"I don't care who the hell you are I need to get back to Voyager! Now!" Fran struggled, shoving Q away.
"Now now, I figured you would have questions for me, but sadly, for reasons beyond even our astonishingly impressive comprehensions, the Q-Continuum has yet to determine why we cannot effect Kathy- I mean, Captain Janeway's precious starship. I realize time is of the essence, but I will try to communicate soon. While I cannot simply teleport you back inside, I can do this…and please send Ka…Captain Janeway, my regards!"
With that, Q smiled, in a decidedly hopeful human-like manner, turning the frantic Replicator to face the ship and he gave her a seemingly gentle push, accelerating her at an astonishing speed so she reached the breeched shuttle bay in a matter of seconds, stumbling to her knees as she was met with the somehow re-established artificial gravity. "Ahh ow…damn these sensations…." She muttered to herself. She was mildly surprised she could hear herself, shouldn't the bay be depressurized?
Fran stood quickly, only now noticing the sickly green glow coming from the lights far overhead. She turned to see a spider-web like mass quickly enclosing the shattered door of the shuttlebay. "Oh no…" she turned and ran for the doors, moving at a fast speed, slipping through side-ways, too impatient to wait for the doors to open fully, damaged and sputtering though they were. The Borg were wasting no time. She shouldn't either.
Fran kept running through the assimilated corridor, not seeing any Borg or the members of Alex Munro's team, she feared the worst. She had seen Seven of Nine's efficiency and she shuddered as she ran to the turbo-lift. Chakotay, she had to find him, she had to save him! Goddamn it, she knew she should be trying to find the Captain, but all she could think of was Chakotay!
Quite suddenly, the lift lost power and she stumbled against the curved wall as it came to an abrupt and dark halt.
She gritted her teeth in anger, getting more and more upset. Damn the Borg! She did not have time for this! She wedged her fingers into the turbo-lift doors, prying them apart easily with her greater Replicator strength, seeing she was half way between decks 5 and 6. She couldn't hear any phaser fire so thankfully the Borg hadn't made it this far, even though it had only been something like 15 earth minutes.
I should go to the armory, she thought to herself, before remembering the Borg's adaption capabilities. The Starfleet weapons may be useless already. She decided to hoist herself up and into deck 5, scrambling to her feet as she rushed to sickbay. Of course the door would be locked, again she didn't have time to phase through it, so she knocked, loudly and hard, making dents in the tritanium.
"Hello, Doctor? I need to get in there! Doctor!?" and she blinked, hitting her forehead to admonish herself. "No duh…" she paused and smiled in spite of herself, some of these human sayings were funny.
She closed her eyes, connecting to the Doctor via their limited Replicator subspace link. She sensed at once that he was not even in Sickbay, he was in Astrometrics. She opened her eyes and pried open the doors anyway, rushing to the sickbay's emergency Jeffery's Tube hatch.
"I'm coming, stay there damn it!" Fran crawled as fast as she could, soon descending the various ladders and compartments as she made her way to deck 8.
She kicked the side hatch open with her foot, not caring that she broke the mechanism, rushing out into the corridor. At last she saw several crewmembers rushing along the connecting corridors. Although she tried to stop a few of them, they appeared to be panic-stricken. "Hey, I need to find Chakotay, hey!"
They rushed by without so much as a second glance. "Ugh, humans sometimes!" she shook out of her desperation, running full tilt towards the Astrometrics Lab.
"Seven, Doctor!" she careened in, slamming into the port side auxiliary consoles. "Ow, damn it to hell!" she muttered, feeling the pain sensation on her knees.
The Doctor, standing protectively by Seven of Nine's side, still approached as Seven appeared to be highly focused on her main console, her fingers a blur as she executed various commands.
"Fran! It's good to see you, are you hurt?" asked The Doctor, visually diagnosing her.
"Never mind, Doctor, what's happening? Why aren't the turbo-lifts working? Is Chakotay on the bridge?"
The Doctor frowned, but instead of saying anything, he stared right at her and all at once, his perceptions of the last 30 minutes flooded her mind via their subspace link.
