Mezoti placed the fork back in the plate. "I will not comply."

    Icheb looked at her sternly. "You must. We are no longer drones, and we must consume nutrients orally now."

    "It tastes bad."

    "Taste is irrelevant. Neelix assured us that this product contains all the essential proteins, minerals and enzymes required to keep our bodies functioning at peak efficiency."

    At that moment, the Talaxian chef was off to the right side of the mess hall, engaged in conversation with Crewmen Ayala and Celes. The room was moderately crowded, the morning shift having just come off duty and looking for some lunch. There was an apprehensive undertone to the usual rumbling conversation, however: by now, everybody knew that Voyager had encountered the Borg.

    "It still tastes bad," Mezoti affirmed.

    "There is no other alternative."

    "Yes, there is. We should go to the food replicators and order chocolate-flavoured iced cream. Naomi introduced me to this product, and I find it quite agreeable."

    "Chocolate-flavoured iced cream will not meet all of your nutritional requirements. Furthermore, we should not expend replicator energy when unnecessary."

    "It is necessary," Mezoti assured him. "Because if I cannot obtain chocolate-flavoured iced cream, I will not consume anything else."

    Icheb frowned, appearing unsure of how to handle the situation. Finally, he said: "If you maintain your refusal to consume, I will have to advise Seven of Nine."

    "You would not."

    "Yes, I would."

    Sullen, Mezoti reached over and plucked the utensil from besides her plate. With a scowl on her face, she impaled a chunk of sautéed leola root and put it in her mouth, chewing methodically and without enthusiasm. She swallowed, and then looked pointedly at Icheb.

    "Satisfactory?"

    "I do not believe so," Icheb replied.

    "Is there a problem here?" Neelix had just come over to their table and stood hovering above it, speckled hands folded across his ample chest, an inquisitive look on his mottled face.

    "Yes," Mezoti answered quickly. "The food tastes bad."

    "Mezoti," Icheb said reproachfully, "you have not been studying the acculturation aid-packs that Seven prepared. If you had, you would know that in this society, it is considered impolitic to point out to a cook that his preparations are unpalatable."

    "I… uh…" Neelix was about to reply when he realized he wasn't sure whether the former Borg had come to his defence or insulted his cooking, and so let the thought drift.

    "Irrelevant," Mezoti said. "Courtesy will not make the food taste any better."

    Having determined the problem, Neelix thought he knew what to do. "Well, you don't have to eat your meal if you don't want to," he said accommodatingly. "But meanwhile, I see that Icheb has eaten all of his lunch! That's very good, Icheb. Maybe you'd like some dessert?"

    "No, thank you," the young man answered.

    Neelix licked his lips. "Really, Icheb, you must want to have some dessert now that you're finished."

    "I do not require any additional nutrition at this time," Icheb assured the Talaxian.

    Neelix sighed heavily, drumming his fingers against his side. "Icheb. I think you should come with me since you've finished your dinner so I can give you dessert." The Talaxian raised his eyebrows in Icheb's direction, hoping that he would finally catch on.

    Comprehension dawned on Icheb's face. "Oh. I understand." Icheb rose from his seat, hesitated, then turned back towards Mezoti and said:

    "I will now go with Neelix to consume tasty dessert as I have finished my meal. One can make the assumption that you would also be privy to the same tasty dessert should you also finish consuming your meal."

    The former Borg turned to Neelix and smiled, interrogation on his face. Neelix shrugged and smiled back – a little obvious, but it should get the job done – then amicably placed his arm around the young man's shoulder as he led him away to the back of the galley.

    Left alone, Mezoti considered the food before her. She supposed that the most efficient way of obtaining dessert would be to eat the meal after all…

    As she chewed disdainfully, she noted the entrance of Lieutenant Torres, Ensign Kim and Seven of Nine into the mess hall. Ensign Kim ordered something from Neelix, standing behind the galley counter, then joined his shipmates over at the table twice removed from her own. Mezoti considered this gathering of the ship's personae major to be much more interesting than her plate of leola root, and feigned eating while she listened in.

    "Here's an idea," Torres said. "How about if we created a static warp bubble around the ship? I know they did experiments with creating warp bubbles on the Enterprise. If we could trap subspace in that bubble, it wouldn't matter that there's no subspace around us. We could still maintain a stable warp field while skipping across the empty region."

