed before looking at B'Elanna. "Since Seven is talking about you testing the shields, I assume you made good process on them yesterday?"
"We actually finished it. We didn't really have to change anything; it was really nothing more than changing the settings and adding some creative programming of Seven's side. We stayed away from Borg algorithms and all that, but Seven's still the bomb at crunching numbers. The bad thing is that even at peak efficiency, we'll only have the shields at twenty-five percent of the strength of what we normally have."
"Peak efficiency huh?" Janeway asked filing that little Borg like speech pattern away to tease B'Elanna with at a later date. "Finishing the shields already is a lot more progress than we expected, so why are you wearing that frown on your face?"
B'Elanna was quiet for a moment before sighing. "Engineering superstition really. It just went too easy, Captain. There has to be something wrong with it, something that we overlooked. I mean, the data shows that I can almost guarantee that it'll take the Borg at least four hours to get in... As long as they don't take the risk and try to destroy our shields by targeting Engineering and blowing it to bits."
"They will not," Seven assured. "The risk of a chain reaction that would destroy the entire ship, and me, is too big. More so because they know that Engineering is one of the places where I often am in emergencies. They will know that the changes in the shields are only a temporary solution and will concentrate on getting through them. The Borg can be very patient if need be."
"Right," B'Elanna said before continuing. "As I said, it all looks good, and we had absolutely no problem with figuring it out. We could have figured this out years ago if shield strength wasn't normally the highest priority. Harry deserves extra credit for suggesting that we try going the other way. We lost the most time by simply checking frequencies and such."
She shook her head slightly. "I don't trust it. I would like to run some more tests first. If we need to implement the changes before the testing is done, well, that won't really be a problem. It's done within a minute by simply changing the settings. We already uploaded the new system just in case; it only needs to be activated."
"You do that," Janeway agreed. "I'm not new to things going too easy, so I can understand your concerns. Now, assuming that the shields do hold and give us those four hours of time, that means that we have four hours, at most, to implement something that will make the Borg leave Seven alone. I would like some ideas on that 'something.' Suggestions?"
It was eerily quiet around the table for a long moment before Janeway spoke up again. "I've been coming up with just as much; nothing. The one thing we could rely on until now with our encounters with the Borg, was that they ignore people inside their cubes as long as they aren't perceived as a threat, but we can't even use that trick this time. They're looking for Seven, and therefore they'll be looking for anyone on their cubes that don't belong there."
"I would agree with that assessment," Seven said.
"I thought of something," Chakotay spoke up. "I don't think it will work, but maybe it might give someone else an idea. We could,"
{Red alert. Captain to the bridge.}
"Report," Janeway said as she and the rest of the senior staff moved out of the conference room and to their stations.
"Captain, we were just passed by a ship traveling at transwarp. They overshot us, but there's no doubt that they must have noticed us," Ensign Davits said as he moved out of the captain's chair.
"Which gives us about two minutes before they turn around and reach us," Janeway said in understanding. "All hands to battle stations."
She looked at B'Elanna for a moment before sitting down in her chair. "Guess the testing you wanted to do is going to be field testing. Change the shields."
"Aye Captain."
"Shield strength dropped to twenty-five percent," Tuvok reported before almost immediately adding, "Sensors are picking up a ship closing in at transwarp speed."
"B'Elanna?" Janeway merely asked.
"New shield settings are holding. Guess my fears were unfounded," B'Elanna said with relief in her voice.
"A Borg cube has dropped out of transwarp," Tuvok said. "They are trying to beam onto the ship... shields are holding and preventing the beaming."
"The Borg are sending a message on all frequencies," Harry spoke up, just before said message could be heard on the bridge.
{We are the Borg. Lower your shields, and surrender your ship. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours. Resistance is futile.}
"Can't they ever come up with a new mantra?" Tom mumbled in frustration.
"What I'd like to know is how they found us so fast," Chakotay spoke up. "I thought we still had a couple of days."
"As did I," Seven agreed. "Apparently the Borg have found a way to improve their searching capabilities since I was severed from the Collective."
"Actually, I think it's more a case of us underestimating the amount of ships the Borg are using to find you," B'Elanna corrected. "Even if they had sensors that only scanned for a single light year, use fifty thousand ships and that one light year radius per ship will still give you one-hundred thousand light years of information."
Tuvok lifted an eyebrow at the logic of the statement. "I do believe that Lieutenant Torres has a point, especially since we forgot to take into account that the Borg already knew our general vicinity."
Janeway didn't say anything, but looked at him in a way that made it clear that she expected him to explain himself.
"We have been traveling in the same general direction for the last seven years, Captain."
"Of course," Janeway sighed in understanding. "And our run-ins with the Borg gave them several points to plot, clearly showing that line. Just have several hundred cubes flying along that line and they were bound to find us as quickly as they did."
"Captain, more cubes are dropping out of transwarp and matching our course," Tuvok informed. "The Borg are continuing to try to beam onto Voyager."
"B'Elanna, how are the shields doing? Are those extra ships influencing the timeframe you gave us?"
