CHAPTER 1

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Umbriel, one of the biggest moons around Uranus, was a gloomy and uninviting world. Its surface was the darkest of the Uranian moons and the temperature maintained below -200 degrees Celsius. In this harsh, quiet and motionless world the ground was filled with icy rocks, craters and mountains. Only the dark sky above provided some beauty to this otherwise lifeless moon. Uranus dominated the sky as a massive turquoise ball and the countless stars of Milky Way shone brightly against the blackness of the universe. The sun, which was considerable smaller here, stood out between the stars as a yellowish bright spot in the sky. It was almost difficult to believe that there was life so near to this dead world, even in the same solar system just a shuttle drive away. But since there was nothing in significance to be found on this moon, humans had left Umbriel untouched. And untouched it was and it seemed like the time stood still on this cold and abandoned moon. Chakotay truly felt isolated and alone here.

Chakotay wore his white environmental suit, which protected him from the void of the space. As he walked, he kept observing the light gray surroundings behind his unopenable visor. He did not have a tricorder with him, because he was not here as a Starfleet officer; he had flown here with his Alpha Flyer as civilian without informing anyone where he had left. He was not a Starfleet officer anymore, so there was no one to inform when leaving off worlds. And coming here alone had been the preferable way for him. Fortunately there was no life on Umbriel, so there was no need to scan the area with a tricorder, though it would have made his search a little easier. But in the motionless environment he was able to observe the surroundings with his own eyes as well. And in the darkness of Umbriel, the light under the environmental suit's helmet would illuminate the whereabouts of the person Chakotay was now looking for.

Chakotay felt uneasy. Just this morning he had been on Earth without even imagining coming here. But he was here now. From all the places in the galaxy, he was here. Even though he felt the Umbriel ground beneath his own feet, he had still difficulties to comprehend that he had really come here where there was nothing. Or where should have been nothing. He had visited on many moons in this solar system during his training at the Academy, but Umbriel had not been one of them. This was his first time on this very moon, but it still provided only little to see.

"Where are you…?" he whispered to himself. "You have to be near here somewhere."

His sensors in Alpha Flyer had found another Federation shuttle easily approximately few kilometers away from his current position. He had flown circles around it couple of times, trying to find a human being on the moon with his own eyes, but he had not seen anything on the dark rocky ground. Alpha Flyer's sensors were pretty beaten already and desperately in a need of repair. If he had anticipated needing the sensors soon, he had got them fixed. But he had not. He had not expected to go further than Mars and certainly not on a search mission of this kind. So since the sensors on Alpha Flyer had revealed practically nothing, he had landed his Flyer near the other shuttle and left on foot.

Chakotay sighed. The icy serenity around him brought the conversation back to him from the last Tuesday night. They had lied awake on his bed and debated about the issue Chakotay had already decided to drop weeks ago. But she hadn't. For some reason Tessa had got stuck on the issue and before he had known, she had already suggested to do something that was utterly unimaginable and totally out of the question.

"What if she is telling the truth?" Tessa had asked.

"She has not been herself lately", he had insisted. "So I wouldn't take this… dream of hers seriously."

"But you believed her for awhile. Just admit it."

"For a moment I did, yes", he had admitted. "But more I thought about it, clearer it become that there is nothing to it. Seven has had very difficult time to adjust on being fully human and the death of her aunt has not helped her situation at all. I am worried about her. If she doesn't accept more intense professional help soon, there is a chance her mental health will deteriorate even more than it already has."

"We met her, you and me together, and she seemed to be pretty clear-headed at the time. And she was serious. There was no dishonesty in her eyes."

"Tessa", he had said calmly, "please stop this. This leads to nowhere."

"You wanted to believe her too", she had reminded. "I know you did. For a moment you did seriously consider checking her story out by yourself. So I don't understand why you are so reluctant now."

"Because I don't want to feed this illusion of hers. Don't you see what she is doing to herself? I want to help her, I really do, but I am not the one she needs right now. She needs psychotherapy to get over her past and support to accept the present."

