Path of the Prophets

Source Episodes: DS9 5x15 By Inferno's Light, VOY 3x17 Unity

The next morning, I woke up crying. I'd been dreaming about the Dominion's slaughter of Maquis and Bajoran people on DMZ border planets. The Prophet hadn't shown me what happened to Marnah, but I knew she was most likely killed defending refugees in the Valo system.

I did my best to control my emotions, but Chakotay stirred awake anyway.

"I'm sorry." I wiped at the tears with my now-healed right hand—a result of the neural link.

Chakotay was crying, as well, though he looked rather confused about it.

"It's a residual effect from the link," I explained. "The field stimulated our latent psionic abilities. As long as we stay in close proximity, we'll feel each other for another hour or two. I, uh... I can leave, if you want."

He grabbed my arm. "No. I want you to stay here."

Tears welled up in my eyes again, brought on by the mix of emotions I felt coming from him—grief, loneliness, clarity, and love.

Chakotay pulled me into a hug. "We don't know for sure what happened to any of them. We don't know who survived. But if anyone could survive that, it would be Fayeni. I'm not sure it's even possible to kill that woman."

Although I knew he was trying his best to be positive, I laughed in spite of my tears. Before the Maquis, Chakotay had worked with Marnah as instructors of Starfleet's Advanced Tactical Training courses. He knew first-hand how tough she really was.

I wasn't entirely convinced he was right, but I allowed myself to entertain the possibility for just a little while.

Sharing the residual psionic connection with Chakotay, even if neither one of us had a clue how to control it, was an entirely new way to process grief. I was grateful that we could walk through our feelings together as friends. Like with Tom, my relationship with Chakotay had only gotten better since the night we severed our romantic ties. Without the aching, tangled knots of attraction and desire, we were able to see each other with a clarity that simply hadn't been available to us before.

For a few hours, we felt each other with that very same clarity, and I wondered why the hell telepaths bothered to speak at all.

The Prophet stayed mercifully quiet. Still, Chakotay and I couldn't help but ponder the meaning of her presence. Neither of us knew what to do with all that we'd seen, but we knew it mattered more than anything—as if our entire lives had been directed towards this goal. If the Prophet was to be believed, the freedom of all life might depend on our one little ship.

And we depended on one intrepid Prophet to guide us along the path laid out for us.

After lunch, Chakotay and I joined the cooperative in their efforts to repair the communications array. Silently, I considered the Prophet's vision and what it had to do with the cooperative's plan, which Chakotay and I had become aware of the night before.

They wanted Voyager to reactivate the neural field generator on the abandoned Borg cube just long enough to reestablish a permanent mental link between all the former drones on the planet.

The cooperative believed that having a unified mind would put an end to the inter-species conflicts that caused so much strife throughout the settlement. On one hand, the thought of helping them establish a collective—especially without the agreement of all the former drones—was disconcerting. On the other hand, my own experience within their collective was nothing short of amazing. Were it not for the Borg's insistence on removing individuality from its drones, I might have been interested in assimilation. It felt... good.

As I was weighing my thoughts and feelings on the matter, Orum rushed over to inform us that Voyager was in orbit of the planet. Riley turned to Chakotay, but he and I both knew what was on her mind. The link had faded, yet we remained connected in some deep, unspeakable way.

Chakotay invited Riley to return with us so she could speak to Captain Janeway about her plan for ending the conflict in their city. Of course, she readily agreed.

In the meeting room, Riley explained their situation. "We believe the solution to our problem is to establish the neural link among all former Borg living on the planet."

Janeway blinked. "You can't be serious."

"When we were linked, we had no ethnic conflict. There was no crime, no hunger, and no health problems. We lived as one harmonious family."

"With all due respect, Dr. Frazier, you were one harmonious family bent on the violent assimilation of innocent cultures."

"But we're not Borg anymore. We've learned from our past. All we want is to take the one good thing that existed in the midst of all that horror—our unique ability to cooperate and problem-solve—and use it to create a safe and productive community."

Janeway paused, studying Riley's face. "Tell me how, exactly."

"The neurotransponder we've built is only powerful enough to link a small group of people, like the one that healed Chakotay's wounds. In any case, the effect is temporary. In order to re-connect the entire population permanently, we'd need a much bigger neuroelectric field generator."

"I'm afraid we don't have anything like that."

"But the Borg cube does."

"Captain," I interjected, "What they're asking us to do is reactivate that ship's neuroelectric generator and redirect it toward the planet."

Janeway's eyes widened. "They want us to reactivate a Borg ship?"

"Not the whole ship," Riley said, "just the generator. And it only needs to be operational for a few minutes in order to reactivate the link."

"There's no telling what would happen if we turned on one of those generators," Janeway argued, "even for an instant. For all we know it would attract other Borg vessels."