She saw when Alex, Telsia and Nelson had stumbled into sickbay, bloodied and shaken. She saw when they all heard Captain Janeway's announcement over an encrypted communications channel, ship-wide except for deck 10, announcing the advancement of the Borg. She had ordered crew to key muster points for defense and coordination. Engineering and Cargo Bay 2. That was when communications had been severed throughout the ship, obviously due to the Borg. Munro and Telsia and Nelson had quickly left after being treated, determined to kill the invading Borg. What could the Doctor do? He had decided to go to Seven.
Fran blinked, having experienced a couple dozen minutes in mere seconds. She turned as Seven continued to work, but despite that, the former Borg managed to explain a few things.
"The Borg have assimilated all of deck 10, however, they have continued to mask their energy signatures, methods are unknown. I cannot detect them, but according to my last sensor readings, they are not proceeding down, but rather up. I believe the Borg intend to assimilate the Bridge and the Command staff at any cost."
"Why though? I mean they must know of the Hyperdrive right? It's right below them, why aren't they going right for it? I thought Borg prized advanced technology?" Fran frowned, pacing and fidgeting.
"I don't know, nothing of the Borg's current strategy is typical. It is possible that they are acting this way because they are of a small collective. When a vessel is destroyed, any surviving drones share their thoughts amongst one another even as their connection to the Collective itself is severely weakened because they have no access to a vinculum."
"A what, you know what never mind…I've still got to find Chakotay, please you two, I need your help!"
"I'm sorry Fran, I have been trying to establish forcefields to stop the Borg, I can't just leave my post." Seven said, matter-of-factly, yet even Fran, new as she was to human feelings, could tell that Seven was struggling to contain her feelings of fright, despite her ingrained cool facade.
"I can't leave Seven…" started the Doctor, but Fran whirled to face him, taking hold of his shoulders. "Shut up, just shut up! How dare you tell me what you can't do! You're the ship's Doctor! You should be where everyone else is, okay maybe not sickbay, but still where your skills are needed! Hey, stop it ow!" Fran winced as the Doctor took ahold of her right hand, pinching it and he twisted it away in a move similar to Aikido, an ancient Earth martial art.
"As you can see, my skills are beyond that of a healer now…I *will* protect Seven of Nine."
Fran stepped back, rubbing her wrist, and she opened her mouth to protest further, when suddenly, the assimilated Beissman and crewman Chell burst through the curved Astrometrics Lab display wall. They moved fast for Borg, but not as fast as Fran and The Doctor.
Fran lifted her right hand…and a modified phaser beam emitted from her palm. She kept the phaser all this time from when she had left sickbay. The beam was not it's typical orange color, but rather an icy blue beam, and as it struck Chell in his chest, the drone was pushed back, a smoking hole in his chest. He looked up from it, smiling as his individuality was returned for a few moments and he fell to the dias.
The Doctor struck fast, using a spin kick to sweep the assimilated Beissman's leg out from under him. He was momentarily distracted by Fran's astonishing power, letting Beissman sucker punch him in the face. He stumbled back, wincing in pain as his face distorted briefly, his surface nanites ripped away from the sheer force of the blow, even if the former crewman was down.
Seven ran to the Doctor, crouching to check on him, but as she opened her mouth to speak, the ex-human yanked her back by her wrist, wrapping his arm around her throat. "Resistance is futile," droned Beissman, using Seven as a human shield so Fran could not fire.
"Despicable…" the Doctor muttered, picking himself up off the floor. The Beissman drone kept his left arm around Seven's slender neck, using his assimilation tubules to inject the primary Astrometrics console. As he was distracted, Seven angrily snapped her head back as she yelled, "I will NOT COMPLY!" striking the drone so hard, his ashen grey blood squirted from a gash in his forehead, and his arm fell away as he reach up to feel it in a surprisingly human gesture.
Fran pulled Seven to safety behind her, preparing to kill the drone, but the Doctor was faster, lunging at him and she and Seven saw something in him they never saw before…anger.
It was scary. So, that's what it looks like…wow… Fran thought to herself as the Doctor mercilessly impaled the Beissman Drone right through his heart, his back blowing out in a shower of sparks and blood. As before, in his final moments, he was himself again and he smiled up at the Doctor as blood dribbled down his chin. He had fallen to his knees and as the Doctor withdrew his bladed hand, which quickly reformed into his own hand, he eased Beissman to the floor, his eyes brimming with tears. "I'm sorry…I'm sorry…."
