Captain's Log Supplemental, Stardate 58519.8: As noted in my main log, today, at 1804 hours, we finally reached the rendezvous point with the Borg Resistance vessel. General Korok, he may be Klingon but he's still managed to maintain some sense of efficiency, was already there waiting, though in a different Cube than the one we helped him seize, the one which was briefly my home, four years ago. Thankfully, he beamed over at once with his best doctor, or I suppose you could call her an engineer since she deals mostly in repairing Borg implants at this point, a Vulcan named T'Nara. They went straight to Sickbay, we've been in contact so often now that they didn't need a debriefing, and have been assessing Seven's condition now for almost five hours. I've just been summoned to Sickbay, hopefully to receive the first good news since the baby was born. T'Nara seems willing to begin the operation at once, but the Doctor seems wary and wants to study the replacement cortical array more closely before proceeding. I suppose I can't blame him, considering that it's Seven's life that's on the line, but she's been hanging on by a thread for six months now. For myself, a large part of me wants to know either way, if we can continue with these life prolonging efforts or if we have to let her go and grieve, and I've always suspected Chakotay has felt that way, whatever it's cost him emotionally. End log.
Sickbay's lights were on their dimmed, night time setting, despite the number of people crowded inside as Captain Janeway too entered. It didn't take her eyes long to adjust, the lighting suited the taut, sombre mood; it was what she saw that knocked the wind out of her completely. For a few suspenseful seconds she convinced herself she was too far from the biobed to judge properly, and thus moved from the doorway to the back of the room, where the most secluded biobed and thus the Doctor's longest-term patient were located, but unfortunately as she approached she saw that her eyes had not deceived her. "A ventilator?" she choked out, a new wave of devastation surging over her despite the fact that she'd been telling herself that Seven's death was likely for months now even as she searched for help. "Has the cortical array shut down to the point where she can't even breathe independently now? I thought it was stable enough to perform at least those basic autonomic functions…"
The Doctor merely turned his face away from her, his lips pressing together in distress. It was T'Nara, the willowy dark-skinned Vulcan, who looked up from her medical tricorder to glance Janeway's way. "The cortical array is in the same state it has been since this problem began, I wouldn't define that as functional, but yes we've transferred all the functions it was still performing for her body to external systems." Though her face remained impassive as Janeway flinched, she obviously felt it was logical to explain. "In order to conduct the cortical array transplant, the one she has must be removed, and in her weakened state that would kill Seven of Nine instantaneously. By transferring her life support to a heart and lung machine we can ensure she stays alive both during the transplant and then while her implants are adapting to the new array." Her tone dropped, revealing conviction for the first time, "We are attempting to give her the best chance of surviving intact Captain."
Janeway's gaze flickered to Chakotay, sitting hunched over the biobed, his knees crammed against it, the narrow slab that had become Seven's world and so by extension his, gently caressing his wife's limp and unresponsive human hand, his thumb occasionally grazing her wedding ring which was now loose on her withered fingers. Although he'd been vocal, passionately and desperately so, while they'd been trying to ensure the Resistance's help for Seven, now that that help had come he seemed incapable of interacting with it. So instead his Captain took it upon herself to question the situation, "She may survive, she's been alive through this whole ordeal, but will she regain consciousness?"
The Doctor spoke up now, his voice husky. "We believe so Captain. As I've explained there hasn't been significant damage to her brain that I can find, but her human physiology and her Borg technology are so interconnected that one cannot function without the other, losing the majority of function in her cortical array thus left her comatose."
Janeway swallowed hard, "I still don't fully understand Doctor, when her original cortical node began to fail she was going to die within days before Icheb intervened, but she was never rendered comatose like this…"
"That instance was more acute, and I've studied more about cortical arrays and cortical nodes since then, this deterioration has been gradual, not a complete shut down."
Janeway bowed her head, tempted for a moment to look towards Sickbay's other occupant, but instead kept her eyes on Seven. "Was it the strain of pregnancy that caused the deterioration?" she asked thickly, "She was fine before…"
"It was a factor." T'Nara cut her off coolly, "Perhaps to use the human phrase, 'the last straw', but I believe, from what the Resistance has experienced, that the Doctor's procedure to bypass the emotional fail-safe in her cortical node compromised her entire cortical array. I am surprised she managed to fully function for three years in that state."
