A/N Thanks for the reviews guys. Keep them coming.

Chapter 10

15 Miles in the Sun pt. 1

Unknown Moon

With a loud whistling sound the runabout USS Norbourne shook and rolled as it hit the desert ground roughly. The four people inside of it were tossed violently from side to side, then the lights failed, leaving the ship in utter darkness. With the final sound of twisting metal, Seven clawed her way out of the side of what was left of the craft.

Waiting until the ringing in her ears subsided, she took a look around and saw that they had crashed on a very hot, barren, lifeless landscape, dotted with gray jagged rocks, an endless desert and a few mountain peaks in the distance. She couldn't help but wonder why this place seemed so familiar, but shaking that thought out of her mind she looked to the other side of herself and saw that a strange fog seemed to hover over everything else in the valley, obscuring her view.

Even through the murk and from her position, she still saw that the Norbourne had to be damaged beyond repair. It had crashed on it's side against a huge boulder and the haze she saw was coming from broken vents, spewing nitrogen and sparks.

Hearing a groaning sound, she snapped back to herself and remembered what she had to do. Picking up a bag that she had brought up with her, she placed it around her shoulder, before using her Borg strength to tear at some twisted metal, to provide a makeshift exit for the others. After a second, Chakotay emerged from the distorted doorway, coughing and dragging the limp body of Sisko with the help of Jake.

Handing the little boy the bag instead, Seven and Chakotay managed to carry Ben a few yards away before collapsing from exhaustion.

"Chakotay, is my dad gonna be okay?" Jake asked, as he saw his father's burnt uniform. Looking at his face he saw that his eyes were fluttering open and closed at a weird pace.

"Just stay back for a second Jake and I'll check him." Chakotay replied gently as he activated his medical tricorder. "His burns are superficial, but he has a serious concussion and his right arm is broken in three places. I'm going to go and get what's left of the supplies in the runabout and try to send a distress signal to the Fleet Yards. Seven, his head has been through enough trauma, so cradle it in your lap."

As Chakotay ran off, Seven followed his orders and put her bag down on the ground before delicately placing Ben's head in her lap. Seeing him unconscious and broken really un-nerved her. During her journey into becoming fully human, he was a constant if not firm rock that she could rely on. But now here he was broken and barely clinging on to life.

Feeling a set of eyes on her, she looked up and saw Jake staring at her intently. She knew that he was waiting on her to tell him that everything would be okay, but honestly she didn't know. It would take several hours for their distress signal to reach the Fleet Yard and another three or four hours for them to track their location and rescue them.

'But Ben is a strong man.' she thought silently to herself. "Jake everything will be okay." she reassured as the little boy sat down beside her and put his head on her shoulder.

"If anything happens..."

"Nothing will happen." she cut him off quickly.

"We've got company." Chakotay said from his position on the shuttle craft, holding a small black bag in his hands.

Looking from Chakotay to where he was pointing, Seven and Jake saw the opposite side of a rocky knoll above them. Hands suddenly appeared reaching over the rock's crest and with a quick jog Chakotay ran over and handed Seven a phaser but stopped as they saw that it was too late.

Five sand covered Borg drones walked over the crest of the knoll and eyed them almost menacingly. Even though they were still thirty feet away, the drone in the lead spoke out to them.

"You will become one with us. Prepare to be assimilated."

'Am I dreaming?' Seven asked herself, in a state of disbelief. This seemed to eerily close to the dream she'd had, almost two years ago.

"Seven...?" Jake started nervously as he looked at the quickly approaching cybernetic nightmares.

"Help me with Ben." Chakotay ordered as he shot at one of the drones.

As the phaser blast hit it square in the chest, the targeted drown flew down to the ground as the others walked over it. Chakotay gave Jake the small bag he was holding as he and Seven got on either side of Ben and started to quickly go in the opposite direction.

"Lea...leave me." Ben said, trying to snap out of his stupor.

