A/N: Maybe not one of my best fics but it was a hell of a lot of fun to write :) Again, my prompt was "Uppity Borg Lizard Baby Fanfic" and I couldn't have been more pleased
I'll admit that it was stupid to wander so far away from Voyager, but I trusted Tom as a pilot and anyways we hadn't detected any activity in the area for days. We'd gone out to investigate a weird radiation source from a large chunk of space rock, but it had not proven useful so we were on our way back. We were relaxed and happy to have been able to go on the small outing, so I didn't even mind that it was going to take another hour or so to make it back to Voyager.
That was when the alert popped up on the console: there was a ship nearby. How could that be? After further investigation, we saw that the ship was coming from behind us, from the space that Voyager couldn't protect the shuttle from. It was strange that we hadn't noticed it sooner, but perhaps they'd been cloaked or were traveling at a much faster pace. We had no choice but to continue on and wait for the ship to overtake us. It was of a model that we could not distinguish, probably an alien species we had not yet encountered.
"Incoming transmission." Tom announced, looking to me for approval.
"Put it through." I nodded, a feeling of dread and anxiety spreading up inside me. There was no good reason to fear these mysterious aliens, but my experience taught me otherwise. Not everyone in the universe adhered to Federation ideals. Not everyone was interested in just talking. It was a good sign that they were hailing first, instead of going straight for the kill.
"Please power down your vehicle." It was an audio transmission only, the voice muffled. "Lower your shields and prepare exit the craft."
"Now wait just a-"
"You and your vessel will not be harmed." The monotonous voice continued, as if it'd gone through the procedure many times before. "We would like to talk." Couldn't we talk through the viewscreen then? There was something these aliens weren't telling us. However, I felt guilty for being immediately suspicious of the strangers. Maybe it was just their way of saying hello. It was hard to turn down a first-contact opportunity, especially when they appeared to have advanced warp technology. A trade agreement would make our excursion worthwhile.
"What do we have to lose?" Tom asked, echoing my sentiments. Agreeing, I did as the aliens had asked and waited for further instruction. There was a loud bang accompanied by a rocking motion as our shuttle was taken in by the larger ship. It couldn't have been as big as voyager, but I was unsure about how large or powerful it really was. Tom and I filed out into the alien area, where a small congregation of humanoid creatures were waiting. The aliens were not anything notable or out of the ordinary; many of their features resembled our own and we were accustomed to seeing new races at that point in our journey.
"Welcome." One of them spoke, the voice sounding very similar to the one that had given us instructions.
"Who are you?" I asked, "What are we doing here?" The aliens hadn't forced us into our position, but they'd given us little choice. I had no idea what kind of weapons their ship was equipped with, but it would probably out-gun the Delta Flyer if put to the test.
"It is not us you must speak with." The alien continued. "We are simply a crew and ship for hire. There are three aboard—the ones that employed us—who would like to have a word." No further details about the 'employers' were given. "If you are ready, I'll show you the way." My mind told me to refuse, but I was far too curious to turn down the opportunity. Tom and I were brought to a conference room. Our hosts left us then and I hoped it would not be for too long; as much as I wanted to interact with these strangers, if the two of us were too delayed, Voyager would begin to get worried and come looking for us. It wasn't worth putting the strain on the rest of the crew.
Fortunately, we didn't have to wait long. The door swished open and three aliens—very different looking than the ones we'd previously been introduced to—entered. They seemed to be of a reptilian species, though their skin was smooth and wet-looking instead of dry and scaly like others I'd come in contact with. The first alien was the tallest and lightest-skinned, a pale peach color with a such a shine that almost looked like a creamy glaze. This alien was the most slender and had the lengthiest neck. Two long and straight feelers hung limply from the alien's upper lip, extending almost all the way down to the base of its neck. The second alien was only a couple of inches taller than me. Its feelers were short and bent inward in a crescent shape and had a skin tone that was more vibrant than the first, a sort of fiery orange. The third and final alien was the shortest and was not as slight as the others. It was the darkest-colored—a reddish-purple—and the feelers on this third alien were curly and bounced about as the alien walked.
