A Journey
By Elizabeth Carter
Part Thirteen
The salvaging operation was underway led by the Captain herself. She had worn Science Blue before the Command Red, and she held a PhD in Physics she knew her way around an engine room, and this wasn't the first time she had extracted a transwarp engine from a Borg Vessel. Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, Lieutenant Rothery and Ensign Vorik had transported over to the Diamond with Cadet Icheb, all prepared to extract the core and whatever else that could be salvaged before the Captain ordered the destruction of the vessel.
Seven and B'Elanna didn't do down time well. They rejoiced the other was alive and for the most part well, but they had nervous energy and si it was the two would find themselves in the shuttle bay working with Kellein.
"Is It my imagination or is this thing bigger than it was before?" Miral asked.
"Your eyes do not deceive you Miral, the Kellein has indeed grown 3.45 prescient since we disembarked thirty two hours ago. Kellein belongs to species 342 and as a living vessel it is expected she will continue to grow." Seven informed her mother-in-law.
"Well she better not grow too fast, too soon because she wont fit in the shuttle bay at this rate. BangwI what does your little Borg-data bases say about this species infants." B'Elanna asked.
"I regret to inform you Tai SoS I have very little knowledge. The Borg were never able to assimilate a member of the species. What we do know is gleaned from battle with the species and the knowledge of other species now in the Collective that have had encounters with them. What is known is that the infants tend to remain close to their parental unit. It appears they grow rapidly and after consuming vast quantities of nutrients, shut down internal systems to regenerate."
Miral barked out a laugh. "Kah'less you can tell you're not mothers of infants! All babies eat and sleep a lot. Just be thankful you don't have to change that things dippers."
"Species 342 does not expel fecal matter." Seven said matter of factly.
B'Elanna clapped her hand over her ridges and shook her head, "Leave it to my wife to miss the joke."
"I was unaware Miral was expressing a jovial statement." Seven said matter-of-factly.
This gave both of the other woman a fit of Klingon giggles.
"Yep right over the top!" B'Elanna said waving her hand over the top of her head. Chuckling she kissed the soft creamy cheek of her wife, then mischievously she flicked her tongue out over the starburst implant. She could almost feel Seven's heart slamming hard against the ex-drone's rib cage.
It took all of Seven's cold-efficient resolve not to respond with an aroused sound of pleasure at the touch of her wife's kiss. By turning the subject back to the ship, Seven was able to distract herself, and her desires to make love with her wife.
"It is a living entity and it will grow, Tai-SoS though mechanized." It was readily apparent to B'Elanna that Seven wasn't quite as impassive as she pretended to be and the young Klingon couldn't help but gloat over the matter, that she managed to make her wife falter "As...as I said the Collective's knowledge on species 342 is sorely lacking. Species342 had been able to avoid assimilation for their adaptive abilities. Their hulls are covered in a heavy metallic liquid alloy that refracts senor readings and is highly adaptable. They have phase-shifting capabilities, trans-warp and slipstream drives. They have been able to elude the Borg for decades.
"What the Collective has learned is that species 342 has a genetic memory, they have empathic with telepathic capabilities. They reproduce exclusively through a process of enhanced cellular mitosis, which means that they are all females. An adult ship is nearly the same size as a Borg Cube. The infants are seventy feet long, twenty-five feet high and with the wingspan of 175 feet. They grow exponentially until they reach adulthood. It is theorized that their life span is several hundred years.
"The propulsion unit is fueled by organic cold fusion. The digestive juices permeate the nourishment it consumes and interacts on a subatomic level with the cells of the food source thus combining on the cellar level and cause a catalyst causing cold fusion. The weaponry of Species 342 is rather unique. An EM pulse renders all electrical and computer systems of a craft inoperative and permanently damaged. Keillien's parental unit employed this method with both Voyager and with the Borg Diamond. I regret this is all the information I have upon species 342."
"All?" Miral chuckled. "I'd say it was quite a lot. She's a beautiful ship."
The dark purple-silver alloy of the ships hull darkened, causing both Seven and B'Elanna to smile. "I think you embarrassed her, Mother." B'Elanna said, turning to her wife. "Some females don't know what to do with a complement."
"I can attest to that," Seven picked up the beat. "B'Elanna often refuses to acknowledge her own beauty and her incredible strength. She should have already realized resistance is futile and resisting to acknowledge how truly remarkable she is, is inefficient."
