2. Survival Instinct

Lieutenant Marika Wilkarah's torpedo tube coffin lay in front of the lily-wreathed altar, to be transported on hoverjets to a docking bay and jettisoned after the service. The coffin was closed, so there was no one to see that she wore her yellow engineer's uniform, just as she would have done, had she died aboard her own ship, the Excalibur.

The church was a place of sun-gilded wood and tall, rainbowy stained-glass windows, of a sort of breathtaking beauty that made even confirmed atheists stand in awe. It was a holoprogram, of course – Tom Paris' creation, to be exact; he was thinking of expanding it into a nineteenth-century Irish village – but it carried voices like the real thing.

It had been the Doctor's idea to hold the ceremony in a church. He had found out, while monitoring Marika during her final week in Sickbay, that unlike most Bajorans, she was not a follower of the Prophets, but a Christian. That explained why she swore by one God and did not wear an earring; it was also one of the few clues they had to personalize the ritual for a woman who had served among them for all of three weeks.

For the most part, since there were no ordained members of the clergy present, the ceremony progressed in standard Starfleet fashion: the Captain gave the first speech, followed by the closest companion of the deceased, and then others according to rank. In this case, Seven had relinquished the right of the second speech; after all, unimatrix or no, Marika had barely spoken to her over the last three weeks. Instead the lot fell to Crewman Tal Celes, a fellow Bajoran and engineer who had looked up to Marika as a teacher. She looked very young, red-eyed, her black hair falling out of its twist in pathetic disarray. Seven heard her speech, and the ones that followed, mostly in fragments.

"She was such a kind person … not bubbly, you know, like some people, but when I got stuck with an algorithm or analysis, she was always there to pull me out."

"Considering what happened to her, her strength of spirit was amazing."

"She had a wicked sense of humor. One hell of a temper, too, even … later on. It's hard to believe a woman like that could simply disappear."

"A fine officer and a credit to Starfleet."

"I wish we could have known her better."

Seven's turn came last. Accompanied on the organ by the Doctor, she stood before the congregation and sang with all her heart. She thought of Marika's last words to her, her final forgiveness. You seem like the type to beat herself up for every mistake. Well, don't. If it hadn't been for you, I'd still be Two of Nine today.

She thought of the day she had decided to free her three Borg siblings from the neural link, giving them a month as individuals even at the cost of their lives. P'shan and Lanza had left; Marika, feeling at home on a starship, had stayed until the end.

Survival was insufficient. Life as a drone was no life at all. Seven understood that, and so had Marika. So did the Doctor; her best friend, her only partner. This song was for the three of them.

"For what is a man? What has he got?
If not himself - Then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way."

(Lyrics by Frank Sinatra)