"I know she has her issues, but she truly believes what she is saying."

"I know she does, but it still doesn't make it true."

"But it would help her to know that you still trust her and appreciate her enough to check the situation out."

"What if it was true?" he had asked then. "Then what? If such a thing like 'royal resurrection vinculum' really exists, what then? Why would we want to find it? Don't you understand how dangerous something like that would be?"

"Of course I do!"

"And do you really believe that such a device would still be in our solar system? Tessa – that cannot be true. Seven doesn't know what she is talking about anymore. She has had a dream about the vinculum couple of times and now she believes it is true. But how can it be? How could she know about it? There is nothing Borg in her body anymore. So how would she know something like that? How would she be able to sense Borg technology now?"

"I don't know", Tessa had replied. "Maybe there is still something so fundamentally Borg in her, which gives her this weird unique instinct of some kind."

"I don't believe that Tessa. All Seven has now is her need to cling to the collective, because her identity needs it. She is lost, she feels alone, so she is making up stories like this. The fact is that during the years I have known her, she has never even mentioned such a device existing before now. That tells me that she is imagining this. She still needs the Borg on some level and this is a perfect example of her not letting the collective go."

"But she did say that only the Queen would be aware of such a device. Perhaps only few drones, the ones near the Queen, were aware of the vinculum."

"They were the collective mind, Tessa. If one drone knew about it, they all did. Not to mention that Seven was not the Queen", Chakotay had reminded. "Which proves my point – there is no such a thing as royal resurrection vinculum and there never was. Seven is imagining this."

"But if you really think about it, it would make sense that the Borg would have something like this. If the cube carrying the Queen was destroyed, there had to be some backup system protecting the Queen and the collective."

"They did have a backup system – the Royal protocol – a program, which was uploaded to a drone for the creation of the next Queen."

"But what if there were no other drones left? Surely the Collective would have considered such a scenario as well instead of regarding it as irrelevant."

"Every organic being dies eventually. The Borg were not immortal", Chakotay had reminded. "And a scenario where there are no drones left would have most likely been implausible for the Borg. And it still doesn't explain how Seven would now, almost two years after the destruction of the collective, gain the knowledge of a royal resurrection vinculum, which sole purpose is to restore the Queen's consciousness somehow. That makes no sense at all."

"But it does. Borg cube carrying the Queen exploded in this solar system. If such a resurrection vinculum existed, it was most likely designed to endure the explosion of the cube as well. Such a device would be the ultimate backup system for the entire collective; for their entire species. I'm sure that Starfleet did not explore every single peace of the Borg debris afterwards, but if they had, they still wouldn't have necessarily found it in the massive debris field. And once it drifted close enough to a planet, planetoid or a moon, and in this case to a moon, gravity would have pulled the vinculum on the ground."

"Yes, it all sounds very logical and convincing, doesn't it?" Chakotay had sighed. "And Seven is very good at explaining the Borg in a very convincing manner. But it doesn't make it true. The collective is gone. They are no more. Let them be that way. Believe me – this galaxy, this entire universe, is better without them."

Why are you so reluctant to believe her?" Tessa had asked indignantly. "Why?"

"And why can't you let go of this? What do you want Tessa? What is it that you are looking for? Because I cannot believe it is a scientific curiosity that keeps you so fixated on this. Are you doing this for Seven? Has she persuaded you to get involved in this crusade of hers?"

"I am not interested in this because of her!" Tessa had exclaimed. "You just don't get it, do you?"

"What? What don't I get? Tell me, because the reason why we are even having this conversation escapes me."

"I am doing this for you!"

That answer had shocked Chakotay completely.

"For me?!" he had asked in disbelief. "What are you talking about? I have asked you again and again to drop this already. "

"But a part of you wants to find out if that royal resurrection vinculum is true. You try not to show it, but I know that you are still thinking about it. It has been almost a month now since Seven told us about this for the first time, and it is still with you."

"This conversation isn't exactly helping now."

