Hi everybody.

I probably do not need to clarify this, but I do not own Star Trek. Any characters that I do create are of my own creation and any similarities are purely coincidental. Otherwise everything else belongs to those hard working people who have crafted the fine series which we know to be as Star Trek.

This fanfiction takes place a few years after Voyager has returned home to the Alpha Quadrant and will involve all Star Trek sagas, although will have a strong emphasis on The Next Generation and Voyager.

Enjoy my work? Please review it and let me know your thoughts. It tends to speed up the writing process to know that someone out there is eagerly waiting for the next Chapter to come out.

Thanks!

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Starfleet Medical – 23:46

"Download complete," the female computer voice chimed.

Doctor Beverly Crusher sighed softly, fingers dancing across her desktop computer in the same familiar sequence. It had been two months since she had left the Enterprise-E and returned to Earth as Director of Starfleet Medical. In a way, she both adored the position and hated it at the same time. It was a lot more predictable, which was something that Beverly liked. No imminent Borg invasions, no more losing power to her Sickbay when Enterprise took a hit from some angry enemy species, and certainly no more insane Romulan-Human praetors who looked identical the man she once loved years ago.

No. Now there was paperwork to do. Mountains of medical theories to analyze and approve or usher back to the petri dish. Positions to assign and delegate. Research to conduct. Yes, now she could complete her work in peace. Or so it seemed.

And yet she missed the unpredictable nature of being Chief Medical Officer of the flagship of the Federation. She missed her friends. Her family. The late night Poker matches between the senior staff.

"There's nothing I can do about that now," she told herself aloud. Now there was Lieutenant Commander Jenson's theory of a vaccine that enhanced cell membranes, increasing their resistance to Borg nanoprobes.

Beverly sighed. The Borg were the last thing she wanted to think about now. She would deal with this later.

"Computer. Activate security protocol Crusher-4 and shut down the lights when I'm gone."

"Acknowledged."

With a quick tap, the glass like screen on her desk turned transparent, the data vanishing safe and sound until tomorrow. Pulling her coat from the wrack, she left her office and headed down the corridor. It was a tenderly quiet evening. The administrative wing of the building was usually dead after hours. A majority of the doctors and nurses had gone home for the night, leaving only emergency personnel to their duties.

She entered the coordinates of her apartment complex into one of the dozen suborbital shuttles that waited in the buildings docking area. How beautiful San Francisco was at night. She closed her eyes and let herself rest against the padded bench of the shuttle.

No more than five minutes into her flight, a prominent beeping shot through the shuttle's main console.

"Incoming transmission. Priority One - Starfleet Command."

The voice jolted her previously half-dazed senses with a start. Had she imagined it?

A pause. "Go ahead."

The face of the haggard Admiral Paris appeared on the screen. He looked tired and panicked, his round head beaded with sweat and his brow furrowed with determination and focus that rivaled the way Worf looked all the time. Snapping instantly to full alert with her deep blue eyes penetrating into his, she fell back into rank. "Admiral, this is certainly unexpected. What seems to be the problem?"

"I'm afraid I have some bad news. It's Captain Picard. We've just received word from Commander Worf on the Enterprise-E. We are rather short of details at the moment, but all I can tell you is that," he paused, looking solemn. "... well, it appears as though we missed something after Wolf 359, or some other encounter with the Borg since then. Perhaps something after your encounter with Cochrane on Earth. Something, somehow has reasserted itself in Jean-Luc's body."

She didn't need to hear another word. Trying to shrug off the weight of the day and to maintain the professionalism of her face, Beverly knew her voice was shaking. "Where is he, Admiral?"

"The Enterprise is on its way to Earth from an away mission near the Klingon border. I think you'd better get ready for the worst. "

"Understood, Admiral." Fear was beginning to blossom inside of her.

"We've also informed Professor Annika Hansen of this matter. Her experience with the Borg might prove insightful. Unfortunately Voyager's EMH is unavailable. We're giving you everything we have. Admiral Janeway was also in the area when we received the news and will be arriving shortly."

