Chapter 19
"Well this certainly looks different," Janeway said when she sparkled into existence somewhere inside Unimatrix 01. Gone was the Borg look she'd seen on the cubes she'd been on. Instead she was standing in a large transporter room that could just as easily have been located on a Federation Starbase. The only real difference was that in the Federation blue was a color often used in designs, even if just a little bit, here that base color was green. "You both designed this?" Janeway asked as the last members of the senior staff and Perizn and Gazec sparkled into existence behind her.
"No way," B'Elanna said while shaking her head to give the words more meaning. "Give us some device to put together and we make it something great, but have Seven and me design rooms and you come up with something a two year old kid could have designed. No, we have a staff of designers doing the design work. What we do is tell them what we want in a certain part of the ship, and they just go from there."
"Shall we start on the bridge?" Seven asked. "The senior staff is on duty now because we were off Unimatrix 01, so it would be a good time to introduce them."
"Sounds good to me," Janeway agreed before asking, "I'm a bit surprised that you're using Unimatrix 01 as your ship. Don't the Borg want this vital part of the Hive to be deep in Borg space and firmly protected?"
"Not at all," Seven said as she started to walk; showing the group the way. "In fact, the Borg were only too happy to have B'Elanna and I travel around in Unimatrix 01. As I told you two years ago, it is extremely hard to destroy this ship, add to that the amount of drones on it that could be used to protect us if needed. Also add to that that Unimatrix 01 has an auxiliary fleet in its hangers that is bigger than the entire military force of most groups we come across have... Even in the most hostile territory we are as safe on Unimatrix 01 as we could be on any Borg vessel."
"You also have to remember," B'Elanna spoke up, "that the Borg don't do nostalgia. They don't think like we would, 'oh we have to be careful, this is Unimatrix 01 the home of the Borg.' No, they simply realize that we are on the most powerful and most protected ship that the Borg have. They don't mind us using the ship as our ship to travel from place to place because they know that by doing so, their Queen is safe."
"Do you two now always finish each other's sentences?" Janeway asked. Having noted several times already that one of the two would go on when the other stopped, only to then have the other continue again a moment later.
B'Elanna chuckled. "Sorry Kathryn. Seven and I don't really finish each other sentences, but yeah, we do kinda add to what the other said. I guess that it's a result from the fact that we're connected by Borg link, and because of that we know what the other meant. In fact, Seven is 'talking' to me this very moment."
"You are, she is?" Harry asked from behind them. "Then why talk at all?"
"Because I like to hear her voice," B'Elanna and Seven said at the same time with a smile.
"Besides," Seven continued, "The link we have is not like the link drones have when they are connected to the Collective, where we can hear and know each other's thoughts. We actually do have to form the words in our heads, just like you do when talking. B'Elanna and I really do like to hear each other talk, but more than that, we have discovered that for us, real conversations are much more effective. At the moment we mainly use our connection to give each other information about what we should also mention to clear things up for you. Instead of saying these things out loud while we are explaining something else to you, which would only confuse you. The only time we truly communicate in length over this link is when B'Elanna and I are separated."
"Separated?" Harry merely asked.
"Yes, for instance, when B'Elanna is checking a change to the primary Engineering station that is still in the process of being built, while I am on the Bridge talking to our Captain."
"Figures that you would still get your hands dirty, B'Elanna," Tom said.
"Come on, fly-boy if you were me and you were changing a ship like this, actually installing a primary Engineering department, would you just let others do the work, or would you share in the fun of building it?"
"I don't think wild horses could drag me away," Tom agreed with a smile, using an old saying that he knew B'Elanna would understand because she had heard him say it before.
"Captain," Seven spoke up after she pointed to one side in a T juncture to indicate in which direction they had to move, "because I know that you are going to ask as soon as you see our senior crew, let me explain one of the changes made to the Collective. Normally a drone was linked to the Collective and told by the Hive mind what to do. We still have that system inside the Borg, and we will probably have that system for as long as the Borg exist. But we now also have a second system. We call the drones that work in that system 'individualist drones.' They still regenerate, and during that time they are linked to the Collective and are part of the Hive mind. This is done to make sure that there are always enough voices in the Hive for those drones that need those voices. During that time, the thoughts of the drone are scanned. If their individual thoughts are something that could be a threat to the Hive, those drones will no longer be allowed back into individual status, for as long as they still have to serve the Collective."
"What do you mean by that?" Janeway asked, not liking the sound of that.