"Not today, sir." Chakotay replied with determination as Ben slowly slipped back into unconsciousness.

'Annika' A foreign voice spoke in a singsong like manner into Seven's mind. Shaking it off, she adjusted her grip on the bag that was on her shoulder and kept moving. 'Annika.' The voice spoke again making Seven stop.

"Seven, what are you doing?" Chakotay asked frantically, the mechanical sounds of the Borg moving behind them filling his ears. "We have to keep moving."

'Annika, you must become one with us again.'

"I will not... let them assimilate you." Seven replied as she made a decision and handed him their survival pack. "Once I return to the Collective, you will get to safety... and tell Ben what's happened to me." she told him softly. "Thank him... for making a home for me, for his patience and for his love."

"Damn it, Seven!" Chakotay growled out. Making his decision and not having much of a choice anyway he put the survival backpack on his shoulder and took the full weight of Ben.

"Seven..." Jake started in confusion.

"Jake come on." Chakotay cut him off as he kept his gaze on the tall blond. There was a hint of sadness and regret in her eyes. A regret that he would never forget as long as he lived.

"But..."

"No buts, lets move." With that order given Chakotay and Jake took off in a half run as the Borg started firing at them. Turning back for the briefest of seconds he saw that the drones had surrounded Seven.


As the Borg drones neared her, Seven stood her full height and placed her hands behind her back proudly.

"My designation is Seven of Nine Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01."

As she said that all the drones stopped and looked at her and at each other as if considering. After a moment of what seemed to be inner debate, the one that had spoken earlier did a quick optical scan on her before he spoke.

"Your designation is unimportant. You are a damaged drone." It told her. "You will accompany us."


A Cave

Chakotay built a wood fire in the deep end of an unusually cold cave, which provided heat and the only illumination they had. There was a small stack of logs as well as some field rations, blankets, tricorders, etc. from the runabout. Seeing Jake resting next to his father on a blanket near the fire he smiled.

That little boy was a real trooper. Not only did he help carry his father to the cave but he helped to gather wood and organized the field rations they brought from the Norbourne.

'If only I were as close to my father as..." Shaking that dark thought out of his head, he looked over at Ben.

He had removed Ben's jacket and found that his left side had been covered in plasma burns. Not really having all that he needed as far as medical supplies, Chakotay had to fashion some crude bandages out of his own uniform. Happy that he had paid attention in his engineering class, he had also made a metallic cast for Ben's broken arm. It wasn't perfect but it would still leave it completely immobilized . As the bone chilling and howling wind whipped into the cave, he remembered from his survivor course that it was bad to let someone with a concussion stay asleep for to long. Fixing up a stimulant, he shot the contents of it from a hypospray into Sisko's neck.

"Benjamin?" Chakotay asked, seeing a little movement from him. "Benjamin, can you hear me?"

As he asked that Sisko's eyes fluttered open and then he tried to focus on him.

"Chakotay... ?" Ben asked hoarsely with a wince.

"Yes." Chakotay replied letting out a sigh of relief as he picked up a canteen of water. "Everything's all right, but don't try to move too quickly. The left side of your body is covered with plasma burns."

Wincing with the effort Sisko took a drink from the canteen, and caught his breath, before trying to figure out what had happened. Seeing that he couldn't move his right arm, he looked down and inspected the cast that was on it.

"You did this?"

"Yeah." Chakotay replied with a nod. "You shattered most of the bones in your arm. There was a bone- regenerator in the medkit, but I'm afraid I'm not much of a doctor, so I just put on the cast."

"You did enough. Thank you." the older man replied as he tried to sit up. "Now tell me what happened? Where's Seven?"

"That's... that's a long story." Chakotay replied as he turned back to the fire and threw in another log.

"Make it a short story then."