"Captain, I can assure you we'd take every precaution."

Janeway pressed her lips together, pausing for a moment to study Riley's face. Her lips curled up a little at the corners, eyes reflecting the sympathy she must have felt. "Dr. Frazier, I admire your tenacity, and I respect your courage. I'll give you medical supplies, I'll assist you with upgrading your security, I'll even take some of you with us if you want to come, but, as to what you're proposing, I have to tell you I'm extremely skeptical. In fairness however, I will give it some further thought."

Riley thanked her and followed a security escort out of the room.

Janeway turned to us. "Do you think we should do what they're asking?"

Chakotay and I exchanged glances. We both knew what we had been shown by the Prophet—that the cooperative would succeed in bringing peace to the liberated former drones on the planet. But the vision had been vague on how that peace would come about, and we both had deep reservations about the cooperative's plan.

Chakotay answered honestly. "I really care about what happens to these people, so in my heart I'd like to do everything we can to help them. But, if I were sitting in your chair, I'd have to take other considerations into account."

"I'm concerned about their future, too," I said. "But, to be honest, I have a bad feeling about the whole thing. Forcing this new collective on thousands of people without their consent, even for a good cause, settles badly in my stomach. And even if every single person did agree, I wonder how long it would take for their collective to be corrupted. For all we know, the first Borg had good intentions when they started, too."

She nodded. "I agree. Helping to create a new collective would be a terrible risk. Who knows what the repercussions might be?"

"I'll let Dr. Frazier know," Chakotay said.

Chakotay and I spent the rest of the day stocking the cooperative with various supplies to help them survive and grow. We finished just as the sun set, said our good-byes and took our shuttle back up to Voyager.

Partway through our trip, we both felt our minds being pulled back into the collective. Instead of feeling like an open courtyard, it seemed more akin to being pitched into a raging river without a life vest. I was no longer in control of my own thoughts or decisions.

The cooperative was under attack. If we didn't act quickly, they would be killed.

All I could think about in that moment was how to re-establish the neural link. Without a word, Chakotay and I changed course and made our way towards the Borg cube.

Somehow, my mind broke through the rushing current of thoughts in which it had been submerged. Without hesitation, I grabbed the phaser from under my console and stunned Chakotay.

I'd been rescued from the river of the collective and dragged into a boat by the Prophet in my head. Like an instinct, I trusted the Prophet to take control of the situation and submitted my body to her purpose. Through me, she kept us on-course for the Borg vessel.

Once we arrived, I powered down the shuttle's engines and flattened my palms against the console, drawing some of the shuttle's energy into myself. After I'd absorbed all my body could handle, I moved to the aft section of the shuttle and suited up.

Then I beamed onto the abandoned cube.

First, of course, I needed life support. No use inhabiting a corporeal body if I was just going to kill it. Slapping a power cell onto a console, I powered up the computer core and got a localized atmosphere set up. Once the area pressurized, I unsuited, walked over to the largest control interface I saw, laid my palms against it, and released all of the energy from the shuttle into the screen. I closed my eyes so I could visualize how I wanted the molecules of the screen to arrange themselves. It wasn't long before the work was complete, and I opened my eyes to see an empty orb on the now-bare panel in front of me.

Wrapping my hands around it, I conjured up a powerful vision of freedom and peace on the planet below us, and I poured that vision into the crystalline vessel. When that was finished, I moved to a different console and began tapping into the computer core again—this time looking for transporters.

Footsteps approached, almost imperceptibly, behind me. "Commander," said Tuvok, "step away from the console, or I will be forced to fire."

I turned. Tuvok had brought three junior security officers with him, but I made sure to look only at Tuvok's dark, stern gaze. "The Eelo must complete her task. The hive has no place within the Eelo. The Eelo is of Bajor. She is a willing vessel. This hive must not be allowed to be joined. Peace must be freely given and freely accepted."

I stepped aside, revealing a glowing orb. "The Prophet must give them peace, and the Eelo must destroy the hive."

Tuvok stared blankly at the orb as the light within it caressed his face. It shared my vision with him—a vision of unity among the former Borg who would be so important in the war to come. When the light's grasp released him, he looked at me and nodded.

With Tuvok's support, I turned back to the console. Within seconds, I had activated the cube's transporter and beamed the orb to the surface of the planet.

It would take time, but the people in that village would learn to know peace freely. Someday, they would be ready to defend that peace—that freedom—from the collective that had stolen it from them to begin with.

I checked with the cube's sensors to ensure that Janeway had tractored the shuttle and its unconscious co-pilot into Voyager's shuttle bay. She had. Then, I accessed the cube's secondary processors and initiated an auto-destruct sequence. Finally, I transported myself, Tuvok, and the security team safely back to Voyager.

With that, the Prophet relinquished control of my body back to me.