"Come in"

Kathryn sat in her ready room going over the reports that had been made by Tuvok throughout their New Cooperative/Borg experience. She had been through it twice before, but she wanted to go through it one more time. She realized that they were quickly approaching Borg space and she was going to need every piece of information at her disposal to face the challenge that was ahead of them.

B'Elanna walked in. "Captain, I would like to talk to you, do you have a minute?"

Kathryn smiled. "Of course. Join me." she gestured towards the couch.

"Would you like anything to drink."

"No thanks. It's about Chakotay."

Kathryn nodded. Somehow she knew that was what she wanted to talk about. It amazed Kathryn sometimes the protective instinct that Chakotay and B'Elanna had towards each other. It seemed unlikely given the differences in their natures, that they would be such good friends.

"Have you spoken to him since he got back?"

Kathryn thought about breakfast that morning. "No I haven't been able to."

"I just came from his office. He and Riley were intimate Captain."

Kathryn gave a sharp intake of breath as the jealousy cut through her like a knife. It was a confirmation of what she had deduced by observing him throughout the encounter. Still it was surprising how her intense her feeling were.

B'Elanna misinterpreted the look that she saw cross her captain's face. "Yes, that's the reason that he is taking what happened to him very badly. I talked to him briefly, but I know Chakotay and I know the limits of our friendship. I don't think that he will open up to me a lot more about it, but I think that he needs to talk."

She gave a deep sigh and continued. "I guess what I'm asking you to do is but in. He'll try to keep you at a distance but see if you can reach him, be as persistence as you can. He needs all of his friends right now."

Kathryn was about to ask B'Elanna how she knew that he would open up to her. But she sensed that her officers were not blind nor stupid. It was obvious how close the Captain and First Officer were.

Until now.

Kathryn shook the thoughts out of her head. She smiled.

"Aye Lt." B'Elanna returned the smile and left Kathryn to her thoughts.

She touched her combadge. "Kathryn to Chakotay."

In his Office, Chakotay was startled by her call. She had never used her first name over the Com before.

"Chakotay here."

"Join me for dinner tonight, my quarters?"

"Is that an order?"

"Do I have to make it one for you to join me?"

He chuckled. "No you don't. 1900 hrs OK?"

"Fine, Kathryn out."

Chakotay sat down at his desk with a sigh and took the first PADD on his desk and began to read. He had a lot of work to do. In her office, Janeway did the same.


"Sometimes I wonder what they are doing now and especially how they are doing it."

Chakotay pushed his plate aside and took a sip of his drink. Kathryn sat opposite him and studied his face as he made this statement. They were sitting in her dinning room talking over the remainder of their dinner. The entire evening's conversation was about their experiences with the Borg and the New Co-operative. Chakotay had told her about some of the things that he had found out about the people in the New Co-operative through his being linked with them. Kathryn listened with her full attention, she was eager to find out anything, any information which would help her discern how the collective worked. She was also grateful that he did not share his personal experiences with Riley. Kathryn knew that she did not want to know any of it. She had done her part to keep the discussion as professional as possible without losing the ease at which the experiences were shared. It seemed that Chakotay had realized this and had done his part to ensure that the discussion was professional.

"Why is that?"

"I can't help thinking about Riley and Orem and the others and what they wanted for their community. In a lot of ways the Borg thinking has some parallels in Federation values."

"How does violent assimilation have any parallels to peaceful co-existence?" Kathryn frowned, she didn't think she liked where this conversation was heading.

"I think that there are parallels between us before a point where a line is drawn and we go very divergent ways after that. I think that the line is defined by the answer to the questions, 'What price are we willing to pay for peace? How far will we go to attain achieve peaceful co-existence with others?"

"Go on." Kathryn said intrigued.

"If you think about it, all the species of the Federation have had a barbaric period in their history. Humans, Vulcans, Betazoids, Bolians, Catarians to name a few. When First Contact was initiated between Vulcan and Earth, it was at the end of a particularly savage era for us. But we survived and with the effects of first contact, we were able to come together in true unity, to work at rebuilding our society. We were able to eradicate war, hunger, poverty and disease. Then we joined together and we formed the Federation. It took time, but we united our corner of the quadrant and then we expanded, pushed out against the boundaries of who we were, what we knew. We wanted to know more of what was out there. We made our share of mistakes, but we learnt. We approached other races in peace. We wanted to learn and to understand their ways, their cultures. To share our technologies to attain peace through co-existence, not subjection. Some of the new races were willing to respond in like to our approaches, others were not.

Others were willing to take by force what was not theirs. They had not interest in sharing. Their value systems are too different. The conflicts which ensue cannot be resolved, the price of peace was too high for both parties involved, so we waged wars.

"Chakotay, the Federation has not been at war for over 80years!"

"Not officially, but we have been involved in squirmishes, boundary disputes and political disagreements. The causes and results are the same. Intolerance played out resulting in death destruciton, homelessness and the slaughter of the innocent. Any name that you give it, it is still war. And somehow, in fighting others we've learned to fight ourselves again."

"You can't possibly think that our directive seeking out new life and new civilizations was the cause of the situation in the de-militarized zone?" Kathryn looked at him in surprise.

"No, I don't. But you can't deny that if some members of the Federation had decided that the price for peace with the Cardassians was too high, we would not be fighting each other now."

She couldn't deny it.

"The Borg are different and yet the same. They seem to crave the peace and the harmony that comes from one collective mind, one collective will. The good of the many is the good of the one. The different cultures, technological advances are used to add to the Collective's knowledge and betterment. There is one way, the way of the Collective. When I was linked to the New Cooperative, there was a former drone who was Vidian. I can't describe the joy that he felt when he realized that in being assimilated he was cured of the phage forever. He regarded his life as a drone, much better than any life he would have had as a Vidian individual. The Borg's way of peace, of exploration of understanding of other cultures is done violently. It is done through assimilation and the destruction of entire civilizations and cultures. There is no price of what they consider peace that it too high for them. They don't take lives, they take souls, individuality if you will, and for our culture that is a higher price than death to exact from someone."

"Now we have the new co-operative, endeavoring to the mixture of Federation and Borg societies. They want to keep their individuality and cultural identity but still be one harmonious community. Is it possible?"

"I don't know, but by the way that they acted in saving us from the cube, preventing us from being assimilated. You could see that they were functioning as a group of compassionate individuals I would think that it was possible." Kathryn replied.

"Really? Now what happens if one person has a thought that is contrary to what the majority believes. What if others join in, but there is still a minority who believe in the dissident thought. Whose thought is taken as law?"

"I supposed that the majority would."

"Eight people Kathryn, that's how many people decided that the thousands of people on that planet should be joined together and be linked. I have a good idea whose thoughts and objectives will be catered too."

"You're saying that in this instance the price of peace, or the means of attaining peace was too high. That in using the Borg neural link and attaining peace by force, by coercion, the new co-operative have shown that they were no different from the Borg. I'm surprised Chakotay, I thought that you had agreed to Riley's proposal."

"I don't think that I was objective to it at first. But that was because of my first experience with the link. After the second, I realize what a great potential for abuse lies in it. In this case, the ends...

"Do not justify the means" Kathryn finished for him. She looked worried. The look of anger on his face spoke volumes

The End

Part 8: The Dark Pages

Page 1: Scorpion's Sting