MAIN DISCLAIMER: See Prologue
Alternate Choices
By H.W.
Chapter 10
About half an hour later, Seven and B'Elanna came back into the room. The Intendant could clearly see the blonde's red eyes, there was no doubt that her slave had cried. But, despite that, she still looked better than before so Torres decided not to kill her counterpart, "You ok?" Torres asked softly, knowing that she really shouldn't be caring.
"Yes, mistress. Thank you."
B'Elanna sure didn't like her equal; she had not heard a single good word about her. In fact, Seven was the only one who didn't speak negatively about the Intendant. Seven had even gone as far as to defend the woman, asking B'Elanna if she really thought that the Intendant could act in any other way between all of those Klingons and still be alive at the end of the day. But hearing the Intendant ask Seven if she was ok, in a voice that B'Elanna knew from herself that meant that she actually cared, showed B'Elanna that maybe the Intendant was a little bit like her after all.
Torres looked at Annika and B'Elanna for a moment before turning around and saying a cold, 'Come,' before heading out of the door, clearly expecting the rest to follow.
'And then again, maybe not,' B'Elanna thought when they all followed the Intendant.
They went through several corridors and rooms until they reached a huge, but not pompous bedroom. Torres walked to one of the walls where there were two doors beside each other. She opened one of the doors and they went into the smaller room on the other side before she turned to B'Elanna, "Alright, I want you and... what's his name again?" Torres now looked at Seven.
"Harry Kim?" Seven asked, thinking that the Intendant might mean him.
"Right, him. I want you two to set up one of those alcoves my pet needs to regenerate in here..."
"You want to put her in a closet?" B'Elanna asked disbelievingly, "This place isn't fit for a Targ."
Torres pinched the bridge of her nose while counting to ten; she really didn't feel like punching someone who was sitting in a hover chair, especially not someone who looked just like herself, "Please... don't interrupt me again. I really don't feel like killing someone right now, I did enough of that already today. But I will if you push me too far.
"This... closet, as you call it, is bigger than the room YOU used as a bedroom onboard of that ship. I have seen it, so don't even think about saying it's not true. The only reason you know that this is originally designed as a closet is because of those shelves on the wall. And had you let me finish talking, you would have heard that I would have also ordered you to get rid of those and put some new carpeting and stuff in here. Now, don't you agree that with me that this closet would be already a lot better than the CARGO BAY you people kept her in?"
B'Elanna didn't answer that one.
"Well? I asked a question! Answer me, right now! Isn't this closet, when redone, A LOT better than that DAMN CARGO BAY?"
"Yes, it is," B'Elanna reluctantly agreed.
"Good, and furthermore, I'm having that thing put in here so that my pet can have some privacy if she prefers. A room of her own that she can retire to if she wants and I don't object. Not a huge room but still, I, the Klingon Intendant, am giving a SLAVE a room where she can have privacy, DO YOU HEAR ME? A SLAVE, PRIVACY!" Those last words were shouted even louder than what the Intendant had been shouting before and they reverberated loudly against the empty walls, "So don't you fuck with me and shut up before I really lose my temper."
B'Elanna lifted her hands in an 'okay already' manner.
"Thank you, mistress," Seven said, thanking Torres for the room and thereby wisely coming between the two stubborn Klingons.
Torres turned to Seven when she spoke up, "You actually liked doing that on a regular basis?"
"Fighting?" Seven wondered.
"No, fucking. Of course I'm talking about the fighting."
"It can be quite entertaining, mistress."
"I couldn't imagine how."
"It is a good release of tension."
"So is killing someone, or fucking someone."
"Mistress, we only had a limited crew, if we had killed someone each time someone had to relieve tension, there would have been no crew left within a month."
"That leaves one more alternative," Torres said, wondering how the blonde would react to that now that nobody save her friend and her counterpart could hear her.
"Mistress, if B'Elanna and I had copulated every time we had a disagreement we would have spent most of our time in the brig for indecent behavior. There was... a lot of... tension."
"Good thing we don't have to worry about that right, my pet?"
"Mistress, I distinctively remember you also enjoying a relief of tension."
"True," Torres laughed, "But since I'm the Intendant, there is nobody who would or could arrest me for indecent behavior."
"Save the Chancellor."
