Chapter 18
"I'll give you some time. How about we meet up again in one hour?"
"Very well. Thank you Captain," Seven said before she, B'Elanna, and Tom, entered the Paris Quarters.
Once inside, the four Borg guards that had followed them in moved to places in the room where one could easily ignore them. More so since they were all once more linked to the Collective; their only purpose being to guard Seven and B'Elanna, not to actually listen to conversations.
Seven stepped closer to the waiting woman. Perizn was of a race that shared most of their body characteristics with humans. The main difference was the fact that her species had never lost their tail in the process of evolution, and that Perizn had a tail so long that it could almost reach to the floor. Something her clothing had to account for. Of course, there was also the little fact that her hair was bright purple; her natural hair color.
"Perizn."
"My Queen."
"Are you well?"
"I am... as you know."
"You want something to drink?" Tom asked while walking to the replicator.
The women declined. So instead of replicating drinks, Tom joined his wife; putting his arms loosely around her from behind.
"My Queen, I am unsure of how I can serve you from now on. Do... do you want me to return to the Collective?"
"That is your decision to make, you and your husband. Voyager will be back in the Alpha Quadrant soon. Once there the Voyager crew will be divided over different ships, and some will leave Starfleet; that is the way things are in Starfleet. You can take your chances there, or you both can join us on Unimatrix 01, both as members of the individualist crew of course."
Perizn looked over her shoulder and exchanged a long look with her husband.
"We'll talk about it," Tom finally said to Seven. "Until now Voyager was our home. But you're right, once back we'll have to leave our home. In the Federation, we'll only be ordinary crewmembers if we stay in Starfleet. The best I can hope for is getting another job as a pilot, of course on a bigger ship, but still. Who knows, maybe they would even offer me the command over the auxiliary fleet of one of the big starships. But with you I could work on really making a difference. Helping you to reform the Borg will literally change the lives of billions. As for Perizn, she will have to make her own decision and I'll go wherever she wants to go. But I must admit that I'm a little fearful of what kind of reaction she would get in the Federation. Perizn was lucky here on Voyager. You paved the way for her, Seven. You proved that former drones could be trusted to care for Voyager. Perizn never met the attitudes that you had to deal with. But I fear what it would be like for her in the Federation, a place that really only knows one thing about the Borg; that they have to fear them."
"Tom, I think it's only fair to warn you that if you do decide to join us on Unimatrix 01 you will have to get at least one Borg implant," B'Elanna pointed out.
"I will?" Tom asked, not liking that part at all.
B'Elanna grinned. "Sure, it's kinda like a badge of honor. You can't be living with the Borg without having at least one implant."
"I,"
"What my very funny Mate means," Seven spoke up wanting to put Tom at ease, "is that you will have to have a communication implant implanted. It is implanted under the skin at the base of your neck and it combines a subspace transmitter and a Borg link transmitter."
"Well, I can understand the subspace transmitter," Tom said thoughtfully. "It's kinda like a glorified com. link, right? Something that will enable me to contact anyone on the ship like the Federation communicators, but also someone on a different ship; something the Federation communicators can't do. But I don't really like the idea of being connected to the Hive mind."
"Do not worry, you will not," Seven assured. "It is not the Borg link that makes you part of the Hive mind. The Borg link is also comparable to a communicator, just that it works differently and has a different function. True, the commands to control a drone are sent through the link, but it is other implants that make drones follow those commands."
"But why would I need that link to begin with?"
"Because we do not address the computer like you do on Voyager. Here, if you want to know if the holodeck is in use, you ask the computer. In the Borg, there are no audio receivers all over the ship like on Voyager. Instead, you activate the Borg link and send your question over it. You will not be linked to all drones when doing so; you will simply get a reply back from the central computer."
"Oh," Tom said. "You know, you might want to work on finding a better way to describe that. Maybe something like; 'it exists out of a subspace communicator, and a Borg communicator which is needed to address the central computer.' It sounds a lot less intimidating."
Seven dipped her head in agreement. "We will keep it in mind. Be assured, the only thing you will even notice of this implant is that you no longer have to touch your communicator to activate it. Instead you will have to think of a command of your choosing to activate it. This thinking is just like the way you also use the communicator, by thinking sentences as if you are talking them. You do not have to worry that a stray thought will accidentally activate the communicator and send out your thoughts for anyone to receive; the communicator simply does not work like that."
