This is the 12th in the Just Between series.

To all my readers, a heartfelt thank you for all your kind comments, encouragement and plot lines.

This is dedicated to a reader who wanted to see Seven ‘cut loose’ and I kept promising, “Uh, not this story, but definitely next.” Of course, that was four or five stories ago. But here it is finally and I hope it’s what the reader was looking for.

Be aware, this is a little more brutal than I normally write. The storyline required it.

This story was written and posted towards the latter part of December, 1998, after the events in Nothing Human.

Just Between Species

G. L. Dartt

Captain Kathryn Janeway of the starship Voyager rolled over on the filthy metal deck and tried not to vomit. Grasping her arms tightly over aching ribs, she crawled to the nearest wall and put her back to it, glancing around warily. Her face was bruised, lips split and she was forced to spit out blood, along with a molar she could ill afford to lose.

Damn, she thought. At least, I kept my uniform.

The emptied food tray lay discarded on the deck a few feet away and she noticed that there were a few remains left stuck to it. Ignoring the dirt, she snatched it up eagerly and licked the fragments off, doing little to assuage her gnawing hunger but just maybe acquiring one or two nutrients that might keep her alive a little longer. Once it was clean, she tossed it aside, feeling it disintegrate even as she did so, the soft metal trays lasting only an hour before they dissipated into useless goo.

She staggered to her feet and looked around, wanting nothing more than to find some place where she could remain unobserved, away from the roving bands of alien prisoners whose main purpose for existing seemed to be preying on the loners.

Loner. That’s what she was, an individual representation of her species, dumped here without the protection of a larger group of Humans, and unlikely to get any considering she was some 40,000 light years away from the Federation and Earth. And having no idea where her ship was, or her crew or even where here was exactly. All she knew was that she had been imprisoned, charged with interference of the local police force, tried and convicted in a hasty trial that barely took an hour. She had been unable to contact Voyager or any of the rest of the away teams who had been on the planet before being drugged and transported here to some sort of maximum security prison contained deep within an asteroid in the heart of what they called the Xenth Belt.

Every prisoner was entitled to three trays of food a day but making it to a dispenser and keeping the food after it materialized was an ongoing battle. Various groupings of alien species lurked in the immediate vicinity of the devices and would surround any loner, taking the food as well as anything else that might be valuable. So far, she had been lucky, her Starfleet conditioning able to keep her alive even though she hadn’t managed to grab more than a few mouthfuls of food in over four days. This last encounter had been bad, the group numbering five and she had barely been able to protect herself from the beating they administered, needing all her self defense training to make it too costly for them to try for her clothes or anything beyond the food tray. The next time, she knew they would probably be more aggressive because she would be correspondingly less able to fight back.

Her diplomacy skills were of absolute no use, of course. Universal translators did not work here and the individual species could not or would not find a common language with which to communicate. Nor did any seem interested in pausing in their own fight for survival to listen to any of her abortive attempts at negotiation.

And why would they? Here, power was measured in the strength of one’s arm and in the numbers of those arms. She didn’t have any numbers to back her up and her arms were skilled, but not particularly strong.

She limped into the shadows of a dank corridor, judging it to be empty and found an obscure corner in which to sit. She didn’t dare sleep and the chill air made hypothermia a very real threat. She would have to move again in a little while, never staying in one place, avoiding everyone, always aware that members of that species could be lurking just out of sight. That lesson was the first she had learned here.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them tightly, trying not to shiver. She was growing progressively weaker. There was a good chance she wouldn’t make it past the next few days and it was sheer Midwestern cussedness keeping her going at this point. She refused to give up, to curl up and die though so many had, even in the short time she had been here. Overcrowding did not seem to be a problem in this prison.

She noticed a sign above and across from her, unable to read it. All the markings throughout the installation were in some unknown alien language, and what little she had learned, how food was dispensed and how unlikely it was she would keep any, was from pure observation and the three separate beatings she had sustained. Twelve distinct alien groupings held sway over this bottom level, comprised of five members each as well as several three and four member groups, all vying for supremacy in an environment that did not comprehend the concept of cooperation or cross-species understanding. That did not comprehend the very principles that Starfleet and the Federation were based on. She could only hope that by staying on the move, she could somehow leave this level and be free of their oppression.

On the other hand, that would only put her up into the next level, which would be even more dangerous, held by more powerful species with greater numbers. Here, the small groups kept her alive if battered so she would be entitled to her tray which they could then steal. In another sector, they might just kill her out of hand, not needing her pitiful ration and resenting her trespassing.

She brought her head up with a jerk, realizing that she had almost dozed off. That would be a fatal mistake. Along with the various groupings of prisoners, there were less intelligent creatures roaming the endless corridors, vicious rat-like scavengers she had tagged ‘breen’ that would fall on a supine prisoner in a moment, not fussy about whether their meal was entirely dead or not.

Here, being independent was very bad for one’s health.

She shivered again and knew she had to get moving. Using the wall as a brace, she slowly got to her feet and stumbled out into the outer hall where the lights burned dimly with an uncomfortable radiance, giving no indication of the passage of time in these endless subterranean corridors. Trying not to think about how futile it all was or that sooner or later, she would have to give up, would have to surrender to lack of sleep or lack of food.

Would have to surrender to the inevitable death that awaited her.

Seven of Nine, formerly Tertiary Adjunct to the Unimatrix 01 in the Borg Collective, now the Astrometrics officer for USS Voyager regarded the short stocky alien with distaste. She was standing in a small shop set off from the main marketplace; a cluttered, stuffy room filled with knickknacks and items that a less charitable person might refer to as pure, unnecessary trash. The only useful thing in the whole place was the item she held in her hand. An item she knew did not belong here.

“Where did you get this?” She held up the jade relic with the faint alien markings on its surface.

“From a trader who passes through here only once every ten years,” he said oily, his hands spread in an emphatic gesture. “He found it in the forbidden swamps of Goethe, fighting the deadly tristanks to acquire but a mere artifact of the fabulous ruins hidden there.”

She stared at him. “That is incorrect. This item was discovered by a member of our crew on a planet three light years from here. Our captain was comparing this to artifacts that were found in this market just before she disappeared. Again, I ask, where did you get it?”

The alien’s features underwent an immediate shift, from smug salesman to infuriated alien.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” he growled, trying to shove her to door.

She did not budge.

“Answer my question and I shall not trouble you any longer,” she said reasonably.

He snarled suddenly and reached behind the counter, whipping out a fairly respectable dagger with a keen edge that he used to swipe at Seven.

The Borg caught his wrist easily in her left hand and exerted a slight pressure. Bones cracked audibly and he screamed, the dagger falling from his hand as he slumped to his knees.

“Where did you get it?” Her tone did not alter.

“I bought it from Werris, okay,” he hissed through lips that were narrow bands of pain. “He said he picked it up from the ground after an alien was arrested by the Guardians.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” he spat.

She squeezed. “Try to remember,” she suggested evenly.

He howled and turned even paler. “Five streets over, in the black market district,” he said, unable to raise his voice above a whisper. “There was a scuffle and the alien tried to interfere with a lawful arrest of a merchant. They killed her companion before taking her.”

Seven’s breath caught. “Taking her where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Speculate,” she requested, squeezing again.

“The prison,” he gasped. “Xenth Penitentiary.”

“Where can I find this place?”

“You can’t. Only the Guardians know how to get to it. And no one ever escapes.”

Seven’s head tilted slightly. “Thank you,” she said politely, and squeezed until he mercifully passed out.

She dropped him onto the floor and left the shop, eyes cold chips of ice as she went out into the heat of the street. A smaller woman stood at the end of the alley, dark haired with pronounced ridges on her forehead, obviously keeping watch. She glanced up as Seven joined her, raising an eyebrow speculatively.

“Did he know? Or do I get to talk to the next one?”

“He knew,” Seven said shortly. “You were correct, B’Elanna. Klingon methods are a great deal more efficient in gathering information than traditional Starfleet protocols.”

“You bet,” Lt. Torres, Voyager’s chief engineer, agreed. “Just remember not to mention it to anyone, particularly Chakotay.” She touched her comm badge which was affixed to the left breast of her black and gold uniform. “Torres to Voyager. Two to beam up.”

Fifteen minutes later, Seven and Torres were in the starship’s conference room, informing Commander Chakotay and Lt. Commander Tuvok of their findings. Also present were the two lieutenants, Tom Paris and Harry Kim who had also been on the planet gathering information. In the other chairs, Neelix, the Delta Quadrant native, and the holographic Doctor had made up the third away team. Everyone was displaying expressions of great concern. The information they presented was not encouraging.

“We have to get her out of this prison,” Tom said, his boyish face drawn in the conference room lights. He frowned as he leaned forward, his light blue eyes shadowed and unusually serious beneath his fair hair.

“We do not know where the prison is,” Tuvok noted logically.

Seven knew that although the Vulcan Security chief’s voice was cold and his dark skinned features displayed total impassiveness to the room, he was as worried as everyone else about the captain. Everyone, but Seven. She was beyond worried. She had moved into a state that she could not seem to identify.

“We must not give up.”

“Even if we do manage to find its exact location, it’s supposedly surrounded by the best security devices the Barellans have to offer,” Chakotay said, his dark eyes trying to convey compassion as well as authority. “Breaking in to rescue one prisoner would be suicide, even if we knew where she was in the installation itself.”

It was clear he didn’t like saying this and in normal circumstances, he might have been arguing the other side. But now he was acting captain, his responsibilities to the ship and its crew increased immeasurably. He had to act as the captain would … as Janeway would. Seven knew that no matter how much it hurt, Janeway would not hesitate to sacrifice one person for the good of the many. She would avoid it where she could, do her best to find a way to get around it, but if push came to shove, no one member of the crew could be more important than the well being of the ship itself. Not even when she was the one in question. Especially if she was the one in question. Chakotay was expected to act the same way.

Of course, Seven did not agree with the concept at all. To her, Kathryn Janeway was the only one that mattered and if saving her meant that both Voyager and every crewmember had to be spent in the process, including herself, she’d do it in a heartbeat. Which was probably why she would never be captain, she noted idly.

“We might be able to sneak close enough to beam her out through any shields,” Harry noted. “We can enhance the sensors to get a skeletal lock through her comm badge and use a Borg modulation on the transporter to enhance the pattern buffer.”

“But we still have to find the prison first,” Tom objected. “Maybe we can scan for it somehow using the long range sensors. It must put out some sort of energy signal.”

“Inefficient,” Seven said.

Tuvok raised an eyebrow, his Vulcanoid features angling toward her.

“Do you have a suggestion, Seven?” Aside from B’Elanna, he probably knew her better than anyone.

“I will be arrested and taken there. Voyager can trace a specified energy signal from my Borg implants that will lead you to the prison. Once inside, I can find the captain and transport her to a spot where we can be beamed out.”

“Waitaminute,” Chakotay said, holding up his hands. “What’s with all this ‘I’ stuff? What makes you think I’ll allow this?”

“You cannot stop me,” she said with unmovable determination.

Tuvok leaned forward. “It is a logical plan, and one that can be implemented on short notice. If what we know of the conditions of the prison are accurate, then time is of the essence. However, I believe I should be the one to go in.”

Seven stared at him as B’Elanna snorted. “If anyone’s going in,” the Klingon said. “It should be me. Any place as brutal as that, it makes sense that I’m one of the few who can survive there.”

Seven lowered her head. “I am returning to the planet in order to facilitate my arrest,” she said, disregarding the offers even as she was warmed by them. “I will not leave Kathryn alone any longer.”

“What if we send all three down there?” Harry said. “One’s bound to find the captain. Plus, there’s safety in numbers.”

Chakotay looked unconvinced. “That’s assuming I’m going to risk three lives for the sake of one. The captain would never agree to that and I don’t see where I can either.”

“Do you have another suggestion?” B’Elanna asked challengingly. “Or do we just leave her there and go about our merry way?”

Chakotay stared at her, frowning, then seemed to relax suddenly.

“We’re not leaving her there,” he said positively. “As Tuvok says, time is of the essence. But we also have to be aware of the fact that the captain might no longer be alive.”

“She is still alive.” Seven was convinced of that. To think anything else would mean that she would have to stop functioning. Immediately.

Chakotay nodded, then looked at Tuvok and B’Elanna “We’re only going to risk one crewmember in this. And we’ll only make the one attempt. The captain wouldn’t tolerate any more and the truth is, if this shot doesn’t work, it’s all moot anyway.” He glanced over at the Doctor. The Emergency Medical Hologram was looking considerably disgruntled by all this but was not about to interfere. “Doctor, you and Lt. Torres work together to find a way to adjust Seven’s implants to emit a signal that we can trace, but no one else can detect. You have one hour.”

“Understood.” The Doctor glanced at Seven. “What exactly do you plan to do to get arrested, anyway?”

Seven regarded him. “It will not be difficult. I shall simply return to the planet and interfere with a Guardian. They do not seem to like that much.”

Janeway opened her eyes, feeling pain throb through her head. With an effort that required a great deal of concentration, she touched the back of her skull gingerly, bringing her hand away sticky with blood. She hadn’t even seen the blow, just felt the impact that had sent her into a deep dark pit that she had only now pulled herself out of.

