Chapter 12
The standoff between the three Starfleet vessels and Species 8472 continued.
"Nothing." Ellie Horne sounded as surprised as she looked. She wasn't the only one. Behind Species 8472's vessels, the Mud Hole continued on in its compound growth, so large it didn't look so much like a nebula anymore. It was as though someone had opened a window into fluidic space for them to see their future.
Chakotay felt himself, if possible, grow even more uneasy as the seconds ticked by. "Any word from Seven?"
"Nothing, sir," said Volopolous. "Do you think they got to her?"
There was something in the blunt way that she said it. It made the whole crew silent and tense. Chakotay wondered how the question was meant. Was Seven dead, or had she been compromised?
"Send a message to Picard and Silas. We'll need to go to Plan B," said Chakotay. He wanted to sigh, to run his hands over his face and swear. The concerned faces looking up at him for guidance prevented this. He had to stay in control. "Everyone to battle stations. Get ready to move in on my mark."
"Sir," Volopolous called in warning from behind him. "I'm getting an encoded message. I think it's from the Justice."
Hope jumped unbidden back into the room. Chakotay couldn't help but feel his heart skip a beat. "What does it say?"
Volopolous hesitated, looking panicked. "I don't know. I -- I can't decode it."
"What?"
She shook her head, distressed. "I -- I'm sorry. It's some algorithm I've never seen before."
Chakotay thought back to Voyager's time in the Delta Quadrant. "Harry, see what you can do with it. I'm willing to bet a life's worth of holodeck time that she used something only you would recognize."
Harry nodded and bent to his work. Sure enough, he smiled as soon as the message appeared on his screen. "You're right. It's based on an old Borg algorithm."
Volopolous frowned, not happy at being outdone. Still, she was curious. "Borg?"
Harry didn't notice her disappointment. He was too excited in the thrill of the moment. "We used it a couple of times. It's a basic Borg algorithm they use in their regeneration units. She showed it to me when we were setting up units for the kids." A few seconds passed. "I have it." The smile faded back into worry. "It says the weapon failed. She doesn't know why, but she's going in to 'fix it'."
Shit, thought Chakotay. And they wouldn't be able to contact her without giving away her location. We'll have to go along with it whether we like it or not. He began typing in a message to send to Tom and Silas. This would take some explanation.
-----------------
Voyager and the Regulus moved into the line of ships first, clearing the way for the Enterprise, which hobbled along behind. A few shots with phasers didn't do much damage, but scattered some of the fleet and crippled a few vessels.
A few shots with nanoprobe-enhanced weapons encouraged the pods to move out of the way faster and discouraged them from getting too close. However, it did not completely prevent them from attacking.
Half of the fleet dispersed and regrouped behind the starships. Still, they continued to force their way through, drawing closer and closer to the Mud Hole and Seven. He didn't know how many ships Species 8472 had at their disposal, but he hoped this battle was drawing their attention away from the structure they were protecting, away from her.
"Good luck, Seven," Chakotay murmured as he watched the battle. I love you, he added in thought, wishing he could have said it to her out loud.
--------------------
It was now or never. Seven started the transporter. Her world faded from the Justice to the inside of the structure inside the Mud Hole. Like the pods Species 8472 used as ships, this… machine was made of biological material. Various shades of brown and slightly gooey, it resembled a jungle covered in clay and mud more than anything.
The structure was so small that it didn't take long for Seven to locate the torpedo. It appeared fine. Tendrils from the ship had grown over it, but hadn't been able to penetrate the casing. Looking closer, Seven noticed scratches on the casing. Opening it, she saw the frozen timer, stuck at four minutes. What, then, had stopped it? She set down her weapon, a rather large phaser rifle, and tools beside her and prepared to work.
A slight noise, nothing identifiable, caught Seven's attention and made her all too aware that she might not be the only living thing onboard. Her scanner wasn't picking up any signs of life, but there were a number of ways Species 8472 could circumvent the simple scans. She was almost completely convinced there was one of the aliens onboard, a precaution in case she returned just like this.