"We will talk about what you offered," Perizn said, coming back to the original subject. "But I feel that we'll probably take you up on your offer of joining Unimatrix 01 as part of the Individualist drones."
"I would like it if you did," Seven assured. "We will also make this same offer to Harry and Gazec. Gazec wants to travel between the stars. There is a chance that she could get a Starship position in the Federation, but I think that both she and Harry will agree that such a position could not compare to the traveling we will be doing inside Borg space while changing the Collective. Besides, I am sure that the Barudian government will be happy to change Gazec's position from Envoy to Voyager to Envoy to the Borg Collective."
"Are you planning on offering other people on Voyager work with the Borg as well?" Tom asked.
"We are," Seven affirmed. "We highly value our Individualist crew members, but most of them have mindsets that have been influenced by years, and sometimes decades, of being part of the Hive mind. Besides their input we would also like the input of the people whose views I have learned to value over the years. True, I did not agree with some of those views, and I actually still do not agree with some. However, the combination of the Voyager's crew mindset, and the Borg Individual's crew mindset, will give us a balanced level of advice that will help us in changing the Borg to something all parties, including the Hive mind, can live with."
"There is still a problem with the Hive mind?" Tom asked.
B'Elanna answered that Question. "It depends on your definition of problem. There will always be problems with the Hive, the question is if it' problems we have to worry about, or problems that are merely the result of change that need getting used to. I mean, think back to when Seven came to Voyager. Do you remember how many problems Seven had when she was severed from the Collective? That was with a drone that had actually been 'groomed' to at one point go back to being an individual. Now multiply that with the scale on which we are making changes to the Borg."
"Yeah, I remember, but we didn't have that many problems with Perizn here. Her transition to being an individual again was actually pretty smooth."
"Tommy," Perizn said, using one of her endearments for her husband; one of the tame ones she used when she wasn't alone with the person she loved, and loved to make love to.
"There were several reasons why I adapted so easily. First off, I had only been a drone for six years before I joined Voyager; I still knew what it was like to be an individual. Also, like only you on this ship know, I still join the Hive mind every time I regenerate; I never was fully severed from the Collective. And let's not forget the big one; you have no idea how calming it is for a drone to know that the Hive mind is not displeased with you."
"Indeed," Seven agreed. "It was the fear that I was not serving the Hive mind that caused so many problems in the beginning."
"Right," B'Elanna said, before bringing the conversation back on focus. "But there are drones that have been part of the Collective for a very long time. Some long living species have actually been part of the Borg for centuries. There are a certain percentage of the Collective who will never be able to cope with the changes we want to make; we have to think of them as well. We can make a lot of our changes only because we basically say; 'we want to do this, but those that can't deal with that can keep doing that.' What we did was introduce a second system of existing into the Borg. Over time the percentages of how many drones use what system will change, but there will always be two systems in the Borg."
"But," Seven interrupted, "since this is sure to come up in our conversation with the Captain, I suggest that we leave this subject for where it is, for now. Instead, Tom let me thank you one more time, this time in person, for keeping the secret that we were still in contact with Perizn."
"Well, as I had Perizn tell you before, it freaked me out a little in the beginning." Tom admitted.
In fact, it had freaked him out so much to find out that he was actually dating a Borg drone and not a former Borg drone, that he had almost fled the room. However to his credit, he had come to his senses by the time he had reached the door. He had turned around, apologized, and he and Perizn had talked things out.
Tom smiled at his wife at his little understatement and then looked back at Seven. "But I trust her, and I trust you two. Besides, I have to tell you, after all the stuff we had to deal with in the Delta Quadrant it was nice to know that we didn't have to worry about the biggest threat anymore; running into the Borg one time too many. It was also nice to know that we had a friend out there, even though I couldn't tell anyone about it. I just wonder how long it'll take Janeway to figure out that there was a very good reason why some of the hostile species we came across suddenly decided to back down."
B'Elanna smirked before she winked at Tom. "Well, as I told you once, size does matter sometimes. You would be surprised how fast hostile species decide that it's not worth it to pursue Voyager when you show up at their home planet in a ship bigger than most moons are, and a few... dozen... cubes and politely ask them to leave Voyager alone."