She swallowed, gagging on her own saliva and tried to get to her knees. She couldn’t afford too many of those kind of hits, she thought dazedly. A recent injury on Voyager had cost her most of her memories stretching back almost three years. It had taken her months to heal, to regain some measure of her own history as provided by the ship’s logs, both mission based and the personal ones. She would hate to lose the few fragments she had so painstakingly acquired to a casual blow to the head.

She noted that her uniform jacket was gone, leaving only the thin, high-necked t-shirt covering her torso. The planet had boasted a very warm, sticky climate and she had gone without the long sleeved sweater that normally went under the black and red tunic. She regretted that now. Dirt and grime streaked her bare arms and she winced at what had to be broken bones in her left wrist. Cradling the injured appendage gingerly in her other hand, she tried to rise to her feet, grateful that for whatever reason, she still had her boots and trousers. Her attackers had apparently not needed them, but since they had been covered in thick fur from the waist down, their feet ending in cloven hoofs, she supposed that was mere happenstance. Otherwise, she probably would have been left naked to the chill air.

She staggered briefly across the corridor, slamming into the wall and for a second she leaned there, sobbing for breath.

This is so hard. Why do I keep trying?

Unbidden, a face swam into her mind, rising from her subconscious like a beacon. Glorious blonde hair and ice blue eyes with love radiating from every perfect pore of smooth, silky skin. Janeway could almost see the full lips move, framing each word.

Do not give up. Do not give up on me. Do not give up on yourself.

There was no reason to believe she should listen to that, no reason to think anyone was coming for her, would help her. No reason to think they even knew where she was. Yet despite all that, a small flame flickered within, a tiny belief that she could not surrender. Not yet. Not until the last breath left her body.

Multicolored lights swam before her eyes as she tottered onward, no destination in mind, just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, refusing to go down.

Refusing to be defeated.

Seven of Nine sat erect on the bench lining one side of the stripped down shuttle. Pain radiated from her left temple and ribs where the Guardians had ‘subdued’ her during her capture and subsequent trial. Since she had not resisted in the slightest, it seemed an unnecessary expenditure of energy but for whatever reason, it seemed to cheer the black clad law enforcers tremendously, so she supposed it had served some purpose.

She glanced around the small vessel. It was painted a dirty grey and had no indication of any exit other than the one guarded by two Guardians standing sentinel at one end. She was the only prisoner on this run and she wondered if they were making a special trip just for her. After disguising herself and beaming down to another area of the planet so as not to alert the authorities that the alien picked up bore any relationship to the alien that had been taken four days earlier, she quickly found a group of Guardians and struck several of them in rapid succession. They obligingly arrested her, after getting a little bit of their own back in the process and she had been impressed by the swiftness of the Barellan justice system that tried and convicted her all in the space of another hour. Certainly, it was much faster and far more efficient than a Starfleet court marital.

She felt the eyes of one of the Barellan guards on her and she looked at him. He shifted the toothpick around in his mouth and grinned with jagged teeth.

“So what the hell are you supposed to be?”.

“I am Borg,” she said evenly.

“Never had your kind before.”

She raised her eyebrow. She suspected not. Otherwise, this entire sector would now be part of the Collective.

Barellan was a remote stretch of space, far off the beaten track of the rest of the Delta Quadrant. A faint trace of tachyon particles on Voyager’s long range sensors had raised the possibility of a wormhole, a strong enough possibility that they had diverted from their course to the Alpha Quadrant and followed the lure of the signal to this isolated group of systems surrounded by a band of disguising dust particles imitating a class two nebula. The tachyon signal came from an unusual dwarf star set in the middle of the systems, and Voyager’s crew was forced to swallow yet another disappointment. The other stars nearby boasted a variety of inhabited, space-going civilizations united in a roughshod union held together by mutual greed and distrust. Voyager was short of supplies so they had taken the opportunity to pick up more, sending down an away team to barter in the local market of the most populous planet, Barella.

One of the initial away team had seen items in the market that had appeared similar to artifacts they had picked up a month earlier on another planet and made a point of informing the captain. Janeway had been intrigued enough to beam down herself with a few of those fragments to make the comparison. That’s when she disappeared, while her security escort, Ensign Canexel had been killed. The Barellan authorities were remarkably uncooperative, indicating that lost aliens were not anything they were responsible for. They had not even bothered to mention that she seemed to have been arrested by some of their own law enforcement agents.

“Since we don’t have any other ‘Borg’, you’ll be a ‘loner’,” the Guardian added, seeming quite pleased by the thought.

There was enough emphases on the last word to pique Seven’s interest. “Explain.”

“Loners are what we throw to the lower populace to keep them busy,” the garrulous guard said. “The only way to survive down there is to find others of your own kind. That’s out of the question for you.”

Seven did not point out that as a Borg who still maintained functional assimilation tubules, she could make the entire prison population ‘her kind’ if she so desired. As could any Borg drone, ex or otherwise. Perhaps these beings were too unintelligent to be assimilated.

“What of Humans?”.

“Never heard of them either. But considering the fact that we seem to be sending down more and more aliens lately, who the hell knows.” He glanced at his companion who had been ignoring the conversation. “Still it’s a good idea to keep the groups down in number. We don’t want any of the alien species to get too powerful in there. So maybe all these newcomers are a good thing to dump into the mix.”

Seven considered that. “Why do the groups not merge into a unified front?”

He laughed. “Because they can’t talk to each other.” He grinned at her. “Enjoy these last bits of conversation. Once we send you down, no kind of translator will work. You’ll only be able to talk to your own kind.”

Seven felt a bit ill. She was well aware of Janeway’s formidable diplomatic skills, but if there was no common language and no technology that would serve to facilitate that, then the captain would be at a decided disadvantage. Seven knew that beings caught up in a fight for survival were rarely willing to negotiate, especially if they had to learn a language first. Suddenly the prospects for finding Janeway unscathed took a decidedly downward spiral.

She swallowed hard and stared at her hands. The guard, assuming he had crushed the last bit of hope in the prisoner, spat out his toothpick and went over to her. She deliberately did not resist when he injected her with a drug. It had no effect on her system but she feigned unconsciousness anyway. She did not consider herself a particularly good actor but the attempt must have been sufficient because he left her slumped on the bench and did not attempt to otherwise restrain her.

Two other guards entered from outside and picked her up, carrying her through the guarded hatch. For a brief second, she wondered if they were simply going to throw her into space but as it turned out, there was a crude sort of cylinder behind the door. She had not noted it when she had been escorted onto the shuttle. She was stuffed into it and for the next half hour spent a very unpleasant and discomforting trip in the cramped passenger pod as it descended to the surface of a huge asteroid.

Little wonder the prisoners were drugged before being transported, she thought uncharitably as the cylinder bounced a few times on the asteroid’s surface before it was snagged by a Guardian in some kind of transport. The thick metal arms picked up the pod and bore it into a small installation where she was unceremoniously removed from it by yet more black clad Barellans. She was dragged over to an opening in the floor where she was hurled down an antigrav shaft. It took quite some time before she finally drifted to the bottom, landing with a soft thud as the antigrav beam was shut off, the opening immediately above her sealing in the ceiling with a solid sound of finality.

For a brief period of time, she lay on the cold floor, keeping her eyes closed as she took in her surroundings with her other senses. There was the sound of someone approaching and she decided it was no longer efficient for her to pretend she was unconscious. In one smooth motion, she uncoiled from the floor, rising to her feet to face the group approaching her.

The beings were a short species, but stocky with ridges running down both cheeks. A third eye appeared in the center of their foreheads between the other two that were lower and set off to either side of the ridges. They apparently had a wide range of visual acuity, having no problem seeing that the newcomer that they expected to still be unconscious was instead standing upright and looking very alert.

The five slowed, surrounding her.

“(Take it from behind),” the middle one, apparently the leader said.

That was another thing Seven had neglected to mention to the guard on the shuttle. She did not use any form of technology to understand various languages. The Borg assimilated language along with the rest and while she was no walking natural translator as Arturis’s people had been … or as Seven liked to refer to them, Species 116, creators of the slipstream drive … the wealth of knowledge in her brain from her time with the Collective allowed her to understand most alien tongues, provided their species had been assimilated at one time or another. Of course, on Voyager, she had the same translator utilized in her comm badge that others did but more often than not, she didn’t have to use it, not only because the crew of Voyager spoke Human for the most part … a North American English courtesy of Zefram Cochrane, the first Human to meet the Vulcans who together, formed the original Federation … but because the Borg had pretty much acquired a sample from all the various languages in the Alpha Quadrant.

This language was pure Delta Quadrant, from Species 993 and one she could handle with relative adeptness with her somewhat limited vocal apparatus.

“(Do not attack),” she said, applying the proper, emphatic hand gesture and head movement. “(Or I will defend myself).”

The aliens stopped dead in shock. After glancing at each other uneasily, the leader lowered his head. “(You are not one of us).”

“(I am Borg),” she said, holding up her left hand to display the mesh, allowing her assimilation tubules to slide out for good measure, the silver tubes wiggling gently in the dim illumination.

The very fact they had a word in their language to describe her was enough. While the Barellans might not be aware of what the Borg were, this species knew exactly what it meant. They turned tail and ran for their lives which, although significant, made it difficult for her to question them about the whereabouts of an arrival four days earlier.

Frowning, she stared after their departing forms, and started hastily after them. After all, she badly needed answers.

And if she had to use the patented B’Elanna Torres Klingon method of questioning, she was more than prepared to do so.

Janeway curled up in a ball beneath a brief overhang. She was hot with fever, body drenched with sweat and she knew she needed water desperately to replace the fluid she was losing. The water fountains were far more plentiful than the food dispensers, and while it was possible to be attacked while drinking or more daringly, trying to wash up a bit, the chances of being unobserved there were also greater. There was a fountain not too far from her tiny refuge, a few hundred feet down the dank corridor she found herself in, but considering the condition she was in, it might as well be kilometers.

Still, she knew she had to get to it and reluctantly, she left her shadowed patch of floor, getting to her feet in a series of movements that seemed to sap what little energy she had left. For long moments, she leaned against the wall, her breath a harsh stab of agony in her chest. Carefully using the cold metal surface as a brace, she shuffled toward the water fountain, stopping every few feet to rest and listen for the approach of anyone else. By now, six days after her arrival in this hell hole, it was highly unlikely she could fight off another loner, let along a grouping of any sort.

She coughed suddenly, the spasms tearing through her and she almost sank to the floor. Weakly she clutched at a small protrusion that barely kept her on her feet, knowing that if she went down, it would take more than she had at the moment to get back up. She had to stay still for several moments after she stopped choking, trying to dredge up a little more energy from sadly depleted reserves.

It took her two hours to make the two hundred feet to the fountain, two hours of labored progress that was measured in pain rather than distance. She was barely able to push the controls that sent a clear stream of tepid water out of the nozzle but she managed, forcing herself to bend over, placing her mouth under the trickle. She was beyond thirst now that she knew in a distant sort of way was some indication of how sick she was, but she had to have water. She drank as much as she could, filling her belly and trying desperately to keep it down.

When she finished, she drew back, wiping her mouth shakily with the back of her hand, her breathing harsh in the still air as she held onto the lip of the basin for support. Gingerly she turned around, starting abruptly as she saw five beings surrounding her, the adrenaline flooding her with cold fear. She hadn’t even heard their approach and they appeared like wraiths before her, thin streaks of charcoal with glowing yellow eyes, bodies wrapped in rags.

“(&*%$^*)” the middle one said, the largest one.

She, of course, had no clue what that meant but since the gleaming eyes were fixed on her boots, she had a pretty good idea what they wanted. She resisted feebly as the nearest two grabbed her and slammed her against the wall and as she watched the fist of the leader draw back, she tried desperately to brace herself for the impact.

Aware that this time, such a blow would most likely finish her.

Seven of Nine’s eyes widened as she saw the figure pass by, the unmistakable red and black of a uniform tunic being worn by an individual moving through a juncture up ahead and she sprinted through the corridor, reaching out to grab the slender shoulder and spinning the alien around. Features that appeared more tentacle than face stared/smelled/goggled back at her.

“Where did you get this?”

He gave every impression of alien incomprehension.

“(What the unknown do you think you’re doing?)” he rattled off in his own language, shaking off her hand. Around her, four others of his species slipped into position around her, in immediate preparation for an attack.

This language was a bit tricky, requiring certain motions of tentacles to supplement the vocal sounds. Since she didn’t have any of the wiggling appendages, she was forced to rely on a more primitive form of communication to get her meaning across. She seized the alien by the neck and lifted him off the ground, slamming him against the wall. She tugged on the tunic and glared into his optical organs.

“(Clothing. Where)?” she spat.

She felt another of the species bring their fists down across her shoulders and with a slowly forming anger that rose deep within her like the inexorable motion of the tide, she shrugged off the blows, dropping the one wearing the Starfleet tunic to the deck where he wheezed for breath. She whirled, grabbing her nearest attacker by the waistband, picking him up and tossing him a good fifty feet down the corridor. That gave the rest sufficient pause and they slowed their approach … not the wisest move. A command from Seven’s cranial implant triggered the mesh incasing her left hand, reshaping the bands of metal that ran down the inside of each finger into sharp-edged cutting blades that protruded beyond her fingertips with clawlike ends. With one swipe, she opened the throats of the two nearest aliens, blood spurting as they immediately collapsed on the floor.