"Do you know who we are?" The tallest one finally asked, slender tail swishing as it spoke.
"I can't say we've ever met." I think I would've remembered meeting aliens of this breed. Tom nodded in agreement, letting me take the lead on this one.
"I told you!" The shortest one muttered to the alien in the middle. The tone was almost one of distress. "I told you they wouldn't remember."
"Shh…" The second alien hushed in response, almost irritated. "Give them some time. They will." I had a feeling that Tom and I weren't meant to hear that. I didn't notice any features that looked like ears as we knew them, so perhaps the aliens did not have as much of a sense of hearing as Humans did.
"It was a number of years ago." The first alien continued on, "We looked different then. We were lesser creatures. Children." Children? We hadn't run into many children during our travels. Especially none of this reptilian species.
"How old are you?" Tom asked then, cocking his head slightly, probably trying to gauge their sense of time. It was a good idea to try and see how long their lifespans were, but I wasn't sure it was particularly relevant. The aliens seemed to agree.
"It doesn't matter. We were matured and evolved artificially by the Borg."
"The Borg?" My heart beat a little faster then. Anybody involved with the Borg was somebody that I wasn't going to hang around with. I stepped a little closer to the door, hoping to make a quick exit. If the Borg were nearby, I had to get a message out to the ship.
"Don't think of leaving, Mother." The second alien piped up, "We'll all go when everyone is ready." Mother? I shot a quick glance at Tom. The blood was draining from his face as he stared at the aliens. What was- oh. Oh no. It couldn't be. That was thousands of lightyears away, a distant memory that both of us had promised to keep locked away.
"You've spoiled it." The tallest alien looked to the middle one now, sounding slightly upset. "We were going to give clues, remember? You gave it away."
"It was taking too long!" The second one snapped, "They needed a little help."
"They remember!" The third one squinted happily, "Reunited with our parents at last!"
"Hold on." I reached for my head now, feeling a bit dizzy. This couldn't be happening. It was a dream, some sort of Paris-induced holographic nightmare. "Are you telling me… you three are the lizard babies?" There had never been any sort of official title for them, but that was what I'd been forced to make a note of them as in the report. We'd left them behind on that planet, thinking we'd never see them again. We were apparently wrong.
"I guess you could call us that." The tallest agreed, as if no thought had been given to it before.
"How did you get… here?" Tom asked, looking to be in even more shock as I was.
"You left us." The middle alien growled, "The Borg saved us. Rescued us."
"They tried to figure out what we were." The shortest one continued, "By the time they'd modified us enough to get information out of us-" Gesturing to the bipedal nature of the three of them, "-they discovered what we were."
"Advanced Humans." The first alien nodded, "Nothing special. No knew knowledge to contribute to the collective. They-"
"-let us go." The second cut in again, "Monitored our business but never interfered. We were free to do what we wanted."
"We wanted to find you!" The third one bounced, "We hired a ship, tracked you down!"
"It was just our luck that we caught you away from the ship." The tallest alien remarked. Luck indeed. I wouldn't have been surprised if there was more to the story than what they were telling us. "We understand that this may all come as a bit of a surprise to you both. We'll give you some space." One last lingering look, and then the three of them edged out of the room. I had no doubt we were being spied upon, but at least it gave Tom and I some time to talk without the aliens chattering away.
"So…" Tom finally spoke up, turning to face me. "How about that?"
"Yeah…" It was awkward, even more so than the conversation we'd had in Sickbay after being devolved back into regular Humans. "Something tells me the Borg wouldn't have just 'let them go'."
"You think it's a trap?" Didn't he?
"I don't know what to think." It was all still pretty overwhelming. It was one thing when we could forget the three existed, when we could write them off as animals left behind. But now that they were people… could we do the same? Would it be right just to leave them behind again, after all the work they'd clearly done to find us? I wasn't ready to be a parent. I didn't know the first thing about having a kid. Even if they'd been matured, there would be expectations. I didn't need that kind of responsibility over all of my other duties!
