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Seven's Collective
Inside the Queen Cell on a Borg Cube was not somewhere Seven thought she would be again, and was certainly not somewhere she'd ever wanted to be again.
Damn Picard and his schemes bringing her here! Traipsing innocently though her worst nightmares as if they were nothing! First Bjazyl on Freecloud, and now this! Where was a drink when she needed one?
At least Picard's joyride had inadvertently helped her finally get the justice she'd sought for Icheb. No, she couldn't think of her son right now, she needed to keep it together and face this latest nightmare.
The 'reclaimed' Borg Cube... or the 'Artifact' as Hugh had called it. Changing the name did not lesson the nervous feelings that rose in her, nor help with the bitter taste that breathing in this Cube air had brought her.
Sending more nanoprobes to calm her nerves, she turned to Elnor, "These are the ones Hugh reclaimed. Thousands more are still in stasis."
"Wake them up." Elnor immediately responded naively.
"They'll be useless, lost without the voice of the Collective." Seven responds, already calculating what could be done to get them out of this alive.
"I could reactivate and reconnect their transceivers. Create a kind of micro-collective of just the Borg on this Cube. Coordinate their movements, deploy them against the Romulan troops." Seven spoke out loud as she weighed and valued all actions that could be taken.
Elnor broke her out of her thoughts however, "That sounds amazing. Do that."
Seven jerked her head around to glare at Elnor, looking towards him for the first time since she'd begun investigating options for their survival.
"Assimilate them. Invade their minds. Suppress their identities," she snapped at Elnor and swallowed down the bile rapidly rising in her throat before completing her thoughts. "Enslave them... again."
"You can release them when we win." Elnor replied. Oh, what it might be like to live in Elnor's simple and naive existence.
He did not understand what he was asking, could not possibly understand the full reality of what assimilation was.
Seven could only answer with absolute honesty, dredged up from deep inside her, bypassing the call of the Collective which was so much stronger here than all her years amongst 'humanity'.
"They won't want to be released, and I...-" she breathed deeply, admitting the truth she didn't want to face, "-might not want to release them."
There, the truth at the heart of the matter had been spoken aloud. Acknowledged. For all the years that had passed since she'd been disconnected from the Borg Collective, for all the years she'd spent striving to find her place amongst humanity, Seven still did not have a place where she belonged. She had no Collective, especially now that Icheb was gone.
She'd worked so hard to learn what it meant to be 'human', and to be what everyone else had wanted her to be. Damn, she had been so naive then, much like Elnor... a child when it came to emotion and individuality.
Her time spent on Voyager had brought her nothing but disillusion. None of them had understood, they had just wanted her to regain her humanity when she had never known it in the first place! What had she been supposed to regain exactly? 'Be more human', 'be more like us', Captain Janeway and her crew had repeated. Sure, 'be more human' whilst being stored in Voyager's Cargo Bay 2 like a machine, only to be brought out when she was of use to them.
When they'd returned to the Alpha quadrant, she'd been treated as an outcast with nothing but anger and distrust. She'd ended up isolated, unable to find a place amongst a Starfleet Federation that was still recovering from the Borg's attack on Wolf 359. Betrayed by the Voyager Collective. Not even her human origins had mattered. To the Federation she was nothing but Borg, and therefore an outcast.
It had been a dark time for Seven. A time when she had eventually learnt to protect herself and her feelings against 'humanity'. Bjazyl had taken a naive, innocent and idealistic outcast and broken her, costing Icheb his life. This was not something that could happen again. What more could 'humanity' take from her?
No, humanity hadn't lived up to Seven's expectations at all.
And now, what was she to do... blindly take control of the Cube and lose more of the so-called 'humanity' she'd been fighting for?
She'd forgotten Elnor was there until he suddenly spoke, pointing to the display, "The lights are going out."
Seven turned around quickly, staring at the lights rapidly clearing from the central control of the Queen's Cell, understanding what was happening.
"Are those Borg life signs?" Elnor asks moving closer to the display.
Seven couldn't hesitate ineffectively any longer. These were not machines, these were victims, waiting to be rescued from their time assimilated amongst the Borg. They should not be discarded on anyone's whim, especially not by these Romulans!