The remaining two stopped, glanced once at their leader who was crawling away in the other direction past the gory bodies of their now rapidly cooling comrades, and apparently decided that self-preservation took precedence over species preservation, even in this prison. They abruptly turned and departed the area as quickly as it was possible for them to move.

Seven reached down and snagged the final alien by the scruff of his neck before he got too far. He whimpered as she lifted him up and slammed him into the wall again, then a second time just because she felt like it. She was not the sort to indulge in emotional displays, but her concern for the captain was taking her over, filling her with feelings she did not necessarily understand but welcomed nonetheless. They flooded her, giving her strength and a power which would have been frightening if she had thought about it for very long.

“(Clothing. Where)?” she repeated, tugging on the tunic and wrestling it off him.

He shook his head either unable to understand or not willing to.

She held up her hand so he could see the razor sharp blades adorning the inside of each finger, the blackish blood staining the serrated edges, then nicked him once along the side of his face.

“(When you get this)?” she demanded, holding the tunic up before his bleeding features. “(How)?”

“(From Loner),” he gurgled. “(Day ago).”

“(Who),” she demanded.

“(Not know),” he said. “(Dead. Got off body.).”

Seven felt a faintness come over her. “(Show me).”

He certainly did not wish to comply but another look at his fallen brethren made him stagger down the corridor, away from where the rest of his group had disappeared. She followed him, her right hand on his shoulder, keeping her other well displayed. He led her through a confused mass of corridors where the sight of two differing species together was odd enough to attract attention, particularly when they saw that the taller loner apparently had a weapon of sorts, something which, for all intensive purposes, was impossible to acquire here and extremely valuable.

But the few larger groupings who tried to approach learned quickly what a high cost it would require of them to take it, far more than they could afford as their powerful groupings were suddenly reduced in number by a few, well placed swipes of the deadly hand.

Not that they could utilize her even if they somehow had managed to overwhelm her, Seven noted impassively as she dismembered a member of Species 758 while the single remaining member of the once impressive four member grouping scuttled away. Once dead, her implant would go off line and become nothing more than inert bands of metal. It was only her conscious control over the implant that kept the mesh formed into the cutting tool.

The alien, on whom she had maintained an immovable grip throughout all her battles, was literally faint with sheer terror when he was finally able to show her the small corridor that ended in a cul-de-sac. The stench of decomposition was strong and foul, wafting from it in an almost visible cloud. Her heart aching, Seven went in, no longer interested in the alien who took the opportunity to stumble away, no doubt hoping he could catch up with the remaining members of his species before he too was judged a loner and easy prey for others. She heard the scurrying of numerous tiny feet as she knelt down beside the small form, turning it over gently, and recoiling at the rotted tissue that had been gnawed on by the breen skittering just beyond her range. They remained in the shadows, waiting for her to leave, aware from her scent that she was far too strong and alert for them to make a meal of her but that the initial meal would probably remain. Seven steeled herself, looking for something recognizable, and only then noticed the fact that the bottom half of the corpse was covered in a thick grey hair, the feet ending in cloven hoofs.

She wanted to gasp in relief but the smell was too much and she stumbled from the area, finding a wall to lean against as she drew one shuddering breath after another. She noted that she was suddenly being left alone, her arrival in this larger, more central corridor sending the inhabitants in other directions, deciding they needed to be elsewhere for the moment.

Some things just defied the language barrier. A trail of alien corpses in her wake apparently spoke for itself.

She slowed her breathing and leaned her head back, staring at the ceiling where an alien light burned dimly. It shaded into a range of light and color that her human eye found uncomfortable and she was forced to blink rapidly, her Borg optical implant compensating for the infra spectrum, giving her a faintly blurred view when she used both.

A sound reached her ear and she angled her head, jaw dropping slightly as she tried to distinguish the noise. A scuffle she identified, someone preying on another. A common occurrence here but for lack of anything better to do, she followed the noise, wrapping the discarded Starfleet tunic around her waist, tying it by the sleeves.

She turned a corner and discovered five beings standing near a water dispersal unit. She did not see what was occupying their attention at first, then the middle one drew his arm back and she glimpsed the battered form shoved against the wall, being held by two others.

The sound that tore from her throat then was not entirely Human. Or Borg.

But it was all fury.

Janeway tried to brace herself for the blow when a cry of such rage filled her ears that she flinched. She blinked once and had the impression of a dark form crashing into the alien about to strike her before the whole situation disintegrated into chaos. She collapsed on the floor as the grip on her arms was suddenly released and she drew a breath that made her start coughing. Weakly she fell against the wall, hoping that whatever was attacking would overlook her, the convulsions making it impossible for her to slink away from the titanic battle that was going on around her. The thick layer of dust and grime that covered the floor was stirred up, filling the air and creating a grim sort of fog.

Something spun through the murky air and she recoiled as a charcoal colored head with rapidly dimming golden eyes thudded to the floor mere inches from her hands. She had no idea where the rest of the body was and she scrabbled weakly away from the gruesome remains. Finally she was able to control her coughing and she clawed at the wall, trying desperately to get to her knees, peering haplessly through the dust to see what was going on.

Only three figures remained standing, blurred outlines in the haze. Two slender charcoal strips that undulated around a taller, more solid one who matched the unnatural quickness of its attackers who kept trying to dart in with their clawlike hands. But the figure also sported claws and with a wicked slash, one of the charcoal figures went down to join its already fallen brethren, spurting grey blood from four parallel wounds across its chest, keening once in a chilling, inhuman wail before going permanently silent.

The final wraith leaped on top of the statuesque figure and with a snarl of annoyance, the figure reached behind and plucked the charcoal wraith off its back, holding it up briefly above its head before dashing it to the ground with stunning force and the crunch of snapping bone. The charcoal being did not move again and Janeway cowered in the dirt as the tall being approached her.

“Kathryn?”

The voice, the word, was so familiar and so out of place in this environment of terror that she could only gape stupidly at the woman kneeling down before her. Janeway blinked hard, staring at the cool, narrow features, the lanky, six foot body dressed in an unfamiliar black outfit, the white blond hair astoundingly clipped short, close to the base of her skull, a single lock falling over the smooth forehead into ice blue eyes that were dark with concern. A metallic grey piece framed the left eye while a small starburst implant adorned the right cheek where jaw met earlobe.

“An– Annika?”

Seven seemed afraid to touch her and Janeway was suddenly aware of how she must look, at how her bruised and battered appearance must seem to her crewmember. Who was also her friend, her lover and her partner. She shuddered against the wall, unable to believe this was really happening, quivering in sheer disbelief.

“It will be all right, Kathryn,” Seven said then in an impossibly gentle voice.

She reached out slowly and Janeway flinched away as the warm hand touched her cheek. But she did not resist as the tall woman carefully gathered her up in her arms and carried her away from the area of death and destruction. Deep in shock, Janeway could only huddle within the strong embrace and bury her face into the warm hollow of shoulder and neck. She didn’t know if this was reality, if she was somehow fantasizing it or not, but she was content to shut everything else out, existing only in the moment, in the protective arms holding her, cradling her, keeping her safe.

She cried out as she was lowered to the floor, the Borg easing her from the embrace and she reached out in nameless dread.

“I will be right back,” Seven assured her. “Stay here.”

Dismayed, Janeway watched as the woman walked away but Seven did not go far, only to a food dispenser set in the wall. She placed her hand against the plate and a tray materialized on the shelf, a small chime sounding that would no doubt draw in every group within earshot, knowing that food had been dispensed and was available. Seven picked up the tray with her right hand and returned with it to where Janeway was sitting. The captain felt a flood of saliva fill her mouth as the odor of food hit her nostrils and she stared stupidly as the tray was laid on her lap. Patiently, Seven removed the utensils from the envelope and placed a fork in Janeway’s right hand.

“Slowly,” she instructed. “Eat now.”

Shaking, Janeway took a bite, the white pasty gruel laying on her tongue with little taste or texture. She thought it was the most delicious thing she had ever eaten and she swallowed, savoring the sensation of solid food going down her throat.

Seven stood over her, facing out, glaring at the few who had gathered at the chime. No one came any closer. The Borg was clearly not weak and the dangerous way she held herself, displaying her hands, letting the muted light glint of the serrated metal of the left spoke volumes, conveying a significance that transcended the language barrier. It did not take long for them to drift away, aware that there was nothing here for them, believing that they would be able to take her another time. After all, there was only one of her. With no one other than her obviously pitiful companion to cover her back as she ate, with no one to watch out while she slept, sooner or later, she would weaken and fall before a superior grouping, no matter how strong she was at the moment.

Janeway managed to swallow a few more bites, her shrunken stomach allowing no room for any more. She fumbled with the bulb that lay on the side of the tray, a small globe filled with liquid. She brought it to her mouth, sucking on the small nipple. The fluid was tart and tangy, cold and harsh on her taste buds but it contained much needed nutrients and her body accepted it eagerly.

Finished, she pushed the tray away, unable to look at the remaining food suddenly, nausea filling her though she was grimly determined not to lose what little she had gained. Seven knelt down beside her and once again picked her up.

“We must find a place for you to rest, and where I can treat you.”

Janeway wanted to tell her there was no such place, but she was strangely incapable of speech and could only make a soft sigh of protest. Seven seemed to understand and she hugged her tighter.

“It will be all right.”

Janeway believed her. Because suddenly she was too tired to fight anymore, too tired to do anything but rest helplessly in these arms that carried her as easily as a child through the corridors. Seven finally stopped before a circular grill midway up the wall, a heavy, metal object through which, warm air wafted gently. It was a vent of some kind, the cover supposedly unmoveable, impenetrable, the area behind hidden and unknown. This stretch of corridor was considered prime territory, belonging to whoever could hold it, the slight increase in temperature making it extremely valuable. Janeway was shocked to see that no one was visible at the moment and she wondered if this area had belonged to the charcoal beings. Though it was clear for the moment, Janeway didn’t know how Seven intended to maintain her possession of it. She was still only one person and it wasn’t as if Janeway could do anything to help against the groups that were bound to be lured to the prime real estate.

Seven lowered the captain to the floor, propping her against the wall, then ran the fingers of her mesh covered left hand along the seam bordering the large, circular panel. She paused at one spot and Janeway heard the soft sound of a click, a subtle sort of release. The heavy door swung open without so much as a squeak and Janeway was struck dumb in astonishment as Seven picked her up again and lifted her into the tube concealed behind the panel. The interior was warm and dry, surprisingly clean, illuminated by a line of dimmer lights in the ceiling above them. Dazedly, Janeway managed to crawl a little further into this refuge, glancing back to see Seven climb in after her. The Borg pulled the vent cover closed, securing them inside with the solid sound of the door sealing itself to the frame.

For the first time since this had all began, Janeway felt a flicker of hope, felt a sense that perhaps there would be some future beyond the next moment. She stared at Seven, drinking in the sight of her with confused gratitude.

“How?” she croaked.

“I shall explain later,” Seven said quietly.

She crouched beside the captain, gently taking Janeway’s left arm and holding it up so that she could see the wrist, staring at the band of black and blue streaked with red, the hand swollen and stiff.

“I must repair this.” She looked into the captain’s eyes and Janeway saw the love and concern in the eyes, warming her, comforting her. She barely noticed the pain from her wrist. “This will hurt.”

Janeway nodded briefly to indicate she understood. Seven laid the captain’s arm carefully down on her lap and shrugged out of the heavy black vest she was wearing. It would be a prized possession for anyone in this prison. The fact that she still was wearing it, that people were avoiding Seven rather than being attracted to the wealth it represented told Janeway a great deal about how strong her partner truly was. It was something she had only been slightly aware of prior to seeing her totally annihilate those five aliens.

From a concealed pocket in the shoulder, Seven removed a strand of multicolored ampules, comprised of soft plastic rather than glass. Janeway wondered how Seven had gotten them in, but then realized that the Guardians had also left her with pretty much everything she had arrived with, including her communicator and the pips on her collar. She had not had a tricorder or a phaser with her on the away mission, an oversight that Tuvok had protested but a protocol she had insisted was undiplomatic. She didn’t know if it would have made any difference at all, if possibly she would have been able to help Ensign Canexel as he fought off the Guardians before being killed or if they simply would have killed her as well instead of just arresting her.

Obviously, Seven’s implants were considered part of the woman, just another display of her alien anatomy, and the Barellans were unaware of just how they could be altered into useful tools or weapons. But then, Janeway had also been unaware of how they could be altered and she had lived with the woman for almost a year.

Or was it something she had known before and had forgotten?

Seven was studying the strand of ampules carefully before finally choosing six of the vials, three green, two red and a pale blue, breaking them off from the collection that she then replaced in the pocket. She snapped off the tops and handed them to Janeway one at a time.

“Take them,” Seven instructed gently, as if to a child.