Torres laughed even harder at that, "Nooo, he would just sit back and enjoy the show. Not, that I'm inclined to give him one." Torres came closer and caressed Seven's cheek, "Well done, my pet. You passed."
"Passed what?" B'Elanna asked.
Seven looked around the room, true, there were no windows, but most rooms on a spaceship also had no windows either. Seven knew that she would spend most of her time with the Intendant, including at night. So she really didn't need a living room or a bathroom. The Intendant had been right, the room she was in would be a lot better than having to regenerate in the cargo bay, "The Intendant wanted to see how I would react to her talking about my services."
"Why?"
Seven looked at the Intendant before answering, she got a little nod that told her that she could proceed, "Because if I can talk in front of you about my services without being embarrassed or the likes, then I certainly will not be embarrassed if the Intendant has to insinuate or plain out boast about my... abilities in front of others."
"Embarrassed, you? About sex? Not very likely," B'Elanna knew that there had been several times when Seven had been embarrassed, and therefore she also knew what would embarrass the blonde. She had learned to stay away from those things. If Seven didn't know how to do something, B'Elanna had always just thrown up her hands as if giving up and stalked away, giving the blonde time to do her research on what ever it was. By the time B'Elanna would then come back, supposedly cooled down enough to work on, Seven would suddenly know how the job was done.
It had been B'Elanna's little contribution to keeping their fights from turning vicious. "Somehow I don't think the woman who offered to copulate with poor Harry would be embarrassed about sex." To her surprise, B'Elanna saw Seven's eyes getting slightly larger at her words, and the Klingon realized too late that she had said something wrong.
"What?! I will kill him!" The Intendant shouted outraged before turning to Seven, "You lied to me!"
"Leave," Seven said shortly and B'Elanna and Annika knew that Seven meant them.
"Seven I..."
"B'Elanna, just wait outside, please!"
Reluctantly, B'Elanna did as Seven had asked and the blonde closed the door behind her, closing herself in with a very volatile Intendant.
"Mistress, please, you have to believe me. I did not lie to you. It was a harmless incident, please let me explain."
When Torres didn't answer, Seven decided that it was time to take a chance. She moved until she was standing in front of the Intendant and took hold of her hands, "Please, B'Elanna, let me explain. It is not what you think."
Seven saw the storm clouds in the Intendant's eyes lighten up slightly, and she was glad that her decision to take this above the level of master and slave had been the correct one.
"Speak."
It was only one word, but it was enough for Seven, "I told you about how I came to be onboard Voyager. What I did not tell you was that in the first couple of days I did not look like I do now. A Borg drone is normally covered in body armor, most of it directly attached to, and into, the body. What you see now before you is the result of the Doctor removing everything that he could remove and healing the skin.
"The implants I still have are not removable without jeopardizing my existence and I will have to live with them for the rest of my life. I have accepted that, and since people we meet now have not seen me as I was before, they often actually think that the implants that can be seen when I have my clothing on are really nothing more than decoration; body art."
"What has that to do with... that man?"
"Everything. Because the Voyager crew had seen me as a fully armored Borg drone, and later as a... creature with metal protruding from her body; an optical implant instead of an eye, protruding this far," Seven indicated how far the Borg implant had stuck out, instead of the artificial eye she had now. She wanted the Intendant to understand just how different she had looked back then. "Metal plates were covering part of the back and side of my head," Once again Seven indicated where the implants had been, "A gray/green skin color, and not to forget that the crew of Voyager did know the Borg, and feared them.
"All of that accumulated to the fact that the crew of Voyager saw me as a monster in the beginning; all with the exception of one person. Even at the time when the Captain was still wondering if I could be saved, or if I should be abandoned someplace where the Borg would find me, even at that point, Harry Kim treated me as a person. He talked to me; he tried to joke with me. He accepted me for what I was from the first moment he saw me."
"You do a lot of talking without getting to the point." Despite her words, Torres still found what the blonde was saying very interesting.
"I wanted you to know why he is special to me, he always accepted me for what I was. He did not try to change me, he saw a person in me from the first moment we met. And once he saw me after the Doctor was finished removing my implants and healing me, Harry Kim became infatuated with me. B'Elanna, you initially picked me to be your body slave for the way I look, apparently you liked what you saw, can you truly blame him for also liking what he saw?"