"Hey Blondie I was talking about you!" B'Elanna stiffened in having paid such a high praise in front of her mother.
Seven ignored her as she traced her meshed hand across the ridges of B'Elanan's forehead a feature she had always though extremely becoming. "Ach IhsoH."
"DogWi."
"As you can see she refuses to acknowledge her beauty even if I announce it in her mother's language. I am not silly B'Elanna."
"Oh yeah?" the Klingon folded her arms over her chest. "I say you are."
Miral shook her head. Though placed her daughter had found her equally asa mate, the first months of courting could be sickening sweet for outside observers. Of course it wasn't true Klingon courting, there was nothing thrown and growling was a minimum.
"IhsoH B'Elanna. HosjIh. Dich Daj Chargh SoHjlH." Seven growled
Miral was astonished. And more than pleased to hear the seductive growls of her daughters proclamation that B'Elanna was indeed beautiful but to add to it the boating of Seven's strength and that she intended to conquer B'Elanna.
"Only if your fast enough!" B'Elanna made to dart but she only got as far as the hatch of Keillien before she was captured by the lanky arms of a tall blonde ex-Borg. B'Elanna let out a most un-Klingons squeal of delight when her wife's arms coiled around her waist and hoisted her off of her feet. "Annika!"
"QitvIh!" Seven growled.
"I move slowly?" B'Elanna scoffed. "I let you catch me."
What Seven said next Miral could only make out the phrase "IuqwI" ... which meant 'my heart' Whatever else the former drone said had caused B'Elanna to blush furiously.
"Seven of Mine! Not in front of my mother!"
Seven turned to her mother-in-law. "All do respect Tai-SoS. Leave! I wish to mate with my wife unimpeded."
"In that case Stick Girl," Miral flashed a feral grin "jachchoHmeH 'lwraj penaghtaH!"
"Oh God!" B'Elanna hid her face in Seven's shoulder, in hearing her mother tell them to mate until their blood screams. She was only half aware that Seven was carrying her within Keillien. She didn't want to see her mother's expression let alone hear the barking laugh, the older Klingon belted out.
"And may you break the bed, daughters." Miral was still chuckling. "Kah'less where do they get the energy? They go at it like veglarghs." Looking back at the ship she shook her head, thinking that the tour of the living ship Keillien would have to wait. She had to admit she liked the name.
Keillien of course was the female who had reveled to Kah'less how to create the first Bat'lath. Seven defiantly had a very positive influence upon B'Elanna, if her daughter was so willingly embracing her warrior heritage. They spoke Klingioness as easily as Federation Standard, and they even played as a young courting couple. Stick Girl's demand Miral leave without any cowering was a testament to the thin girl's Klingon heart.
Miral winded her way through the sterile white walls of Voyager longing for the familiar slate and green steel of a proper Klingon vessel. She shuddered slightly and forced the chill away from her aging bones. A warrior did not complain of discomfort. Humans always kept their ships so cold. The Klingon Captain had to admit the Borg vessels were at least vessel of war and were kept at a respectable warmth. Though loathing the drones the Borg ship was at least carrying some familiarity the warrior cold appreciate. The Borg didn't coddle their crew members either.
B'Elanna had spent time on Maquis vessel also stripped down for war not comfort. When her daughter was first aboard this soft Starfleet ship Miral imagined that Lanna's teeth were on edge.
Still the Intrepid class starship has its merits. She had seen what this little scout ship could do and as a Klingon she was impressed. Of course most of the ship's components were bastardize from Starfleet, alien and Borg technologies and all do to the geniuses that was B'Elanna Torres and Seven of Nine.
Despite the softness of the Starfleet vessel Miral couldn't have been happier to be aboard Voyager. She was gratified to know B'Elanna was alive. Yes it was a warriors duty to die with the ship, to defined her, to defined the Empire. But a mother... even a Klingon mother despite Federation propaganda loved their children. Miral was not ready to see her Wo'Hom off to Stov-o-kor, just yet. There was no doubt in the woman's mind her daughter would sail the Black Fleet. But it was truly a gift to know B'Elanna yet lived and that more importantly she was happy.
Miral stopped in her treks when she saw the small Norccaican standing at 'Borg attention'. Her feet shoulder width apart, her little hands clasped behind her back her gaze steady in her regard of the Klingon. "I want to be a warrior of House Prasba. I want to know how to protect my SoS'oy and my Mama. Comply to teach me."