Janeway held her breath and swallowed the various liquids obediently, trying not to gag at the strong, medicinal flavor sliding down her throat. The fluids alternately burned and chilled as they went and she wondered if that was good or bad, though it seemed she felt marginally better almost immediately.

Seven took the captain’s wrist again and Janeway marveled when she saw it cradled in the mesh covered left hand, held with such delicacy and gentleness by the very same implant that had wreaked such havoc only a short time before. Seven dipped her head until she captured the captain’s gaze.

“I must set the bones,” she said quietly. “It would be more efficient if you were unconscious.”

Janeway managed a brief grin with her split and sore lips. “Any ideas?”

“I shall utilize the Vulcan nerve pinch,” Seven informed her.

Before Janeway could say a word or otherwise object, she felt the slender fingers reach the juncture of her neck and shoulder, experiencing a gentle squeeze that plunged her into complete and utter blackness.

Seven held Janeway’s wrist tenderly and carefully pressed all the small bones back into place, her enhanced hearing detecting each muffled click as they reset. After that was done, she dug a bandage from another of her vest pockets and wrapped the wrist tightly. Voyager’s crew had not had a lot of time to gather supplies for her to take that would not only get by the inspection for weapons, but would also be immune to whatever dampening field was being used in the prison to deactivate all energy devices. B’Elanna and Neelix had dressed her in this combat outfit that included a vest festooned with concealed pockets disguised as padding. Seven didn’t yet know what all she carried besides the medical supplies the Doctor had shoved in after the fact, but she hoped whatever B’Elanna had included would prove to be useful.

She eased Janeway down from her slumped position against the wall and straightened her out on the floor. She removed the captain’s boots, then the frayed trousers, checking Janeway’s hips and legs thoroughly, making a note that the heavy uniform pants had seemed more protective than the rest of her outfit. She managed to redress the captain in the trousers without too much difficulty, and then made a quick pass over the woman’s torso, lifting up the t-shirt. She was dismayed at all the damage Janeway had sustained on her body, concerned especially by the dark, spongy area on her left side. Still, Janeway seemed to be breathing with relative ease so the Borg hoped that if the ribs were damaged, they were cracked rather than broken. She hauled out more bandages and strapped up the captain’s rib cage, grateful for the few emergency medical courses she had taken at the Doctor’s suggestion, having read all the reference material, though she had never really been forced to utilize her knowledge before now.

She would have given her life for it not to be Kathryn to whom she was applying the knowledge.

Seven lowered the shirt, smoothing it back over the battered torso gently, wishing she had a bone knitter, or at least, a dermal regenerator. She paused suddenly as she heard something from further down the tunnel. She glanced up, gazing at the far end of the tube that was hidden in shadow, noticing the glint of metal for the first time. She removed the Starfleet tunic from her waist and rolled it up, slipping it beneath Janeway’s head. Then she covered the captain with the vest before crawling deeper into the tunnel to investigate the sounds she heard.

She was surprised to discover a thick metal grate through which warm air flowed freely. She pressed her face against the openings and peered through them, trying to see what lay beyond. She sensed a much larger space, concealed in a darkness that even her Borg vision could not penetrate, filled with sounds of trickling liquid along with various other hums and swishes of some unknown origin that sounded mechanical to her. She gingerly slipped her arm through the grate and waved it about, trying to feel something, anything. Moisture splashed on her hand and she jerked it back, gazing at the clear liquid running down her wrist. She examined it closely, then tasted it gingerly, evaluating it . It was similar to the tepid fluid dispensed by the hydro units. She realized that there must be a pipe running above that fed into those units and that it was leaking.

Grateful for such a fortunate happenstance, Seven searched her outfit, finally ripping a strip of cloth from the bottom of her turtleneck sweater. She wet the cloth thoroughly, soaking it in the steady trickle and returned to Janeway, gently wiping away the blood and dirt from the captain’s face, cleaning the multitude of cuts. She then made several more trips to do what she could for the torso beneath the tattered shirt.

She was just finishing when Janeway stirred, moaning softly. Seven reached down and stroked the cheek softly, saddened at the confusion and fear that filled the blue-grey eyes as they opened, searching the dim illumination about her wildly. The Borg did not think the captain even saw her at first.

“My boots,” Janeway cried, trying to get up.

Seven held Janeway’s shoulders comfortingly, keeping her from rising.

“They’re close by, Kathryn.” She reached over and picked up the pair of boots, showing them to the captain.

Janeway relaxed when she saw them and some of the panic left her eyes.

“Annika?” she whispered.

“I am right here, Kathryn,” Seven soothed, dropping the boots back on the floor.

Janeway took a breath. “I wasn’t hallucinating then.”

“No,” Seven offered quietly. “I am not a figment of your imagination.”

Janeway swallowed hard and closed her eyes again. Two tears slid out from under her lids, tracking moist streaks down her cheeks. Carefully, Seven slipped her arm beneath the smaller woman’s shoulders and drew her up onto her lap, leaning back against the curved wall as she held her partner close to her. She was oblivious to the grime of the captain’s uniform, the ripe odor of a body that had not seen a shower or a bath for several days. With a sigh of relief, she drew the heavy vest over them both.

“Here, take this,” she instructed, fishing out another vial for the captain, a yellowish one this time.

Obediently Janeway took it, swallowing the contents in a sudden gulp before handing the emptied ampule back to Seven who crushed it into powder between the forefinger and thumb of her left hand.

“You cut your hair,” Janeway mumbled as she snuggled down against Seven.

Seven raised a surprised eyebrow. “There was a great deal of confusion while arranging this plan. It was B’Elanna’s idea to shorten the length of my hair, in a belief that it would make me look … ‘tougher’, more like a criminal. I do not know if I agree.”

“It looks good on you,” Janeway murmured.

Seven blinked. “Indeed. Then I shall maintain it.”

“What’s this plan you mentioned?” Janeway asked, and Seven was gratified to hear a tiny yet definable trace of command creep back into the weak voice.

“I was to be arrested and taken to this prison. I was to track you down. Fortunately, it did not take long.”

“How did you find me?”

“I followed the sounds of an altercation.” Seven’s voice took on a dryly amused note. “Somehow I knew you would be in the middle of it.”

“And not doing too damned well,” Janeway agreed. She took a breath, deep and slow, and changed the subject. “My chest doesn’t hurt anymore. I was afraid I was getting pneumonia.”

“You probably were,” Seven said logically. “The vials I gave you were a broad spectrum antibiotic, the strongest the Doctor could give me. He told me to administer several immediately, then future doses at specified intervals. He said it would stop any infection you might have. Apparently, he was correct.”

“Where is Voyager now?” Janeway asked anxiously.

“I am not sure,” Seven admitted. “They were to trace the signal being emitted by my Borg implants in order to find the prison. After that, they were to standby in a concealed position until I could get you to a location where we can be beamed out of here. Once their sensors pick up my locator signal, they will contact me and offer further instructions.”

“So we do have a way out,” Janeway said slowly.

“I believe so, but I also suspect we are in the deepest, most inaccessible section of the prison, which will no doubt interfere with Voyager’s communication and transporter technology.”

“We’re in a big asteroid, inside a kilometer of solid rock. The outermost layer is administrative, then another layer of rock before the first level of prison cells.”

“Cells?” Seven echoed.

“The Barellans,” Janeway explained. “They have the most prisoners so they have the most power and the best area. Then the next largest group has the next level and so on until this bottom level which is little more than a maze of corridors which go no where.” There was an uncharacteristic bitterness to her voice, a hatred threading through her words which caught Seven’s attention, making her frown.

“Then we must reach the administrative level in order to facilitate our beam out.”

Janeway shook her head. “It’s not that simple. The higher you go, the more powerful the groupings of each species. You may be a great deal stronger than I had realized but you’re still only one person, Seven. And I don’t think I’ll be much help.” Her voice trailed off at the end, with a touch of … contempt at her weakened state? Seven hugged her closer.

“Then we shall have to find another way,” Seven said, thinking about that dark emptiness beyond the grate … and where it might lead.

There was a pause and Seven felt Janeway trembling. “Tell me.”

Janeway did not respond right away and Seven waited patiently, holding her tight.

“You shouldn’t have risked yourself to save me,” the captain said finally, tightly, her shoulders hunched. “Nor should Chakotay have risked the ship. It was foolish.”

“Perhaps. But I will never leave you behind, Kathryn. You cannot ask that of me.”

Janeway began to shake more violently. “I was so scared Annika,” she admitted in a tiny voice, choking on the sobs rising in her throat. “I was so very scared.”

“I know,” Seven told her, cuddling her, pressing her cheek to the damp forehead, trying to comfort her partner. She knew that this was the ‘reaction’, the overwhelming emotion that came in the aftermath of an extremely stressful time. She had experienced it herself on more than a few occasions and had even seen Kathryn display it once or twice before. She stroked the tangled auburn locks gently, frowning as her fingertips felt the bump on the back of the skull, the caked blood matting the hair together, castigating herself for having missed it on her initial inspection.

“Kathryn, it is all right to feel fear,” she whispered as the captain started to weep, great shuddering sobs that tore at her frail form. “I swear to you, I will not let anything or anyone hurt you again, not as long as there is breath in my body.” She held Janeway as close as she could without hurting her tender rib cage. “I love you, Kathryn,” she told her again and again. “We are together. It will be all right.”

Finally the sobs died away and Janeway was quiet in the embrace, no longer clinging so tightly to the Borg. Seven kissed her gently on the forehead, then brushed her lips down the elegant nose, found the cut lips which she kissed with the utmost tenderness. Then again, slower, lingeringly, trying to communicate how very much she adored her.

“Oh god, I must taste terrible,” Janeway said, managing a half laugh when they finally parted.

“You taste wonderful,” Seven said with great sincerity.

Janeway took a deep breath and buried her face into Seven’s shoulder. “You’re biased,” she mumbled drowsily, the outpouring of emotion having drained her of what little reserve she had.

Seven pulled the vest up around them and rested her palm warmly on Janeway’s cheek. “Go to sleep now, Kathryn. You must rest and regain your strength.”

“We need to stay alert,” Janeway murmured.

“I will keep watch, Kathryn,” Seven assured her. “Sleep.”

As the captain finally surrendered to her weariness, Seven remained awake, her eyes keen in the dim light, staring at the darkness that lay beyond the grate.

Pondering.

Janeway stumbled around in the dark, feeling the sharp sting of claws rake her body. They were after her and she fell beneath their pounding fists, the blows falling again and again on her cowering body. She curled up in a fetal position, crying out.

“Kathryn.”

Janeway came awake, her heart pounding in her ears, sweat dampening her t-shirt. She pushed against the confining arms holding her, trying to escape. It took a few seconds to recognize Seven, to realize the arms that held her were comforting rather than restraining, loving rather than hurtful. She drew deep shuddering breaths, one after another, trying to regain some sense of equilibrium, some kind of control.

“It was just a dream, Kathryn,” Seven said softly, stroking her hair. “Nothing will harm you.”

“Oh god,” Janeway moaned and clung to the lanky body next to her, holding on for dear life. “Oh god, Annika.”

“Shh, it is all right, Kathryn,” the Borg told her. “I am here. We are together.”

Janeway gulped audibly and pressed her face against Seven’s chest, hearing the powerful beat of the Borg’s heart beneath her ear, feeling it comfort her, its steady throb surrounding her with the young woman’s strength and courage. She closed her eyes and concentrated on it, bringing her own racing pulse under control, taking from her partner what was freely offered.

Finally Seven loosened the embrace and Janeway sat up, wiping at her eyes.

“I’m in a bad way,” she said shakily, bending her head to her clenched fists.

“You will improve,” Seven told her firmly.

Janeway found herself rocking slightly, unable to stop. “I don’t know if that’s true, Annika,” she said shakily. “I’ve never been in this kind of situation before. Not one where I’ve been so … physically abused again and again. Not even when I was captured by the Cardassians. These … aliens beat me when I fought back, they beat me when I didn’t resist, they beat me every chance they got.” Her respiration was increasing again and she clenched her fists tighter. “I couldn’t stop them, Annika.”

Seven carefully put her hand on Janeway’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “You survived,” she said quietly, dipping her head to catch the captain’s gaze. “Even though you were greatly outnumbered.” Her pale blue eyes were intent, honest, trying hard to communicate her love and belief. “Kathryn, it will be intelligence that allows us to escape this prison, not brute force. And you are the most intelligent person I know.”

Janeway tried to take comfort in the words spoken so sincerely, tried to believe them as much as her partner seemed to. One part of her took heart, convinced that Seven was absolutely correct, that as long as there was life, there was hope and together, little could deny them. But there was another part of her, a lonely, isolated, terrified part that wanted only to curl up and die, to hide away where nothing could hurt her anymore. She forced herself to breathe slowly as gradually, in small increments, she relaxed and leaned into her partner, feeling the Borg embrace her, the slender arms enveloping her, lending her their strength.

“I’m still afraid, Annika,” she said finally in a muffled voice. “But I won’t let it rule me.”

“You cannot be defeated, Kathryn. There is nothing strong enough to do that. Not the Borg, not the Delta Quadrant, and certainly not this prison.”