"That's not why you are my body slave, as you yourself have so nicely pointed out to me not so long ago. And as I do have to admit that you are very, very pretty, I have seen other pretty slaves before, yet none of them ever saw me naked... well, that's not true, some did bath me, but you know what I mean. So I really didn't pick you for your looks, beautiful one."
"I am glad to hear it, but that IS what first got you interested in me. Harry Kim WAS already interested in me before I looked like this. One day he started saying several things that made it clear that he wanted to pursue a sexual relationship with me. Since I was not interested in him in such a way, I decided to give him 'too much to handle,' as Voyager's B'Elanna likes to call it. I told him that I was interested in finding out how humans copulated, started opening the clothing I was wearing then, and told him to strip so that we could indeed copulate. He fled, as I knew he would."
Now that Torres knew the story, she had calmed down totally, and could also understand why her counterpart had found it quite funny, "Why were you so certain that he would not take you up on your offer?"
"Harry is a good man, a man with whom I would probably have pursued a relationship, had I been interested in men," Seven said honestly, knowing that the Intendant would probably not like it, but that she would also appreciate the honesty, "He does not fall in the same category of men as Tom Paris does. While I do consider Tom Paris a friend of mine, I would never have made him the same offer, knowing that he would have taken me up on it. But I knew that even if Harry Kim had actually had the nerve to take me up on it, he would still not have done it since he would have thought that he would be taking advantage of me. And he is not the kind of person to take advantage of anyone."
"What has taking you up on that offer to do with 'having the nerve' to do it?"
"B'Elanna, we were in the main conference room of the ship when I offered, not more than ten meters, and a closed but unlocked door, away from the Captain and First Officer who were on the bridge at that time."
Now Torres started laughing loudly, "You're kidding me."
"I am not. It was an effective maneuver that deterred him from ever again trying to enter into a romantic relationship with me."
"I bet."
"B'Elanna, please believe me, I have never been with anyone before I became yours. You are the first person I kissed, you are the only person who ever saw me naked except for the Doctor, but I think you understand that. The closest I came to any kind of sexual contact was researching the mating behaviors of the crew.
"I looked at twenty-seven hours of sexual educational programs on the holodeck. But I did not participate in them, even though that was an option of the programs. And beside that, I read all the information I could find. But that is all I did. I am yours; I have never been anyone else's. Even when I was part of the Borg, they controlled me; I did not do what I did then willingly."
"And you still don't," Torres set down on the floor against one of the walls since there was no other option to sit in the empty room, "You do what I tell you, so you are not doing things willingly now either."
Seven opted to kneel in front of the Intendant, bringing their eyes on the same level, "B'Elanna, you are confusing two things. Doing something on own initiative, and doing something willingly. These two things have nothing to do with each other.
"I can carry out the orders you give me and be doing it willingly. I want to please you. If I am doing something for you that pleases you then I am fulfilling that task willingly, even though you ordered me to do it. Getting you a drink, for instance, is no hardship for me; it is something I do willingly. But I could be doing something on my own initiative and NOT be doing it willingly.
"I killed today, I did not do that willingly, and I regret that it had to happen. But I would do it again right now if I had to. It was my initiative to get involved in the fight, you actually ordered me away; I refused. I killed those people because they were trying to kill you. That was something I could not allow. But I still did not kill them willingly. If that had been the case, I would not have needed to talk to the other B'Elanna."
"How did that go, by the way?" Torres wondered.
"It helped. She was able to make me see that it was the right thing to do and that there really was no other option."
"You could have let me die," Torres disagreed.
"That... was not an option. And even if I could have let you be killed, K'Trelan and maybe the others as well would more than likely have tried to rape me, not an option either. And then there is also the concern of Voyager and the crew. You are their only hope. But besides that, I simply could not let you get killed."
Torres closed her eyes and sighed, "You know we really have a big problem here."
"What?" Seven wondered.
"I am supposed to be your mistress."
"And you are."
"I sure don't feel like it. Seven, we can't go on like this."
"Why not?"
"Why not? Because, Seven, because."
"B'Elanna, What is the problem? That I can have discussions with you in private? No one will ever know. I just sent the person I could consider my closest friend out. Not even she knows that I can talk to you as an equal if I want. As far as she knows I am in here begging and pleading with you and promising to do who knows what, just to calm you down.
