Boogieman


2375

My body jerked as my eyes snapped open, thrusting me sharply back into my own present reality on Voyager. The sheets were moist with my own sweat, but it took me several seconds to really notice. I was too busy reminding myself that the nanoprobes in my heart couldn't assimilate me. With a shudder, I rubbed my hands up and down my arms.

Marnah—a Borg drone in the Gamma Quadrant.

Her cybernetically-augmented face was the very same one I'd been seeing since my first vision two weeks before Chakotay and I met Riley Frazier and her cooperative. Ever since then, I had assumed that the image was meant to be symbolic.

I couldn't assume that anymore.

More of that past vision played in my mind—myself in a ranjen'i robe, walking barefoot through the destruction that Jem'Hadar and Cardassian troops had rained down upon the innocent Bajoran refugees of the Valo system. The death chant flowed through my memory, its smoothness a stark contrast to the gritty, blood-soaked mudd that wet my feet and stained my robe. Jem'Hadar vaporized the bodies, leaving nothing but wisps of ash behind.

"Locusts," the Prophet had called them. Dominion ships resembled the flighted insects, swarming their enemies and consuming everything.

Then, the Jem'Hadar and their locust-ships were overwhelmed by an even hungrier swarm of insects—the Borg. Drones swept through the burned-out camp, assimilating Jem'Hadar and their Vorta commanders.

Finally, the hive took Cardassia Prime.

I shook my head, refusing to recall the rest of that vision. Throwing back the sweat-soaked sheets, I peeled off my wet sleepwear and replaced it with loose-fitting exercise apparel, all the while being careful not to wake Harry.

Once I was dressed and mostly dry, I grabbed my knife and made my way to the holodeck.


I tried getting into the standard sparring program—I really did—but grappling with holograms until they tapped out just didn't do enough to keep the rising panic at bay. I needed rage and blood.

It was, unfortunately, at my own suggestion years before that total deactivation of holodeck safety protocols required two separate command codes. Were it not for that, I would have taken them offline. Nothing held my attention quite like the immediate possibility of death. Still, setting the safeties down to their bare bones made the program real enough to pull my mind into the simulated carnage, and to distract me from the ghost of my latest dream.

I didn't even notice Tuvok enter the holodeck.

He stayed out of sight until I had slaughtered every last soldier, only making his presence known once my final enemy released his dying breath. Stepping out from behind an alcove, he said calmly, "Good morning, Commander Eelo."

With a grunt, I wrenched my knife from the dead soldier's throat.

"Korma outpost," Tuvok observed, offering a hand-up.

I did not take it. Staring at the soldier beneath me—a man who used to haunt my dreams—I spat blood in his dead face and muttered, "Computer, end program."

The empty gray eyes dissipated like smoke in a breeze, along with the hard form of his body, leaving a deeply hollow feeling behind. I let the knife clatter to the deck, replicated blood shaking loose and splattering on the clean floor.

"The soldier who assaulted you during the raid?"

I nodded, still panting from the fight.

"I presume that you created this program shortly after your arrival on Voyager."

Again, I nodded.

"When was the last time you accessed it?"

"51486.9."

"Nearly a year and a half ago," he said, stooping to pick up my knife. He examined it for a moment before looking at me. "Why do you return to it now?"

"I don't know," I whispered.

For several long seconds, Tuvok did not move at all. When he did, he wiped the blade on his own clean sleeve, set it down, and exited the holodeck without saying a word.

It occurred to me that I must have disturbed him when I woke. The dream left me with overwhelming feelings I wasn't ready to face, so I drowned them in even stronger feelings that I knew how to handle. It was what I always did one way or another. The difference this time was that my emotions were no longer private.

Except... that wasn't a new development. It seemed new to me, but only because he'd withheld the information for months while I recovered from injuries that nearly killed me. The fact of the matter was I'd been carrying around a piece of Tuvok's katra since before the dreams started.

He knew about my dreams, then. He had to know. Why hadn't he said anything?

I stared at the knife, its strange green gemstone seeming to flicker in the bright overhead lights, and I wished that Tuvok had just confronted me rather than leaving me alone with that unbearable sense of dread.


During my lunch break, Elentia paid me a visit. She said that she only wanted to keep me company, but I could tell she was holding herself back. It wasn't just the tension in her posture or the way she fidgeted with her teacup.

It was that I felt no emotions projecting from her at all.

"You haven't been this hesitant to speak your mind since we first met," I observed. "Tell me what you came here to say."

She tilted her head. "It isn't something I want to say, but something I don't understand."