"B'Elanna, as I told you then, it's not nice to tell a guy that size does matter. Besides, I always knew that you were all about showing off."
"Oh, yeah," B'Elanna readily agreed. "I'm all about showing off, and believe me; Seven loves it when I show off."
B'Elanna winked again, this time to indicate what kind of showing off she meant.
Tom sighed. "You've been together for two years now, haven't you two slowed down to normal lovemaking about now?"
"Hell no," B'Elanna laughed. "We did end up slowing down to making love about 'only' once every two days though. By the way, do you have any idea how many 'weird places' there are on Unimatrix 01?"
"Nope, I have no idea. How many?"
"Well, we don't know either, but we found fourteen until now, I bet there are thousands more to find."
Tom shook his head and sat down in the comfortable chair, leaving the couch for Seven and B'Elanna who did indeed sit down on it. He held on to Perizn's hand, asking her in that way to join him. Perizn did, sitting down on his lap and putting her arm around his neck.
"You would think that all you think about is sex," Tom said. "In fact, if Perizn hadn't kept me up-to-date with the changes you made, I would think for sure that you didn't do anything else but, you know."
"What's the matter, fly-boy? You sound a little... jealous. Are you having problems keeping your wife satisfied?" B'Elanna asked with a grin.
"Believe me, my Princess, my husband keeps me very, satisfied," Perizn assured.
"That reminds me, did you like our wedding gift, Tom?" B'Elanna asked a little too innocent.
"Um,"
"Perizn liked it very much, I can assure you," Seven chimed in. "You do realize that 'all' her feelings are sent over the Borg link every time she regenerates?"
"Really?" Tom asked, his voice a little higher as normal. "Are you telling me that billions know how Perizn feels every time we make love?"
"She's kidding, Tom," Perizn assured. "Just think how much storage space would be needed if all of that kind of information was saved for billions of drones. You would need a storage device the size of a gas giant. The feelings of a drone are considered personal and are therefore filtered out by the alcove and not transmitted. Only you know what I feel when we make love."
Perizn looked back at the other two women before continuing. "But let me thank you from the both of us for the wedding gift. Tom fell in love with me, knowing that we could never have sexual intercourse because of what the Borg did to my body when they assimilated me. He married me knowing that the only sexual action I could ever give him was oral sex,"
"Perizn!" Tom spoke up.
"Shut up," Perizn said, right before kissing him and then continuing where she left off. "He married me knowing that, but he didn't care; he loves me. I even told him that I would understand if he went to the holodeck to fulfill certain urges, he never did. He was happy with what I could give him, even if this was only my breasts to touch and the fact that I know how to use my mouth."
Now she smiled. "You can imagine his surprise when I went to regenerate the day after we were married and than came back to give him a belated wedding night, with lovemaking that he thought he could never have with me."
"Um, that reminds me," Tom spoke up, deciding that his need to know was bigger than his embarrassment. "Perizn told me that you had sent the commands and info needed to, um, 'rebuild' her, so to speak, back to the way nature originally created her, to her alcove, and through that, to her nanoprobes. But, not that it really matters mind you, but, is that as 'real' as Seven's artificial hand, or is it really real?"
"Both," Seven said before explaining, "Flesh is easily created by nanoprobes; they basically do the same as a dermal regenerator does when a wound would be healed. However, because all nerve endings were totally removed, they could not be repaired. Therefore, the flesh is real, but the nerve endings you stimulate when you go down on your wife are artificial. Be assured though, Perizn's feelings are as real as they would be when all of her was natural. When she gets wet, than there is nothing Borg involved in that. What you taste when you... dine... is all Perizn."
"I can't believe you actually just said that!" Tom said, realizing too late that he had learned the hard way not to get into these kinds of conversations with Seven. But then again, the last conversation like this was two years ago. A person could forget.
"Alright, as much as I would like to torment Tom some more," B'Elanna interrupted, "we're on a limited timeframe here. I have a feeling that some people will soon be knocking on that door. Now, Tom, Perizn, the fact that we stayed in touch with you is our little secret. Janeway now knows that it was a Borg cube that was following Voyager for so long. That is all the information she will get from us on how we knew what kind of trouble you ran into. You both did after all serve Voyager, and not us. There is no need to tell anyone about this. You know the Captain; she would only feel betrayed, even though there is absolutely no reason for her to feel like that. All you ever did was let us know Voyager's position, if the Captain had thought up another trap to catch Voyager's 'shadow,' and kept us a little updated on ship's gossip."