"Or is it the fact that I can disagree with you and know that you will not kill, or even hurt me? I can promise you, I will try to make sure that you will never have to punish me in public. And even if I do something that requires that, I will take my punishment without thinking any less of you."
"Seven, don't you understand that to me you are no longer the slave I can order around?"
"Why not? Do you not like it?" Seven pressed on, from the way Torres was acting, Seven knew that the Intendant was at a point of decision. In the time she now knew the Intendant, Seven had noticed that Torres had a tendency to make a decision on something and than stick to it stubbornly.
Which was a trait that suited her well as Intendant, an Intendant should not be easily persuaded. Seven knew that Torres' first reaction was to simply get rid of the problem. If she saw a problem in the way she was treating Seven, Torres was likely to get rid of Seven. That was something Seven had to prevent.
Seven knew, if she would let Torres come to her own conclusion on how to treat Seven, the Intendant would make her choice on how to go on with their relationship, if there would even be a relationship, on the simple basis of 'getting rid of the problem.' Seven didn't fear for her life, she knew that Torres wouldn't kill her to get rid of her, but she would still be taken away from Torres. Seven knew that she had to make the Intendant see reason now or else it would be too late. Once the Intendant had made her choice, Seven would be taken away from the Intendant before Seven would have the chance to persuade her otherwise.
"It's not a matter of me not liking it. Being served at every beck and call, who wouldn't like that? Especially by someone like you. But it's not right for you. I should not be making decisions for you."
"Why not?"
"Seven..."
"No, hear me out, please. I fear that you are about to make a mistake." Seven took a hold of the Intendant's hands once again and squeezed them slightly, "At one point you asked me why I thought that my relationship with Voyager's B'Elanna would not become more than just friends. I told you that I wanted more than she would ever be able to give me.
"What I want is for someone to control me. I actually like being told what to do. But Voyager's B'Elanna would never do so, she and the rest of the crew are brought up to believe that freedom and individuality is one's most prized possession. She would never be able to keep controlling me during a relationship. She would want me as an equal at all times. And that is something I do not want."
"What?" Torres could not believe her ears, "How could anyone actually like, and want, to be controlled all the time?"
"Not all the time, I would need opportunities to talk to my partner on an equal level, but except for those conversations, yes. I want someone to have control over me. This is difficult to explain, I tried explaining this once to Captain Janeway, but she could not understand me."
"Try me, Seven. Because I really do need an explanation."
"Very well. I like... Once I... I," Seven still couldn't find the right words, and decided to use a different approach, "You told me that you enjoy killing. Tell me, B'Elanna, did you wake up one day and decided that from then on you would enjoy killing?"
"No, of course not. I had nightmares for months after killing for the first time; this was probably amplified by the fact that I was just a kid then. But over time it became something that I knew had to be done, and finally something I could, and did, enjoy."
"You like hurting people?" Seven asked, pressing on.
"Well, it isn't like I go out and hurt someone simply because I like the reaction; but when I'm in the right mindset, then yes. When I'm in the interrogation chamber and the subject pushes me too far by not answering and thinking that they will be able to withstand my... treatment. Then something clicks, and I enjoy hurting them, badly.
"I have been known to go on sometimes even after the person has told me all that they could think of, and more. One Klingon man actually once told me that he liked to play with dolls as a kid. Can you imagine what it must take for a Klingon man to say that? I mean, they keep talking about nonsense because there is really nothing more to tell, and yet I go on."
Seven closed her eyes at hearing that.
"I'm sorry, my pet. But as you might know, torture has been part of every war or totalitarian government for as long as wars and such governments exist. People like to think otherwise, but under the right conditions, even the holiest of priests are capable of committing monstrosities. And I'm no different than others. I have power, and I like to use it sometimes. All in all I think I'm actually doing quite good. I don't have a terror reign, and torture is something I truly only use as a last resort."
"I know." Seven agreed, and decided that it was time to bring the conversation back to the subject at hand, "What one likes or dislikes has a lot to do with the life they lead. Up to now there has not been a single day in my life where I was my own master. I told you my life.
"First my parents told me what I was, and was not, allowed to do. Then the Borg controlled me and told me what to do. Then Captain Janeway controlled me, telling me what I was, and was not, allowed to do. And now, you control me. Being told what to do, not having to make decisions on one's own, it can be a very liberating feeling, if you accept it.