"I exchanged one ticking time bomb for another one when I conducted that operation." The Doctor ground out, his fists clenched at his sides.
A violent shudder visibly shook Chakotay's frame as he turned to the Doctor with dark, hooded eyes, underscored by the purple bruises of exhaustion. "Would you prefer that she never got to experience the fullness of humanity?" He croaked out, shaking his head as the Doctor took a step back from him, contradicting himself before the Doctor could, "She'd be awake then…" He unconsciously switched the hand which was holding hers, her right hand in his left, the matching glint of their wedding rings taunting him, "…but maybe not really alive either."
"No, she wouldn't be." The Captain agreed more resolutely.
Korok nodded, his forehead ridges, still particularly prominent since he'd yet to regain his full mane of hair, knotting together as he frowned. "Fate has dealt her a cruel hand, but her warrior's spirit is battling to defeat that fate. It is unfortunate though that she received her first transplant from another child drone as she herself was."
The Doctor's head pivoted round to him, "Why?" he demanded, though his voice was full of dread.
"The emotional failsafe is a component unique to child drones." T'Nara explained, "Such intricate manipulation of the brain is only possible at an immature stage."
"Of course!" The Doctor exclaimed, "Children don't have fully development emotional control systems…"
"And such control of the drones raised in the Collective raises their perfection." Korok muttered, "Their methods know no bounds, but at least the Resistance have also perfected cortical arrays designed for transplant, we can thwart them!"
Janeway smiled faintly at the bombastic pride in his voice. "Thank you again General, for coming to our aid. I know you're still fully engaged in your guerrilla war against the Borg, and intercepting with us has meant a huge detour and a five month journey…"
Korok regarded her, bristling with offence. "It would've been dishonourable to do otherwise Captain." He responded seriously, "Without the intervention of both Seven of Nine and your vessel we would've been slaughtered by the Collective. Axum, though too distant to come to her aid as he wished to, made the strongest possible argument possible that we should do all we can to save his mate…" He cleared his throat with a mildly embarrassed glance at Chakotay through furrowed brows, one bushy, one starkly metallic, "…his former mate."
Janeway looked towards Chakotay in concern, but the broken man didn't even react to the mention of his wife's lost love. T'Nara, ignoring the awkwardness of the moment, added smoothly, "It was our only logical course of action Captain, even for the morale of the Resistance alone without the emotional factors, Seven of Nine, or Annika Hansen as she is still commonly known, is an icon amongst us. News of her death at the Collective's hands would devastate many beyond Voyager."
"Of course." Janeway replied stiltedly before her voice was sharpened by pain, "When can you perform the procedure?"
T'Nara looked towards the Doctor, who replied with a somewhat reluctant nod. "We will proceed from 0700 hours. I require a full regeneration cycle to be at my full capacity."
"We have alcoves available in Cargo Bay 2." The Captain said, almost without thinking, then grimaced. That Cargo Bay had served as Seven's quarters, her personal space, though she and Icheb had happily shared in latter years, right up until her wedding day.
T'Nara gave her head a gentle shake, "I appreciate the offer Captain, but I will return to the Cube."
"Fine." Janeway agreed tiredly, moving timidly towards the biobed as T'Nara and Korok both moved aside to update their vessel on the situation via Sickbay's comm. access console. Despite this new hive of activity forming and buzzing around her, the centre of it all, Seven herself, remained oblivious, cut off. The golden locks which had once been her crowning glory after a lifetime of the Borg stripping her femininity had been shorn within two weeks of her collapse, to make caring for her easier. The downy layer of dried out, colour sapped hair still feathering her scalp emphasised how much her fine features had been blurred, like water causing streaks in a fresh painting. The pregnancy had filled out her face in some respects, but the ashen tint to her skin disguised any glow lingering hormones might've brought out. If anything, the changes brought on by pregnancy, such as the bloating or the recently deflated stomach, only made the deterioration throughout her body starker; the stick thin arms, the shrunken shoulders, the loose, unresponsive face. The Doctor had assured her that Seven hadn't been losing weight, counterintuitive though that concern might've seemed in a heavily pregnant then post partum woman, but any tone in her once athletic muscles had completely gone. The feeding tube, which until tonight had been the main medical intervention, hadn't been able to prevent that kind of wastage. Now of course, the biobed was surrounded by new machines, many glowering with the sickly green light synonymous with the Borg, each with its own winding tube or wire cutting into Seven's helpless form.