Janeway swallowed hard and by sheer force of will, pulled away from the embrace, sitting upright. She looked at the Borg with what she hoped was firm resolve. “What’s the plan?” she said, proud that her voice no longer shook.

Seven stared intently at her a moment as if to judge whether she were feigning or not, then motioned with her chin. “Take a look at this.”

Janeway followed Seven as her partner crawled deeper into the tube, stopping before a solid metal grate. Janeway examined it, trying to penetrate the darkness beyond.

“Where does it lead?”

“I do not know, but the fact that the door at the other end was so heavily sealed indicates that the prison authorities do not want anyone to enter these tunnels. Perhaps because they are a possible escape route. There is a steady current of air flowing through here.”

“If only we had a light,” Janeway said fretfully.

“Perhaps we do. I have not yet checked what my clothing conceals.”

“Let’s see what we have to work with.” Janeway sat down cross legged as Seven started to go through the vest as well as her pants.

This was the first time, the captain had been able to get a clear look at Seven’s outfit. It differed greatly from the normal, skin tight outfits she regularly wore on Voyager. Heavily padded, it was a combat outfit with black trousers, sweater and heavy boots tied up the front. The pants concealed many pockets and from them, Seven hauled an assortment of treasures that the hasty preparation had found in the ship’s stores, all made of natural materials that would not set off any sensor array. Janeway stared at them in amazement, wondering why her ship had such things on hand, and who in her crew would be stocking them. There were candles made of beeswax, wooden sulphur matches, an antique canteen made of some unidentifiable skin, a hundred yard roll of Vulcan silkworm microfilament, Starfleet issued ration bars … Janeway couldn’t help herself at this last. She pounced on them, snatching one up and tearing the foil from it.

She crammed the tan colored square into her mouth, and flushed hotly as she saw Seven staring at her while she chewed avidly, crumbs spilling over her chin. “Didn’t remember them being this good,” she mumbled in a low voice, humiliated at being so obvious in her need.

“Hunger is the best spice for any meal,” Seven said gently in understanding. She handed Janeway another one. “You need to eat, Kathryn. Do not be embarrassed by that.”

“We need to conserve them,” Janeway countered though she looked longingly at the second one. “You have to eat as well. We can’t afford to let you get weak.”

Seven nodded and opened the bar, breaking off about a quarter of it. The rest she pressed into Janeway’s hand. “This is sufficient for my nutritional requirements. The rest will not keep out of the foil. Finish it.”

Janeway hesitated, and then ate it obediently, though she was slower this time, lingering over the dry, crumbling, sweetish flavor. It wasn’t that it tasted good. In ordinary circumstances, she found the things revolting, but it tasted familiar, of Starfleet and home, and she savored every morsel. She could have eaten ten more if they had been available. For a moment, she had a mental image of Jake, her Irish Setter puppy who vacuumed up his assorted meals with little pause to chew. She thought she had him beat at the moment.

“What?”

Startled, Janeway looked at her. “What?”

“You were smiling,” Seven said, tilting her head. “Just a little.”

Janeway took a breath. “I was just thinking that if Jake were here, I’d still be quicker in finishing my bar before he did.”

Seven matched the small smile and reached out, entwining her fingers with Janeway’s. “Nothing is faster than Jake.”

Janeway regarded her for a long moment, then felt the corners of her mouth twitch once more. “I know.”

Seven squeezed her hand lovingly, and they went back to assessing their supplies. The vest was crammed full of medical items including some needles and thin thread that Seven regarded uncertainly. Janeway had to explain about stitches, and then when Seven pulled out a small plastic bottle that smelled strongly of whiskey, about primitive forms of anesthesia and sterilization.

“I cannot believe he neglected to include leeches,” Seven said with distaste.

Janeway raised a wry eyebrow. “I’m sure we can find some,” she said, and then shuddered as she realized how accurate a prediction that might be.

Seven eyed her briefly, and then began to gather up the various items and replace them in the pockets of her vest and pants. Janeway frowned as she looked at her partner.

“You’re a walking treasure trove, Annika. I’m surprised you didn’t have more trouble while you were looking for me.”

“I was attacked many times,” Seven said without concern. “They failed. There are many four and five member groupings of species that now must be considered loners.”

Janeway took a few moments to consider that. Consider the fact that Seven had killed wantonly and without hesitation on her behalf. And that instead of upsetting her, it made the captain feel safe and protected.

“You’ve certainly managed to upset the status quo down here.”

Seven paused in her motion. “Don’t I always?”

Despite their predicament, Janeway laughed. “You certainly do.” She glanced back and noticed for the first time the red and black tunic laying on the floor. Her eyes widened and she looked back at Seven. “Where did you find my tunic?”

Seven hesitated. “The alien wearing it had no further need of it. He had taken it off yet another alien who had been killed. That alien was covered with hair from the waist down and had cloven hooves. Is that the one who took it from you?”

Janeway was disquieted by the vengeful glee that filled her at the information, knowing the being who had beat her so badly was dead. “Yes,” she said faintly. “I lost it three days ago.”

“Now you have it back.”

The Borg leaned over and picked it up, shaking it out thoroughly and presenting it to Janeway who accepted it uncertainly. She looked at it for a moment, then slowly, she pulled it on, squaring her shoulders beneath the band of command red. The gold comm badge glittered briefly in the dim lighting and she had to take a few seconds to compose herself.

“Do not forget your boots,” Seven reminded her.

Janeway flicked a glance at her, flushed a bit, but obligingly retrieved them and put them on. The uniform was grungy and dusty, permeated with several smells that were alien and strange as well as her own rather ripe odor. But it was hers and she felt considerably better now that she was dressed in it once more.

Seven struck a match, lighting a candle, and then began to examine the grate more closely.

Janeway studied the other side. “What about alarms?”

Seven shook her head minutely. “They were all in the outer vent covering.”

“You deactivated them?” Janeway asked anxiously.

Seven glanced at her. “No. That might have alerted the administrators. I simply inserted a probe through the seam and released the lock from the inside. That bypassed the necessity for any alarms to be activated.”

“Oh,” Janeway responded, then smiled. “Remind me to take you along every time I need to break out of jail.”

“I will remind you to take me along every time you leave the ship,” Seven said somewhat testily.

Janeway pursed her lips. “Maybe you should. Lt. Canexel died trying to protect me. You might have stood a better chance looking after me.”

Seven frowned, clearly disturbed at Janeway’s harsh self evaluation at what had merely been a bit of a sarcastic comment, one the captain normally would have ignored or matched with equal sarcasm. “Why were you arrested?” she asked quietly after a few moments. “What did you do?”

Janeway took a long, slow breath. “The Guardians were taking a merchant into custody, and I didn’t like how they were arresting him. I didn’t realize at the time that the brutality was their tradition method of ‘subduing’ a prisoner. I tried to intervene and they turned on me. Canexel tried to get me out, but they shot him down with a disruptor.” Her eyes were bleak as she stared unseeingly at the grate. “Because I didn’t mind my own business, a crewmember died, another risks her life to find me, and my entire ship is endangered trying to rescue me. All my lectures about the prime directive, about respecting differing cultures even if we don’t agree with them. I expect my crew to follow Starfleet protocols to the letter, and then ignore them myself.” She shook her head, furious with herself. “I’m such a hypocrite.”

Seven carefully did not look at her, testing the grate at various points with her left hand as her right held the candle. “Your compassion for others is part of what makes you a great captain. I would not want to see you lose that. Especially when it was your compassion for a Borg drone that allowed me to remain on Voyager. That gave me the opportunity to love you.”

Janeway was silent for long moments, torn between her self-disgust and the warm feeling Seven’s reminder had given her. “Still, I have to learn to pick my spots better,” she muttered finally.

“With that,” Seven remarked as there was a muted click and the grate suddenly swung open into the darkness beyond. “I have to agree.” She lit a second candle and passed it back to Janeway. “Ready?”

Janeway nodded.

“Let’s see what’s out there.”

Seven crawled cautiously through the grate, groping around with her toe until she found footing a few feet below the opening. It was not artificial, but natural stone, hard and uneven beneath her boots. She knelt to examine it as Janeway followed her, leaving the grate ajar in case they had to return. Seven wondered if this was a part of the asteroid itself, the rock a deep, metallic black that appeared almost shiny in the dim illumination. Water glistened in tiny streams snaking over the floor, fed by the drips falling steadily from above. She sniffed carefully at the air, noting that it was actually much cleaner than was within the prison proper, with less dust and better circulation and she tried to sense the dimensions of the area around her. For some reason, though the light from her candle did not encounter walls beyond where she was standing, she had the impression of a vast space.

Janeway held her candle high as she examined the area above her, studying the tangle of pipes illuminated in the flickering flame, streaked with rust, caked with a greenish corrosion, and leaking at several points. She held out her hand and caught some of the moisture, studying it for a moment before catching more in her palm, which she carefully tasted. Discovering it was water from a pipe that fed the various drinking units on this level, she leaned beneath one of the larger trickles, drinking deeply. Then she carefully set her candle down nearby and put her whole head under the steady flow, soaking her hair and cleaning some of the dirt and caked blood from it, an expression of relief on her face.

Seven kept an eye on the captain as she searched the rest of their immediate area, making sure Janeway did not over exert herself. Kathryn looked a great deal better than she had when the Borg had found her. The rations and antibiotics were clearly doing wonders in restoring her metabolism, but her movements were still stiff, very labored for the woman who normally moved with a brisk, athletic litheness.

“If these are any indication,” Seven remarked when Janeway had finished, squeezing the excess water from her hair. “This level can expect a failure in their water distribution in the near future.” Her voice echoed slightly, causing her to lower it immediately.

Janeway nodded thoughtfully. “Of course, there’s no way of knowing the rate of corrosion here. For all we know, these pipes are replaced every two months.”

Seven regarded the conglomeration of pipes. “I believe they are the original installation and have never been maintained properly.”

Janeway did not answer, apparently willing to concede the point. Retrieving her candle, she stepped deeper into the cavern, careful of her footing. Seven was quick to move after her, easing past her to be in front. She was aware of a wry grin ghosting over the captain’s lips as she did so, but Janeway did not object, apparently content to allow Seven to take point.

They followed the wall from the grate, conscious of the air steadily moving about them. It was warm, coming from some unknown source and they angled toward the direction it was originating. Their candles did not give them a lot of light but the tiny flames were better than nothing, and Seven’s Borg-enhanced night vision allowed her to see a great deal further than Janeway could. There was a large opening in the far wall, a tunnel cut through the solid rock face. The pipes organized themselves into several parallel conduits that ran along the roof of the tunnel. They were also leaking in spots, though they appeared much less corroded than those in the cavern.

“They have to lead somewhere,” Janeway said as they regarded them thoughtfully. “And so does the tunnel.”

“It might not be to the surface,” Seven warned gently.

“No, but we have to start somewhere.” Janeway glanced at Seven. “Has Voyager managed to contact you yet?”

Seven shook her head. “I believe our fears were correct. We are too deep to receive a signal.”

Janeway sighed. “Hopefully, this will lead us up a few levels.”

This time she let Seven take the lead from the beginning, and the Borg felt the captain’s hand grope for hers as they entered the tunnel even though she was still unable to flex the fingers. Seven was glad of the physical connection, warmed by the way Janeway trusted her injured hand in her grasp. They traveled in silence, the incessant dripping of water a constant companion, underlaid by the soft rush of warm air around them. When it suddenly stopped, so did Seven, freezing in her tracks.

Janeway also paused and they both listened intently. Seven heard it first, the slither of scales over rock, and she put her hand back, pushing Janeway against the wall as the Borg imposed her body between her and whatever was approaching. At first, she thought it was some form of eyeless snake she was seeing, and then realized dispassionately that it was actually a tentacle, sent out by something much larger, something large enough to block the current of warm air coming from beyond the darkness. They could smell it too, a damp, musty odor, sharp and repelling.

“Hold this,” Seven said calmly, handing the candle back to Janeway.

“I can’t,” Janeway reminded her tersely.

Seven frowned and placed the candle on the floor, intending to pick it up after the fact, its tiny flame flickering fretfully. She altered her hand implant again to the cutting blades, adding two spikes that shot out from where the assimilation tubules were stored. She had briefly considered simply assimilating the creature, but since she had not really assimilated anything outside of the Collective, she had no idea what the result would be. Nor was she anxious to have the mind of whatever it was added to the mass of identities already floating around her subconscious.

“Be careful,” Janeway said in a barely audible whisper.

“That is my intention,” Seven remarked in her normal voice.

The reverberating roar that surrounded them startled her and made Janeway almost drop her candle. Seven made a note of the fact that since there were loud creatures already roaming this subterranean caverns, the Barellans would hardly have alarms keyed to sound. That was one less thing to worry about.

An advantage because this seemed quite a formidable challenge. More tentacles snaked forward, writhing on the floor but they did not come any nearer, remaining just beyond the circle of illumination.

“Bring the light forward,” Seven requested.

Cautiously they both stepped closer. Contrary to Seven’s preliminary theory, the tentacles did not retreat as the light hit them. Instead, they grew more agitated, reaching for them, but not quite touching them.

“I believe we are just beyond the limit of its reach.”