"You wish to be a warrior?" Miral took on a serious tone of voice, deliberately hiding the smirk of amusment behind the gruff voice.
"I am of the Borg. I possess superior strength, my cordial node gives me the advantage of an endemic memory. I will be a worthy student. And it is my right to protect my House. As matriarch of House Prasba, I ask you to teach me, SoSnI."
"Tell me Mizoti, there is something more than this Borg Queen that has unsettled you. What is it?"
"I failed to protect my family before. Just like now. The Queen took me over and used me to hurt my SoS'oy and my Mor. I am Borg I am stronger and faster, my size often fools others. But even my the superiority of my Borg enhancements can not protect those I...I...love. So I must be come a warrior so I can.
"The Hirgoen came aboard the Wasiti vessel they killed my brothers. I would have died too but my SoS'oy came. I knew she would. I called out to her and she came." Mizoti said with a faint sad smile. Her mind for a moment was back aboard the training vessel with the rest of the Wasiti cadets. She and the twins had called out to their 'mother' via the connection they had with her. Of course Icheb's cordial node having been donated to Seven because she had failed was still a viable link. "She destroyed them all. She looked just like Lakara! All in battle armor."
"Yes I have seen your SoS in the armor. Granted it was my daughter inside your SoS's body but she is a spectacular vision of power when in a proper uniform."Miral agreed. "So when the Hirgoen came and you could not fight them off, you felt powerless."
"Yes."
"And you do not like that feeling?"
"No."
"You never want to feel that again do you?"
"No." The child looked down at her blue booted feet then back up to her Klingon grandmother.
"What happened was frightening and you are still troubled One day you will be a warrior, a Klingon warrior and if anyone tries to harm your mothers you will be able to stand by their sides and protect them so nothing bad ever happens to them. What do you think about that."
The child smiled brightly, then she looked down sadly. "Do families miss warriors when they die?"
Miral nodded. "Yes, of course. A warrior's spirit might be in Stov-o-kor but it is alright to miss their presence."
"Azeb and Rebi were only children, drones they were not warriors. I don't think they get to go to Stov-o-kor. Do Klingon children go there?" It was a question asked in all earnestly. One that Miral had a difficult time answering. A mother herself she did not relish the idea of a small child dying.
"The Black Fleet is for Warriors but yes like Voyager, there is a place for the very young on Stov-o-kor especially for children who died in battle." the aging Klingon hoped the words would bring solace to the little girl. "Alright Wo'Hom, lets go to one of your Holodecks and see what you have."
"I will work diligently and prove to be a worthy warrior." Mizoti said boldly
Brave words. Honest words. Miral would have been proud to hear them from an adult much less an eight year old child. She could see the fire burning in the Wa'Hom and she wanted to kindle it. It was something she was never truly able to do with B'Elanna
By the end of three hours, Captain Miral of the Klingon Empire and wife to Martok was feeling everyone of her five decades. Of course she wasn't the only Klingon to have gotten a work out from a former Borg. B'Elanna herself knew her body would be sore tomorrow from the through loving her wife had given her. Seven's stamina and desire to love and worship B'Elanna's body and soul apparently knew no limitations. Who needed a Klingon calisthenic workout program when your wife was a former Borg drone? But B'Elanna would not complain, in fact she thought if she died right now, she die with a very large toothy grin on her face.
Miral wished for her part she could harness some of her new granddaughter's stamina and fuse it to her own. She was no slouch, and in fact Miral was in prime health, still the child had managed to tire the older Klingon throughly. Miral had started with a simple preliminary work of the basics of moQbara, a type of Klingon martial arts. Miral had even began Mizoti on training with the qa'vaQ a hoop and stick maneuver that hones the skills of the hunt. The child was told of course to learn the eleven more important stories and opera surrounding Kah'less. A warrior must never rely on brute strength alone but they must be cunning and competent. The mind as well as the body must be in balance like the Bat'lath. Miral would also bring Mizoti into the more traditional practices of ritual prayer and self-reliance of Klingon tradition. Mizoti unlike B'Elanna when she was of the same age drank in hungrily everything Klingon.
"Two showers within five hours I think that is a record." B'Elanna jovially chided as she reached to lather her wife's lanky body
Seven closed her eyes and allowed her self to enjoy the sensation such a simple touch gave her. "It is difficult not to desire what which is irresistible."
"Resistance is Futile?"
