=/\=
Seven had never revealed to Captain Janeway that the Borg Queen had invaded her neural transceiver and told her she was aware of the plans to invade the sphere. The Queen would spare Voyager - if Seven agreed to rejoin the Collective. If she didn't return, the heist would fail. As far as the away team knew, Seven had defected back to the Borg. The true reason she left was only discovered after a close examination of the ship's sensor logs, which showed the Queen had been in contact with her former subject.
As the captain said to Naomi, when the girl came to her ready room with her own plan to save Seven, "a captain never abandons a member of the crew."
While Seven was a captive of the Borg Queen in the Unicomplex, the Queen forced her to come along on an excursion to help her assimilate Species 10026. Seven was sickened when she helped perform a task she'd previously accomplished without any qualms, when she had no will to refuse. She managed to help a handful of the species to escape: four, out of a population of 392,000. When the Queen detected the escape, Seven told her it would be an "inefficient use of resources" to recover such a small number of potential drones. They escaped the Borg, but where they would find sanctuary, it was impossible to know.
When they returned to the Unicomplex, the Queen decided upon a new task for Seven. She was ordered to assist in developing a new way to assimilate "resistant" species. A biogenic bomb detonated in a planet's atmosphere would release nanoprobe viruses that would gradually assimilate the population. No one would realize what was happening until half the population was well along the way to assimilation. The Queen's proposed target: Earth.
When Seven tried to resist, the Queen unveiled another ploy. She brought in a drone who looked very familiar to Seven of Nine. This drone once was Magnus Hansen, Seven's father, one of billions of drones, who would have no compunctions about assimilating anyone - even his own daughter. He no longer had any free will and couldn't do otherwise, if so ordered by the Queen of the Borg Collective.
Using technology invented by the Hansens, Captain Janeway, Tuvok, Tom Paris, and the Doctor infiltrated the Unicomplex where the Queen was holding Seven. A tussle of wills commenced over the body and the soul of Seven of Nine. The captain won. Seven was whisked away in the Delta Flyer, with three Borg vessels and the Borg Queen's yacht in hot pursuit. The Flyer had been fitted with the stolen transwarp coil and created a transwarp conduit to make their getaway, but the Borg Queen's yacht slipped inside the conduit and followed them.
When the Delta Flyer exited the conduit and approached Voyager's position, the captain ordered Commander Chakotay to fire weapons at the end of the conduit. The assault closed the conduit, but a minute later it opened again. The remnants of the Queen's yacht tumbled out into space. An adventure that began with a debris field ended with one as well.
Was the drone who had been Magnus Hansen on that yacht when it was destroyed? Was the Queen? What about Seven's mother? Was she one of the drones in the Unicomplex, or was she long gone? Seven didn't know the answers to those questions. She was pleased that Captain Janeway had come for her after Seven had seemingly gone back to the Borg of her own volition, but the facts she'd learned about her early life evoked memories that were anything but pleasant.
=/\=
After Seven spent a total of 48 uninterrupted hours regenerating, she went to one of the crew to talk with him about what had happened. "You once said that if I ever needed to talk with someone to adjust to life on Voyager, I could come to you. I haven't ever taken advantage of that offer before. If you're still willing, I would like to talk with you now."
"Of course, Seven. If I can help, I will. I'll certainly listen," Ensign Thomas Paris replied.
"I have heard that your relationship with your own father has not always . . . been easy."
"That's one way to put it," he said, laughing derisively. "An extremely accurate way, I'd say."
"I am finding it difficult to accept how my parents were so careless with me. They put their pursuit of knowledge over their daughter's safety, and as a result, I spent eighteen years as a Borg drone . . ." For almost an hour, the ensign, who had been demoted the previous year from the rank of lieutenant because of his own mistakes, listened as the entire story tumbled out. She seemed to have finished her tirade when she added, "I withheld one detail of what the Queen told me from Captain Janeway. The Queen claimed that she meant for the captain to disconnect me from the Collective. She placed me here so that I would betray Voyager - and humanity. I don't know if the development of the biogenic weapon was the betrayal, or if she still intends to use me in some other way. I may be a threat to everyone as long as I remain on this vessel."
Tom sat in silence for a short time before asking, "Do you believe her?"
"What do you mean?" Seven replied.
"Did you believe the Queen when she said she wanted the captain to break your link with the Collective? I mean, maybe she did, although when I think about everything that went down at the time, I find it hard to believe she could have anticipated every detail well enough to get the outcome she wanted. Chakotay would have been ecstatic if he'd succeeded in blowing you out of the airlock with the rest of your Unimatrix. You were lucky you survived. And when the Hirogen hunters captured you and Tuvok and almost turned you into stew for their lunch, did she take that into consideration?"
"I don't believe she was involved in that incident in any way," Seven agreed.
"I'm sure she wasn't. And the B'omar could have destroyed you on that moon when you went back to the wreckage of your parents' ship, or your mind could have been completely destroyed when Species 633 . . . I forget the rest of that species designation . . . "
"When I was infected by the virus in the viniculum? That was Species 6339."
"Right. Thank you. My point is, your usefulness as a spy or whatever could easily have ended there, too. If the Borg Queen is as devious as she seems to be, I would think she'd have arranged things a little better to insure your survival. I admit, if that was something she'd planned, it explains why we've managed to get out of trouble from the Borg on a couple of occasions when they could have caught us if they'd pursued us more aggressively."
