Mezoti was glad that she had thought to take a thick sweater with her before leaving the habitat. The winter season wasn't too far away now, and the Wysanti nights had turned cool, especially with the crisp wind blowing across the rooftops tonight.
For all its briskness, the fresh air felt good on her face. She'd spent the last few days in debriefings with a succession of Military investigators, going over her actions on Sizm's flagship and aboard the interceptor. They wanted to know every detail; they were shocked that their prized weapon – which had been purchased at high cost, apparently – was so easily defeated, whilst it was an entomologist (and her friends) who had finally dealt the crippling blow to their relentless enemy.
Mezoti wasn't surprised at all. Sizm's weapon had obviously been used against the Borg before, and they'd had no problems adapting. Defeating the Borg wasn't a matter of superior technology, it was a matter of understanding how the Borg operated, what made them tick, and at what spots their collective worldview and utilitarian ideology left them blind to attack. And who better than an entomologist for that?
Wysanti Military was still on high alert, fearing that the Borg would launch some kind of reprisal. Mezoti wasn't worried. As she had tried to tell them several times, the attack on Wysanti had been no more than a drone-raid. With their assigned cube gone, the Borg would turn to other targets. The Borg understood superior weaponry and new technologies. They would never be able to understand individual resourcefulness like the kind that caused their downfall at The Gap. Such events were dismissed as a convergence of random circumstances – the Borg equivalent of luck – and were considered unworthy of the Collective's continued resources.
Up above, the stars twinkled in the firmament. Two days before, she's been sailing amongst them again, as she had so long ago. But without an atmosphere to lend them their familiar sparkle, they had seemed cold and lifeless – as if they had been lacking the vitality that can only be found on an inhabited planet. The essence of home.
"Mezoti?"
Mezoti turned around at the sound of her name.
"Azan! Oh, I'm sorry, I completely forgot the time…"
"It's okay," he assured her. "When I dropped by your habitat and the computer told me there was nobody home, I figured this is where you would be." Azan walked over to where she was sitting on the light-grey surface of the habitat complex's roof, then folded his legs beneath himself and sat down as well. The scar on his temple where he had been gashed had faded away so as to be indistinguishable by the soft starlight.
"I remember, when we were kids, you used to go out and sit on the roof at night, staring at the stars."
"Yeah…" Mezoti said wistfully. "Sometimes, when I was feeling as if I didn't quite fit in… I mean, don't get me wrong, mom and dad were great, but sometimes, being ex-Borg and Norcadian, I just felt so out of place. So I'd climb up to the roof and sit there, staring up at the night sky. Sometimes I'd try and identify constellations. Sometimes I'd try and find Norcadia, and wonder if I had any family left back there. And sometimes I'd take in the whole vastness of it and wonder where – in that big, black ocean – where Voyager might be now."
Mezoti paused, shamelessly basking in the nostalgia.
"Over the years, I went less and less often. One day, I had just stopped altogether, and didn't even realize it. Home stopped being somewhere amongst the stars. Home was here, on Wysanti, with mom and dad and you and Rebi."
Mezoti stopped talking again. The silent night wrapped itself around the adoptive siblings like a comfortable blanket. With the vertiginous expanse of space above them, the moment seemed to stretch towards infinity.
Finally, Azan asked: "How's your friend Taré?"
"He's doing well. The doctors are confident that he'll make a full recovery. He's slated to be released from the hospital in a few days."
"Good," Azan said. "He seems like a nice guy."
"He is." Mezoti let out a low laugh. "Actually, one of the nurses told me that he might be out even sooner than the doctors estimate. Apparently, he's been driving the nursing staff off the wall. He keeps trying to make sculptures out of his food or spare equipment. He seems to have some sort of low-lying phobia about cleanliness. I know he doesn't seem like my type. But… I think that's why it works so well."
Azan smiled and nodded. He drew his knees up to himself, wrapping his arms around his legs.
"You know, I used to go out to the roof too. Rebi and me. Not nearly as often as you did, and I doubt mom or dad noticed, but we did. Pretty much for the same reasons you just told me. Looking for something in the sky."
There was another pause in the conversation.
"Sometimes I wonder about them," Azan said after a few moments. "Icheb, Seven, Neelix, the Captain, and everybody else. I wonder about what happened to them after we left the ship. Do you think that they ever made it to their home?"
"Yes," Mezoti said without hesitation. "I don't know why… but yes. They made it. I'm sure of it."
With a smile of contentment on her face, Mezoti turned her head back up towards the heavens, where their safety had been secured, where long-lost friends no doubt resided, and where the stars seemed friendly once again.