Seven let out a most un-Borg snicker. "Indeed. Though I doubt the Queen had you in mind when she designed that particular hailing. Though she should have. For resisting you is futile. Therefore it is inefficient for me to attempt it nor do I wish to."
"Borg-poetry. I love it." B'Elanna playfully nipped her lover's full lips.
Seven's answer was to slip her hands about the trim muscular waist of her wife, her throat a growl in the low frequency that she knew would arouse B'Elanna.
"You're insatiable." B'Elanna moaned. She was thankful Seven was supporting her because her knees would have buckled. Not very Klingon but at this moment the tinny Engineer could have cared less, besides her mother approved of 'Stick-girl.'
Seven's grip tightened and B'Elanna felt a surge of power course threw her groin. And despite the heat of the showers, Bella could feel the hardened nibbled of her wife brush her own mounds. Seven kissed her hard, and B'Elanna felt her tongue slipping into her mouth as Seven breasts brushed against her own. The Klingon had to push Seven back if only to breath, and she could see how magnificent her wife was. The water beading along the alabaster skin and for a moment B'elanna felt jealous of the droplets.
"Kah'less you are gorgeous Seven of Mine, my Annika, BangwI."
"For you only, Bella."
B'Elanna smiled recalling the first time she truly saw Seven necked. It was the first time she was ion the ex-drones body and had wanted to shower. At the time she made herself think of this perfection only as a vessel. But she gazed into the mirror and saw the exceptionally tones body the 'six-pack' abs B'Elanna thought it was more like a twelve-pack, muscled tight enough to take an old fashioned bullet. The one thing she wasn't permitted to do when in custody of the body that she was now was to run admiring fingers along the zebra silver stripes of the abdominal implant.
Yes they were scares from the Borg but they were so beautiful laced within the perfect body. Like Seven's left hand B'Elanna thought the image was incredibly sexy. It was one of B'Elanna's favorite things to trace the zebra stripes not only with the pads of her fingertips but with the tip of her tongue.
Dropping to her knees, B'Elanna did just that, her tongue slipped out licking the water off of the mettle enjoying the metallic tang and sweetness of flesh, her hands curling around the tight globes of Seven's arse, holding her tight. She heard Seven moan as she gripped the walls to support her weight. B'Elanna smiled as she drew in the fragrant musk coming from Seven's core. Unable to deny herself longer, B'Elanna found herself delving into the tang if Seven's core, deliciously, gloriously strong with desire. Seven's back arched as B'Elanna's tongue licked a line along to her clit and back again, and with a mischievous wiggle, dug under the shroud of her clit hood—to brink a shriek from Seven's lips as the very tip of B'Elanna tongue sent through a jolt of pleasure so intense it was almost pain.
The Klingon's tongue began to swirl around Seven's clit-hood again, smoothly, rhythmically, and to work up and down as Seven held her body by sheer force of will. She looked breathtakingly to B'Elanna's shoulders. Taught muscles of a predator, perfect and sublime. A panther in all her glory. Despite having made slow silent love that morning, despite the quick heated passion in Keillien, Seven was still savagely hungry for her wife's attention. She hadn't expected to cum so quickly but as the organism took her prisoner, Seven felt her entire body sag from the aftershocks.
The aquatic shower continued to pour down around them neither noticed as they bucked and writhed within each other's trusts. The wall seemed to groan in protest under the pressure of Seven's enhanced left hand. The glass door creaked by the force of her right hand, but Seven' felt only her heart hammering loudly as she felt white heat rush over her in a flood.
In that small, cramped space there wasn't much room to maneuver, but they managed it. Bodies slicked with water, B'Elanna slid up her wife's lanky body, perfectly as Seven's hand reached down to play with mound.
The Seven was down upon her knees, pushing B'Elanna back against the tiled wall of the shower so hard wit the thrusts of her mouth that B'Elanna felt as if the entire ship's dampers were offline. B'Elanna enjoyed the freedom she never had to hold back from her Klingon self, she never had to hid it. She loved basking in the gentle softness that lovemaking brought her, but there were times when she liked it a little harder, never painful or brutal but more athletic and powerful. She loved to feel her blood boil and cry-out in primitive fire. The thrusts of her lover's tongue pushing so firmly against her clit that it was almost painful and no lover had ever satisfied her that way ever. Seven knew instinctively how much pressure made B'Elanna scream, how much made her roar. And B'Elanna did roar, twice and a third time, so loud she was sure the crewmates next door were listening whether they wanted to or not. And it didn't bother the Klingon at all.