"What's that?"

She set her cup on the table. "Why you have not consulted the Orb of Peace."

I winced. Immediately, I wished that I hadn't, but it was exhausting work to constantly mask my emotions, and I was losing motivation to keep up the facade when I didn't need to.

She read my reaction perfectly. "You are avoiding something you experienced as negative—painful—from the Prophet."

The memory of Marnah's assimilated face floated to the surface of my thoughts, tugging at every other memory of her and threatening to swallow me up. I pushed her down, drowning the thoughts by force.

"It's complicated," was all I could say. It was the truth, in a way. The whole matter was beyond my own comprehension—and not just because I had yet to receive all the information from Alixia's dreams. When it came to Marnah, I had no idea how to think or feel anymore.

"I can tell," Elentia said, reaching across the table to take my hand.

"Mother," I murmured, "officer, teacher, trainer, leader, hero, revolutionary, traitor, liar, spy, casualty—" I paused as my throat tightened, then forced the final word from my tongue in a whisper— "nightmare."

Elentia's grip tightened. "Why do you say that?"

"Maybe I'm just realizing that I can't afford to see her through child's eyes any longer, and I'm afraid of what darkness I might find if I look at her more closely."

"And the Prophet?"

"Comes to me as her," I answered, "more often than not."

She sighed. "I am so very sorry to have been the bearer of such pain."

I looked up at her through tearful eyes that made her face waver and blur. "You're not. The Prophet is. I think Marnah's secrets may become very important to us in the near future. I just... I need a little more time before I'm ready to face them."

She nodded. "I understand. Take whatever time you need."


"Captain." Harry's voice snapped my concentration in the middle of doing sensor recalibrations. "Incoming signal from the comm net. It's from Unity One."

"Hold on," I texted to Megan, who was in astrometrics assisting with the sensor work.

"On screen," Janeway said.

The viewscreen flickered to life, projecting a flat holo-image of Dr. Riley Frazier across the forward bulkheads of the bridge. "Captain Janeway, I have news. Our contacts from Unimatrix Zero have confirmed something they suspected for a while, but hesitated to share until they were sure. I commed as soon as they gave approval."

"Go on."

"When the virus to liberate Unimatrix Zero was introduced into the Collective, there seemed to be a secondary effect that was not part of the virus' original design. It interrupted the neural connection of drones who did not belong to Unimatrix Zero. They were not prepared to be liberated from the hive mind. Many deactivated themselves. The effect did not last for long, but there was another consequence. It has fractured the Borg Collective."

Janeway frowned. "What do you mean, 'fractured'?"

"I mean, Captain, that there are now six different Borg collectives, all separate from one another." She paused to let the news sink in.

Janeway looked to Chakotay with wide eyes. I glanced at Harry, whose expression was grim.

"The hive must not be scattered to the winds,'" the Prophet had told me in what seemed like a different lifetime. "All is at risk if they are. The hive must be destroyed as one."

It was as if fate was determined to split the Borg into factions that could more easily overrun the galaxy. But wasn't that simply the natural cycle of all empires? At some point, it would have to crumble and fall, making way for something new to grow in its place. That was how Q seemed to see it. Was it inevitable that the Federation should fall, too? What kind of empire would take over once the Borg finally fell? Something better than the Federation, or something worse than the Borg?

Did subjective concepts like 'good' and 'bad' even matter in the face of such an unknowable and inevitable future?

"What will this mean for the rebellion going forward?" Chakotay asked, pulling my attention back into the present.

"We're not entirely sure," Riley replied. "The situation is unprecedented. We hope for the best, but realistically, this will probably make our work even harder. We're fighting six enemies now, instead of one." She glanced down at her controls, blonde locks slipping over her face. "I'm sending you a report on all we know so far, and I'll forward any updates as well." She looked up at the screen again. "We're open to suggestions."

Janeway glanced at Harry, who nodded to confirm that he had the transmission. She then returned her gaze to Riley. "We'll review what you have and let you know what we come up with."

"Thank you, Captain. There's something else you should know. It's detailed in the report, but I feel as though I should tell you that these unintended consequences—Captain, our contacts have confirmed that they didn't result from the virus. They suspect—and we agree—that something else was piggy-backed on it. But we have no way of confirming what it was or where it came from, as the only samples we have are damaged. I hoped you might be able to help us answer our questions. It could make or break our war against the Borg."

Janeway nodded. "We'll look into it. Thank you, Dr. Frazier."

"Thank you, Captain."

With that, the screen went blank.