The noise came again, this time from behind her. It sounded like something brushing against the material of the structure. She turned in time to see one of Species 8472 jump from the ceiling and strike. It hit her in the chest, causing her to fly back and hit the far wall. Her chest on fire, ribs aching and her whole back protesting, Seven tried to catch her breath. There, still beside the torpedo was her weapon. She crawled towards it as the alien dived for her again.
Rolling out of the way just in time, Seven was even further from her rifle and the weapon than before. The alien meant business. It didn't give her time to think of something else to do before it attacked again. She caught its arm before it could strike at her, but it was too strong for her to hold on.
The wall was harder than it looked and hurt as much as the first time when she was thrown into it. This happened again and again until it hurt too much. Seven just couldn't bring herself to fight anymore. Every move, every attempt to escape or fight back was met with pain.
The creature came at her and picked her up, holding her aloft by her neck. It stared into her eyes as it slowly choked the life from her lungs. Its malevolent yellow eyes contained pure hatred as they bore into her. Seven felt something inside her mind and knew the alien was trying to communicate.
"I know your fears," it said. Laughter that wasn't her own echoed in Seven's mind. "It's me."
The grip tightened around Seven's throat and she choked, feeling the pressure on her trachea. Images were flashing before her eyes, long lost memories and scenes from her life with the Borg. The sadness of the memories hit her harder than the physical pain. She saw again as though there again the death of her guinea pig Clover, leaving the Alpha Quadrant with her parents, their assimilation at the hands of the very creatures they were studying, being afraid and alone in the dark, being ripped from the familiarity of the Collective…
The alien probed the mind of its victim before it died, enjoying all the suffering of her life.
The edges of her vision began to blur and cut out.
The alien came to more recent memories and saw a man's face. He was crude, primitive in appearance and had an ink pattern on the side of his face. He was smiling at Seven and she was smiling back, leaning in to kiss him sweetly.
The creature realized its mistake too late. Seven's mind ripped away and she brought her hands up, thrusting her fingers into its eyes.
The creature let out a scream of pain and she dug in further, ignoring everything else until the hand around her throat loosened. With a thud, she dropped to the floor and coughing and crawling, she grabbed her rifle. Two shots killed the thrashing alien.
Ignoring the burning in her throat and the pain of several broken bones, Seven tried to get up. Her legs refused to work and she looked down in dismay. Both appeared to be broken in more than one place. The left ankle was certainly crushed. Her shoulder was sore, but both arms worked with a bit of concentration.
She pulled herself closer to the torpedo and opened the casing with a security code. Though the casing and uppermost wiring was practically undamaged, the rest was a mess. The alien had completely taken apart the detonator. She poked around further, hoping that was the most damage. Her shoulders slumped as the last of hope drained from her. They had made the torpedo useless. There was no way it could explode now.
Defeated, she sunk down, leaning against the gutted weapon, trying to think of another way to disperse the nanoprobes. Only the force of an explosion would work and the Justice didn't have another device with the same explosive capability as the torpedo Species 8472 had taken apart. It had been the last and only weapon of its size they had, scavenged from the Enterprise.
She thought back to one of Silas' early suggestions of sprinkling nanoprobes out a hatch and almost laughed, half wishing she could, but it simply didn't work that way. It would be easy to do, she thought ruefully. I have a shuttle…
I have a shuttle.
Her eyes widened and she felt new life flood into her with the excited bounding of her heart: but how would she get out of the Mud Hole? She couldn't. It would take a system overload to create a big enough explosion to spread out enough nanoprobes into the ever-growing nebula and the structure… Seven looked around herself. The whole thing was shielded on the outside to protect from weapons fire and other phenomena. That's why she suggested they detonate the weapon from inside.
A head-on collision from a large vessel, much larger than the Justice and set to self destruct, could produce enough force to bring down the shields and destroy it, she thought. The only problem would be that the rift into fluidic space, from which this structure was drawing basic building blocks and energy, could stay open. Whichever vessel destroyed the structure would have to be emitting a charge to close the rift.