Something groaned and creaked and gave way.
The doors to sick bay swooshed opened to reveal a hobbling fifty year old Klingon woman and shy Norccaican. "Activate EMH." Mizoti said crisply escorting the scowling woman to a biobed.
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency." The doctor said as he appeared. Granted he no longer had to say that particular salutation but he had nothing else to say, so he kept it. Upon seeing the bleeding Klingon he rolled his eyes.
"I expected no less like mother like daughter."
"That is CAPTAIN Miral to you Doctor. You will treat my SoSnI with according respect." Mizoti growled like a proper Klingon, startling the photonic physician.
"SoSnI, I am sorry, I am not accustomed to the Bat'lath's weight. I will adapt and not lose control of the arch swing again." The girl looked at the large gash in her grandmother's leg which was bleeding pink-red blood all over the biobed.
"A warrior does not express discomfort, Mizoti. And I've had worse. I'll get a dermal regenerator to stop the bleeding and that will be that. Its only a flesh wound." Miral smiled dismissive-ly
"All do respect, 'Captain' I am the physician here not you. So I will do the diagnosis and you keep to ripping people apart" Had he saliva the holographic man would have gulped in seeing two pairs of eyes glowering at him. "Yes well lets take a look shall we?"
Just as he was preparing to treat the wound in Miral's leg that was anything BUT a flesh wound as the first blade in the Bat'lath had penetrated several layers of flesh down to the bone, the doors whooshed open this time the wounded Klingon was being carried in by the ex-drone.
"And what happened to you?" the doctor looked on as Seven deposited the blanketed and blushing B'Elanna Torres on her stomach upon the neighboring bed.
At the sight of both women dripping wet and in bathrobes Miral belted out a barking laugh. "So you broke the bed!"
B'Elanna gowned and covered her face as a new sheen of red covered her caramel face.
"No. The shower stall." Seven said evenly. "Doctor, B'Elanna will need specialized attention."
"Yes I can see. And as you can see she will have to get in line behind her mother. It seems all the Klingons on this ship are determined to get themselves injured by ex-drones."
Miral snarled and made a grab for the physician, and while he was photons and light she was able to get a solid hold on him as any training hologram and thrust him into the air and away from her. Had he been alive the force of power that sent him literately into the bulkhead would have caused severe trauma to his brain. Fortunately he was after all a photic being and was not damaged.
Mizoti snickered with a very 'told you so' look upon her tiny face.
"Well! " The Doctor managed to come back to the fierily patients. "If that is the way Klingons treat their doctors no wonder Klingon medicine is archaic. I am surprised you elevated above bone knives and bear skins."
Four woman were now glowering
The holographic doctor shrank.
Clearing his throat which of course was redundant he moved back to work on his less than amused patients. "Lets see what we have here."
"See to my daughter first,"Miral said not in a typical Klingon bravado, but in a mother's concern. Yes her daughter was thirty but she was still her little girl, Klingon or not.
"SoS, I am fine more embraced than anything." B'Elanna said, the Starfleet blanket still covering her backside. "Braking a bed is one thing.... a shower stall is another."
"It was I that comprised the integrity Benel. The glass of the stall could not withstand both of our weight. I am sorry your gluteus maximus were harmed by the glass." Seven said sullenly.
B'Elanna snickered as a very bad pun entered her mind, she continued laughing until the Doctor whisked the blanket away to examine his patient. He discovered that several bits of safety glass had embed themselves in the lower back and buttocks and thighs of B'Elanna.
"Hey!" B'Elanna sobered immediately, "my kid is in here and she doesn't need to see her Mor's naked bleeding backside! Do you mind? Kah'less I am not a frigging Betazed or Ferangi, that struts around in the buff! A little professionalism here."
The Doctor had at least the curacy to appear embarrassed for his slight of un-professionalism and started to pull a privacy curtain around the biobed.
"You have an esthetically pleasing body Mor, you should not be shammed."Mizoti said with Borg monotone clinical-isum
"Zoti I am not ashamed." B'Elanna said looking her daughter in the eyes. "Just its not me to go about naked in front of my kids Wo'Hom."
"I will comply Mor and not look at you until you are properly attired." Mizoti said with her hands clasped behind her back in a perfect reflection of her SoS'oy.