Letting out a sigh Chakotay began to piece together all the events of what happened in his head before he spoke. "We flew the Norbourne close to where the battle of Wolf 359 took place. Seven picked up a distress signal coming from a small moon and when we got here we found some strange satellites in orbit that attacked us when we got to close to the planet. I tried my best to land the runabout but we crashed and you got hurt. After I sent out a distress signal and gathered a survival backpack we were attacked by the Borg..."

"The Borg are here?" Sisko asked, trying to swallow a lump that formed in his throat. "Seven...?"

"She went with them... willingly." Chakotay told him with a hint of anger in his voice.

'I will rejoin the Borg at my earliest convenience.' was the first thought that came to Ben's mind as he heard what she had done. It's what she had told him two years ago when he had taken her on her first fishing trip. Two years and he had somehow failed her. After all that they had been through he had thought that she was happy, but now...

"She wanted me to tell you... to tell you thank you for making a home for her and for loving her." Chakotay went on, trying to comfort him. But in the back of his mind he just had to know."Permission to speak freely sir?"

"It's not like we're in much of a position to not speak candidly." Ben replied with a grimace.

"What the hell is wrong with her?" he asked as he stood to his feet. "Why would she do this?"

"I guess in the back of her mind she always wanted to do this." Ben answered honestly. "Maybe a part of her always felt she didn't belong with us."

'But you didn't see that look of sadness and regret in her eyes.' Chakotay thought to himself. "I don't know if our distress signal made it through the interference coming from those satellites that are in orbit so there's a possibility that we'll be here for awhile. We've been here for a few hours and the Borg haven't found us... or at least haven't attacked us so far."

"Do you have any clue how many of them there are?"

"No... but they have one more then what they should have now." Chakotay replied lowly as they both sank into an uneasy silence.

"Hel... help me to stand up." Ben replied with a wince as he tried to sit up.

"Why?" Chakotay asked, not moving from where he was standing.

"You know why." Ben replied lowly. "Magnus and his wife failed Annika before and I'll be damned if I do the same."

"Commander... Ben you can barely stand up." Chakotay told him, not believing the words that were about to come out of his mouth next. "Besides you said it yourself that Seven made up her own mind that she wanted to rejoin the Borg."

As he said that he earned a glare from his superior officer. Seeing that he was probably going to go off into a deeply angry rant, he decided to speak first and change the subject.

"We have enough field rations to last for about a week and a half, but just in case help doesn't come soon I'd feel better if I could locate another source of food and more importantly water. The surface is inhospitable to say the least, but I was able to find firewood and kindling, so there's a good chance there's edible vegetation out there somewhere. I just have to find it."

"Just... just be careful." Ben replied grumpily. He just didn't have the energy to fight.

"I'll try my best." Chakotay replied with a smile as he handed him a phaser. "I should only be gone for an hour or so. Your concussion wasn't as severe as I originally thought it was but do you think you'll be well enough to stay up until I get back?"

"I'm tougher then I look, Mr. Chakotay." Ben said as he looked down to the form of his sleeping son. "We'll be fine."

"Alright, I'll keep an open com-channel and I'll be back soon." the younger man replied as he turned to leave.

"Wait, I do have one last question." Sisko told him making him stop in his tracks. "It's not that I'm ungrateful but I could have sworn that I gave you the order to leave me behind, because I didn't want to slow you down. Why didn't you?"

"I'm the type of guy that doesn't like to leave people behind." Chakotay said without facing him. "I'll be back."

With that said Chakotay swiftly walked out and into the mouth of the cave. Looking down to the ground he smiled at the bundle of fruit and berries that he had already gathered when he was out with Jake. He had already made up his mind what he had to do and if he got caught he had left instructions for Jake on a data padd on what to do to take care of his father until help arrived.

Putting his right hand up to the sky, to block the glare of the sun he took his tricorder out of his back pocket. Typing in a few commands he picked up Seven's combadge signal and triangulated it's direction. Tightening his grip on his phaser, he took off into the desert and into the harsh unforgiving sun.