"Captain, you have to understand," B'Elanna interrupted, "we're making a whole lot of changes to the Borg, but any new Queen can undo those changes just as easily as we made them. Can you imagine what would happen to these changes if a new Queen was anything like the last one? To make sure that something like that doesn't happen, the thoughts of drones are monitored. It's something that they agree to when they sign up, just like they know before signing up that there's a chance that they'll spend their four years as a controlled drone if they have dangerous thoughts. I'm a half Klingon, and I'm Two of Many, the second in command of the Borg, so to say. So believe me when I say that drones won't be controlled all the time if they just thought something like, 'I will kill that guy if he ever does that again.' The thing is that the Borg know the difference because 'all' of the mind of a drone is scanned."
B'Elanna gestured behind her to the four Borg guards that were still following them. "Take Katzi. She's actually told me four times already that she'll kill me, and she said the same to Seven once, but she's still one of our guards. Since she joined the Collective, there hasn't been a time yet that we left Unimatrix 01 without her by our side. The reason for that is that we know in what circumstances she said it. The Borg know from her scan that she doesn't mean it, and that in fact she likes us very much. She is also one of our best friends; so close we consider her family. Because of that she has great liberties in what she says to us when she is off duty, which she always was when she said she would kill us."
B'Elanna grinned before continuing. "Come to think of it, I would probably also threaten to kill anyone who interrupted me when I was in the midst of making love to my Mate. The point is that the Borg do not take things like that seriously. But if there was a drone who thought things like, 'if the Queen dies, I can become the new Queen' and that drone actually means that while thinking it, such a drone would stay under the permanent control of the Hive from then on until we can release them from the Borg Collective."
"Until you can release them from the Collective?" Janeway repeated, basically asking for an explanation.
"Yes," B'Elanna started to explain. "On a Federation ship, if someone commits a crime, this person is placed in the brig until there is an opportunity to hand them over to another ship or Starbase. The ship won't be breaking off its mission simply to bring the person back to Starfleet headquarters, even if that mission is nothing more than a routine scouting mission. The same goes for Borg ships. Depending on what sector a ship is in, there's a chance that the next contact with another ship will be the meeting that was originally planned anyway to exchange crew members that have served their contract, for new crew members. Where the Federation keeps such individuals in the brig or under house arrest, the Borg simply keep them controlled at all times. Of course, to be very clear, we're only talking about people that volunteered to join the Borg and agreed already to serve four years. At that point we are simply holding them to their contract until we can remove them from the ship in such a way that they will eventually reach their Homeworld. But if a person already had those kinds of thoughts when they volunteered, they wouldn't make it into the Collective and would simply be rejected."
"I see," Janeway said, indeed understanding what B'Elanna meant. "I would suggest that you have some clear examples at hand when you mention this to the Federation representatives though. Some may not like it, even if they do understand it."
"We will," Seven assured. "We will also remind them of the fact that the Federation convicts people to time to be served in a penitentiary colony for crimes far less than planning to takeover the Federation. In the Borg Collective, drones planning to take over the Collective are merely punished by having to work as a drone. What is worse? Being imprisoned for as long as it takes to leave the ship, noticing the passing of every long minute, and afterwards probably facing court-martial and years of prison? Or living that time not caring at all for anything but the Hive mind, and then realizing later that your service time is over, as is your chance to take control of the Borg?"
"Some will say that having your individuality is more important, even though you spent that time as an individual in prison," Janeway persisted. "But as I said, that's something to discuss with Federation negotiators."
"Indeed," Seven said. "But to come back to what I was explaining. These individualist crew members regenerate and are linked to the Hive mind when they do. But just like in the Federation, we have three crews now; an Alpha, Beta, and Gamma crew. This means that just like in the Federation, the crew does have time off to do with what they want. The individualist crew does not link to the Hive mind during their time off... unless they need to regenerate like I just mentioned, or simply do so because they want to be part of the Hive. Also, while on duty they are linked to the Hive mind, but at that point they are not controlled by it. The main difference with what you will see, would be in the fact that no communicators are used. On the bridge, the Captain still gives a verbal order that the others follow, but where the Captain normally would need to activate a com. link to talk to Engineering, he can now contact Engineering through the Borg link. The crew you're about to meet are in all senses as much individuals as you are, the only difference is that they all need to regenerate at least as much as I did while I was on Voyager."
"I'll keep it in mind," Janeway assured while looking back to the Borg guards still following them. "Do the Borg not trust us, that we still have those guards around?"
"Actually, the Borg don't trust you at all," B'Elanna said with a grin. "But they do trust us. The Borg also know that they don't have to worry about you now because there is no way that you can do something on this ship you aren't supposed to; another advantage of having individualist crew members. You couldn't set two steps into a department without someone asking you what the hell you are doing there. But that isn't the reason why they are following us. It's simply that these four guards are the Royal Guards. They are the protectors of the Royal family, therefore the living quarters of the Royal Guards are right beside our quarters. They just happen to have to go in the same direction as we are."