"That reminds me," Tom said. "Because you were in contact with my wife, you always knew where we were... why did you have us followed by a cube as well? You have no idea how I had to bite my tongue sometimes when the subject of the 'shadow' and who it could be came up again."
"In one word; time," B'Elanna explained. "As you saw today, even with transwarp capabilities, it takes hours to get to a destination if you are far enough away. We wanted to be able to help in case a situation like today did happen. I'm actually amazed that it took two years for something like this to happen."
"Well, normally we have the time to start running, and than suddenly for some strange reason the ones following us decide to stop," Tom said with a smile. All of them knowing only too well what this 'some reason' was.
"It's just that the Barudian didn't only have the weapons to outgun us, but also the speed to outrun us. I mean, damn, they must have come as close to transwarp as I have ever seen normal engines do."
"Which is the mistake they were making with the transwarp design," Seven noted. "They were trying to improve their existing engines even more. It did make them break the transwarp barrier for short periods, but their engines are simply not suited for sustained transwarp."
"Lucky Harry," B'Elanna said with a grin. "That mistake made it possible for us to make the Barudian a deal which made it possible for poor Harry to finally have his woman."
"Finally have the right woman, you mean," Tom added, grinning as well.
"I did hear something about Harry and 'wrong women' before," Perizn said, "but I never heard the whole story."
"Well then, Beautiful," Tom said while he and his wife stood up, "allow me to tell you all about it. Especially how your Queen here traumatized the poor guy by telling him to strip and copulate with her."
B'Elanna grinned before adding, "Yeah, but you have to keep in mind that Harry did prove in the end that he really is a smart boy. The first time Seven suggested they should have sex, he ran. The second time he was smart enough to say, 'I would love to, but how about a nice dinner first'."
"True," Tom laughed. "It took me two days before I finally believed him when he told me that he was dating Seven. He never did tell me though how you actually got around to the sex part."
"That is one of the main reasons why I picked him for evolving my social skills on the romantic level," Seven explained. "I knew that he is a very private person that would not start talking to others about what we did."
"He was a test subject to you?" Perizn asked slightly surprised.
"He was, and he knew it," Seven agreed. "At a time when we were both off-duty I went to his quarters and told him that I was thinking of expending my social skills to romance. That I wanted to see what it was like to be in a relationship. I asked him if he was interested, and I also told him that I would do this regardless of whether or not he was interested. If he declined I would ask someone else."
"Let me guess, you were expecting his, 'you should wait for the right person to come along' kind of comment," Tom guessed.
"Indeed. And since he knew that I would proceed either way, he assured me that in that case he was very interested in having a relationship with me."
"I think that it helped that Seven here actually put forth a schedule," B'Elanna added, showing that she knew all there was to know about this agreement between Seven and Harry.
"Harry knew up front that he and Seven would be in a relationship for two months, unless they really hit it off. After those two months they both agreed that they liked the time spent together, but that they weren't really 'compatible' enough to continue the relationship."
"And you don't have a problem with that?" Tom asked. "I mean, there's something to be said for being the first. I for one truly love the fact that I'm the first person that Perizn had a relationship with."
"No, I don't mind," B'Elanna assured. "In fact, I kinda like it that Harry showed Seven what it was like to be in a relationship."
"From my time with Harry I learned that in a relationship you have to give and take," Seven added. "Which, as you can imagine, was a very convenient thing to know, considering the person I eventually fell in love with. I think that it would have not gone well between B'Elanna and me if she had been my first relationship. By the time I would have found out that I too have to give, our relationship would have already been damaged."
Seeing the thoughtful look on Tom's face, B'Elanna laughed. "Poor Tom, while you were dreaming about having sex with Seven, Harry was actually doing it and he didn't tell you about it."
Tom's bemused grin told them that this was exactly what he had been thinking about. Then he shrugged. "As you know, B'Elanna, your and my views on what friends can do for fun differs. With all due respect to Seven here, she's hot as hell, and back then I was single. Of course I dreamed about getting her into bed."
"You never tried anything," Seven noted.
Tom laughed. "That's because I had a feeling what the result would be. As long as you aren't shot down yet, you can dream. That get's a lot harder when you've been told, 'not even if you were the last person in the universe'."