He trembled from his feelings of sadness, self-loathing and despair. "I'm a Doctor, not a killer…" he muttered to himself, staring at his bloody hands.
Fran and Seven rushed and tugged him to his feet, yelling "come on!" as more assimilated crewmen began entering through the shattered dome display. He only snapped out of it after Seven slapped him across the face. "Seven!" and they let him go as the doors hissed shut and they took off running for the same Jeffery's Tube hatch Fran used before, thankfully they did not see any other crewmembers.
Up, we need to get to the bridge! Thought Fran to the Doctor and he nodded, still shaken as he ushered Seven of Nine to enter the hatch ahead of himself and Fran.
"The current strategy the Borg are employing is atypical of them, even when we account for their small Collective. I would surmise that they are being controlled by some external force…like the Borg Queen, but not…" Seven shook her head as they continued their ascent as quickly as they could.
Minutes later, they reached the conference room, exiting from the aft Jeffery's Tube hatch. So that's what's behind this wall… thought Fran to herself as they rounded the curved wall and found Chakotay and Captain Janeway there, along with Lt. Paris and Ensign Kim.
"Captain!" said the Doctor happy to see her, but he tried to hide his hands, unsuccessfully. The Captain, Chakotay, Harry and Tom gasped even as the Doctor burned with shame and remorse, but now wasn't the time.
Seven and Fran approached the table, with Fran resting her hands on it as Seven rubbed her hands, a tell-tale sign of her nervousness. She was at a loss; she wasn't used to feeling helpless. Fran turned and rested a sympathetic hand on Seven's shoulder as the Doctor stood nearby, longing to hold Seven's hand but…
"I'm sorry, Captain, but I have a plan…I know it sounds crazy but hear me out-" *KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
She was interrupted as she stared out the viewport windows of the conference room, as did everyone and the seated officers sprang to their feet.
"Q!" Janeway seethed. She knew it was only a matter of time until he showed himself! She paused, wondering how come the entity had not appeared inside. Fran tried her best to explain even as Q conjured a simple black marker, appearing to jot something down on his palm. "Q saved me, he was outside the ship and he pushed me back into the shuttle bay after the Borg threw me out. He said he couldn't interfere inside the ship, something that neither he nor the other Q could understand was stopping them…but he said he'd try to communicate later…."
Fran tilted her head as Q pressed his hand to the window. They all saw the words he'd written on his hand. Captain Janeway frowned as Chakotay muttered "what the hell," while Tom and Harry traded incredulous looks. In the back, Seven and the Doctor both frowned as well, even as Fran read the words out loud.
"Not Penny's Boat?"
Q was able to hear them, having used his power to at least do that much and he looked at his hand and smacked his forehead, flinging out his hand as he corrected the words with a gesture and put his hand to the window once more.
I CAN HELP FRAN. As soon as they read his words, he floated away from the hull and they watched as he pointed to one of the Bridge escape pods.
Everyone turned to Fran and she nodded, doing her best to condense her plan since time was of the essence. "The Borg are coming for you, Captain. I won't let them do that. I have Ancient knowledge that will let me convert the main Deflector into a weapon capable of deactivating the Borg's nano-probes. In theory, while it might not deactivate the drones themselves, it should disable their shields…but for it to work, I'll need both Seven of Nine and the Doctor to trust me one last time and I need to get to deck 11, to deflector control. Since the Borg are bent on your assimilation, Captain, you must stay here with your bridge staff…" her voice trailed off as she looked at Chakotay, clenching her hands into fists. She hated that she would need to leave him here.
"Fran, sorry but, what about you, what about the Doctor and Seven?" Harry spoke up.
Fran nodded. "I will put them in the escape pod and send them away from the ship so that the weapon won't harm them, it will only encompass the ship. As for me….well, hey, if I can save the ship, what's a little self-sacrifice?" What that, she walked around the table, pulling Chakotay in for a deep kiss.
"Oooooo…." Said Q to himself as he grinned. "I can feel Kathy's jealousy even from out here, I like it!"
TO BE CONCLUDED….