“I think you’re right,” Janeway said tightly. “Should we go back?”

“Let us see if I can convince it that we are not prey. I have practiced that technique a great deal recently.”

She dashed forward and swiped hard at the withering tentacles, severing several, but before she could leap back out of range, another shot forward, wrapping around her ankle and sending her crashing to the ground. She felt herself being dragged toward the darkness, another tentacle snagging her other foot as she struggled to free herself.

“No,” Janeway screamed and she leaped forward, using the only weapon she had, the tiny candle flame that she brought down across the tentacle. To Seven’s disbelief and considerable gratitude, there was a scream of agony from the creature and the tentacles immediately released her, withdrawing back into the darkness. There was the sound of something large moving hastily away and the rush of air suddenly resumed.

Profoundly surprised, the two Voyager crewmembers looked at each other.

“That was somewhat easier than I had expected,” Seven noted, rising up on her elbows.

Janeway’s face was drawn in the dim candle light. “I know.” She looked down. “Annika, look.”

Seven rolled to her feet and turned her gaze to what Janeway was indicating; the candle the Borg had earlier placed on the floor. It had fallen over in the attack and was now lying on its side, still lit. To their amazement, there was also a small band of flame around it, slowly spreading in an ever increasing circle.

“The rock is flammable,” Seven noted with surprise. “That is why the creature retreated. It would have a natural instinct to avoid even the smallest indication of fire, which could rapidly spread out of control here.”

“That’s also why there’s absolutely nothing flammable in the prison.” Janeway picked up the candle and passed it to Seven before carefully stomping out the rest of the flame. It left a fine, powdery ash where it had burned, and she examined it closer. “It’s not the rock, Seven. It’s some kind of moisture, a very thin fluid that seems to be oozing from it.”

Seven joined her. “This would allow us to make a torch. That would afford us increased illumination, and would also prove to be a formidable weapon if we encounter any more of the creatures.”

Janeway nodded. “Good idea.” She eyed Seven wryly and the Borg was glad to see some of her partner’s vitality sparkling in the blue-grey eyes. “Your shirt or mine?”

“This vest has no fastenings,” Seven said evenly. “It is designed to hang open.”

Janeway’s lips twitched, but she didn’t hesitate. She began to strip off her tunic, and with Seven’s help, pulled off her t-shirt before pulling the tunic back on, closing it up to her neck. She carefully removed the four pips from the shirt collar and handed them to Seven who stored them in a pocket for safekeeping. Kneeling, she rubbed the shirt over the rock, picking up as much of the oily residue as she could.

“Any idea how we’ll carry it?”

Seven frowned, and looked around, spotting one of the severed tentacles laying nearby in a pool of gore, the white edge of bone protruding from one end. She realized the tentacles had actually been segmented, made up of individual bones like links in a chain rather than cartilage as was the case in other creatures, such as the Terran octopus or giant squid. She picked up one of the larger segments and with a rather casual left handed swipe, she cleared most of the tissue from it, aware of Janeway making a most peculiar face. Seven offered the slender bone to the captain who accepted it distastefully.

“Thank you,” Janeway said in a voice devoid of inflection. Seven tried not to smile.

The captain wrapped the shirt tightly around one end of the bone, securing it with some of the Vulcan silkworm microfilament. Holding it away from her, the captain used Seven’s candle to light it. At first it gave off a pungent smoke before it finally caught and burned with a clean, steady yellow flame, granting them a brighter and more natural light than they had experienced for some time.

Its illumination revealed that the tunnel ran another twenty meters, giving them a greater concept of the creature’s size. The forbidding hole of darkness at the end indicated a much larger area laying beyond. They glanced at each other, and blew out the candles, sticking them back in Seven’s pocket. Together, they moved cautiously towards the opening as Janeway kept the torch so that Seven would not have both hands occupied. The captain already had the right one, resting her injured hand in its gentle grasp.

They hesitated at the mouth of the tunnel, staring about in wonder. This was a huge, natural cavern, too high for the torch to illuminate fully, festooned with stalagmites. They looked up and saw the pipes they had been following ran straight up along the rock face, disappearing high into the gloom above them.

Seven heard Janeway sigh. “Annika, have I ever taught you to rock climb?”

Seven lifted a brow. “It was something you indicated that you would teach me, but we never had the opportunity.”

Janeway looked at her.

“We do now.”

Janeway watched as Seven made her third attempt to scale the rock face. The oily residue made it difficult for the Borg, and practically impossible for Janeway to climb. The captain could just barely see the lower half of her partner who was using her hand implant to spike into the rock, securing her hold as she went while she used the pipes to support her other side. Janeway frowned as the Borg hesitated above her, and she raised an eyebrow as the Borg began to descend.

“What’s wrong?” she asked when Seven finally reached the bottom.

“The pipes enter a small opening cut in the ceiling that is only large enough for the passage of the pipes. There is no way to cut away the rock around it.”

Janeway suppressed a sigh, wearied by this new obstacle, and found a nearby boulder to sit on. Seven sat beside her and despite her desire to show only strength, Janeway found herself leaning weakly against her crewmember.

“This is silly,” the captain muttered fretfully. “You’re the one doing all the climbing.”

“Yes, but my reserves are fresh,” Seven said, sliding her arm around the captain’s shoulders and hugging her. “Yours are not. We should eat, and rest. Then we will try exploring the cavern. Perhaps there is another way to the next level.”

Janeway didn’t answer, not wanting to sound pessimistic. Besides, what other choice did they have? She took a breath and accepted the ration bar Seven handed her. Nearby, the torch had been stuck in some rocks and burned with a steady, clean light. Janeway thought that whatever the oil was oozing from the rocks, it was a remarkably pure and long lasting fossil fuel. In the twentieth century on Earth, such a thing would be exceptionally valuable. Here, it lay in motionless pools about the cavern, appearing similar to water, with no real odor.

She chewed numbly at her bar and then accepted the canteen Seven offered, sipping at it.

“Drink as much as you require,” Seven recommended. “I will fill it again before we leave the pipes. The time to conserve will come later.”

Janeway heeded her advice, taking larger swallows, washing down the dry nutrient bar. The ration bars no longer held the same appeal they did such a very short time ago, and she supposed that meant she was feeling better. Seven nudged her gently and handed her another red vial. The captain regarded it unenthusiastically, then flicked off the plastic top and drank down the contents quickly, followed by several more large drinks of water to disperse the sharp, medicinal taste.

“I wish I knew why medicine has to taste bad,” she complained.

Seven raised an eyebrow. “The Doctor told me it was so Humans would believe in its effect. It is entirely possible to flavor medicine in any manner, but if it tastes acceptable or even appealing, then there is a subconscious belief that it is not strong enough to work, which would actually counteract its function.”

Janeway stared at her skeptically. “Really?”

“That is what he told me,” Seven said without opinion.

Janeway’s lips quirked. “Maybe he’s right.”

“It is working.” Janeway gave her a ‘how do you know?’ glance and the Borg added promptly, “You are complaining. You weren’t strong enough to offer complaints on minor matters before.”

Janeway smiled and rested her head on Seven’s shoulder, closing her eyes. “I’m going to take such a long bath when we get back,” she murmured drowsily. “Will you join me?”

She felt Seven’s lips press against her forehead. “I would be honored.”

Janeway smiled and settled closer, dismayed at the weariness that permeated her body. She felt herself drift off and she brought herself awake with an abrupt jerk. Seven rubbed her back gently.

“Rest for a bit,” the Borg instructed quietly. “It will do us little good if you exhaust yourself trying to do more than your body will allow.”

Janeway exhaled softly. “You’re probably right.”

She allowed herself to sink into the warmth of her partner’s embrace, letting herself doze off this time, secure in the knowledge that Seven would remain alert. She woke some time later, not knowing how long she had been out, only aware that she felt much more alert and rested.

“Now you,” she said softly.

Seven hesitated. “I do not need sleep.”

“That’s an order.” Janeway was relieved to hear the firm crack of command in her voice. She had missed it.

Seven eyed her uncertainly before sliging obligingly down onto the ground, leaning against the boulder and closing her eyes. While the Borg took her nap, the captain kept watch, one hand holding the torch, her sore hand resting on Seven’s shoulder. When Seven finally did awake much later, the young woman had the grace to look abashed.

“You were correct,” she said. “I did require rest.”

The couple rose from their rocky seats, and Seven made a quick trip into the access tunnel to refill the canteen while Janeway took care of a few biological functions. Exploring the cavern, they discovered several other openings in the rock face, but there was only one that had any incline in the slope of the ground. They did not need to debate it. Seven simply walked into it and Janeway followed, accepting that this was their best option to date. It was a gradual slope, but Janeway’s smooth soled boots had trouble with the slick surface, and she had to lean heavily on Seven in several spots. Seven’s treaded footwear handled the slippery ground much better and she kept her left hand touching the rock surface as she moved, ready to dig in at a second’s notice.

They had been traveling for only an hour when they came across another set of pipes erupting from the ground and continuing up the rock face where they disappeared into the ceiling above. Several of them branched off and ran into the dark hole of another tunnel. Janeway held the torch as Seven knelt to examine them.

“I believe they are the same as the ones we have already encountered.”

Janeway was elated but she tried to keep her voice calm.

“Do you realize what this means, Annika?”

Seven nodded. “We have been traveling in a circle, probably on a circuit around the prison itself.” She gestured toward the other tunnel. “That probably leads to a vent in the next level up from where we were imprisoned.”

“So if we continue to follow this tunnel,” Janeway said. “We’re bound to reach the surface, sooner or later.”

Seven glanced at her. “Or hopefully to a level where Voyager can contact us.” Her voice was without much inflection but Janeway could see that her eyes were shining.

Janeway heaved a silent sigh of relief and smiled. “Lead on.”

Seven returned the smile briefly and, taking the captain’s elbow gently, she started off. They checked off each circuit by the pipes and access tunnel, stopping on one occasion to refill the canteen. The pipes improved in condition the further they ascended, but Seven was still able to puncture a hole in one of them to give them more water. They were on their fifth circuit when they heard noises ahead of them, the sounds of alien voices and heavy footsteps. Alarmed, they exchanged glances, and with a quick jerk of her head, Seven indicated they should return to the access tunnel they had just passed.

Moving as quietly as they could, Seven shielding the torch with her body, they turned around and slipped and slid their way back down the incline, aware of the sounds becoming progressively closer. Dancing shadows appeared in their wake from artificial lanterns just as they reached the access tunnel. They plunged into it eagerly and Seven quickly extinguished the torch as they pressed against the wall, holding their breaths. A large group of Barellan Guardians passed, carrying several pieces of heavy equipment.

When the last sounds of their passage had died away, Seven dug a match out of her jacket and lit it, the bright flare of the small stick bright in the deep blackness that had fallen over them with the extinguishing of the torch. She was frowning, eyes dark as the small flame flickered and danced, shadows ghosting over her face.

Janeway was equally somber.

“I guess the dampening field isn’t active out here. I understood what they were saying.”

Seven looked at her. “Then you know what they are going to do.”

Janeway nodded grimly. “Someone must have informed them exactly what Borg are. They think you might have assimilated the entire level and they’re going to fill it with poison gas. They’ll kill everyone in an effort to get to you.”

She did not look at Seven as she made her next pronouncement.

“We have to stop them.”

Seven stared at her, knowing her mouth had fallen open and unable to do much about it. She wondered if the captain’s mental facilities had somehow become damaged during her ordeal.

The captain caught her expression and frowned, jaw firming. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“It is the tactically unsound thing to do,” Seven objected. “I cannot believe you are suggesting it.”

Janeway took a breath. “Seven,” she began and the younger woman restrained a wince. “We have to make the attempt.”

Once Janeway started using her Borg name rather than Seven’s Human one, that meant she was in full captain mode, extremely difficult to counter. It is a sad thing when the designation one has known most of one’s existence becomes nothing more than a toll of doom, the Borg thought irritably as she lit the torch with the match that was burning perilously close to her fingers.

“Captain,” she said flatly, her voice firm and devoid of emotion, “it is highly unlikely we would be successful in such an endeavor. We will most certainly perish.”

“Seven,” Janeway tried again. “This whole situation is my fault. If I hadn’t interfered with their culture, you wouldn’t be here and they wouldn’t now be purging the lower level to eliminate the Borg threat. I have to do this.”

Seven stared at her for a long moment. She felt a little uncomfortable at utilizing personal emotions in what should be a professional discussion but she could not allow their long standing, unspoken agreement to stop her here. She had no intention of losing this argument. “You have no right to do this, Captain. You owe your crew more than this. You owe me more than this.”

Janeway was rocked. “What do you mean?”

“I could refuse this order,” Seven said quietly but forcefully. “I could render you unconscious and carry you the rest of the way to the surface, but that would damage what we have between us in such a way that I fear we would never repair it. So instead, I will make my best attempt to succeed at what you ask of me. But I will fail, because they are in full armor and carry disruptors, outnumbering me twenty to one. After they kill me, they will go ahead and gas the lower level anyway to make sure no assimilation had taken place. Eventually, Voyager will proceed on its way, assuming it is not discovered, never knowing what happened to us.” She took a step closer. “Be sure of exactly what you’re asking of us, Captain.”

