Chapter 14:

As soon as my regeneration cycle began I found myself back in the black void. I turned around and saw the image of the former queen that program 001 BetaV2 had created. "Hello, I did not expect to see you tonight."

"You did not? That is a bit surprising, considering you have made such progress today into truly accepting who you are now," the former queen said. "Today you finally realized that the collective is your family now. That the family you had in the past is simply that, the past. But now you see your diamond ship as your home amongst the collective, not the ship that you so skillfully took from the Federation. You will always have a place in your heart for Voyager, but now that is no longer your true home."

The recreation of the former queen seemed to almost beam at me with pride like a mother would to her daughter.

"My home is here with the collective, and with Shaleena," I said slowly. "Voyager just does not seem the same. It does not feel right. It is not my home any more." I felt sad at my last words.

"There is no reason to be sad about growing and moving on," the former queen said, wrapping her arms around me. "You are the Queen of the Borg. You are the beginning and the end for the collective. For you it has been more difficult to truly adapt to your new designation. Unlike the other queens, you do not feel and remember all of the other queens' memories like they are your own. Today you made a large step in truly becoming the Borg queen. You have just one more large step to take before your transformation is complete. This step will be the hardest one for you to make. It will take you time to make it, but I am sure you will. Now then, it is time for you to sleep now, to let your true family take care of you while you are at your weakest. Good night, Naomi of Borg."

As my mind went blank I felt truly content; the collective was my family, and they would always be there to take care of me, as I would do the same for them. For we were truly one, we could not exist with out the other. We were one.

…

The following morning I started going through Voyager's database files. The first thing I had the collective process was the information on all of the technology that the future version of Admiral Janeway had given to the crew of Voyager. This information would help us grow and take us another step closer to perfection. Later the same morning I ran across the Doctor's research files on species 8472. Species 8472 was the only species to ever offer true resistance to the Borg. They were a threat to us, and we needed to find a way to assimilate them, or at the very least a way to destroy them. Unfortunately Captain Janeway had given species 8472 the Nano Probe weapon to study and counteract. This meant we would have to come up with a new weapon and hopefully figure out a way to assimilate them.

It seemed I had found a new project for Shaleena. I got up from my throne chair and walked to the lab, where I found Shaleena hunched over a computer terminal, her eyes fixed on the data flashing by. "Hey Shaleena, I have a new project for you," I said cheerfully.

Shaleena looked up from the terminal, her eyes lighting up as they linked with mine, causing us both to smile wider. "What is it Naomi?" She asked, racing up to me. It was at moments like this where she was most like the normal child I used to wish I could be.

"How much do you know about species 8472?" I asked.

"Not a lot, but I do know they are the only race to ever truly threaten the Borg, and that all of their ships are organic in nature. That is about all I know," Shaleena answered. "I have been meaning to learn more about them. As I just said, their ships are organic. I would love to learn how you would go about creating something like that." I could see that Shaleena had that far away look in her eyes again, and I knew that she was contemplating the possibilities of such advanced organic structures.

"Well here is your chance to become an expert on species 8472," I replied. "I need you to learn the ins and outs of species 8472; about there physiology, their bio-technology, to learn all of there weaknesses. Hopefully you will be able to create both a way to assimilate species 8472 or even a way to simply destroy them. I have already downloaded everything Voyager has on species 8472 to your computer network. Between those files and the ones the collective already possesses you will have the most extensive records of species 8472 that exist in the galaxy."

"While this is a project I would love to do, what about my research in creating new drones through cloning?" Shaleena asked. "I have just gotten to point where I am able to start my research. I have finally gotten my knowledge to the same level as the collective's."

"This is much more important Shaleena," I answered. "Until we have some way to counteract species 8472 we are vulnerable to their attacks. I am not sure how our new defenses will hold up against their weapons, or even if they will be able to slow them down. The last time they attacked the collective was before the pathogen nearly destroyed us. We do not have the numbers that we had in the past, so we need this research done quickly. While you are doing this research I am going to begin implementing the new technology from Voyager. I will also be focusing on creating a defense against the new interphase cloaking torpedo that I created."

As I turned and was walking away from Shaleena I mumbled, "Hum, that might be away to get past species 8472's bio armor." If I would have turned around I would have seen Shaleena shaking her head at me. The collective link was so very valuable at times like these.

…

Four months later I was sitting on one of the couches in my bedroom, looking out of my holographic view port as I observed the reconstruction of Unimatrix zero-one. Eighty-two days ago the collective had retaken the space where Unimatrix zero-one had once stood and started the construction of the massive complex.

When I had started to design the new Unimatrix zero one, I had decided to build it based off of the original Unimatrix. I then started making changes that I thought were needed. First I totally redesigned the Unimatrix power system to use the fusion collapse energy enhancement. There would be four Harmonic Resonance Containment Cores throughout the Unimatrix complex. Each core would be completely separate from the others. I decided to do this in case one or more of the cores destabilized so the reaction would not cause the others to fail. But all four of the cores would be connected to a single power grid.

The next major change I made was to implement the new tri-layer shield system, with one major difference. There would be a primary and secondary tri-layer shield grid. So in essence there would be six shield layers surrounding the Unicomplex. Three of the layers however would be generated from a separate shield system, and the other three from another system. This would allow for redundancy, for it the enemy was able to destroy one of the shield grids the other would still be there and continue to generate the tri-layer shields.

I would also be implementing the new weapons system that my diamond was using. We would also be using the technology we learned from Voyager. At this point in time all of the collective's ships where able to use ablative armor, but on the Unimatrix I had a greater source of power then what could be found on my diamond, or any other Borg ship. Therefore I came up with a new design for the ablative armor that was going to be used on the complex. With the new armor system, the ablative armor would be able to adapt and change as needed. It could re-replicate the armor on weakened portions of the armor skin. It could even be changed to a different type of armor altogether if needed.