"In such a situation you only have the option of accepting this, or fighting it. I learned long ago that resistance is futile. So I got used to, and learned to like it when I am told what to do. The first night, when I was so reluctant to please you, when that suddenly changed..."
Torres nodded her head to indicate that she knew what Seven was talking about.
"...That is the moment I gave myself to you. I want you to own me; I want you to tell me what to do. I want you to command me. I want to... please you. Be it in a sexual way, or be it by bringing you your food. Knowing I did something right, that you are pleased with me, just knowing that, is a reward for me."
Seven decided that now that she was explaining this to Torres, and also partially to herself, she needed to explain it all, "But, onboard Voyager, I did have a certain amount of individuality, and I decided that I also like that. The Captain told me that I could not have it both ways. But you proved that I can. You gave me a certain amount of individuality; you made me into the most powerful slave that exists, actually more powerful than most that are not slaves..."
"You figured that one out then?" Torres interrupted.
"I did," Seven agreed before continuing, "I am an individual. I have more freedom and power than I ever had in my life. And yet you also command me, control me, own me. To speak with B'Elanna's words, I now have the best of both worlds.
"As I said before, I am my own possession, but I gave myself to you. I like to be yours; I love being called your pet. It is a name I carry proudly. Please, please, I beg of you. Do not take that away from me. You like telling me what to do; I like you to tell me what to do. We can both have what we want, you just have to accept that I am very comfortable with calling you mistress, that I want you to be my mistress, that I NEED you to be my mistress."
Torres was quiet for a couple of minutes before softly nodding her head, "Alright. So we go on like we have been. If you want to talk to me on another level than master and slave, you call me B'Elanna, but... only when we are alone. And I insist on something from my side, my pet,"
"Anything."
"Anything? Alright, tell me all about your implants," Torres could clearly see the surprise on the blonde's face, "Hehe, didn't expect that, now did you, my pet? But don't you agree it is about time you told me?"
"Yes, I believe you are right. And I did promise to tell you when the game, as you like to call it, was over. But can it wait a day until we are underway? It is already late and it would take some time to explain it all."
"How long can it take to explain some workings of implants?"
As an answer Seven showed the Intendant her assimilation tubes.
"Point taken," Torres said while looking at the wormlike tubes dancing back and forth in front of her face, "Ok, later it is. But as I was saying, I want you to promise me something. If something bothers you, I want to hear about it at the first possible opportunity. As soon as we are alone and you can tell me on the level that we are talking now, I want to know about what ever it is. No holding back because I'm your mistress."
"Acceptable."
"Well?"
"Well, what?" Seven asked.
"Well, talk to me. I know that something was bothering you the last time you... served me. For a moment I thought that you didn't like doing it, but you keep telling me that you do, so what is the problem?"
"Well, I... B'Elanna, I know I am your slave, and I know that it should only be about the mistress; about you. That you are pleased is the only important thing."
"But?"
"I was wondering, and a 'no' is acceptable, I was wondering if you would eventually also touch me, or at least allow me to relieve the tension that built up in my body from pleasing you."
Once again Torres closed her eyes for a moment, "I'm sorry my pet. You can see that I'm new to this too. Believe me, I wanted, and want to touch you. The reason why I didn't is because I thought that you were pleasing me because you thought you had to. Having to please someone is one thing, but having that someone do things to you too, is something else entirely. I thought that you didn't want that since you showed no indication. So, I didn't."
"I did not show any indication because you are my mistress, if you do not want to touch me, but only want to be touched then, this is something I have to accept."
"Well, you just wait, next time you won't get off that easy."
"I hope not, mistress."
Torres leaned forwards a little and captured the blonde's lips for a soft, but long kiss, "You are sure about that though?" Torres suddenly asked, breaking the kiss, "Because that is solely your choice to make."
"No, mistress, it is not. Please try to understand this. I am yours; I want you to take from me what ever you want, when ever you want. Pleasing you is what is important to me, more important than achieving release. If touching me gives you pleasure, than it will please me even more. But if denying me this gives you pleasure, than it will still please me more that I could please you that way."