"You believe the Queen lied to me?"
"What do you think?"
"She is capable of lying. As you said, she is very devious. Heartless and cold. Selfish. She called my emotional response to the destruction of Species 10026 'petty,' but her anger and hatred of humanity, and of Captain Janeway in particular, are very obvious. She has 'petty' emotions of her own. She's always been our enemy, but now, more than ever. I rejected her. She will never forgive me for that, or the captain, for rescuing me from her."
Tom said, "I can't argue with that conclusion, Seven. We know she'll keep on pursuing our captain as long as both of them are alive. But I don't think your rejection really changed much of anything. She's hated humanity ever since Jean-Luc 'Locutus' Picard escaped her clutches."
"That's true. She's tried to assimilate humanity with direct assaults on two occasions, she said, and those failures exasperate her. She's obsessed with assimilating the entire species. When she took me with her to assimilate Species 10026, she wanted me to 'practice,' to learn to obey her and do whatever she wanted me to, even though she hadn't returned me to the Hive mind."
"You're stuck between the Queen and our captain. Neither will ever give up until the other is dealt with permanently. Mommy problems, as well as Daddy issues, I'd say."
Seven tilted up her left brow. "You have an unusual way of expressing uncomfortable truths," she observed. "How have you dealt with your 'Daddy and Mommy issues,' Ensign Paris."
"I can't say I do have 'Mommy issues,' Seven, unless it's with Captain Janeway. My own mother is great. Not perfect, any more than anyone else is, but she always seemed to understand where I was coming from and take it into account. My father and I haven't seen eye-to-eye forever, it seems, but when I look back on it now, I was as much to blame as he was. I relished being the thorn in his side. He didn't take that any better than I did trying to live up to his expectations. He never seemed to get that what he wanted from me was really too much for a little kid."
"A 'thorn in the side?'" she asked quizzically. "Clarify."
"A thorn sticking in your side would cause a very sharp pain there," he said, chuckling.
"I understand the allusion now. You're saying you were just as imperfect as he was?"
"You must have noticed how I achieved my spiffy new rank of ensign, thanks to my recent accomplishments on Monea. Not to mention my thirty day vacation in the brig. I'm the poster child for imperfect. Perfection is impossible. And the Borg Queen's idea of perfection seems to be that everyone has to do whatever she wants without giving her any lip - that means objecting to any of her plans. She believes she's perfection personified, right?"
"Yes, that's right." She sighed. "I've tried to achieve perfection, but I've never been able to attain it. I believe I saw it once when the Omega . . . but we're not supposed to talk about that."
"No, we're not," the ensign said with a laugh.
"But there are many ways to be imperfect, and some are much more damaging than others. Your father's expectations of you, which you believed were unrealistic, didn't put you in jeopardy of assimilation. I can never forgive my father for that, especially now that I know my mother tried to dissuade him from continuing his pursuit of the Borg - and he ignored her."
Tom quietly responded, "I can't argue that point with you."
After a short pause, Seven realized she didn't have anything more to discuss with him. He'd done exactly what she'd asked of him. He'd listened to what she had to say and answered her questions with as much honesty as he could. She had much to mull over before she regenerated. She thanked Tom for taking the time to speak with her, adding, "I hope I haven't created difficulties for you in your relationship with Lieutenant Torres."
"Don't worry about that. B'Elanna's got Mommy and Daddy issues of her own. She knows what happened on The Raven, and she also knows you were just 'introduced' to your father, the Borg Queen's pet drone. I can make her understand that you came to me because you needed someone to talk to about it. It's too bad you don't have a really close friend of your own to go to when you need to unburden yourself. You were getting on fairly well with Harry for a while . . ."
"Ensign Kim is continuing to feel the effects of the disease he contracted during his ill-fated affair with the Varro woman," Seven reminded him.
"That's true. He still glows a little every now and then. I suppose it's when he's remembering her. You could try the Doc, of course, but then you'd have to put up with him putting in his own two cents . . . I mean, he'd give you tons of advice, some of it good, and some not so good, whether you wanted any of it or not."
"You are correct. I should consider finding someone associate with on an ongoing basis - other than Naomi. I enjoy our time together, but she wouldn't be an appropriate individual for me to speak with on subjects such as this. But your idea about developing a close friendship with someone has merit." Seven took her leave from Ensign Paris.
As she walked back to Cargo Bay Two, Seven found herself thinking more about the very last part of her discussion with Ensign Paris. If she'd ever had anyone she could speak with about her problems, or her joys, for that matter, she couldn't recall who it could have been. She'd been an individual for approximately eight years of her life. Her Borg existence had lasted for eighteen. She couldn't have had any discussions such as this during that period of time! Borg drones couldn't communicate at all in this manner. However, perhaps it was time to explore another aspect of her personality.
Although Ensign Paris had cautioned her about going to the Doctor for advice, she was quite sure he would be willing to discuss the advisability of forming a friendly relationship with one of the crew. Observing the way Ensign Paris and his girlfriend Lieutenant Torres interacted with one another might be helpful as well. At the very least, collecting data about human mating behavior might divert her from constantly rehashing what she'd learned about her early history. If she stopped obsessing about it, she might not feel the intense bitterness she felt towards her father whenever she did.
He might have been in the yacht that was destroyed in the collapsing transwarp conduit. If he was, Seven felt that Magnus Hansen had brought it upon himself.
=/\=