Janeway tentatively placed a hand on Chakotay's shoulder as they both stared down at Seven. "It…it seems more real now somehow." She murmured shakily as she forced her unwilling eyes to absorb the sight of a full breathing tube down Seven's throat, her face almost completely obscured by the multiple apparatus. "Before today I could almost convince myself she was just sleeping."
Chakotay's eyes closed even as he stiffened, shrugging off her comforting hand as he repudiated her words, "Seven's never looked like she was sleeping here." He countered hoarsely, his voice soon diminishing into a barely audible whisper, "She's peaceful when she sleeps, or expressive…" He trailed off, thinking about the treasured moments he'd drowsily watched her sleep as they lay in bed. Such times had been rare, Seven always seemed to know when he was studying her like that, but he'd been able to see that she was often more expressive in her dream world than she allowed herself to be in real life, quicker to smile, or frown, or tear up. Right now he'd do anything to see her arching her eyebrow at him, or smirking as they threw their own style of banter back and forth, but most of all he wanted to see that surprised, grateful glimmer that entered her eyes whenever she laughed, that impulse could still catch her unawares.
"I'm sorry." The Captain replied heavily, raising her voice in a subconscious attempt to drown out the mechanical rasp of the ventilator, but it was inescapable.
Korok's deliberately strong footfalls echoed behind them. "The crew within the Cube are in agreement with our plan, T'Nara will return to the ship to regenerate and gather together the last of her equipment before she comes back here to begin the operation with the Doctor at 0700 hours.
"More equipment?" Janeway echoed falteringly as her eyes again skimmed over the crowd of machines that surrounded Seven's biobed, leaving hardly any room for someone to sit at her bedside, through Chakotay had made sure to remain stationed there as people had milled around him all day.
"As I'm sure Seven of Nine has told you before, Borg scanning equipment is more accurate than what Voyager possesses." T'Nara remarked.
Janeway smiled sadly, "Yes, she has made that point on more than one occasion." She conceded, "We'll make sure all of your necessary equipment is accommodated."
T'Nara responded with a polite nod, "Thank you Captain. If everything goes smoothly then I have reasonable confidence in our success and thus Seven's recovery."
"That's good to hear." The Captain replied, her spirits bolstered, "I'm sure Seven is glad to hear it too." At Korok's confused grunt she explained, "She's had consistent levels of brain activity, and all of our medical science leads us to believe that coma patients have some capacity to hear…"
"I hope she can't." Chakotay ground out suddenly.
Janeway and the Doctor turned to him in bewilderment; they'd both heard him speaking to his wife, for long stretches each day since she'd been struck down. He'd even used his medicine wheel to guide her spirit, as B'Elanna had for him years ago. "What do you mean by that Chakotay?" Janeway questioned tightly, her voice fraying with the stress she was under.
"Because we haven't talked about what we're going to do if this doesn't work, and I don't want her to hear that." Chakotay answered hoarsely, his gaze focusing again on the hand he held rather than those shocked faces around him, "You know that Seven would say we're ignoring the obvious. If we fail…"
"I don't think any of us have hung on this long just to give up…" Janeway choked out harshly after a long, torturous pause to collect her scattered thoughts.