B'Elanna winked. And relaxed as the curtain was now all the way pulled to shield her from young eyes. Besides she couldn't take the very amused look in her own mother's face.
"SoS, so what happened to you?" B'Elanna deflected the air of tension that started to rise in sickbay. "Looks like you got gored by a targ pub."
"Your 'kid' is an enthusiastic student, she made the same mistake you had during your first training sessions with the Bat'lath. Now I shall have matching scares on both legs." Miral said through her pain. Yes she was in great pain, but a warrior never complained about discomfort and humor like B'Elanna, Miral used as a shield against any weakness that might creep up and try to take her hostage.
The Doctor wisely decided he had said enough for the moment and continued to work on the older Klingon's mutilated appendage, as she was the more grievously wounded..
Mizoti looked down once more, "I had not meant to. I am Borg I should not have lost control."
"Mizoti Hansen-Torres you are not Borg." Seven said almost sharply through the partition. "You are no longer apart of the Collective."
B'Elanna reached for her wife and squeezed the enhanced hand. "Hun, how long was it before you stopped referring yourself as Borg? Mizoti just hurt someone in her family....my mom. She's scarred, hurt and a little out of sorts. The last thing she needs is for her 'favorite' mom to snap at her, for a slip."
Seven winced as if struck.
"BangwI...the Wysanti struck her for such slips of terminology, I think your words affected her far more than physical blows. I am not saying this to make you feel bad Baby," B'Elanna squeezed the hand once more when she saw her wife nearly faultier. "Go to her, she needs to know her mommy isn't pissed at her."
"I will comply." Seven managed to whisper. When in doubt fall back to Borg-Armor. Seven kissed her wife's lovely ridged forehead. "qaparmag." Seven uttered before disappearing around the partition.
"pugbe'" Seven addressed her daughter, causing Mizoti look up, "iachqaQaos." She apologized in Klingioness. "You have done nothing wrong."
"I...I... spoke like a Borg....and wounded SoSnI."
"YIDoghQo Cha'Do-Hom'."Miral quickly said trying to calm the visibly upset child.
The Doctor looked up in hearing the older Klingon tell Mizoti not to be silly. He had nearly finished repairing the damaged leg and thought perhaps a hasty retreat would be soon in order. Besides he had another volatile Klingon in which to restore to health
"Cha'Do-Hom? " Mizoti quirked a Seven like eyebrow. "Little Bird?"
Seven smiled, "A more apt 'nickname' than Stick-Girl." The former drone commented with humor in her voice.
"Oh I don't know Benel I kinda got used to 'Stick Girl.' B'Elanna laughed from the other side of the curtain.
"And you can go without chocolate BangwI."
"Oh......maQDar! You wouldn't dare."
"I said you go without chocolate, I didn't say I would forgo the Chol-confection." Seven teased.
"Annika!" B'Elanna was suddenly very glad for the curtain but the Doctor wasn't known for discretion.
"Cum-confection?" he questioned his new patient softly so none but she would hear. "You used chocolate as an application on your.... "
"So help me Doctor you finish that question and I will reline your matric to you look like the Easter bunny complete with a pink bow tie!" Growled B'Elanna.
"What is Cho-confection?" Mizoti whispered to her grandmother. The question shocked her for the older woman seemed to have blushed, what ever it was it must be something good.
"Something you have no need to know about until you are older. For that is the only time you are allowed to indulge."
"Kah'less on a frigging crutch!" Mizoti cursed like a proper would be young Klingon warrior. "Even SoSnI is apart of the Adult Conspiracy!" She hugged her slammed her fists upon her hips and scowled in a perfect imitation of B'Elanna Torres.
"Yes well Adult Conspiracies aside I would say my work is finished so if you four can take your temper out of my sickbay I would be most appreciative" The Doctor commented.
"Come I am hungry." Miral said hopping off the bio-bed. Her leg was yet tender and would be for the next few days, but try and tell a full Klingon warrior let alone a captain they must refrain from activity and you would have an easier time trying bolting Jell-O to the bulkhead.
Captain Miral wasn't the only woman in command that would not refrain from activity when duty called. Captain Kathryn Janeway was not about to allow the young woman she cared and loved to be further victimized by the Borg. She was here with a team to yes harvest the slipstream and transwarp dives but she was going to go to the Queen's chamber and insure the Queen never again would traumatize her family.
