Post Dark Frontier 2375
Chapter 1
The Borg queen had told me that I was unique, and she wanted me for that. Seven thought. But the captain cared for me much more than I had previously anticipated, and she came for me, liberated me once again from the collective, from the queen herself. Although this time I was not a drone, I was being kept for use as a tool to ultimately assimilate species 5618. But it was more than defending humanity's existence as a sentient and independent species, although that was extremely important, but it was also about saving me. About getting me back and bringing me home. A gentle upwards twitch upturned her cheek muscles, the smile barely registering on her lips.
Seven disengaged from her alcove and stepped forward and down off of the platform. She picked up the padd laying on the console beside her and began flicking through her duty roster for the day. There was a senior staff meeting at 0900 hours, then the captain wanted a more detailed debriefing on her time spent on the Borg vessel. Then she was to continue recalibrating the sensor array on the deflector dish, and, more specifically, look for ways to enhance detection of trans warp signatures. She was hoping to avoid the Borg for a very, very long time.
Seven headed towards the mess hall to replicate a nutritional supplement before getting an early start on the sensor array. She wanted to stay busy and not dwell on the upcoming meeting. Something had changed in her and the captain's friendship. It wasn't just that the captain had saved her life, again, after countless times really, but it was the way she thought she looked at her, something had changed in her eyes and in the way she had spoken to her on board the vessel, and the once again before she started her regeneration cycle last night.
Janeway had come into her alcove and told her she needed to regenerate. She engaged the alcove. Seven closed her eyes, drifting into her cycle. There were some residual thoughts floating around the feeling she had started to receive when the captain was looking deep into her eyes. She was searching for something.
She had always known that their relationship was profound. It was unmistakably so. Just in the fact that it was Janeway who plucked her out of the collective and forced her to embrace her own humanity.
However, things had somehow changed now. She could feel it, like a magnetic pull towards Captain Janeway.
Chapter 2
The captain was sitting in her ready room. She was drinking coffee, waiting and thinking. What was she supposed to do now? Facing the sudden prospect of losing her forever, she realized that Seven had to be a part of her life and she had to do whatever was necessary to keep her from the Borg. And she hadn't been able to stop thinking of her since before the away mission. She shouldn't have let her go in the first place, not after how she had been behaving.
But she did put her on the away mission, and so she couldn't just let the Borg keep her. Not after everything she had already been through and everything they had been through together.
She looked up at the chime of her door. She hadn't realized she'd been staring into her cup of coffee. Tuvok entered.
"Good morning, Captain." He said. "I came to give you my tactical analysis of what we may expect in retaliation from the Borg."
"Isn't that what the meeting in a half hour is for?" Janeway replied, not really in a mood to start early.
He held out his hand holding the padd containing his report. "I thought you might like to review it beforehand."
"Is it that bad?" She asked, reaching out to take the padd.
"We will want Seven of Nine to finish downloading the tactical data she took from Unimatrix 01. We should implement as much of the technology as possible. Primarily focusing on enhancing shield modulation speed, boosting the sensor array, extending the life of a trans warp coil. "
"Do it." She responded. "Is there anything else?"
"No, Captain. Thank you."
She looked at him puzzled as he turned and walked out.
What was all that about? Janeway thought. A junior security officer would have been able to come up with that plan. Implement the data gleaned from Seven of Nine in any way possible to enhance their ship? She signed and set the padd on her desk. She walked over to the replicator. "Coffee, black."
Sitting at her desk with a metal mug of her favorite beverage she began scrolling through the section titles until she came across one entitled Boosting Transwarp Capability. She was interested in that. She knew that there was still data to be downloaded from Seven's cortical implant and she wondered what Tuvok had up his sleeve. The captain continued scanning this sub section of his report.
Inject the bio neural gel packs with nano probes.
A trans warp coil needed a minimum of 30 teradynes of force from the ships systems to maintain a trans warp conduit. Why couldn't we inject the bio neural gel packs with replicated nano probes? Could the nano probes independently modify the gel packs to maximize peak efficiency? She wasn't sure but she was intrigued. She got up and made her way to the briefing room. It was almost 0900.
She was looking forward to seeing Seven again. She had barely been able to hold it together the night before in Cargo Bay 2, and she wasn't really sure how long her resolve would hold.