Captain Katherine Janeway had spent the past two days trying not to think about the drone she'd helped to sever from the Borg Collective. There was something about this drone that tugged at her mind...and her heart. Something Chakotay had said two days ago was still puzzling her.
He'd said the drone had been assimilated at a very young age, that the collective was all she knew. Something about that brought back memories for Janeway that she preferred to keep buried. She harbored no illusions about what had happened to her young friend Annika so long ago. Katherine had long ago accepted that her friend had died along with her parents on that last mission. There was never any evidence to suggest otherwise. Along with that acceptance, however, came the guilt.
Irrational as it might seem, Katherine carried a tremendous amount of guilt over what had happened…mostly because she knew that if she hadn't been away on that training mission the Hansens would have left Annika with her and her friend would still be alive. But she had been away and her friend was long dead and nothing would ever change that and that was why Katherine had buried the memories and why she preferred to keep them buried.
Now, after allowing the drone time to recover, Captain Janeway, the Doctor, and Security Chief Tuvok, made their way to Cargo Bay 2 where the drone was regenerating.
As they neared the regeneration unit that housed the drone, Janeway took the time to study her again. There was something... almost familiar about her but she couldn't be certain if it was real or just echoes from her subconscious.
"So, how's the newest addition to our family?" Janeway asked the Doctor, her tone as neutral as she was able to manage it.
"At the moment, she's stable but the prognosis isn't clear," he began, oblivious to the internal was brewing in Janeway. "Her human physiology had begun to assert itself—respiratory system, neurological functions, immune response. But those systems are swarming with Borg implants." Janeway turned then from her inspection of the drone's face to the Doctor as he continued, "there's a battle being waged inside her body between the biological and the technological and I'm not sure which is going to win."
At the mention of the drone's own internal battle, Janeway turned again to face her. They had that in common then, only Janeway's battle was between the logic of her mind and the screams of her guilt-ridden heart. When she could trust her voice, Janeway instructed the Doctor, "well it's time we brought her up to date. Wake her."
The Doctor spared his Captain a brief glance before pressing a hypospray to the drone's neck. The hiss of the spray seemed to echo in the silent Cargo bay as the three Starfleet officers waited for the Borg drone to awaken.
When she did, her disdain was the first thing to be noticed. "Captain Janeway. What have you...?" She paused then,her one visible eye darting around the room as if searching it but Janeway knew that wasn't the case. She was listening for the voices, and finding none, "the others; I can't hear the others. The voices are gone."
The fear crept into her voice then, and Janeway found herself wishing she could offer some form of human comfort. Instead, "we had to neutralize the neural-transceiver in your upper spinal column. Your link to the collective has been severed." If it wasn't for the presence of the Doctor and Tuvok, Janeway would've softened her tone, but she couldn't afford to show weakness right then. That would come later, in the solitude of her quarters.
The drone, however, just grew angrier, "you will return this drone to the Borg."
"I'm afraid I can't do that."
"You will return this drone to the Borg!" Angrier, louder.
"To do that, I'd be putting my crew at risk. I won't do that. Try to understand, you have to stay on Voyager, but I'm offering you freedom from the collective, and I promise you we'll do everything we can to help the transition,"Janeway tried to explain but, as was becoming common, the drone interrupted her.
"You will supply us with a subspace transmitter and leave us on the nearest planet. The Borg will come for us."
It seemed like a reasonable request and if circumstances had been different Janeway might've agreed but not this time. "It's too late for that. Your human cells are starting to regenerate. You won't survive without medical care."
"We need nothing from you. We are Borg. We are..." the drone was cut off by a sharp pain in her head and the Doctor, a silent observer thus far, stepped forward to investigate the cause of the pain.
He was examining an implant on the right side of the drone's head when he said, "this implant is being rejected by the tissue underneath it. It's going to have to be removed."
"You will suppress the human immune system." The drone demanded, upset.
Now the Doctor was getting annoyed, "I'm sorry, but the process has gone too far. We've got to get you to sick bay."
Something snapped in the Borg drone's mind and she raised her voice screaming, "No! We are Borg! We are Borg!" As she screamed she was fighting against Tuvok's attempt to subdue her. The doctor pressed a hypospray to the drone's neck and injected a sedative into her system. Janeway watched on from a safe distance but as the drone slumped forward into Tuvok's arms she stepped closer, concern written on her face as she witnessed the drone's obvious opposition to being anything less than Borg.
Janeway ordered the Doctor and Tuvok to take the drone to sick bay. Before they left she instructed the Doctor, "Doctor, please send the profile I asked for when you return to sick bay. I wish to examine it in my ready room."
"Yes Captain."
Janeway then went towards her ready room, needing time to process what had just happened as well as to review the file she'd asked the Doctor to send her. When the drone had first been severed from the collective and she'd been taken to sick bay, Janeway ordered the Doctor to run a DNA analysis of the human cells and compare it to the Starfleet DNA registry. The results of that analysis and comparison were in the file she'd asked for. Due to the events which followed the aftermath of the war with Species 8472 and the Borg, Janeway hadn't been able to review the results until then.
When Janeway had settled into her chair at her desk with her usual cup of coffee, she opened the file from the doctor on the laptop computer that rested on her desk. When she read the results, her first reaction was disbelief. "There must've been a mistake." She said out loud to the empty room. Janeway ran the comparison again, hoping a different result would pop up, and at the same time hoping she'd get the same answer as before. The results still came back the same.