A small forbidden fraction of the woman who was Kathryn Janeway not the Starfleet captain, became wracked with grief and guilt. She ranged the Queen's chamber, trying to regain her composure and failing. Marginally, she felt the pressure of her family, her crew's fear and agitation; it fed her own, inner and outer jumbled and colliding preventing her from finding a center.
The Borg had destroyed everything she had ever loved. Destroyed it or contaminate it beyond redemption by the simple act of being. They had destroyed the little girl Annika Hansen long before they assimilated her. Because of the Borg Annika had long since lost her parents to them through their obsession. But Janeway gathered if it wasn't the Borg it would have been something else to capture that obsessiveness in the Hansens.
The Borg stole eighteen years of this precious soul, eighteen years that Annika...Seven felt she had to forever atone. The Borg had killed three of this young woman's sons. One...Azan and Rubi. The Queen.....had done this Janeway corrected herself. The Borg Drones had no control over their actions anymore than an infant. They could not be held accountable for something they were will-less to change. Seven of Nine could not be held accountable for the thousands of people she herself assimilated. Nor could she held responsible for the assimilation of Jean-Luc Picard that led to the evolution of Locutus. At Wolf 539 Seven had been present but only for the emergence of Locutus and then ordered by the Queen to return to the Borg's homeland the Delta Quadrant.
The Queen was to bear this guilt and yet this creature this 'program' was so without remorse that she dare to taint Seven with her faith to the Borg's insidious adherence to the ideals of perfection The more she dwelled upon this the more Kathryn Janeway became angry, overwhelmingly, unthinkably, unendurably angry.
Prowling the Queen's chamber, Captain Janeway stopped short of the decapitated head of the thing the female entity that had once been the Queen of the Borg. Looking at it Janeway picked it up and horridly she laughed and the ludicrous image that entered her mind. "Alas poor Queen , I knew you well," she lampooned a well known act of Hamlet. "Where are your jibs, your sarcastic caustic ways? Where is your favored drone? How oft had I cursed you, I do not know. Too bad your dead. I would have loved to slay you myself you tin-bitch." She through the head against the bulk head feeling a bit sophomoric in the action, but she smiled as she heard a wet clang when skin covered metal kissed metal.
"Feel better?" Amanda said coming up to the woman she called captain and lover.
"As stupid as it sounds, yes I do."
"Not stupid, cathartic." Amanda amended.
Always before, Kathryn had been able to swallow down such rage. Shut it away, keep it private, secrete even from herself. But this time she couldn't. The image of the Queen tormenting Seven and B'Elanna, the slaughter of three innocent boys, kept erupting like a fire before her eyes. The image poisoned her imagination. And if she could not somehow rid herself of that poison, she knew intactly that she would doom her ship her crew to death.
"Captain, there is nothing here anymore." Amanda gently attempted to pull her CO away from the realm of carnage. Even if there was so little blood spilled, what this chamber represented was horrific. "Kath....turn around and leave this place." Rothery now spoke to her lover. "Trust me I know. There is only pain here and it will fester inside you, until it becomes you."
Kathryn turned to look at the pleading woman. She was about to ask how could she know, when it struck her Amanda Rothery had been turned into an assassin by the age of six from her cadre of women that had taken her into their fold. They had trained young Amanda for one thing to be a miniature assassin. So small so lithe the child was able to sneak undetected into proclaimed enemy territory to slay a targeted person or persons. By the time she was twelve everything human in Rothery had been drilled out of her. She knew only that if you are not quick enough someone will eventually kill you.
That had changed once the feral teenager had met Kathryn Janeway who had tamed the girl, healed her and set her upon a new course in life. The years of stealth assassinations had trained this woman into the perfect officer of law enforcement. "If you let it Kath, what remains here will take you hostage and it won't ask for a ransom. B'Elanna avenged her wife, and Seven avenged her Benel we don't need to avenge anyone. We have a job Captain. We find, we take, we go."
Janeway turned to her junior officer and lover and nodded slowly relenting to the truth she had heard. ' we find, we take, we go.'
Leaving the Central Plexus Kathryn could not help but notice a drone locked in an alcove. It had sustained sever damage and was now futilely attempting to regenerate. The face was what had caught the spirited Captain's full attention. It was the ashen face of Magnus Hansen. Seven's father.
"Captain?" Amanda questioned carefully.
"He must have crawled in her. A drone can be reanimated after seventy-three hours from deactivation. Seven...oh god what she had to do."