" I know you don't want to discuss this matter with me, but I am here Chakotay. You are such a private person, but you should know that I am here with you. I am here and I know you cannot let go of it either and it is not scientific curiosity that driving you either. It is her."

"Her?"

"You want me to say her name?" Tessa had asked and the look on her face had made Chakotay slightly uncomfortable.

"Tessa…"

"She is the reason why Seven's words have stuck with you as well."

"She is gone", he had reminded her as calmly as possible.

"She is not gone", Tessa had told. "She's here. She has always been here. She's on this bed between us right now as well. And she is not going to disappear. She is in our heart, she lives right there. She is not truly gone and she never will be."


"Tessa…"

"It's okay, really. I have always known the terms of this relationship and I still wanted this. And I have no regrets."

There had been a brief silence between them, a slightly awkward one. Tessa's words had stung him, wavered the fragile cool exterior that hided the pain of his loss from the outside world. He had grieved a lot already, but there was still some pain left in his heart and he was certain it would be there until the day he died.

"What does she have to do with any of what we have just talked about?" he had finally asked.

"She has everything to do with it! It is her consciousness in that vinculum."

"No", he had told firmly. "It is not hers. If, and only if, such a vinculum exists, and if it was still intact after the explosion of the cube that killed her, it would contain the consciousness of the Borg Queen, not hers."

"Are you sure?"

"Tessa – stop. Just stop, please."

"What if she was still there Chakotay? Even Federation has technology to store consciousnesses, so it is very plausible the Borg had similar kind of technology as well. "

"I am not going to go and search for it. It is not going to happen. And I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"What if it could bring her back?"

"What? And how? How would that happen?"

"I don't know… by letting her out of that device somehow?"


"Have you lost your mind? If any humanoid being would tamper such a device, such a Borg device, they would be assimilated immediately."


"Are you sure? Because Seven did not say anything about vinculum containing nanoprobes for assimilation. According to her, regular vinculums in the core of Borg vessels simply purged all individual thoughts of drones on a Borg vessel."

"But she has not been talking about a regular Borg vinculum lately, has she? She has been talking about royal resurrection vinculum. The mere word 'resurrection' indicates that the vinculum would function as a platform for someone to rise from the death. And the Borg multiply by assimilating other species. "

"But what if it could be prevented somehow and all that was extracted from that device was the consciousness. There are so many open questions, so many unknowns, and therefore we should study it."

"No. Those open questions and unknowns are the very reason why we should not even theorize about the possibility of such a vinculum."

"You could get her back Chakotay…"

"Is that what you really want?" he had asked then in a most serious manner.

Tessa had sighed and turned her face away. "I love you Chakotay. I love you more than you probably even know. So what I want is the best for you. And therefore I want to do what I believe is the best for you."

"And what does that mean?" he had asked, slightly alerted by the choice of her words.

"It means… that I want to know if there is any truth in what Seven is saying. And it means that if it is true, and if after extensive research of such a device revealed that nothing else gets her consciousness out of the vinculum than assimilation, I would volunteer."

Chakotay's jaw had dropped. "Have you lost your mind?!"

"I am ready to do it", she had told.

"Are you crazy?" Chakotay had asked. "First of all, there is no one in the Federation who would let you do it, not even me. Especially not me. And second of all, if such a device was to be found, it would be destroyed immediately. Starfleet would even shot that moon in microscopic peaces, if nothing else destroyed it."

"So that is why we should find it first. We need to find it without telling anyone what we are looking for."

"Tessa please. Listen to yourself!"

"I have thought about this Chakotay."

"Obviously."

"I mean seriously. Chakotay – if I can get her back to you, I am willing to do it."

"But why? I have not asked you to do this. On the contrary – I am asking you to forget this altogether."

"Why I love you. I know that hearing this makes you slightly uncomfortable. And I know that you most likely had her in your mind tonight on this bed with me. I know all that. But I also know that if you knew for certain that the only way to bring her back was to assimilate yourself, you would most likely do it. So I am making this easier for you. You deserve her back Chakotay. After all you two went through, after all the time you wasted, you deserve more than you ended up getting."