"I would have used different words," Seven objected, but then agreed with a smile, "But basically I would still have said the words."
Tom placed a kiss on his wife's cheek before saying, "But that's all in the past now. As unbelievable as this sounds coming from me of all people, but honestly, now that I'm happily married I only have eyes for one person."
"You better," Perizn said in fake threat. "Because if you start having fantasies again about my Queen, you will find out really fast how protective we Borg drones are of our Queen. You might even suffer the utmost punishment of... the couch."
"No, anything but that! I'll be good," Tom promised with fake horror. "The couch is great for sitting, bad for sleeping; I don't want to be kicked out of the bed. Besides I would miss the sex too much."
"That's my Tommy; so predictable."
"I love you too, hon."
They smiled and kissed before remembering that they had guests.
"I apologize, my Queen. We were distracted for a moment."
"Perizn," Seven said softly, "because of the circumstance, we would prefer it if you call B'Elanna and me by our names."
"Of course, my Queen. I do realize that calling you my Queen in front of the Voyager crew would cause problems, so for now I will use your names."
"Actually," Seven said with patience that she had learned well in her two years as Queen. Sometimes it took a lot of work to get individualist drones to call them anything else but Queen and Princess. "We would also like it if you keep using our names if and once you are part of the Unimatrix 01 staff. We prefer it when our friends use our names."
"I... T... Thank you, my q... thank you... Seven."
"I am impressed," Seven said with a smile. "Some take days to say my name. It took the Captain of Unimatrix 01 four weeks to call me Seven off duty, and he still only calls me 'my Queen' while he is on duty."
"Tell me," B'Elanna asked. "To come back to the wedding gift... don't worry Tom, I'm not going to make you squirm some more... I was wondering, how did you explain it to the Doctor?"
Tom answered that question. "Actually, Perizn was lucky that our Borg experts; you two, were no longer on the ship. The Captain understood that there was no way of building a new regeneration unit for Perizn, or changing the Borg alcoves. Harry is great with Borg code, but Borg technology... eh. So there really never was an alternative to Perizn using the Borg alcoves. Because of this lack of knowledge of all things Borg, they never discovered that Perizn still connected to the Hive. So when the alcove gave the information needed to... um... where it..."
"Tom, I love you, but you stink at mentioning what we all know we are talking about."
Perizn looked at the other two women and continued Tom's explanation. "When the alcove made it possible for me to have sex with my husband, I had to report this to the Doctor since he would have found out at the next checkup. From there it went to the Captain because the Doctor had to report that my alcove had picked up a Borg signal. The alcoves were checked, once again, by Harry and Carey. It was decided, once again, that there really wasn't any choice but me continuing to use the alcove. It was deemed that Voyager must have gotten close to a Borg signal for a moment on its journey, but that we had already passed the point where that signal could still be picked up. For some strange reason, apparently nobody ever stopped to wonder why the a-sexual Borg would send out a signal to reproduce the sex organs of a supposedly former Borg drone."
"A-sexual..." Seven repeated thoughtfully.
"Seven?" B'Elanna asked.
"Perizn's comment just gave me an idea about what might convince Kathryn that the Borg really are changing."
"Go on," B'Elanna merely said.
"A-sexual. As far as what Kathryn knows of the Borg, sex is irrelevant to them; love even more so. Can you think of a better way to show her that we are changing the Borg, than by showing her that Borg drones now love? Katzi already told the senior staff about her relationship, and as we know, she is not the only one that is in a relationship."
"I think that's a great idea," Tom said. "Showing her that things are changing is one thing, but what would say 'change' more than Borg drones going to a romantic dinner with their lover? Um, do you actually have a place to eat on that thing?"
"We do," B'Elanna assured with a grin. "Don't worry; you don't have to plug in to recharge energy. We have more on Unimatrix 01 than you would find on the biggest Federation Starbase; including over three hundred restaurants with food specific to certain species, and more opening up proverbially as we speak."
"That's quite some choice," Tom said, liking the number. "So what's your favorite?"
Before Seven or B'Elanna could answer they were interrupted by the sound of the entrance chime.
"Told you that someone would come knocking," B'Elanna said with a grin. "Alright, time to play Unimatrix 01 tour guide."
Continued...