"The shields are holding, Captain, and if things go as they went in the holodeck, then they can bring in as many ships as they want. It doesn't influence the shields how many or how often they try to beam onto the ship, or someone off the ship for that matter. We do have two problems though. First, I'm sure that soon the Borg will try to get through the shields in a different way, and there's a chance that they'll hit on a solution that we didn't think of. And the second problem is the power drain. As I said before, in this setting the shields are draining so much power that they can only be activated for four hours at most before the warp core will automatically shut down. Actually three hours and forty-five minutes now."
"In that case, let's head back to the conference room and do some brainstorming. Chakotay, you said that you might have an idea?"
"I had, but it was built on the Borg not knowing where we were. It won't work now."
"To the conference room people."
Tuvok was just about to leave his station to the Ensign standing by to take over, when he noticed something on his monitor. "Captain, sensors are picking up another Borg ship; a massive Borg ship. The readings show twenty-three separate warp cores."
"What!? Twenty-three warp cores... on one ship?" Janeway asked, thinking that she must have misunderstood. She knew that the Borg used transwarp coils to travel at transwarp, but these were still linked to a warp core that formed the backbone of the transwarp system. And it was the warp cores that were picked up on sensors, not attached coils. But she had never heard of a Borg ship having more than one warp core. "On screen."
A moment later, they were looking at the biggest ship they had ever seen, or even heard of. "What the hell is that?" Janeway asked, for a moment forgetting her Captain's demeanor.
"Unimatrix 01," Seven said in a whisper before continuing in a stronger voice. "It is the heart of the Borg Collective; the 'home' of the Borg Queen. Normally it is always deep in the middle of Borg territory. Though, as you can clearly, see the ship is very capable of space travel, normally it is not used for this."
"Which explains why she was on a sphere when she was killed," B'Elanna added. "If she'd been in that thing she might still be alive.
Seven hesitated while going over the information that the Borg had given her from the situation of the Queen's death. Then she agreed, "She would with a hundred percent certainty still be alive as long as she had not left Unimatrix 01."
"So why name a ship Unimatrix 01, why not name their original Homeworld that instead?" B'Elanna wondered.
"Because at some point in the history of the Borg 'Unimatrix' was nothing more than a name of a certain class of starships, like Voyager is an Intrepid class ship." Seven explained.
"Unimatrix 01 was the designation of one of the first Borg ships of notice; the ship they once picked as their fleet command ship because it was more advanced than the ships before that time. As the Borg evolved, they adapted and modernized their home. That is still Unimatrix 01 because the first ship was never actually decommissioned. The ship has been modernized, changed and added to, so many times over the existence of the Borg that in reality nothing is left of the original ship. Which, by the way, was not much larger than Voyager. Unimatrix 01 has always been considered the 'home' of the Borg, and is now designed in such a way."
"That isn't a ship; that's a flying city," Harry blurted out as he looked at the huge rectangle shaped ship with sides just as relatively smooth as the sides of the cubes were.
"More like a flying country," Tom agreed. "There must be millions of drones on that thing."
"Normally there are half a billion drones based on Unimatrix 01," Seven corrected. "But there is room for three times that number. The mass is roughly half of that of Earth's moon, but obviously it is approximately the same diameter as Earth's moon since unlike the moon, the interior of Unimatrix 01 exists out of more cavities than solid matter."
"Isn't that an inefficient use of space than?" B'Elanna asked. "Why have room for one and a half billion and than 'only' have half a billion onboard?"
"The reason it can carry more drones than it does is because the Borg believe that one-point-five billion is the number of drones needed to build a new completely self-sustainable Collective. Should they ever encounter a force that can, and does, destroy the Borg, then Unimatrix 01 will be loaded with the most suitable drones to build a new Collective and it will flee Borg space. While the rest of the Borg Collective fights the opposing force in a self-destructive battle to ensure the escape of Unimatrix 01. This tactic has never been used in the existence of the Borg, but they did prepare for it."
"The Borg running away?" B'Elanna asked in disbelief.
"Believe me, B'Elanna, the Borg are not above 'running to live and fight another day,' is that not how the saying goes?"
"It is," Janeway answered for B'Elanna, knowing that B'Elanna would have added something to indicate how much Klingons hate that statement. "It's just that they haven't yet encountered a force that made them run. But why bring this... Borg safe-haven here, and not leave it securely deep in Borg space?"
"I can only assume that they brought it here because it is also the place where the Borg Queen is normally based. Maybe they think that its vicinity will convince me to go to them freely. Besides, seeing that the purpose of Unimatrix 01 is to ensure the continued existence of the Borg Collective if they are faced with potential destruction of the Collective, Unimatrix 01 does have the offensive and defensive capabilities needed for such a task. They do not have to worry about the destruction of Unimatrix 01. I do not know of a power that could do enough damage in a short enough time to prevent Unimatrix 01 from leaving. Even if it was attacked by species 8472 Unimatrix 01 would be able to escape with no more than an estimated ten percent of damage... assuming that the rest of the Collective would intervene and prevent species 8472 from pursuing Unimatrix 01."
"Well, maybe this turns things in our favor," Janeway said, an idea starting to form in her mind. "Conference room, people." Janeway walked over to the engineering station while the rest started to file into the conference room. "Keep a close eye on those shields, Ensign. If it looks like they are starting to fail, I want to know."
"Aye Captain."
Continued...