"But they are still controlled by the Hive mind now?" Janeway asked.
"Nope we aren't," Katzi suddenly said, giving Janeway a small smile.
Janeway looked at the woman for a moment before turning back to Seven and B'Elanna. "You do realize that it's really annoying not to know if you're being followed by a drone or an individual."
"Creepy, isn't it?" B'Elanna grinned. "Come on Kathryn, we can't take away all of the Borg's creepiness, it would be like de-clawing a Tika cat."
"Normally it is not like this," Seven assured. "Individualist crew members do not switch back and forth like this. It is simply that for Borg guards the Hive link can be beneficial. When under the control of the Hive, a drone does not feel pain and does not tire like an individual does. Therefore, they are not distracted by pain if they are attacked while protecting us. While under the control of the Hive, a Borg guard can also stand in exactly the same spot performing guard duty for seventy-two hours, without their feet killing them. On the other hand, the reaction speed of a linked drone is slow to say the least because information has to be sent over the Borg link before the Hive decides how the drone should react. But as in individual, a drone can react within a split second. So because there are benefits to being linked and to not being linked, the Royal Guards more than any of the other drones switch back and forth all the time."
"What Seven and I especially like is the fact that while they are connected to the Hive mind, all things they see and hear are filtered out as irrelevant if it is not a threat to us. Because of that, things like what Seven and I say to each other are not sent over the Hive link. It's this fact that allows Seven and me to live comfortably with guards so close in our lives. Even though they are standing in the same room as us, they do not really hear and see what we do. We can ignore them and don't have to feel guilty about how we are treating them as objects because basically to them it is totally irrelevant then. We often truly forget that they're in the room. Seven and I have made love several times with all four of them standing in the room, knowing that we could ignore them because even they themselves would not remember what they saw later on, because it is filtered out as irrelevant the moment they see it."
"It took some getting used to," Seven agreed, "But now B'Elanna and I can do things that we would only do when we are alone, even though there are several Borg guards standing in the room. They simply do not exist for us when they are like that. It is only when we address them that they become living things for us."
"So normally you notice a clear difference between an individualist drone and the kind of drones we used to see?" Janeway asked, wanting to know the difference mainly to know which people she could ask questions if need be.
"Mostly, yes," Seven agreed. "It is when a drone is made part of the individualists that it gets the new implants and the Borg uniform. If you see a drone that looks similar to our guards, or the senior crew that you are about to meet, then you can be sure that you are talking to an individualist drone."
"Or you can just avoid the bald ones," Harry said with a grin. Seeing the new 'look' of the Borg ship had put him at ease and actually let him forget about the last time he had been on a Borg ship.
"Mostly, yes," Seven agreed once more. "However, there are almost one and a half thousand species in the Borg that do not have body hair; the insectoids and reptilians come to mind."
Seven stopped in front of a door and finally the guards that had been following them moved on further down the corridor. "Welcome to the bridge of Unimatrix 01."
Without waiting for a reaction, Seven stepped closer to the door which opened to let them enter.
Looking around quickly, Janeway noticed that just like everything else she had seen on the ship, the bridge was surprisingly spacious. Gone was the claustrophobic feeling of narrow corridors lined with regenerating Borg drones. Instead, there were the corridors Janeway knew from Starfleet ships and starbases. The only thing that really was still a reminder of the Borg was the ever present hint of the color green, used all around them. But even that was done tastefully and not in a dominating way. The same could be said for the bridge. It was of the size one expected of a starbase; not a starship.
It had a lower and raised level, filled with in total about fifteen workstations and two chairs in the center positioned side by side; clearly the Captain and first officer chairs. There was someone sitting at every station and Janeway noticed that everyone was wearing the same uniform; a uniform that existed out of the same black biosuit body-armor. There were only two differences with the clothing that the Borg guards had been wearing. First was the fact that these people had an insignia on their collar, Janeway assumed to indicate their rank. Second was that these uniforms also sported colored shoulder bands with different colors, which Janeway again assumed indicated the department they were from. All in all, these uniforms reminded Janeway a lot of Federation uniforms.
Janeway let her eyes drift over the different workstations for a moment. All of the workstations and the command chairs were facing a giant wall-filling viewscreen, which at the moment was showing Voyager. Janeway was about to turn away from the view-screen when she noticed something disturbing. What disturbed Janeway about the view was not seeing Voyager, but seeing the information about Voyager that was shown on all four sides of the screen.
"You are scanning Voyager?" Janeway asked, strongly disturbed by the fact that they had never noticed that they were being scanned. Yet even though she didn't know the Borg's main language, the changing symbols on the screen clearly showed that what she was seeing was an active scan; showing the smallest details like the small power fluctuations in Voyager's warp core.