The drone who was currently in her sick bay was none other than Annika Hansen, listed by Starfleet as missing in action with her parents, Erin and Magnus Hansen. The guilt Katherine carried around inside grew at the sight of Annika's picture in the registry. That face was how she'd always remembered her friend. The friendly smile, sparkling blue eyes.
Katherine wasn't sure which fate was worse: death or assimilation. She'd spent 18 years believing her friend had died. She'd come to terms with it and bore the guilt of her part in it. Now, she was faced with the truth; Annika was alive. Trapped underneath all those Borg implants and circuits was her old friend. Now, more than ever, Janeway's resolve to restore the drone's humanity grew stronger.
Janeway's thoughts were interrupted by the chime at her door. When she answered, Chakotay entered with the Engineering and Tactical reports. Janeway listened with one ear, her thoughts focused more on how she was going to explain about the drone's identity.
Chakotay gave her the opening she needed soon enough, "having half our propulsion system overrun by Borg implants doesn't make repairs any easier."
Janeway glanced at the screen with Annika's face smiling at her before looking back at Chakotay and saying, "Seven of Nine could help us with that." Janeway was glad at that moment that Annika's Borg designation rolled so easily off her tongue. She'd decided to pretend not to know more than what was written in the registry about Annika, for the time being. Her trust in Chakotay was still tenuous after the events surrounding the battle with Species 8472...especially now that she realized that if Seven of Nine had not been the Jefferies Tube with something to hold on to when he'd decompressed the Cargo Bay, Janeway would've lost Annika again and that angered her.
"That might be true, if she were willing but she's not in the most cooperative mood, is she?"
"That could change." Janeway's cryptic response intrigued Chakotay but before he could ask how, Janeway continued, "I just have to reach her somehow." Janeway wasn't sure at that moment if she meant reaching Seven of Nine to gain her cooperation or reaching Annika to restore her memories and get her friend back. In the end though, the results could be the same. Janeway turned the laptop to face Chakotay so he too could see what the registry said. "Annika Hansen."
That caught Chakotay's attention, "our Borg?"
Janeway resisted the urge to correct his use of the word 'our', but she resisted and instead smiled. Here was where she'd need to fudge the lines between what she knew and what the registry said. It was obvious, given her knowledge of what had really happened, that Starfleet had altered the official record. For their own nebulous reasons, the brass at Starfleet Headquarters decided to disavow the Hansens.
"It took some digging through the Federation database, but I managed to find a single entry in the records of Deep Space 4. Her parents were...unconventional." Janeway left out the part about the DNA match and how this one entry had been buried under virtual mountains of tedious personnel reports at a space station that was five light years away from the original mission flight path that she'd managed to trick her father into telling her. The Hansens shouldn't have even been anywhere near Deep Space 4. It was obvious someone didn't want the records of the Hansens to be found. Not that there was much cause to worry about anyone looking.
Janeway stood as she fed Chakotay the same line of BS that the records had tried to feed her, even if she'd known the truth. "they fancied themselves explorers, but wanted nothing to do with Starfleet or the Federation." By now, Janeway was standing next to Chakotay's chair, her eyes fixed on Annika's picture. "their names were last recorded at a remote outpost in the Omega Sector,"another red herring in the path "They refused to file a flight plan. Apparently, they aimed their small ship toward the Delta Quadrant and were never heard from again." There was an undertone of anger in her voice that Chakotay either didn't notice or chose to ignore.
"For all we know, Annika and her parents were the first humans the Borg ever assimilated."
Janeway considered that as she paced the ready room. "From what she's told me,"and my own memories "that was almost 20 years ago."18 to be exact but who's counting? Janeway's thoughts echoed in her head.
"So she was raised by the Borg. It's the only life she's ever really known."
Not the only life, Janeway thought, Annika remembers me, I know she does, I just have to reach her and trigger those memories somehow.
"If you were thinking about bringing her into the fold, that might not be possible." Chakotay was still against keeping that drone on board, regardless of this new information.
Janeway though, was more determined than ever to keep Annika on board. She whirled to face her First Officer, "What's the alternative, toss her back to the wolves?" There was no mistaking the emotion that crept into her voice, no matter how faint it might have been.
Before Janeway could continue, the Doctor summoned her to Sick Bay. Janeway left her ready room and left Chakotay on the bridge as she headed for Sick Bay. The Doctor mentioned a problem and Janeway could only hope that Seven of Nine was okay.
Janeway entered sick bay and walked over to the Doctor, ignoring the security officer in the room, her eyes never left the unconscious form of her former friend. "Report."
The Doctor explained that because her human physiology was getting more aggressive in asserting itself the only option was to remove the Borg implants. As Janeway listened, her heart ached at the thought of her young friend going through what must've been a painful procedure to become Borg. Despite everything though, she knew Seven of Nine would never opt to remove her Borg implants. But if they weren't removed, she would die and Janeway would never allow that to happen so, "she may have been raised by Borg, raised to think like a Borg, but she's with us now and underneath all that technology she is a human being—whether she's ready to accept that or not. And until she is ready, someone has to make the decisions for her," and as her friend, and the Captain, that's going to be me."proceed with the surgery."
"Aye Captain."
Janeway left then, to seek the solace of her quarters for a few moments so she could prepare herself for the long road ahead of her. The long road that led to Seven of Nine's acceptance of her former identity as Annika Hansen and all the memories that went with that life she'd lost so long ago.
TBC...