=/\=
Seven carried Axum's message to Captain Janeway, who called an emergency staff meeting. Seven described her visit to Unimatrix Zero and added, "We'd only need to infiltrate a single vessel."
"Heh! Just one?" Thomas Paris, who had just been promoted back to lieutenant earlier that day, was, to say the least, skeptical.
"I'm prepared to take a shuttle and do this alone," Seven replied.
Ensign Kim approached her and said, gently, "No offense, but how do you know this wasn't some kind of dream?"
"Seven was wearing a cortical monitor. She never reached REM sleep. She wasn't dreaming," the Doctor answered.
"Unimatrix Zero is real, and so are the people who go there. They need our help." Seven was surprised to detect a measure of pleading in her voice. It wasn't like her. Or maybe it was, when she was in Unimatrix Zero.
The captain interrogated her about Unimatrix Zero, although she seemed sympathetic to what Seven was saying, by and large. The others were not. The half-Klingon of her acquaintance, for one, asked if was worth putting everyone's lives on the line. That struck a nerve.
"It's my understanding that when we receive a distress call, we respond," Seven replied waspishly.
Ensign Kim reluctantly agreed with Seven. "She's right. This is no different."
The captain also agreed, but she wanted more information before deciding how to proceed. Commander Tuvok offered to perform a Vulcan mind meld technique called "the bridging of the minds." With his help, Captain Janeway and Seven could visit Unimatrix Zero together, with Tuvok silently observing while he served as a telepathic conduit throughout the procedure. The Doctor objected, saying the procedure might not be safe for any of them. When the captain decided to do something, however, objections from Chakotay, the Doctor - almost anyone - were moot. The captain advised Seven, "I think you'll be turning in early tonight . . ."
=/\=
When Captain Janeway materialized in the forest, she reached out and touched one of the trees. How real it felt! She smiled as she turned around to see more of her surroundings. She was surprised to see Seven, a very different Seven. Her hair was down; her implants weren't visible; and her voice and dress were soft and flowing. "Seven?" the captain asked wonderingly.
"Annika. That's what I'm called here." She seemed girlish, almost shy.
They found Axum, who explained to the captain they'd developed a nanovirus and why they needed someone else to deliver it to a Borg vessel, so that Unimatrix Zero would continue to be hidden from the Borg Queen.
Captain Janeway, while willing to help, expressed her concerns. "We'd only be putting off the inevitable." She paused. "Have you ever considered a more . . . permanent solution?"
"More permanent?" Axum asked.
"You've got a remarkable sanctuary here, but that's all it is. Maybe it's time to stop hiding and find a way to fight back." Axum didn't understand how they could. "If you could find a way to carry your individualities into the Real World - to wake up from your regeneration cycles with your memories intact - you could begin to undermine the Borg's control over you."
When Annika said it sounded like the captain was advocating a civil war, Captain Janeway clarified, "I prefer to call it . . . a resistance movement."
In the middle of their discussion, they heard screams of fright. Drones sent by the Borg Queen were stalking those who visited the sanctuary. When a Queen's drone captured anyone, he stuck assimilation tubules into the neck of his victim, and the reassimilated one disappeared. As the Queen had the cortical node of every captured drone removed, each capture represented another visitor permanently erased from the roster of those who came to Unimatrix Zero.
Korok swung his bat'leth and sent two of the Queen's drones back to their cubicles. A third managed to overcome Korok. Before that drone could deliver nanoprobes to reassimilate the Klingon, Captain Janeway picked up the fallen weapon and dispatched him.
Using links with the visual processing implants in her drones' eyes, the Borg Queen had been enjoying the view of the battle from the comfort of her personal chamber in the Unicomplex. The one who had tried and failed to reassimilate Korok looked into the face of his attacker.
The Borg Queen recognized her nemesis before the view through her drone's eyes fizzled away. Her voice resonated with supreme malice throughout her chamber when she uttered the name: "Janeway!"