She transported back to the Justice to start the system overload and send a message to Voyager.
---------------
Voyager bucked and rolled with the force of the attacks. Species 8472 was pairing up their vessels, concentrating the force of their phasers. It was doing a good job against the Starfleet vessels. They had managed to make it almost to the outer edge of the Mud Hole and make a stand. However, early into the battle the Starfleet captains realized they were outgunned, even with the Borg weaponry. The Enterprise was down to just phasers and shields were down to ten percent. The other starships had taken up defensive positions around the Enterprise, but there wasn't much they could really do. One more hit and it would be out of the battle, unable even to escape. The others weren't faring much better.
The Regulus was hit three times in succession. The outside already looked like a pot-marked tin can.
"Shields are down to twenty percent, sir," shouted Ensign Markus, the replacement for Lieutenant Dykstra.
Silas almost slid out of his chair as his ship took another hit. What now, he thought, gritting his teeth.
Markus held onto the console to keep upright as he updated his captain on the damages. "The deflector dish is down and we have hull breaches on decks two and three."
"We can't take much more of this," said Lieutenant Ackeela from the helm.
One of the brown pods hurtled towards them. It exploded, hit with one of the Regulus' nanoprobe-enhanced torpedoes.
"What's taking her so long?" Ackeela's fingers jerked over the controls and the ship barely dodged another volley of orange fire from the pods.
Silas felt his stomach rolling slightly. "Just keep in between the enemy and the Enterprise, Lieutenant." He dug his fingers deeper into the arms of his chair. He hoped whatever that ex-Borg was up to, she would be done soon, hopefully before his ship was torn apart.
----------------
There was terror in Ellie Horne's voice as she shouted above the din of sparking circuits and phaser hits. "Sir, we have to get out of here. I can't be a road block and dodge fire at the same time." Five of the brown pods dove and swerved around them, emphasizing her point.
"Hold your position, Lieutenant," said Chakotay. "We have to give Seven time."
"We're just getting used as target practice. We'll be destroyed."
Chakotay ignored her, directing his question to Harry Kim and Ensign Volopolous. "Status?"
"Shields are down to forty percent," said Volopolous, "which is better than the Regulus or the Enterprise. Long-range sensors are down too."
"We're down to ten torpedoes and only five of those have been modified," said Harry. "And Species 8472 is only down to sixteen vessels."
"Sir," called Horne, "We can't stay here forever. What if Seven of Nine isn't able to fix the weapon? What if they ambushed her?"
Harry must have seen how tightly-wound up his captain was because he took it upon himself to answer her. "You don't know Seven." He clung to his console as the ship rocked from a hit. "She's just as likely to have ambushed them." Harry met Chakotay's worried eyes, reassuring the crew and his captain just as much as himself. "She'll be fine. All we need is a little more time."
------------------
"Just a little more time," Seven said to herself as she watched the battle from the pilot seat of the Justice. Her legs hung limp over the edge of her chair, which she had pulled herself into by sheer force of will. Blood slowly dripped from her arm and ankle onto the carpet. The tools she had used to extract more nanoprobes from her blood lay scattered on the floor. There would be more than enough to get rid of the nebula and eat away at the outer casing of the structure.
Long-range scans indicated the Enterprise was the only ship left with a working deflector dish. She punched in a series of commands into the computer.
Her messages sent and the computer humming, she transported back to the alien structure. Now all she had to do was wait. She was surprised how calm she felt about her fate, how willing she was to give her life to save her only family. Janeway would be proud.
Seven leaned her head back and tried to think of something pleasant. She remembered first meeting Harry Kim and Tom Paris, how friendly they had been. One by one, the faces of her friends passed before her eyes. When Chakotay's dark visage came into focus, she finally let the tears fall. She wished she had told him how she really felt, but there was at least a little time left.
-----------------
"Captain, I'm getting another encrypted message," said Volopolous, already running the message through the decoder Harry had provided. "It's from Seven. She says they took apart the torpedo. She can still disperse the nanoprobes, but…"
"What is it?" asked Chakotay.