"Yeah," B'Elanna affirmed. "Finding that out almost made me slap my head in disbelief. The Borg already had the technology to scan like this, but they didn't use it the way we are now. All they did was see if there was 'relevant information,' and ignore everything else. At the moment all they would have known about Voyager would be whether your weapons and shields are powered up."
"Captain, if I may introduce," Seven spoke up as she walked to the center of the bridge.
Janeway joined Seven and looked at the first person that Seven pointed to.
"This is Captain Wolkav Zakad'e."
"Captain Zakad'e," Janeway said, greeting the tall green-skinned man that lifted one of his arms in a greeting.
"Captain Janeway," the man replied with a very pleasantly sounding tone of voice.
"This is Royal Advisor Pagsha Yahif," Seven continued, pointing to the woman standing beside Captain Zakad'e. "Normally our First Officer would be sitting in that chair, but since our First Officer is busy somewhere else on the ship, Pagsha took over the duties for a moment, since she fulfilled that position until recently anyway."
Janeway had no problem recognizing the species of Royal Advisor Yahif. She was clearly a Ghdibrian; the same species that Perizn belonged to. She had a tail similar to Perizn and the only big difference was in the hair color. Where Perizn's hair color was bright purple, Pagsha Yahif's hair color was a deep but rich dark blue.
"Pagsha is also Katzi's Mate; the Senior crew member that she was talking about," Seven continued. "Besides that, B'Elanna and I also have the honor of Pagsha being a very good friend of ours. Just like her Mate, she is so close and dear to us that we consider her part of our family."
After greetings were exchanged, Seven continued, pointing to a man standing beside a workstation that was located behind the Captain and First Officer's chair. "This is Second Officer Lachakivediras Horchakanven, Chief of Security."
Seven pointed to a woman standing at the workstation beside the Second Officer. "This is Third Officer Anidan Dubinak, Chief Engineer."
Then Seven pointed to a woman with a golden skin color that was standing beside the Chief Engineer. "This is Third officer Si'zaG Fe'R Chief Maintenance..."
Seven was interrupted by Janeway lifting her hand to indicate that she had a question. "You have two 'Third Officers'? And why do you have a Chief Engineer and a Chief of Maintenance?"
"To answer your first question; yes. We actually have more than two Third Officers. For instance, our Chief Medical Officer, who I will introduce to you at a later time, is also a Third Officer. When we were discussing what kind of ranks we should use, we decided that we should have Captains and Admirals, but we felt that using the other ranks that are also used in the Federation could be confusing. For instance, you have a Junior Commander, Lieutenant Commander, and a Commander. Yet in daily life, all three are addressed as Commander. We decided to simply have a Captain, and Officers. The rank of an Officer is indicated by the number before their title, hence, First Officer, Second Officer, and so on. We felt that this approach would appeal more to the Borg. And in case you are wondering, yes, they all do still have Borg designations as well. For instance, Captain Wolkav Zakad'e's full Borg designation is Wolkav Zakad'e, Captain to Unimatrix 01, Individualist drone 39. As for why we have an Engineering and Maintenance department... True, in the Federation both are done by the same department. In fact, both names are often used to indicate one and the same department. But you have to remember that inside the Borg there is a lot more technology to keep in mind."
Seven lifted her artificial hand a little to indicate it. "Also, as macabre as this may sound to you, here, the drones can also be part of the technology. If there is a problem with the humanoid body the doctor takes care of it, but if there is a problem with the implants then this falls under maintenance. The implants can malfunction, they might need to be repaired, and they also need preemptive maintenance. Because of that we have a department that takes care of non-routine tasks on the ship and incorporating new technologies; Engineering, and a department that takes care of the rest. Like for instance the drones, and preemptive repairs; Maintenance. Of course, because both departments are so close there will always be situations where the field of command overlaps and because of that we encourage the two departments to work extremely close together. And we make sure that the two people in charge of the departments have the same ranks so that they cannot override the orders of each other without this coming to the attention of the First Officer. Luckily we did not have that problem yet with Chief Engineer Anidan Dubinak and Chief Maintenance Si'zaG Fe'R. They work together extremely well. In fact, they get along so well that they fell in love and are now Mates."
"Congratulations," Janeway said while in her mind she tried to combine Borg drones with falling in love and having a relationship that Janeway translated to some kind of marriage.
"Thank you," said the two women at the same time.
As this explanation and greeting had been going on, Harry had seen the strange pupils of the eyes of Si'zaG Fe'R and had taken a second look. Suddenly cold chills were running down his spine. No, that couldn't be; it had to be a coincidence.
Oblivious to Harry's thoughts, Seven pointed to the workstation to the other side of the Second Officer and continued with her Senior staff introductions.
Continued...