Janeway held her eyes for a long moment, and then looked away, unable to maintain it.

“You don’t understand,” she said in a low voice.

Seven gentled her tone. “On the contrary, I understand very well. You feel you’ve made an error that has cost the life of Lt. Canexel and now may cost the lives of other innocent bystanders. As always, when you make a mistake, you do your best to correct it. In this case, as in others, you overcompensate, determined to make some form of restitution you can live with. But it will be a futile attempt.”

Janeway took several deep breaths, staring at the ground. Then she raised her eyes to Seven’s level gaze. “I have to do something.” Her tone was pleading.

Seven tilted her head. “Pick your spot wisely, Captain. I do not believe this is it.”

After a long moment, Janeway finally nodded, her mouth moving as if she were tasting something very unpleasant. “Let’s go. The sooner we get back to Voyager, the sooner I’ll be in a position to do something positive.”

Seven refused to display the relief that surged strongly through her. Instead, she merely hefted the torch and after checking to make sure the coast was clear, led the way out of the access tunnel. She felt Janeway’s hand seek out hers and she took it gently in her grasp, considerably gratified that not only had she finally managed to win an argument with the captain, there were no repercussions to them personally. This was definitely one she would have to put in her personal logs since it was not something she thought would happen again any time soon.

They moved with more purpose now, their steps quickening. Janeway was filled with a certain resolve which seemed to lend her strength. She slipped less and was far more flexible than she had been. Of course, Seven noted, the tunnel on the upper levels had seen more use and were better maintained, leaving less oily residue on the rocks. It made their passage considerably easier. They grew more cautious as the surroundings became more manufactured. When the tunnel abruptly shifted from rock to metal, and the uncomfortable illumination of lights from the ceiling blured their vision, Seven doused the torch and discarded it, glad to be rid of the bone that was starting to emanate an unpleasantly burnt and putrid odor.

She and Janeway rested briefly in the first access tunnel they came across, the hum of machinery and air circulation much louder here. Keeping an eye out for alarms and sensors, they finally left their refuge and walked up the final slope, knowing that this had to be the top level of the prison itself. They came to a room that held an elevator of sorts, manned by two Guardians.

Seven eased back around the corner when she saw them, hoping they hadn’t spotted her. When there was no alarm raised, she used hand signals to indicate that they should take a moment to regroup. Janeway gave a sharp nod and together, they hid in the shadows of a large conduit that appeared to be the main water pipe, about four meters across, leaving space for them to crouch beneath it.

“Suggestions?” Janeway whispered, her lips barely moving.

Seven peeked out at the two Guardians. “According to what you said earlier, there must be a layer of rock between us and the Administrative level. It continues to block our communications. We must move past it, but unlike the prison area, it will be a secure area, fully manned with Guardians.”

“I’ll bet the lift will take us up there. There are only two guards manning it. If we can get by them and activate the lift, we might be able to contact Voyager and be beamed out before we actually reach the administrative level.”

“Perhaps,” Seven agreed without enthusiasm. She frowned. “There is little cover and the last ten feet to the elevator is clear. I do not think I can move fast enough to get to them before they shoot me down.”

The corner of Janeway’s mouth quirked upward. “Then we need a distraction.”

“Such as?”

“Hand me a match.”

Confused, Seven did so and before she could object, the captain made a motion for her to stay and disappeared back down the tunnel. Fuming, the Borg waited as patiently as she could, feeling several eternities go by before Janeway finally rejoined her.

“What did you do?” Seven whispered.

“Started a distraction,” Janeway responded rather smugly.

Seven frowned, and then caught the sight of smoke drifting towards her along the ceiling.

“You set the rock on fire?” she asked in astonishment.

“It should bring them running,” Janeway told her.

And it did, the two Guardians leaving their posts to investigate. Seven thought it must be a fairly common occurrence since they did not seem unduly alarmed, merely curious.

“One of those damned fools must’ve sparked something on the way down,” the taller one grumbled as they approached.

“Serve ‘em right to get trapped by a back flame,” the other agreed sourly. “We should inform the base.”

He reached for what must have been his communicator, a square device clipped to his belt. He had barely put his fingers on it, when Seven walloped him across the back of the head with a solid left hook. The other gaped stupidly at her and the captain who had recovered enough of her strength, kicked him soundly in what normally would be the area of Human male genitalia. Apparently, Barellans were similarly constructed and he let out a high pitched squeak before crashing to the floor, vomiting.

Seven put a stop to this rather disgusting result by clubbing him soundly on the side of the head, and then gingerly removed his weapon, a heavy disruptor rifle that she kicked under the conduit. The other, she hefted grimly and looked at Janeway.

The captain, who was unable to weld such a heavy weapon with her injured hand, instead grabbed the other devices off the Guardian’s belts and headed for the elevator. It took some experimentation but she was finally able to figure out how to open the door. Seven hoped she had not set off any silent alarms in the process.

They plunged into the open elevator and Janeway hit the buttons on the panel inside. There were only two and even in an alien script, the up arrow seemed self-explanatory. She and Seven pressed against the wall, just inside the door, hopefully hidden from anyone once the door opened, giving them that extra second of advantage.

“Anything yet?” Janeway asked worriedly.

“Nothing. I would ask you to try your communicator, but any transmission may set off their sensors.”

“Voyager to Seven.”

Seven pursed her lips. Apparently Voyager was not equally concerned about their transmission being detected.

“Seven here.” The Borg noted that there was no signal over Janeway’s badge and both women realized that the captain’s communicator must have been damaged sometime in the past week. Voyager had no way of knowing that the captain was standing next to Seven. She took off her comm badge and stuck it on Janeway’s right breast. She knew the ship could track her by her implants. “Two to beam up.”

There was elation in the voice that responded, but concern as well. “We’re trying, Seven. We can tell you’re ascending. You need to get a little closer to the surface.”

“Do your best,” Janeway ordered. She looked up as the elevator suddenly jolted to a stop and the doors began to open. “Quickly!”

Seven took a swift glance outward and jerked her face back as disruptor fire splashed into the elevator, her nose burning at the near miss. She slid down to the floor and fired back without looking, the beam slicing at ground level and apparently taking a few Guardians off at the knees judging by the screams. She rolled to the other side, taking the opportunity to see what was facing them as she did so, catching her breath at the array of armed Guardians out there.

She heard the hum of a transporter and glanced over at Janeway who was surrounded by sparkles. Apparently, Voyager could only take one of them at a time and not very well at that, the figure of the captain fluxuating as the beam strained to dematerialize her.

They needed more time to solidify the beam. Unfortunately, the disruptor fire was not helping, interfering with the signal. She had to draw it away somehow. She took a breath. Kathryn would be safe. In the end, that was all that truly mattered.

She rose to her feet and exploded out of the elevator, firing steadily as she ran and dodged, not knowing where she was going, but conscious that somehow she had to give Voyager the time it needed to take the captain home.

Seven did not actually feel the energy discharge that hit her. She only knew that she was suddenly falling through space and time, to a dark place that seemed beyond blackness.

Beyond pain.

Janeway jumped off the transporter dais and rushed over to the console where Tuvok and B’Elanna were working the controls. Tuvok merely raised an eyebrow in her direction as he continued to intently reset the board. B’Elanna was less composed, the Klingon staring in open astonishment at the captain’s wild and filthy appearance.

“Have you retrieved Seven?” Janeway asked anxiously, trying to ignore her chief engineer’s expression. Obviously, she looked bad enough that B’Elanna was literally speechless, a condition that rarely occurred.

“Attempting to do so, Captain,” Tuvok responded smoothly. His hands moved lightly over the board. “She continues to move … ah, we have her now. Sensors are detecting disruptor fire. She may have been hit, which is why she stopped moving.”

Dry mouthed, Janeway turned to look at the dais where a figure was materializing in fits and starts amongst the sparkle and hum of the transporter beam. Finally it solidified, a bloody and shattered figure sprawled lifelessly on the pad. Janeway felt dizziness threaten to overwhelm her as she saw the gaping wound in Seven’s side, the gleam of white bone and metal that was immediately obscured by a crimson rush that spread around the still body, sending rivulets to cascade over the edge of the dais. She took an abortive step toward Seven, her knees seemingly made of jelly.

But Tuvok had already reacted. “Transporting directly to sickbay,” he said, changing the settings. As he did, he activated his comm badge. “Doctor, Seven of Nine is being beamed to sickbay. She has been severely injured.”

“Understood,” the Doctor responded. There was a brief pause. “The captain?”

“Here, Doctor,” Janeway said faintly. “I’m on my way.”

Just then, the ship rocked, sending the three staggering to one side. Janeway looked inquiringly at the security chief when she regained her equilibrium. He had left the console, B’Elanna on his heels, heading for the exit. “The Barellan are not … pleased with our intrusion,” he explained as they left the transporter room, dashing down the corridor. “Now that we have what we came for from their prison, we still need to escape their security fleet.”

There was a brief hesitation, a tearing within the captain as they headed for the turbolift. Janeway felt like she was being ripped in half but the sudden, cold discipline that abruptly fell over her served to shove aside her fear and despair over her partner, burying the emotions deep within an impenetrable shell of command. Logically, she could do nothing for Seven. It was completely in the Doctor’s hands, now. Meanwhile, her ship was in danger. She had her own job to do and she took a breath, stepping into the turbolift with both Tuvok and B’Elanna.

“Bridge,” she snapped.

Tuvok looked vaguely approving, as if appreciating the choice she had made in that split second of indecision. B’Elanna looked profoundly outraged, but that could easily have been from the captain’s distinct body odor. The Klingon’s nose was wrinkling as the lift traveled swiftly up to the bridge, and Janeway was very aware that as horrible as she smelled, she probably looked much worse, though there was little she could do about either situation at the moment. Adrenalin rushed through her, granting her much needed strength and the sudden, sharp clarity that appeared whenever it was required … whenever her ship and crew were threatened.

The reaction of the bridge crew substantiated what B’Elanna was probably thinking as the trio stepped out onto the bridge awash with the red alert of battle stations. Harry Kim looked as if he barely recognized the captain, and while Tom Paris could spare no more than a glance behind him as he worked the helm, that brief look spoke absolute volumes. Tuvok accepted his tactical position from Susan Nicoletti who stepped aside absently, astounded eyes focused on the captain, no doubt thinking that Janeway looked like something the cat had just dragged in.

And threw up.

As Janeway gingerly descended the stairs leading to the lower level, Chakotay rose to his feet, gaping at her as if she had just returned from the dead, his shock something that Voyager could ill afford in the middle of a battle.

“Report,” she snapped, breaking through his horror.

He shook himself like a big bear. “There are five Barellan ships out there,” he replied crisply as they both sat down, the first officer moving over to give up the command chair to her. “We’ve been concealed in a nearby asteroid, but when the sensors picked up Seven’s comm badge, we were forced to come into the open to make the transport. Shields are holding for now but they do outnumber us.”

“Can we go to warp? Outrun them?”

“We’re still deep in the asteroid belt. Tom’s trying to get us clear in order to engage warp drive. We’re still five minutes away.”

Janeway nodded, sitting alertly as her keen eyes took in the fore viewscreen, the image of the five vessels in pursuit, and beyond them, the large asteroid where she had gone through such an abusive ordeal. She had an overwhelming urge to turn back, to face these aliens and smash them into a pulp, and then destroy the asteroid itself, leaving nothing but clean, clear vacuum.

She knew that she would have to deal with all these wildly conflicting emotions eventually, but now she had to prioritize, make the right decision for Voyager and not allow emotion to color her judgement. It was a harsh reality of command, something that could, on occasion, be cruel to both herself and others, but it had to be done. The fact she was still able to take command this way, even after all she had been through, was a source of profound amazement to her, but she refused to dwell on it.

“Ready photon torpedoes,” she instructed. “Make it look like we’re damaged and venting plasma. Then lay them out like mines.”

She no longer thought about the Barellans on the surface who were in the process of gassing the prison population, terrified that the Borg had somehow assimilated them. She could not even think of Seven herself, her mind sliding away from the image of her partner rushing to face the disruptor fire. From the helpless memory of being caught in the transporter beam, unable to do anything but watch Seven’s suicidal dash to draw their fire. Janeway was vaguely aware that she was terrified beyond measure, that an internal part of her continued to scream insanely at the sight of Seven’s bloody body on the transporter dais. The steel core of command running through her refused to allow her to indulge in such things right now. There was only the present, the overpowering need to get her people and ship to safety.

“Torpedoes away,” Tuvok said.

Janeway waited until the Barellan ships were almost on them, savagely gleeful that the pursuing vessels seemed to be unaware that those were live mines Voyager had dropped rather than just debris.

“Detonate,” she snapped.

Tuvok did and the screen was suddenly filled with explosions. Two of the Barellan ships were destroyed totally, the first’s death throes reaching out to trigger the second. The other three veered off frantically before resuming their pursuit, but at a position much farther back, their disruptor fire no longer hammering at Voyager’s shields.

“Two minutes to the border of the asteroid field,” Tom reported.

“They can still intercept,” Tuvok warned. “They are gaining.”

“Open a channel,” Janeway demanded.