=/\=
The attack on Unimatrix Zero solidified Captain Janeway's determination to save the actual lives of the drones of Unimatrix Zero. This resolve was not altogether altruistic in nature. If a significant number of drones could be returned to individuality, as Seven and the Borg children had been, their loss, along with any resources the Queen lost in an attempt to reassimilate them, would be a drain on the Borg. What if the freed drones found a way to attack the Unicomplex itself? How much damage could they do via a direct invasion? If they did, and it was successful, everyone in the galaxy would benefit. Even if those who'd been freed didn't try such a radical action, losing any number of drones to freedom would be a blow to the Queen. Captain Janeway would not be deterred from trying to free them, if only to save them from bondage.
The Doctor's modifications to the nanoprobe virus transformed its masking function into what could best be described as a 'wakeup call.' The Queen would no longer hear those drones. She could search for them, but she'd have trouble finding every one. Her only recourse would be to destroy entire cubes full of drones. Would she really want to weaken her forces that way?
Another modification of the captain's plan was also made, but this one was not so much to her liking. Kathryn Janeway wanted to invade the chosen cube and inject the virus into the vessel's Central Plexus, which would disseminate it throughout the Borg's humongous fleet. Seven volunteered to deliver it herself, but, as the captain noted, she was the only one who could enter Unimatrix Zero to keep in touch with what was going on there. Seven had to remain on Voyager. The captain wanted to be the one to deliver it - by herself.
The captain's plan for a sole run was stymied by Tuvok and B'Elanna Torres. They demanded that they both come along as well: Tuvok, to provide security services; and B'Elanna, to utilize her engineering skills to make the operation run smoothly - or as smoothly as an invasion of a Borg Class 4 Tactical Cube possibly could. A Class 4 Tactical cube was one of the largest vessels in the Borg's arsenal.
Naturally, the captain balked at the proposal, but another voice, even more compelling, was raised against her plan of going to the tactical cube by herself. When she first decided to go with Seven to visit Unimatrix Zero, she'd told her first officer that she needed his support on the venture to proceed. He gave it. Now, he told her if she wanted his continued cooperation, she had to bring Tuvok and B'Elanna with her on the mission. Begrudgingly, she agreed.
Many elements would need to go just right if the plan to deliver the away team to their target was to succeed. As far as the captain of Voyager was concerned, everything would. If she had to confront the Queen of the Borg mano-a-mano, she would. In fact, she relished the prospect.
=/\=
Seven traveled to Unimatrix Zero again to share information about the planned action with those they wished to aid. When she arrived, Axum reported that Klingon warriors and Hirogen hunters were roaming through the forest, targeting drones, but despite their best efforts, more were being lost every hour. Axum showed Annika a gift from Korok. "Takes some getting used to," he told Annika, holding up a bat'leth.
"I'm sure you'll adapt," she smiled.
When several of the Queen's drones approached, they hid behind some rocks. Instinctively, Axum placed his arm protectively around her shoulders. After a tense moment, the drones moved off without discovering them. As Axum removed his arm, he apologized to her.
Annika became thoughtful. "That felt . . . familiar. Our touching."
"I told you, we were friends," he replied, but she could tell there was more he wasn't saying. Perhaps much more. When he refused to elaborate, she gave him a tender kiss on the lips.
As she backed away from him, more than a little breathless and very confused, she stated, even though she phrased it as a question, "We were more than friends, weren't we?" She knew the answer even before Axum hesitantly nodded agreement.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You'd forgotten. It wasn't my place."
"How long?"
"Six years. Only while we were regenerating." He paused, then continued wistfully, "A very memorable six years. For me, anyway."
More than friends - for six years! Seven felt a rush of paralyzing emotion. She could never remember feeling anything like this before. How could she not remember, if it had been that important to her in the past? A wave of panic washed over her. Despite the open forest setting of Unimatrix Zero, she suddenly felt claustrophobic, much like the way Tom Paris must have felt when he kept climbing out of his stasis tube while their ship was passing through a Mutara-class nebula, two years before.
"I should return to Voyager," she said abruptly.
"Annika -"
Coldly, she informed him, "My name is Seven of Nine." She shimmered away as even more memories rose to the surface of her mind. She wanted to deny them, but her virtual reality avatar knew the touch of those lips, even as her conscious mind was dismayed by the implications.
=/\=