"I think we have to take that chance." At this, I just gave him a look. It was his willingness to take a chance that had gotten us into the situation in the first place. "It doesn't matter what they are, they're still our kids! I say bring on the Borg. We've dealt with them before, we can deal with them again."
"I just don't know how we can justify brining three new crew members aboard without any sort of approval." For one thing, Chakotay certainly wouldn't like it. I'm sure there were plenty of others who would resist the change as well.
"You took a chance on me, Captain." Tom blinked, "You took a chance on letting the Marquis join. You took a chance on Neelix and Kes. You took a chance on Seven and Icheb and the other Borg kids." Yes, yes. Those were all risks that paid off. Somewhat. But there also a number of alien races we'd welcomed onto the ship who had turned out to be not so friendly. I wasn't trying to be the bad guy, but I had to look out for the ship. These lizards might be our children but they were also strangers with hidden motives. What if they were the ones that prevented us from getting home? And that was another thing, what would we do with the lizard babies once we got back to the Alpha Quadrant? It was just a messy situation from every angle. "Give them a chance." Then again, they were still my kids.
"Ok." I conceded, although I still had my reservations. "But you're going to have to be the one to get them acclimated to ship life. And I don't want to see any of your… bad habits… rubbing off on them." Seriously, it was hard enough having one Tom Paris running around the ship. The two of us stood there heatedly discussing plans until the three aliens came striding back into the conference room. None of them spoke, probably waiting to see if I had anything to say first. "We've decided… you can come back with us, if that's what you want." They visibly breathed sighs of relief, as if they hadn't been expecting that verdict.
"We very much would like that." The shortest one smiled, and then I was sure that we'd made the right decision.
We flew back to Voyager in the shuttle, having let the rented ship go. The five of us spoke mostly about the lizard babies, trying to get a feel for what each of their personalities were like. From what I could gather, the tallest alien was the sort of leader for their small group. The first alien also had a quality of thoughtfulness; it was clear that this child of ours didn't quickly jump into anything without first imagining the consequences. I couldn't imagine where that trait could have come from because it certainly wasn't from either Tom or me. The second alien was the more aggressive and determined one, the one that seemed the most like myself, although I certainly saw elements of Tom present. The third one was a self-proclaimed brilliant engineer with great intellect and an excitable, amiable personality. It was an odd mix of characters, but I couldn't find it in myself to be disappointed with any of the first-impressions.
"We understand that you're nervous." The tallest alien said, picking up on some of my anxiety. "Don't worry. We meant it when we promised not to hurt you."
"Yeah!" The engineer nodded, agreeing strongly, "You're our parents, after all." Still, I couldn't help but feel a bit on edge. It came with a great deal of relief when Voyager was finally within sight. If something went wrong, at least the ship would be there to back us up. Thankfully, the five of us made it all the way back without so much as a scratch. As we walked down the halls to get to our own conference room we drew a great many stares from other members of the crew. The senior staff wasn't much better, staring blatantly at the lizards as I was sure Tom and I had done at the beginning. Explaining the situation wasn't easy. We were met with silence and a tense atmosphere after the briefing was over.
"So…" B'Elanna broke the quiet by addressing the smallest alien. "You're an engineer, huh?"
"Yes!" The alien exclaimed, "I will begin work at once!"
"Maybe we should do a proficiency test first." Harry suggested. Then, after a slight hesitation, "A placement test. So we can see where everybody fits in." That was not only a good idea, but also incredibly nice. I was glad that it looked as though those two were going to be accepting—even if a bit wary—of the new arrivals. Tuvok, always the balance to my decisions, asked that they be placed on constant security watch for the first couple of days. Although I didn't want to appear suspicious, that was probably also a good idea… just knowing our track record with Delta Quadrant aliens. One could never be too careful. As if on cue, the lights went out in the room and were quickly replaced with the emergency ones. Red alert?
"Bridge," I called, after hitting my combadge, "What's going on."