Seven of Nine. The former Borg drone, assimilated as a human at a very young age. She had read the debriefing report that Starfleet had conducted on her. And of course, the legendary Captain Janeway who brought her crew home from the Delta Quadrant, now an Admiral whose lectures on the Delta Quadrant and its wonders Beverly had frequented as an observer at Starfleet Academy.

"I'll appreciate the insight, Admiral. Tell Worf that he'd best hurry. We need to get Jean-Luc in stasis so we can stop whatever is happening to him."

--

Paris, France, Earth. 06:36pm.

Smoke and steam wafted through the Paris/Torres household as strongly scented exotic herbs and spices released their fragrant aroma about the room from the smoldering wok. In truth, B'Elanna Torres preferred to leave all the cooking in the house up to the trusty household replicators, but somehow it just didn't seem satisfying anymore. She had to do something with her hands or else she'd go crazy.

"What I wouldn't do for a warp core breach right about now," she mumbled hotly, stirring the little awkwardly cut up pieces of meat in with the vegetables as they all mingled with a rich, almost blood red sauce.

Tom must have heard her from the living room. "What was that, honey!?"

"Nothing!" She yelled back. "We need to kidnap Neelix back from the Delta Quadrant - or something - I have no idea if this is going to taste any good or not."

Tom Paris looked up from the ancient wall-mounted television, feet up on the table as he lounged comfortably back in his chair. "Uh huh, I'm sure whatever you make is going to taste just fine. Have you heard from our daughter recently?"

"Fast asleep. Those Mok'bara classes. I swear, you have a daughter who's barely walking, even talking, and all she wants to do with her life is Klingon martial arts. Not exactly what I had in mind." Her husband had gotten out of his chair, wrapping his arms around her from behind. "Guess she gets her determination from her mother, hmm?"

B'Elanna sighed, relaxing in her lover's arms. "I don't know, Tom. You know how I feel about these things," she said, pausing a moment to remember the incident on Voyager where she had modified the Doctor's program to remove the Klingon DNA from her then unborn child. "You're right," she smiled broadly, lifting her tone, "We should let her do what she wants."

Grinning, Tom leaned forward, nibbling her ear gently. Barely whispering, he whispered softly in her ear. "Your creation is blackening like a burnt out power relay."

"Is it? Oh! Damn!"

In truth, B'Elanna could have been doing anything she wanted than simply stay at home. Hardly a day had gone by since Voyager's return from the Delta Quadrant before she found herself swarmed by engineers at Starfleet Command, inventors from Starfleet Intelligence, as well as several other Federation-based businesses that were interested in her modifications to Voyager. She had gone to a handful of interviews before getting frustrated with all the attention, shutting herself away from everything and asking anyone else who called to stop. Right now, all she cared about was staying at home with her husband and daughter. Living the quiet life.

Tom, on the other hand, could never stay on the ground for very long, and was soon offered a position at Starfleet Command as a Flight Instructor and test pilot after a more than flattering report from Admiral Janeway, who also saw to any of the remaining criminal charges on his file pardoned.

It was an ideal life and she really could not have asked for anything else to happen. And yet, she still felt like a caged bird.

--

There simply wasn't enough time.

It took a good majority of her focus to keep her hands from shaking as she slipped the tube of neurolytic pathogen into a hypospray. It would slow down any Borg activity running through his body without damaging his organic functions. Beverly only hoped it would be enough. In her mind she told herself to remain calm, as she did with most of her patients.

Picard's mind swam with the voices of the Borg Collective. They were here, somewhere close by. In the Alpha Quadrant. Despite his attempts to move or speak, his body did not listen. He could only lie on the biobed in the Enterprise-E's sickbay as an unfamiliar nurse waved a tricorder in his face. There was no more she or anyone on the Enterprise could do to help him now. He felt like a corpse that was slowly beginning to decompose. The heat from his body beginning to fade - his hands and feet becoming cold.