"No, my pet. That is something I can, and will, guarantee you. I may tease you and let you wait some, but I swear to you, that I will not truly leave you unsatisfied... from now on that is. But now that we are on the subject, I want to make a little amendment to the rule of when you can call me B'Elanna. When we m..." Torres faltered for a moment and changed the words she was about to say. Despite all that had been talked about, she still could not bring herself to use the word 'love,' even not in the term 'making love'. She was B'Elanna Torres, Klingon Intendant. She did not do love. "...When we are enjoying some sex, you are also allowed to call me B'Elanna."
"I... thank you, mistress, but why?"
"Well, my dear, I have never tried it before, but I think that under certain conditions 'mistress' can sound a little strange. If you are pleasing me; hearing you say 'may I enter you, mistress,' sounds kinda cool. But don't you think it might sound a bit strange if I were touching you and you had to say 'more, mistress?'"
"I do not know, mistress, it sounds like something we have to test."
"Oh, and we will," Torres grinned, "Just so that you know that it's ok to use my name then too."
"Thank you, mistress."
"Yeah, yeah," Torres stood and offered a hand to Seven to help her up, "Now, we wasted enough time, we should be on our way to Bajor by now. Let's deal with those two out there and get moving."
Seven stood and took the opportunity to kiss Torres again, "Yes mistress."
"Mmhmm, nice," Torres turned around, opened the door and they moved back into the bedroom where Annika and B'Elanna were waiting. Torres could see the tension on B'Elanna's face.
"What? You think I'd killed her? She is much too good to waste in such a way, I prefer punishing her by putting her over my knee and slapping that fine ass of hers." Torres saw the expression on B'Elanna's face and started to laugh, "Oooh, you are just sooo easy. Just stop worrying about her, ok? She is safer with me than the rest of you are huddled together in that prison."
"I am," Seven added. She liked the fact that B'Elanna worried about her, but she didn't want her to worry too much. There was no reason to.
"Now," Torres said while pointing at the room she just left, "As I was saying, I want you and that Kim guy to put one of those alcoves in there. And once my pet and I are back from our trip to Bajor, you will put one of those alcoves on my ship, in my office. And please, don't start complaining about the size of the office alright?"
B'Elanna nodded her head as an answer.
"And while you are in my office, DON'T use the opportunity to snoop around. I have very strict rules about some of my stuff being touched without my permission; and the penalty for doing so, is death. Besides, you wouldn't be able to find out anything my pet here doesn't already know. She is allowed access to information you would be killed for if you saw it. So just don't do it."
"Please, B'Elanna," Seven added to indicate that the Intendant's words were true.
"Ok," B'Elanna simply said, it was enough of an answer for all of them.
"While you are all renovating that Voyager," Torres continued. "I want you to also put one of those alcoves in one of the bigger quarters... Actually," Torres started grinning when an idea struck her, "From what I remember my pet telling me while we made the rounds, the Captain's quarters are the biggest quarters on the ship. I want you to put the alcove in there and have... that woman help doing it."
"Captain Janeway?" B'Elanna asked.
"Yes, that slave. And while you are working on that ship anyway, I want each room cleaned out, and furniture and carpeting replaced with new stuff. I want that ship to look brand-new, use your own judgment on what materials and furniture to use. My pet told me that you were the chief engineer on that ship, right?"
"Yes," B'Elanna agreed.
"Alright," Torres now looked at Annika, "Master slave, meet your assistant. She knows more about that ship than you do so I'm assigning her as your helper, or second in command, or how ever you slaves call it. But you are the only master slave, so you are also the only one in control of it all. But I do think that having one of the crew as a buffer between you and them will make it easier on all of you."
Then to B'Elanna again, "I trust that your priority will be fixing the ship, and not trying to outsmart me or the master slave. I will go over everything with my pet at my side once I'm back. Do you really want to put her in a position where she has to tell me that the work you did is not as it should be?"
"No I don't." B'Elanna knew that the Intendant would more than likely be smart enough to understand if something was done right or wrong, especially since she had Seven show her everything already, so if B'Elanna did something in a way that was not as it should be, she would put Seven in a position where she would either have to lie to the Intendant, or tell on B'Elanna. Neither was a thing B'Elanna wanted to put Seven through. She had a feeling that the Intendant would know if Seven was lying, she herself normally knew, "But what about people's private possessions?"
"Huh, slaves don't have private possessions. It's about time you all learned that. Best thing to do is just throw it all in the incinerators," Torres saw the way her pet was looking at her and sighed before adding, "But, for now, have them put their stuff in boxes and put it in the cargo bay you kept my pet in."