"It says we're going to have to crash the Enterprise to destroy the structure."
Harry gaped. "She can't be serious."
Chakotay laughed. "This is Seven we're talking about. Did you expect anything less?"
----------------
The information didn't hit Tom as hard as he would have expected. He supposed it had something to do with the fact that the ship was already crippled, just a hindrance now to the others.
"All right, everyone off the ship." He keyed the intercom. "Abandon ship. Use the escape pods and you'll be towed to either the Regulus or Voyager. Good luck."
Without hesitation, Tom Paris ordered his bridge crew to their pods and put in the coordinates and codes himself. It was his responsibility as commanding officer. Only he would be responsible for destroying it.
The computer calculated how long it would take to reach the structure. "Ten minutes to impact," said the monotone voice.
He told the computer to activate the self-destruct sequence as soon as the structure was hit. Paris called Voyager. "Ten minutes. Do you think you can keep them off me until then?"
Chakotay nodded. "Will do. Good luck, Tom."
----------------
Seven felt the waves in space from inside the structure as the Justice exploded. Since the cloaking device was still on, it looked like thin air had erupted in an explosive flare. The alien environment rocked, forcing her to lie on her side so she wouldn't be thrown about.
Her courage was waning again, but she could not regret her decision or take it back. Still, her hands shook just a bit as she sent her last message to Voyager. It was encrypted with a more difficult code to interpret and addressed to no one in particular, but only one person was on her mind as she sent it. The note was only a few sentences long, but it would be enough. He would understand.
She leaned her head against the empty casing of the torpedo, certain she could hear the nanoprobes eating away at the structure and surrounding nebula.
-------------
Eight minutes.
Voyager and the Regulus were taking quite a beating. They dove in and out, all the time staying between Species 8472's vessels and the Enterprise. Three pods joined together and fired at the same time on Voyager. It punched a hole through the shields and blew off almost a whole section on the starboard side.
"One more hit and we won't have any shields," Ellie Horne grumbled.
"Chakotay to Fergus."
"I'm working on it, I'm working on it," came the harried voice of the chief engineer. In his domain, Fergus wove his lanky body around the consoles with no grace, but with a bulldog style that dared anyone to challenge him or slack off. Everything from his purposeful stride and tense muscles to his scowl suggested he knew what he was doing and come hell or high water, he would get it done. "Shields will take a minute, but the hull breaches are being cordoned off." The engineers scattered, all but running around and out of the room with repair kits.
-------------
Four minutes. The brown fluidic space of the Mud Hole surrounded the ships, glowing with every new flash of phaser fire.
Two pods lined up together to fire again on Voyager. The Regulus passed overhead and both pods exploded, caught with a nanoprobe weapon.
"Nice shot, Commander," said Silas. Commander Jule simply smiled and fired at another pod.
Ackeela forced the ship down in a rapid dive to avoid retaliating fire. "Close," she whispered. Behind them, two more pods united and powered up. "Sir," Ackeela shouted in warning. From their position they wouldn't be able to cover the Enterprise and avoid being hit.
Commander Jule fired at the pods first, but they had no more torpedoes left and the phasers didn't do any significant damage.
Silas saw the threat, but there was nothing they could do. They had to protect the Enterprise. "All hands, brace for impact." Everyone on the bridge hunched over, holding onto consoles and railings.
The attack never came. Voyager, came firing on the pods over the top of the Enterprise. The phaser fire from two starships accomplished what one couldn't. The pods weren't destroyed, but they lost their own weapons and broke off from the attack.
---------------
"Three minutes to impact."
Together, the Regulus and Voyager broke off from their protective stance around the Enterprise and moved out of the Mud Hole. The Regulus went to warp, disappearing into the stars.
Tom watched as the structure drew closer. It looked like it was already being demolished by something. He guessed it was the nanoprobes. Already the space around them was getting clearer, looking less like fluidic space and more like the emptiness that was there before.