He could hear the screams of the confused minds of newly assimilated drones, as if they had all been crowded into a cramped room. Above them sang the siren song of the Collective with its precise commands and orders. His muscles cramped, but the pain was mild. And then suddenly from nowhere came a more intense pain, a terrible stabbing pain as he felt the skin on his chest rip and the audible buzz of a Borg implant as it ripped through his uniform. Where his throat churned and his lips parted to scream, only a rasp escaped as the frantic nurse pressed another hypospray against his neck. Sickbay vanished from his eyes as Jean-Luc Picard felt his body spread into pieces in the familiar grasp of a transporter.

The blinking blue lights and the hum of her tricorder were the only sounds in the surgical bay as Beverly conducted her seventh scan. Her Starfleet uniform had been replaced with the heavy maroon shroud of a surgeon, as had the uniforms of her five nurses.

"I'm detecting three Borg implants forming in his body. One at the base of his spine, another attached to the aorta, and another at the base of his neck. Neurolytic pathogens have so far been effective in slowing formation and flow of nanoprobes in his system; however I do not know how long it will be until they adapt."

The doors to the surgical bay opened as another pair of figures arrived. With a sideways glance, Beverly Crusher recognized them as Admiral Janeway and Seven of Nine. The Admiral stayed far back, behind the forcefield, adorned in a bright gray and black Starfleet uniform, her dark brown hair pinned up behind her in a loose bun. Seven of Nine looked nearly identical to the images that Crusher had seen in the images taken during the former drone's debriefing with Starfleet Command, still sporting a form-fitting deep brown-colored cat suit, neutral expression, and simple unexpressed blonde hair.

"It's good to see you. I could use your help figuring out what the hell is going on,' Beverly said, slightly more hotly than she intended. Seven raised a brow at her before nodding, her eyes turning to the console on the other side of the forcefield.

Janeway stepped forward. "I thought you removed all the Borg technology from his body."

Even if the Admiral meant no offense, Janeway's critique hit a nerve. Perhaps she really had missed something when Locutus once again became Jean-Luc Picard. No, she couldn't have. "I did, Admiral. There has been absolutely nothing wrong with him in his medical records from the Enterprise since then that would relate to this. I've managed to disable the new Borg implants, only to see them reactivate themselves a few seconds later."

She felt helpless. A complete loss. She had removed Borg implants from her former Captain before, even dozens of crew after the encounter with the Borg after the Enterprise's journey through time, but these were different somehow. Beforehand, with a bit of tinkering, she could easily heal partially assimilated crew members, but those methods were completely ineffective now.

Beverly looked up from her tricorder at Seven of Nine and the Admiral across the forcefield. Janeway was hovering over Seven's shoulder, whose face seemed to radiate a look of disgust and confusion.

"These implants are... outdated."

Janeway raised a brow. "Outdated?"

"Yes. The Borg no longer install these implants on new drones, but have integrated their functions into other hardware. The nanoprobes are also of an older generation. I will attempt to deactivate them," Seven looked up and walked towards the arch that blocked the way into the surgical bay with a gleaming blue forcefield. "I will need access to the surgical bay to proceed."

Beverly looked up, her deep blue eyes fixed on the former Borg drone. She had read in the debriefing that Seven of Nine was extremely forward, almost inconsiderate, in nature, but she really she had no other alternative at this point and Jean-Luc's life may have been at stake "Computer, deactivate quarantine field."

The forcefield vanished with a brief buzzing sound as Seven quickly walked in. Without another word, she raised an ivory fist and a pair of metallic tubules pierced through the flesh just behind her knuckles and into the Borg implant jutting from the Starfleet captain's flesh. Beverly stared, looking back up to the Admiral. Lowering her tricorder, she focused her eyes. "I hope she knows what she's doing..."

Seven of Nine's eyes darted back in a chaotic swing of rapid eye movement, seemingly oblivious to the world around her.