"This isn't an ordinary tactical-drone is it Captain?"
"No Mandy... its Magnus Hansen. I recognize him from the last time Seven surrendered herself to the Borg. He was in the chamber with her. The Queen had used him to try to bend Seven's will. It nearly worked. Days afterward Seven would come to me, so distraught...her 'papa' left behind to suffer the will of the Queen. She was so bereaved, I thought she might never recover."
"She was like that when that drone...One died."
Kathryn looked down at the grating. That was yet another time when she had allowed Seven to be hurt. The young woman had to suffer the lose of her son by herself. No wonder she was so severely protective of Icheb they were of age. The Brunali and One. And then Kathryn had ordered Seven to convince Icheb to go to his parents. Of course that had not been the best thing for the boy, as once more his parents were offering up the surficial lamb. And when the Wysanti came for the twins, Janeway once again ordered Seven to comply that they were better off with their people than with a woman who had not wanted them in her care in the first place.
Of course had the twins and Mizoti stayed with the woman who was truly their mother, they would not have died, Mizoti would not have been abused and she would not have been used as a Trojan horse. Kathryn had never involved herself with Samantha Wildman and the way she raised Naomi. But she insisted she knew what was best for the orphaned Borg-Children. Well she thought she knew. She had learned a hard lesson and a too high of price. Now of course she knows what is best for the Borg children. To stay with their true mother. To stay with Seven of Nine, for all time. She was the name of Omega, of perfection on the hearts and lips of those children and Seven loved them with every fiber of her being.
"We are going to rescue him." Janeway said stoically.
"Is that wise? I mean Seven may not want him. He did betray her to the Borg." Rothery frowned. She knew if she ever met her birth parents she would want to confront them. Her mother she could almost forgive, after all her mother had not wanted Amanda, she was a product of rape. But if Rothery ever discovered who her father was she had long ago vowed to take his life.
"He was zealous in his research, and Seven had felt betrayed as she should. Her parents had neglected her." Kathryn recalled the words B'Elanna had shared with her, about accidently accesses Seven's memories just prior to her assimilation. In hearing it, Janeway had wanted to wreak vengeance upon the Hansens for what they had done to a six year old child. Sucking in a breath of air, she continued, " But that woman has an immense capacity to forgive. She has loathing and love for her parents. When she first saw him, she was shaken by the fact coming face to face with him. I think she would want him free. If after he is stabilized from the Collective and Seven doesn't want him on Voyager I'll arrange it to he can be placed on an inhabited planet if the local government complies, if not he can find passage from a space station to go anywhere he wants to go. But Seven would have him freed completely. That is the type of woman she is." privately and unvoiced Janeway thought 'Seven is a better woman than I in such a case. I doubt I could so easily forgive them if I were in her place. But it is not for me to judge him, that is for his daughter. Its up to me to give her that chance.'
Tapping her combadge Captain Janeway linked a connection to herself and her ship. "Janeway to Voyager."
* Voyager, * the disembodied voice belonged to Commander Chakotay.
"Commander I need you to lock onto my single and transport a refugee abard. His DNA will link to Seven of Nine."
*Captain?* even his voice betrayed the fact the wooden man was rubbing his tattoo in agitation. Janeway knew a string of protests would follow. The former Maquis Captain made one hell of a devils advocate.
"Commander," Janeway's voice hinted she wasn't in the mood to play command tag. "The refugee in question is Magnus Hansen. I want him transported directly to sickbay behind a level ten force felid. Have the doctore begnin immediate recovery of his human self. I want the armor and implants removed as soon as the Doctor deemed it is medical sound. TH drone sustained hevey damage."
* with all do respect, Captain are you sure transporting 'yet' another drone aboard Voyager is a 'sound' idea?"
'Damn if it doesn't sound like a threat of mutiny. I have had about enough from him and my family...' "Commander, do I need to make this a direct order?"
* no ma'am. But as your First Officer I wanted it stated for the record that I protest to this action.*
"So noted Commander," Janeway said crisply. "Comply."
She couldn't help but smile knowing that single word would grate the Chakotay as a bit of sand in the boot one could not find. Agitating, annoying and down right aggregating, but something one had to adapt to.
Amanda hated to agree with Chakotay, but for a whole other reason. This one was as she has said before it would be hard on Seven to face the man who had out of selfish need pursued the Borg and gave thin his six-year-old child as a sacrificial lamb.