Janeway looked to ops. "Mister Kim, I want that report forwarded to every department head on Voyager, and send a copy to Captain Ransom to discuss with his officers as well."

"Aye, Captain."

She turned to me. "Miss Eelo, I need your people in the middle of this, working with every other division to get the best possible results. I want a report within the hour on your plans for executing this research."

I nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Talia," Harry said, "I can finish your sensor recalibrations."

"Acknowledged. Transferring to ops." Returning attention to my console, I texted Megan, "Routing to ops. Flip your end to Jen. Need to call a meeting."

"Aye," she replied.

Harry already had my copy of Riley's report downloaded to a PADD by the time I headed for the turbolift.


An hour later, I walked into Janeway's ready room with my own report in hand. She sat at her desk, computer console active and chirping under her fingertips. Tuvok stood at ease behind her, watching me with his steady gaze as I approached. "The report you requested," I said, holding out a PADD.

Janeway looked at me as she accepted it. "Thank you, Commander. Have a seat."

I blinked, not expecting to stay beyond delivering my report and maybe answering one or two questions, but I did as she asked.

"Have you had a chance to look at their findings?"

"I've glanced over the report," I said, "but haven't studied it very closely yet."

"Did you notice anything worth mentioning?"

I knew what she was after. I noticed it right away, and it had gnawed at me for the last hour. No sense in avoiding the issue. "The virus was paired with nanoprobes that have been modified to bind to DNA and stimulate regenerative processes without fully taking over cellular function—just like the nanoprobes used to save my life."

Janeway studied me closely, her blue eyes full of concern. "You said that Annika stabbed you in the chest with her assimilation tubules just before she downloaded the virus into the sphere's central plexus. Is it possible that she collected a sample of those nanoprobes from you to act as carriers?"

"Yes, I do think it's possible. But there's still a lot of questions to be answered. Like, why use carriers when the virus was designed to slip into the neuro link unnoticed? Or, how could those nanoprobes possibly affect the Borg, as they appear to have done, when they were modified to facilitate heart tissue regeneration? I don't really understand the connection, but my people and I will do our best to find out."

"I know your division will work hard, as they always do," Janeway said. "But I need you elsewhere."

I frowned. "Captain?"

"I want you to report to sickbay for testing. Something tells me there's more happening on my ship than I realized, and I intend to find out the truth. I want those nanoprobes dissected and analyzed. Which means—" She paused, her expression growing apologetic— "Dr. Schmullis must be briefed on your genetic enhancements in order for us to consider every possibility here."

I nodded, lowering my gaze. "I understand."

"Talia," she said, calling my eyes back to hers. "I have given the issue some thought, and I believe Schmullis will see my point of view. This is highly sensitive information, not something we would want to risk transmitting across tens of thousands of light-years through an alien communications array. If it fell into the wrong hands, it could be dangerous. Mister Tuvok and I agree that it would be in the best interests of everyone, including the Federation, to keep it contained for the time being."

The corners of my lips twitched. "You make a good point, Captain."

"Now, it remains that this cannot be withheld from Starfleet indefinitely. Once we return to Federation space, Dr. Schmullis and I will both be required to report what we know. I'll do my best to defend your commission to Starfleet, and I have no doubt that your service record will speak for itself, but I cannot make any promises as to how they will respond once they find out the truth. You know Starfleet's policy on this."

"I know." I folded my hands, but kept my gaze steadily on hers. "My discharge was inevitable, even before Kes made this discovery. I've always known that I was on borrowed time. I'm ready to accept whatever consequences may come. It's more important that we get answers. We have to help Unimatrix Zero take down the Borg, and this is our best lead. I'll report to sickbay right away."

Janeway offered a half-smile. "Thank you, Commander."


The rest of my afternoon was spent in the quiet company of unanswered questions. At first, only Kes was there with me. Dr. Schmullis joined once he had been briefed by Captain Janeway and, although he looked unhappy at being left out of the loop, he made an effort to keep a compassionate bedside manner.

By the time I went home for the evening, I was exhausted. I went to dinner in the mess hall with Harry, but remained quiet through most of it. We went straight back to our quarters after, where he suggested we go to bed early.

Silently, I begged Alixia to give me a break from the visions. I felt her response more than heard it.

"Rest."

Released from the burden of dread, I allowed myself to relax as Harry helped me undress, pulled me into bed, and tucked me against his body. In his arms, I felt a sense of security that didn't exist anywhere else in the universe, and it invited me to simply be. It felt so good, so relieving, to let him take care of me for a while.

Cocooned in the security of Harry's embrace, I slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.