"A Borg sphere just appeared on sensors, Captain." The other officer replied, "They're heading our way."
"The Borg?" I stood up quickly, "What is this?"
"An invasion." The tallest alien calmly reported, looking unfazed. "Assimilation, if you will."
"You said you wouldn't hurt us!" Tom accused, "Some promise."
"There was no lie." The alien continued, before the second one cut in.
"You and Mother will come with us!" As if that was some sort of grand prize. Then, I understood. They said they wouldn't hurt us, as in only Tom and I. Everybody else had been left out of the deal. "The Borg only want the ship and its crew. They originally wanted the captain of course, but we drove a hard bargain." I could only imagine what kind of negotiations that must've been. What did the lizard babies have that the Borg wanted?
"You can't do this." I leaned forward on the large desk now. "Not only will I not allow the Borg to get their tubules on any members of this crew, neither Tom nor I are going anywhere with the three of you."
"You should do what's best for you." The tallest alien said, "Don't make it more difficult than it has to be."
"What gives you the right to decide what's best for us?"
"We are better." All three of the lizard babies droned at once, "More evolved. You wouldn't understand."
"Maybe that's true." Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. There was no time to debate who was 'better' at the moment. "If it's Tom and I you want, why not just take us? You could've taken control of the shuttle, or driven away while we were aboard your ship. Why involve the rest of the crew?"
"It was part of the deal we made with the Borg." The fire-colored alien grinned, looking pleased. "Besides, we wanted revenge!"
"THEY-" The smallest one looked around the room excitedly, "-left us there on that planet to die."
"We understand that the two of you didn't have a choice in it." The slender alien looked first at me, then at Tom. "That you were taken from us against your will. There's no fault in that."
"We had no choice either." Chakotay spoke up now, defending his actions. "It was the right thing to do at the time. We assumed you would survive and obviously we were right." Not exactly the kind of de-escalation I had in mind, but at least he was trying. "I'm sorry if you don't like it, but we needed our people back. Leaving them in that swamp would have ruined the rest of our chances at getting back to our home planet."
"Even if you change our minds, it's too late. The Borg are already on their way."
"They can't get in without you here, right?"
"Right! We need to send out the codes for the shields." The shortest alien nodded, "Without us on the inside, they wouldn't try. It's only a sphere, after all." So that was why the kid was so eager to get to work in engineering. Well, we'd had enough run-ins with the Borg to know how they tried to strategize.
"So what if we make them think you aren't here anymore?"
"They wouldn't believe it."
"What if we made them think you were dead?" I was met with silence from both parties. "The computer still has all of the data from the… initial incident. We could program some of the sensors to transmit the data logs from when Tom died. His DNA was advanced enough by that point, it'll read like it came from the three of you." Or at least close enough. "We can make our escape and then you'll be free to stay. Without the pressure of having to sabotage everything."
"…I don't know." The pale alien frowned, "We don't want to disappoint you, Mother. We want to make you proud, but-"
"-we don't think the rest of the crew could ever accept us." The middle alien continued. They'd agreed to come aboard before, but perhaps that was only because they thought they would only be making a quick visit. Now that it was a prolonged stay, they were more hesitant about jumping on.
"And not just because of our tails!" The third lizard baby finished.
"It's certainly not going to be easy." Not that it ever had been. "But we abandoned you once and I still feel guilty about that. We're not going to make that mistake again." I gave a hard look at my second officer. He would probably have the most difficult time getting used to having the lizards around, but he was just going to have to make a conscious effort to be nice. Even he would learn to get along, for my sake. There was one more thing we needed to address. "Are you sure the Borg never fully assimilated you?"
"I don't think they could." The tallest remarked, "Their technology was not fully compatible with our DNA; that's why they started trying to change it." I wasn't sure that I completely understood it, but for some reason I trusted that it was the truth.
"Ok." I held up a hand just as the other two aliens were starting to speak, "We can talk about that later. First, let's deal with the Borg."
"Yes, Mother." They all chimed at once.
"That's another thing," I cringed, "Don't call me 'mother'."