Harry Kim glanced at her uncertainly as she stood and looked at him expectantly, but he did as she ordered.

“On screen.”

She turned to face the infuriated features of the Barellan security commander. “Break off or I will destroy you,” she said coldly. “The authorities of Xenth Penitentiary are in the process of gassing the prison population that have been assimilated by the Borg. If you don’t return, you might not have a prison left to protect.”

There was no reason that morass of half truths and outright lies should have worked but for some reason it did. Perhaps because of her appearance or the crazed look in her eyes. The transmission abruptly ended, altering to show the Barellan ships breaking off and turning around, heading back into the asteroid field in the general direction of the prison. She didn’t know how the Barellans would deal with it from here, but she realized that she had no more influence on it. She had to pick her spots to make a difference in the Delta Quadrant. Today was not going to be one of them despite what she might have hoped earlier.

She felt strangely distanced as they finally cleared the asteroid field and the stars began to streak as Tom Paris threw Voyager into warp, the viewscreen altering the image from the aft view to one fore of the hull. Janeway’s pulse pounded in her ears as she turned to Chakotay.

“Thank you for coming after me,” she said simply, loud enough for the entire bridge to hear.

“There was no other choice,” he responded quietly as at the other stations, the others nodded in agreement. “Not really.”

She dipped her head in acknowledgment. “Thank you anyway.”. She took a breath, attempting to speak clearly and distinctly. “I need to be in sickbay now. You have the bridge. Resume course to the Alpha Quadrant.”

He took a step forward, raising his hand as if to assist her but she ignored it as she turned and walked unsteadily to the turbolift. The doors slid shut behind her and she had to lean against the wall as it accelerated downward in obedient response to her weakly croaked “Sickbay”.

She tried not to think, tried to keep going on sheer will and no conscious effort at all, afraid if she let herself speculate on Seven’s present condition or even her own, she wouldn’t be able to move at all. As it was, she had to support herself against the bulkhead with her good hand as she left the turbolift and staggered toward sickbay. Passing crewmembers made horrified attempts to help her, but she waved them off, leaving astonishment and shock in her wake. Some crewmembers did follow at a distance, perhaps to make sure she would actually make it through the doors. She didn’t quite understand why she was doing this, or even why she had to, driven by some undefinable part of her to make this journey on her own two feet, unassisted.

Someone must have warned the medical staff she was coming however, because she was met by Sek just inside the door. The holographic medical assistant that still resembled Kes, caught the captain as she began to fall and hustled her to the nearest biobed.

Janeway tried to resist as she saw the Doctor running towards her.

“You need to look after Seven,” she protested weakly. “Where is she?”

“Seven is fine,” he said gently as he ran a medical probe over her while Sek used scissors to cut away her tattered and filthy clothes. Janeway felt a pang as the uniform, her symbol of Starfleet and home over the past few days, was removed without hesitation, the entire thing immediately discarded in the nearest disposal.

“The wound looked a lot worse than it was,” he explained further as he studied his tricorder. “Seven’s vest absorbed most of the blast and what leaked through merely sheared off a large section of epidermis. In fact, her skeletal structure is what really protected her. When I removed the abdominal implant, I had to reinforce her rib cage with duranium. It caused the disruptor beam to literally deflect off. Of course, the shock of being hit knocked her for a loop and I had to place her under sedation while she recovers. She’ll be out for a few hours and by the time she regains consciousness, a regenerative gel pack will have replaced the flesh she lost.”

Janeway leaned back on the bed, relief and exhaustion slamming over her like a huge wave. Then she had a sudden suspicion that the Doctor was talking far too much. Attempting to distract her from what he was doing to her. Or about to do to her.

“Don’t sedate me,” she ordered belatedly as she felt the hiss of a hypospray press against her neck. “I need to debrief the crew.”

“Too late,” the Doctor informed her cheerfully.

That was the last thing she heard as darkness overwhelmed her.

Seven regained consciousness with a sudden, sharp intake of breath. Her eyes flew open and for an instant, she didn’t know where she was or what had happened. Then it all came back to her as she recognized the ceiling of sickbay. She had, in the past, become intimately familiar with it, having spent several days on her back, completely immobile on two separate occasions while recovering from the removal of her abdominal implant.

She flexed cautiously. Except for a bit of tightness at her side, everything seemed to be functioning properly. She did wince at the memory of how she had been damaged. She wondered what had possessed her to do such a foolish thing as dash into a blast of disruptor fire. Surely if she had taken a few extra seconds and used her intellect, a more efficient method of protecting the captain would have resulted.

She realized she had been acting quite irrationally lately … ever since the captain had gone missing, consumed by strong emotions that dictated her actions rather than her normal, calm, reasonable consideration of each problem. She hoped that it was a temporary aberration and not an indication of how she would be in the future.

She glanced sideways and saw Janeway laying on a biobed not too far away. It was obvious from the lowered lights that sickbay was in the middle of the night watch. Across the room, the Borg could see Sek in the lighted office, totally absorbed in whatever she was doing at the console. Surreptitiously, Seven slipped from her bed and moved stealthily over to where her partner lay.

Janeway looked considerably better than she had before, all the scabbed over nicks and cuts having been treated and healed, along with the bruises that had discolored her face and made it swell around the eyes and jaw. Seven could also tell that the medical staff had cleaned the captain up, the scent rising from her skin almost harsh in its medicinal odor compared to Janeway’s normal warm fragrance or even the pungent, musky, unwashed redolence she had been radiating the past few days. Seven thought she preferred even the latter to the chemical stench of sickbay cleansers and antiseptics.

It did not, however, stop her from bending down and gently kissing Janeway on the healed lips, brushing over them lightly.

Janeway stirred, blinking with a certain amount of confusion and lingering fear shadowing her eyes. A small sound of anxiety issued from her throat and Seven leaned closer.

“Shh, Kathryn,” she said very softly. “It is just me.”

Janeway’s gaze cleared and she focused on Seven’s face. “Annika.”

“Are you all right?”

Janeway just stared at her. “Yes,” she managed finally. “You?”

Seven nodded. “I am functioning. My side is healed now.”

That seemed to focus the captain even more and Seven was startled by the intense anger that abruptly filled the blue-grey eyes. The Borg had a sudden, sinking sensation that perhaps she should have stayed in her own biobed and she tried not to jump as Janeway seized her arms in a fierce grip, rising from the bed into a half sitting position, her face thrust into the young Borg’s startled features.

“What the hell were you thinking?” the captain hissed. “You could have been killed.”

Seven would have argued, but she realized the anger Janeway was displaying was based on her fear for Seven’s safety. She too, became very angry with the captain when Janeway did things that seemed dangerous. Seven knew well how powerful an emotion it could be.

“I am sorry, Kathryn,” she replied humbly. “You are correct. I acted imprudently. I should have come up with a better plan for drawing their fire away from your location so that it would not interfere with the transporter signal.”

Janeway was silent, breathing heavily and Seven realized the captain was truly furious, which meant of course, that she had been absolutely terrified. The Borg thought that it must have appeared worse than she had imagined and of course, it probably did not help that she had actually been injured in the course of carrying out her rather impetuous decision.

“I am sorry I worried you,” she apologized again.

Gradually Janeway seemed to calm and she released her grip on Seven’s arm, still propped up on her elbows. “Don’t ever do that again,” she ordered in a low voice that shook with intensity.

“I will not,” Seven promised. She decided the fact that she could not imagine a similar set of circumstances taking place which would require it of her was not something she should point out. She reached up and gently brushed a stray lock of auburn hair from Janeway’s brow. “How do you feel?”

Janeway blinked and settled back against the bed. “I don’t know.”

Seven frowned at the unexpected response, and then glanced at the office. “Do you want me to call the Doctor? Or Sek?”

“No, it’s not like that,” Janeway said, and then paused as if not knowing how to explain it. She was silent for a moment. “I want to go home,” she added in a smaller voice.

Seven took a breath, disturbed at her partner’s obvious discomfort. “Then I shall take you,” she decided abruptly, gathering the captain up in her arms, cradling her as she started for the door.

“Annika,” Janeway said in that patient tone she took on when Seven had committed what the captain called a faux pas. She slipped her arms around Seven’s neck and looked at her intently.

“Yes, Kathryn,” Seven said, pausing in the center of the medical bay.

“You have no clothes on,” Janeway pointed out. “And neither do I.”

Seven considered that. It did not bother her unduly to walk around naked, but she understood that Humans had a very strong nudity taboo. Even though Kathryn still had a sheet wrapped around her, it was unlikely that the captain would wish to be seen by any of the crew in such attire. Seven also noted at this point that Sek had finally realized her patients were acting in livelier fashion than they probably should have been, and she rushed out of the office at a fair clip.

“Computer, activate Emergency Medical Program,” the medical assistant said in an urgent tone.

The Doctor suddenly appeared. “Please state the nature of the med–,” he began, then stopped, frowning as he took in the sight of the nude six foot blonde Borg, the captain held easily in her arms. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Returning to our quarters,” Seven said reasonably.

Janeway looked at her with a raised brow, then glanced at the doctor expectantly, clearly waiting for his response.

“I haven’t released you,” the Doctor said in outrage. “Either of you.”

Seven favored him with cool disdain. “I am functioning acceptably, and the captain wishes to return to her own bed.”

Janeway looked back at the Doctor with a bemused expression, as if to say she really had nothing to do with this whole thing beyond simply being there. He didn’t seem convinced.

“Captain, you have undergone severe physical trauma,” he began grimly.

Janeway sighed. “Doctor, I feel perfectly fine,” she interrupted before he got on a roll. “Is this anything I can’t recover from in my own bed?”

He hesitated, and then exhaled audibly in frustration. Seven knew that the Doctor was very aware that keeping Kathryn in sickbay if she wanted to leave was doomed to failure. Not unless he could prove that her physical well being depended on remaining here. Seven did not believe that was the case in this instance.

“No, you’ll be sore, but you’d probably recover better in more familiar surroundings,” he admitted grouchily. “Seven already had you on the road to recovery from your pneumonia with the antibiotics and serums I sent down, and she did a fine job of setting your wrist. That along with your contusions and other wounds were easily healed by a bone knitter and a dermal regenerator. All you really need now is lots of rest and good food, but, Captain, you are notorious for not following such a prescription.”

“I will, this time,” Janeway said with great sincerity. “What about Seven? Has she healed enough to be released?”

“Obviously, she has if she’s hauling you around like a sack of corn,” he replied with some asperity. Seven’s eyebrow quirked and he regarded her sourly. “Do you intend to walk through the ship like that?”

Seven was more than willing, but she realized that Janeway would probably not agree. She looked at the captain hesitantly. Janeway smiled faintly at her.

“Computer, this is the captain. Site-to-site transport on my mark. Two to beam from sickbay to the living area in my quarters.”

“Transporter activated,” the computer replied evenly. It had no opinion of utilizing an expenditure of energy for what ever reason. If it could do it, it would, particularly at the captain’s request.

The captain looked at the Doctor. “Thank you for your fine work, Doctor,” she said in a gentler voice. “Yours, as well, Sek.”

Spurred by the captain’s manners, Seven also added her thanks before Janeway activated the transporter. The next thing the Borg knew, they were in the familiar and comforting surroundings of their quarters, materializing in front of the low couch. The lights were down, and there was no sound, meaning that Jake was still being housed at Naomi’s, the ship’s only child who was quartered with her mother, Ensign Samantha Wildman. Seven hoped the pup was okay and had been behaving himself during his mistresses’ abscence. She regarded her partner with concern.

“Are you really all right?”

Janeway hugged her gently. “I’m a little stiff, but it’s nothing that a long hot bath won’t cure.”

“Then we shall have a bath,” Seven agreed and started for the bedroom and the ensuite. Janeway did not object or make any attempt to be released from this embrace. It actually worried Seven a little. Normally the captain would not allow herself to be coddled in such a manner. Perhaps Kathryn had been through so much the past few days that she requires this pampering, Seven mused. The Borg knew she was certainly glad to indulge her.

She entered the bathroom and lowered Janeway to the floor beside the large tub. The captain swayed briefly as she placed her feet on the cold tiles and Seven supported her until she had managed to regain her balance.

“You are weaker than you pretended in sickbay,” Seven realized with a touch of annoyance.

Janeway slipped her arms around her neck and held onto her, looking up into her face with a serious expression. “Annika, I’m not comfortable showing how vulnerable I am to anyone besides you. Please indulge me that privacy.”

Seven considered that and dipped her head in recognition, flattered by Janeway’s trust despite her concern for her health. “Bery well, but you must rest and recuperate. Otherwise, I will carry you back to sickbay myself, regardless of how you are dressed.”

“Then I promise to look after myself,” Janeway allowed quietly, her lips twitching. “Or, at least, let you look after me.”

Seven set the controls for the bath, and then looked the captain over carefully, removing the sheet. The slim body had no visible damage beyond a thinness that could only be cured with food. Still, there was a frailty to Janeway that disturbed Seven and made her even more tender than her normal loving attitude toward her. She realized she must be frowning when Janeway suddenly reached up and placed her hand against Seven’s right cheek, her fingertips smoothing over the Borg’s brow.