These were the largest changes I made to the Unimatrix complex. Most of the other systems I had only made minor changes to improve efficiency. The main purpose of the Unimatrix was to be the central location where most of the collective was controlled. Once built, the collective would be even more efficient then they were now. The Unimatrix was also the central place to construct and repair ships. In fact over sixty percent of the complex was for this purpose. The last function of the Unimatrix was the storage of drones until they were needed to crew a newly built ship. When the Unimatrix complex was finished I could close down the other construction yards if I wanted too, which I did not plan on doing.

With an effort, I turned my mind away from the construction of the Unimatrix zero-one. It was time for my nightly meal with Shaleena. She had told me earlier that she was finally ready to give me an overview of her research. I was very excited to hear what she had done. Shaleena had been a bit tight-lipped about her research, saying she was making progress but that it was slow going.

I exited my bedroom into my audience chamber. The dinning table was already set up and Shaleena was waiting in her seat. I sat down at my normal spot and asked, "How are you doing today?"

"It has been going well, and as I said last night I am now ready to show you what I learned and what I am developing. Would you like to start my little presentation now?" Shaleena asked.

I nodded my head yes. "Please do, I have been eager to see what you been up to since you decided to lock me out of my own lab."

Shaleena smiled at me sheepishly, though I detected a trace of mischief in her thoughts. "Well yes, sorry about that. I was also working on a surprise for you; we will get to that later. Now then, I had to start out by using the notes from Voyager's EMH of his research on species 8472. I must admit, they were very well done. In the Doctor's notes he had left the raw DNA in the file, along with a DNA file he had been working on decompiling. The DNA of species 8472 is much larger than of any other species I have ever seen. This does not make species 8472 stronger though, amoebas have much larger DNA strands then humans do. What it does do is make my life much more difficult. It took me a while to come up with a solution. Even using the collective's computers, it would have taken me years to map out species 8472's DNA. Then it hit me, the collective itself! The collective is more powerful then any computer system could hope to be. It took the collective only three days to completely map out the DNA."

"A mind is basically an organic computer system, but with trillions of minds connected together as one…" I said, trailing off for a moment. "I had never thought of it that way, but yes, it would be able to do things no other computer system could hope to do. In fact the collective does most of the work that a computer system would normally do. Our computers just help maintain the collective's connection to all of its drones."

Shaleena continued. "Once I had the DNA mapped out I could truly get down to business. There was so much data in species 8472 that I had the collective download only the relevant data to my mind. Only the collective could look at all of the data at once and could pick out what I needed to study. I find the collective truly amazing. What I soon learned is that their immune system is very powerful, more powerful then any other species known to the collective. The method that the EMH doctor came up with making Nano Probes emulate species 8472 electrochemical signature was truly brilliant. Unfortunately, I have to assume that species 8472 now has a way to counteract this form of attack and any other like it. I knew I would need to come up with a completely different approach if we are to assimilate or kill them."

Shaleena stopped speaking to eat a bit of her food. If I did not know better I would swear she was trying to drag this out, making me wait in suspense. I was tempted to learn what she was thinking through the collective, but I decided I would let Shaleena have her fun.

After a minute Shaleena started speaking again. "So, here I was trying to come up with an ingenious idea, trying to have a Naomi moment where something just comes to you." I raised an eye brow at Shaleena's comment. She continued. "I was going in circles in trying to think of a way to create a virus that would bypass species 8472's immune system. Then it hit me; why not create the virus from species 8472's own DNA. I knew what I needed to do; I would have to clone a small part of their DNA and shape it into what I needed. By using species 8472's DNA I would already be able to create a highly adaptable virus that changed its own DNA to match that of the host."

"So does that mean you have developed the virus and is it ready to be used?" I asked Shaleena, excitement in my voice.

"Yes, I have a prototype made, but first I have to test it," Shaleena said. "I have found a way I can create a clone of species 8472 using the DNA I have. It will be four days until my test subject will be ready to be removed from the maturation chamber. At that time we will perform the first test. At that time I will also tell you more about the virus. I would like to do a little bit more fine tuning. Oh, tomorrow morning I would like to meet you in your bedroom. I have a surprise for you that I been working on in my off time."

"Wow, it seems you have made a lot of progress," I said. "I am looking forward to seeing how this test turns out. We may have a new weapon that could even the odds. We could use our new interphase cloak torpedoes as a method of delivery of the virus."

"That should not be a problem, as from what I could tell their bio-ships have the same DNA structure as they do. Also by that method both the ship and the pilot would be infected, putting both out of commission."

"Very good, let's hope this test goes as plan. Now what is this surprise you have for me?" I asked.

"Well, you will just have to wait until tomorrow to see it," Shaleena winked. "Now then Naomi, have a good night." With her parting words she disappeared in a green transporter beam to her new quarters, which had been added to my ship for her a few months ago. I decided that she had the right idea and I got up from my seat and went to my own bed to regenerate.

A/N: I wish to thank my reviewers Dave, Tillallareone and Quantumsilver I wish thank you thee for you nice reviews.

Dave asked "are you going to do anything with the borg drones that were released during the voyager series? I don't remember the title but it involved 7 of 9 going into a dream world where people retained their personalities even tho they had been assimilated."

The episode is Unimatrix zero for you information and to answer your question I don't think so. I am too far into writing and have little ideas to work that in but you never know I will think about for there are some possibilities.

Quantumsilver asked about Janeway and her interaction with Naomi and I can safely say you see Janeway again in this story.

I hope you all enjoy this chapter and please keep sending those reviews I love to read then until next time.

Damien