Chapter Twenty-Five
No pipe I'll smoke, no horse I'll yoke
Though with rust my plow turns brown
Till a smiling bride by my own fireside
Sits the star of the County Down.
"We are weakest on the Northeast end. Don't you see this gaping hole right here? We'll need more people, or at the very least a different formation."
"No. That's where we plant the explosive. Draw them in, make them think it's where we're weakest, and detonate the device when there are enough men there to make it count."
"I don't agree. We shouldn't even be thinking about that device at this stage. We can't manufacture the replacements fast enough to use them before we have a clear advantage."
"That device is the way to get a clear advantage."
Seven stood surrounded by her crew, the Cassandras who followed her into battle and obeyed her brilliant commands. But she was not listening to their discussion on strategy. She looked away in the distance, preoccupied by an intuition.
"Seven?"
Presently, she returned from her state of contemplation, and looked into the hazel eyes of her compatriots.
"I must go. Now."
"What happened?"
"Locate the emergency holographic doctor. Tell him to report to our medical bay along with the Voyager crewmembers. Seal the medical bay and put armed guards around the perimeter. Draft additional personnel from Alpha Walker if you need to."
"Seven – "
"Do it. Now!"
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Seven's intuition took her to a coastal forest near the Gulf of Mexico, where she found Kathryn Janeway's body lying near a landslide. She was half-naked, and there were cuts all over her face and body.
"Captain," Seven whispered, out of long-standing habit.
Seven had never quite realized this before, but she had been one of those Voyager crewmembers who believed, on some level, that Captain Janeway could never die. That she would not be, like ordinary mortals, subject to the pitfalls of antimatter explosions, warp core breaches, alien viruses and abuses of the temporal prime directive. Captain Janeway was above it all; she didn't fear death and so she could, in the absence of fear, elude it at every turn.
Seeing her now, lying helpless on the uneven ground, her body drained of all its energy and no breath escaping her parted lips, was unbearable. Seven felt as if it couldn't be happening. This had to be a mistake - a trick of the mind, an illusion.
She knelt by her former Captain's side, brushing a lock of auburn hair away from the older woman's bloodstained face.
"I let this happen to you," she whispered. "I'm sorry. You saved me from slavery, you gave me a new life. Please let me help you now."