"I don't intend to fail Commander, you know that." The Doctor cut in heatedly, "You're forgetting that we have the expertise of an entire Cube of former drones at our disposal now, we may be able to plan another treatment…"
"And for how long would we pursue that?" Chakotay muttered darkly, "A month? A year? A decade?" He spat out the last one and Janeway flinched back, hearing the reference to Voyager's long journey. He stood up abruptly, but immediately wobbled on unsteady feet, bracing himself on the biobed as he stared them down with deadened eyes, "You told me Doctor, before we contacted the Resistance, that there was hardly hope, that if there wasn't the baby to think of…" He choked on whatever his next words were but recovered, "What's changed if this fails? I knew that she'd do anything to save the baby, that's how I justified this…" He gestured weakly at the lifeless form on the biobed but his eyes were aflame with powerful agony, "But do you really think Seven would want to keep living…existing like this? It's not fair to inflict this on her just because I can't let go…" A sob broke free of his constricted throat and his knees started to buckle, "How am I supposed to explain to our daughter that I allowed her mother to endure this beyond what she ever would've wanted…"
It was Korok who moved forward to hold him up, grasping him by the elbows as his friends drew back, too stricken themselves to offer even physical support. Korok however, met the Starfleet Commander's eyes with new and certain respect. "There comes a point where releasing someone is the only option available to maintain their integrity and honour. Only you can decide when that time comes, but know that Annika's entrance into Sto'Vo'Kor is guaranteed by her honourable life as well as her death."
Janeway grimaced, though she knew that Korok had meant his words as kind reassurance and could see that Chakotay was taking it as such, but personally she didn't see the viewpoint of a Klingon, raised in a culture that accepted ritual suicide, as applicable in this situation, however painfully Chakotay's points hit home. Her heart began to hammer through her ears to the extent that she utterly ignored Seven's daughter's thin, unsettled cries until they were strengthened by an awareness of hunger. Dazed, she turned to glance vaguely at the incubator, which Chakotay was already stumbling tiredly towards. "B'Elanna or Sam would be happy to attend to her Chakotay…" She advised him sharply, seized with an irrational, impotent anger towards the man to the point where she didn't want him near the child.
Chakotay answered without pausing to look at her. "Not tonight Kathryn."
The anger drained out of her as soon as it had come, pity and sorrow filling the void left behind. Chakotay definitely had lost weight, his uniform hung off his gaunt frame. In many ways his physical deterioration mirrored his wife's, and the emotions she'd been robbed of pressed down on him. B'Elanna had confided that she suspected Chakotay's depression had actually deepened since his daughter's birth; through he'd utterly broken down with relief on the day. Janeway could only suppose it was reality hitting him now, the cycle of suspended grief and tortured hope coming home to roost.
T'Nara turned to her holographic colleague curiously, "Our crew were asking for a report on the welfare of the child…"
The Doctor tried to maintain a smile, a little pride entering his eyes. "She'll be a week old tomorrow. I performed the caesarean just over three weeks early; I didn't want to risk nature jumping the gun. She's a little underweight, but otherwise she's on track to be perfectly healthy." He lowered his voice, "In all honesty Doctor T'Nara, I think Seven's cortical array's activity being so minimal, and thus her nanoprobes inactive, probably saved the health of the baby…"
"That would make sense." T'Nara agreed solemnly.
Korok approached them, having overheard the report on the baby. "Does she have a designation worthy of her house?" He didn't seem to notice how Borg phrasing affected a typical Klingon sentiment.
"We've been calling her Annika, Anni, so far…informally." The Doctor replied awkwardly, "None of us were sure how Seven would like having a namesake, but it seemed appropriate. If she doesn't like it when she comes round tomorrow, then I'm sure Chakotay would be happy to change it."
"I hope they do not change it." Korok opined, unable to stop himself from putting his two cents in, "It is an honourable name, and I'm sure the mother will see that when she wakes, or the father will appreciate the remembrance in time. The Resistance will certainly approve."
"Logically our approval should not feature high in their list of priorities." T'Nara reminded Korok, "Seven's recovery, if the operation is successful, will be psychological as well as physical."
A/n: Yes, it's dark so far, but please review. I intend to prioritise this story, 'The Girl Next Door', 'The Gift' and 'Come Away with Me in the Night' for the rest of the term, so my other stories probably won't be updated until I'm on my Easter break and have more time, but have no fear, uni breaks for the holiday on the 28th of this month, whew, so you won't be waiting too long. ;)