A determined look appears on Seven's face as she grits her teeth and turns to interact with the Queen Cell controls, knowing what she must now do.
Seven hears the link being lowered, then there is nothing but pain as the first of the tubules connects into her own spinal column. Two further sparks of pain radiate out from her spine as the remaining two attach and lock in place.
Seven feels herself quickly disappearing, and hopes that she has the strength to survive this.
For a moment there is nothing, a vacuum with no fear, no feelings, nothing heard, and nothing needed.
Then, a crescendo of voices builds, and the absolute silence is filled with the Collective of the Borg's on the Cube. She is their Queen. She will lead them to defeat the Romulans and ensure their survival.
Opening her eyes, Seven of Nine sees none of the Queen's Cell as everything becomes visible to her.
She sees everything. She sees the Romulans and their reasons for secrecy, she sees Picard and La Sirena struggling to reach the Synthetics home-world of Coppelius, she sees herself... all of herself.
She sees it all and knows everything because she is Borg.
THEY are Borg.
The voices of the Borg across the Cube join hers as they shout as one Collective, "WE ARE BORG!"
As the call echoes around the Cube, Seven of Nine feels a change in her Collective. Voices are crying out in fear before being lost, each one a recognisable loss in Seven of Nine's mind. This was not acceptable!
"NO!" Seven of Nine yells as she steps forwards, quickly studying all the variables to see what can be done to stop the Borg being jettisoned from the Cube... but it is too late. As soon as Seven of Nine calculates the reality of the situation, she activates the Borg that Hugh reclaimed, sending them to stop the fleeing Romulans.
She watches the Romulan ships racing away from the Cube, fleeing from he Collective, but knowing that they headed to the coordinates that the Snakehead has communicated, sending the full Romulan Armada towards Coppelius in order to destroy all Synthetics.
"They are gone, it is over." Seven of Nine tells her Collective, "The Cube is ours again."
"So... are you going to assimilate me now?" Elnor quietly asks, not having moved from his spot besides the Queen's dais.
No, his distinctiveness would not be added to this Collective, they did not need him to be assimilated.
The Romulans must be dealt with. They were a threat to all Borg and Synthetic life, and it was not acceptable that they live and cause further harm to her Collective. Seven of Nine knew what must happen, the Collective needed Annika.
Annika's resourcefulness, skills and individuality from her time outside the Borg Collective would be invaluable and necessary to complete this work.
Seven of Nine's time as Queen would come again, her Collective would be here waiting for her but for now, it was Annika that was needed.
"Annika still has work to do." Seven of Nine informs Elnor as she moves backwards, standing closer to the tubules linking her to her Collective.
With the sound of the tubules releasing their hold on her spinal cord, the three cables retract and raise up out of the way once again. With the sudden release from her Collective, Seven gasps and pulls in big drafts of air as she slumps forwards, placing her hands on her knees in order to keep herself upright.
Her reaction is not due to the physical pain of the tubules being released, which had definitely hurt like a bitch, but more to do with the sudden void that disconnecting from her Collective has left her with. The voices have gone, she is back to just her own voice, her fears, her demons, her confusion, her duality, and her lack of belonging.
Seven closes her eyes for a moment, trying to hold onto the feeling of being in the Collective had given her. That of being totally accepted, of having a place and a purpose. The feeling lingers like a distant memory, and Seven struggles to compose herself knowing that time was of the essence.
They must help Picard, or the loss of the Borg from the Cube will be meaningless.
She looks over to Elnor, who is watching her warily.
"We need to help Picard," she says in an attempt to explain everything that is about to happen, not wanting to speak any further.
Seven walks towards the main control of the Cell, moving quickly to input the coordinates needed to send the Cube towards Coppelius. She allows herself a small smile as she knows that they can arrive ahead of the Romulan Armada by utilising a transwarp conduit, much in the same way that Picard and La Sirena is currently doing.
Putting the necessary calculations into the Cube's controls, Seven watches as a transwarp conduit opens off their port bow. Taking a deep breath, briefly closing her eyes to stop the sting of loss and emptiness from over-whelming her, Seven enters the command to send the Cube into the conduit.
Starting long-range scanning, Seven searches for La Sirena. She just hopes that whatever is on the other end of the transwarp conduit, isn't yet another of her nightmares coming into existence.
The End.