"Tessa…"

"The difference between you and me, between this love and the love you lost when she went away, is that you would die for her. You were ready to die for her before you were even free to love her. Well you know what? I am ready to do this for you. I love you Chakotay. I have never had feelings like this for anyone, you know that. And I love you enough to let you go. Because none of this would matter, if she was back here now; this relationship would have never happened, I understand that. And I have accepted that as well."

"Have you any idea how much I have tried to get over her?"

"I know it Chakotay. I know that you have tried. And for a moment it seemed that her memory had faded away between us. But that changed when we talked to Seven a month ago, didn't it? I know this is eating you up inside! This almost nonexistent possibility to get her back has tormented your every thought ever since the day Seven brought this vinculum up. I know it has, so there is no point of denying it. I know it is crazy, I know there is a huge possibility Seven is making this whole thing up, but what if? What if Chakotay? Perhaps Seven cannot let the Borg go, but you cannot let Kathryn Janeway go either. She is still here. For a moment I thought she was gone already, that her ghost only visited briefly here every once in awhile, but after this vinculum business she has been here 24/7. This… this relationship is ending Chakotay and we both know it. You need her. You have always needed to be with her."

"Tessa…"

"I know", she said. "And I knew it since the day one we met that there were three in this relationship. I hoped it would change by the time, but it didn't turn out that way. And now I have an opportunity to give you something that you have needed all along. So let me do it. Let me help you to find out if you really can get her back. You deserve nothing less."

Tessa's voice still echoed in Chakotay's ears as he walked on the frozen ground of Umbriel. He felt guilty. He should have kept his distance, he realized it now. He should have not treated Tessa the way he had. He had not wanted to hurt her, but her heart was broken now. She wanted to hide it, to veil it in her willingness to find some last piece of Kathryn for him, but Chakotay knew better.

"I wanted you, even though you told me you had not let her go yet. I didn't hear what you tried to say, because I wanted to be with you. But now I know you were right, but still; it was my choice. Don't ever blame yourself, because you have done nothing wrong. If nothing else, you are my friend. And that is a lot too."

Chakotay sighed. But it wouldn't be enough for her. He knew that as well. He knew that the moment he had taken Kathryn in his arms, there was no turning back to platonic friendship after that. That is why he blamed himself now. He should have remained alone, like he had already decided to be. But Tessa had been wonderful. She had made him smile again. She was beautiful, smart and right in every way. But she was not Kathryn. As cruel as it might sound, she was not Kathryn.

And now Tessa was somewhere on this moon. She didn't have a lot of experience being in space, but now her stubbornness had driven her on Umbriel. Chakotay worried. Tessa had nothing to do with Starfleet, and she was no expert working in space either. Did she know how to estimate her oxygen supply? Did she know what to do, if something unexpected happened? Chakotay doubted that. Therefore he needed to find her as soon as possible. He didn't want anything bad to happen to her. He would never forgive himself, if she was harmed in anyway on this moon now.

Suddenly Chakotay saw a glimpse of light in the middle of the darkness.

"Tessa?" he called.

No answer.

But it had to be her. There was no one else on this moon.

"Tessa?" he called again. "Can you hear me?"

But she didn't answer. Finally when he got closer he saw her kneeling and staring something on the ground by her feet. Suddenly she seemed to realize the movements near her and she quickly turned her face to him.

"Tessa?" Chakotay asked.

Tessa wasn't able to hear him, so she adjusted the audio settings on her environmental suit.

"Chakotay?" she finally asked. "You came!"

"Why the hell did you come here?" he asked angrily. "Do you have any idea how much I worried?"

"Chakotay", she said and smiled. "It is here."

"What?"

"It is really here", she told and pointed down at the icy ground.

Chakotay looked on the ground by her feet and saw a small black device on the icy rocks. His heart skipped a beat. That was not just some random debris. After all the years onboard Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, he recognized Borg technology when he saw one.