    "This is not merely a case of a region of space devoid of subspace, Lieutenant," Seven said. "It is a subspace sinkhole. Even if we could trap an amount of subspace inside a static warp bubble, the sinkhole permeates all levels of reality. It would drain the subspace from the bubble and leave Voyager without the ability to create warp fields."

    "It would be like trying to put the ship inside a rock and then skipping it across a black hole," Kim further explained. "The suction always wins out in the end."

    "Fine, that's it," Torres said, throwing her PADD onto the table in disgust. "I give up. There is simply no way to do this."

    "Oh, come on, B'Elanna," Kim said. "I'm sure we can figure this out if we just set our minds to it."

    "No," Seven said flatly. "I concur with Lieutenant Torres. The task the captain has assigned us is impossible."

    "See?" Torres raised an eyebrow at Kim.

    Kim gave them a half-smile and sighed. "Alright then, who wants to be the one to tell the Captain that we can't come up with a solution and recommend a six-month detour?" When neither woman volunteered, Kim smirked and said: "I didn't think so."

    "We cannot change the laws of physics," Seven said in their defence. "Warp cannot be sustained in this area of space."

    "Except for that one clear corridor," Kim pointed out.

    "Clear? A region infested with Borg is hardly what I would call 'clear'," Torres said.

    "Voyager would be easily overwhelmed should we try to use the corridor," Seven stated.

    "Unless…" Kim drifted off. "Maybe we've been going about this the wrong way. Instead of trying to find a way to pass through the sinkholes to avoid the Borg, maybe we could use those sinkholes to pass through the clear corridor without being harassed by the Borg. Would it be possible to use our shields to 'reflect' the lack of subspace in the area affected by the sinkhole? Mask our presence?"

    Torres shook her head. "Even if we could manage to do that, there would still be countless other emissions and signatures that the Borg would be able to pick up on."

    "However, the Borg are as vulnerable to the effects of the sinkholes as Voyager is. More so, considering that Borg vessels use subspace communications to communicate between drones intraship and with the rest of the Hive Mind."

    "So what are you suggesting?" Torres asked the former drone.

    "I am uncertain," Seven confessed. "I am merely… I believe the term the Doctor used was 'brainstorming'."

    "If we could get the Borg into the area affected by the sinkhole, we'd be effectively stranding them for the time it takes them to cross the area at sublight speeds," Kim said.

    "Okay," Torres said, "But how? We can't exactly shove the Borg around."

    "Tractor beam?" Kim suggested.

    "Voyager's tractor beam would have no noticeable effect on a Borg cube. As far as I am aware, there is no way for a vessel as small as Voyager to physically displace a Borg cube."

    "Well…" Torres seemed to be gazing at a point far away. "If Kahless won't go to the mountain, maybe we can bring the mountain to Kahless."

    "Lieutenant?"

    "Would it be possible to artificially expand the area affected by the sinkholes?"

    "Theoretically, yes."

    "If we can somehow enlarge that area at will, we may be able to evade the Borg by augmenting the sinkholes and trapping the cubes in an area of space devoid of subspace."

    "How long would a patch of empty space keep a Borg cube down?" Kim asked Seven.

    "I am uncertain. In addition to the time spent crossing the empty region at impulse speeds, one would have to factor the time the Borg must spend trying to restructure their internal communications systems to compensate for the loss of subspace channels."

    "If we can keep that up for the time it takes us to cross the corridor, we might just be able to avoid the Borg long enough to get into open space. Would they pursue us afterwards?"

    "Doubtful," Seven answered. "The Borg do not experience vindictiveness. They would not expend resources to capture a small ship with a small crew complement unless it displays technology worth assimilating; no matter how many times said ship frustrates their efforts. Individual resourcefulness simply does not factor into the Borg worldview."

   "We still have to find a way to expand the subspace sinkholes," Torres pointed out.

    "We should clear this idea with the Captain before we start any time-consuming research," Kim answered. The other two agreed with him and the trio rose from the table, leaving the mess hall with their meals half-finished on the table.

    The "entertainment" over, Mezoti turned back to her own half-eaten lunch. As she idly poked the chunks of leola, she began to wonder if there was some kind of sinkhole that she could use to get rid of the offensive food. Still, she thought, closing her eyes as she brought the utensil to her mouth, dessert was dessert.