"Mistress, there is a chance that Captain Janeway might initiate the self-destruct the next time she is on Voyager," Seven saw how B'Elanna was looking at her, and she knew that her words would sound like treason to the Klingon, but she had her reasons, "One of the sub rules of the prime directive is to make sure that no Federation technology falls into the wrong hands. The Captain might decide to destroy Voyager to make sure that the technology of the ship can not be used by you."
"Hmm, that would be a shame." Torres said thoughtfully, "Can this be prevented?"
"Yes, mistress. I can use my assimilation tubes to access the computer core and turn Voyager's command codes over to you. The security of the command codes is written into the programming of the main computer core. It can not be broken into without destroying the main computer memory.
"And I could use some Borg codes to secure all access to the computer. But since repairs need to be done on the ship, I would suggest leaving B'Elanna's access to the computer in tact. With the clearance she has, she will be able to do all the repairs, but not be able to change the main command functions of the ship."
"We definitely need to talk about those implants of yours. Well, it seems that we need to make a little trip to my new ship first then. Alright, time to get moving. Let's get back to the ship and while that crew is transported to the star base at which Voyager is hopefully docked by now, we will make a trip to the ship itself. So, do you need a minute to tell your little plan to my counterpart here, or does she have to find out all by her lonesome? I'm sure that it won't take her too long to figure out that you wouldn't betray them like this."
"What are you talking about?" B'Elanna asked.
"What? You really think that I wouldn't notice that my pet is planning something?"
Seven knew that the Intendant would know the reason why she had made sure the ship would not be destroyed, so there really was no reason for trying to keep it secret, "The Intendant is talking about the reason why I made sure that Captain Janeway would not destroy Voyager. B'Elanna, the crew will need Voyager to either get back to our universe, or if that is not possible, as a place to live on in this universe. Ask Annika later, in this universe the crew will have no place to go to. The only life they can lead is on the ship, or as slaves."
"Or as slaves on the ship," Torres added with a grin.
"You know she is planning something?" B'Elanna asked unbelievingly, but indeed understanding why Seven had told the Intendant about the self-destruct. It was truly something Janeway might try if she thought that they had lost the ship for good.
"Well, I know that she is planning something, and I really don't think she is planning on becoming the next Klingon Intendant, so it is a pretty safe bet that it has to do with you slaves. But, the fun of it is, that I would like to see her try. She knows that I will kill you all if you are captured while trying to escape. So I'm really curious on how she will try to pull it off."
"I am... working on that part."
"I know you are, my dear. And you know that I will prevent that from happening."
"If that is so," Annika asked, daring to speak up finally, "Then why let them on the ship?"
"Because, I do need that ship fixed, and I want the specs of it to stay secret. They maintained that ship for seven years now; they know how to repair it like nobody else in this universe. That is why I appointed my counterpart here to be your assistant.
"But also, if I would prevent her from being able to plan something, then I would also prevent her from being able to work for me, she needs certain accesses to do work for me. Besides, what fun is a game of chess if you already win with the first move? This is much more fun, knowing that she is planning something, and yet doesn't want to break any of the rules I set forth for her. Now, let's get out of here."
Torres moved out of the room, followed by the others. Seven stayed behind a little so that she could whisper something in B'Elanna's ear.
"B'Elanna, I will set the codes up in such a way that your engineering clearance will be changed to full command clearance if you repeat your access code five times in a row within one minute. This will then also deactivate all Borg codes on the ship. but promise me that you will not tell the Captain this. I fear that she might do something... unwise. Only use it when you will escape. You will need Voyager, trust me."
"Seven why..."
"Ask Annika, ask her why only so few slaves even try to escape."
"My pet," Torres spoke up, "When you're quite done whispering back there, I want you here by my side; we might actually come across some people."
"Yes, mistress," Seven lengthened her strides for a moment until she was at Torres' side, "I have finished the... whispering, mistress."
"Was that the part that I wasn't allowed to hear?" Torres asked amused.
"Yes, mistress."
Torres laughed at the answer. She knew that she was making it way too easy for the blonde, but she really didn't care one way or the other about what happened to the other slaves. And if they truly did succeed in escaping, at least she wouldn't have to wrack her brain about finding a place to keep such a large group of slaves and give them a relatively easy life.