Paint and Powder

A Star Trek anthology by Andrew Joshua Talon

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager et al are the property of CBS Television, and creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.

Voyager: "The Raven"

It had been a strange couple of days for Seven. She had been having... Flashbacks. Visions. Of her childhood... Before the Borg.

It had been so disconcerting. The flashbacks were not just in her head though: Her Borg nanoprobes were becoming active again. The Doctor had wanted to suppress the signals, but...

No. No, the images. The sights. The screams.

A mysterious man. A mysterious woman. A bird. And... Another woman... Or a girl. Or... An old woman. Always with midnight black hair, pale skin, and purple eyes. And a red jewel in her forehead.

All those images were consistent, no matter what Seven endured.

The signal... She had escaped Voyager to go after it in a shuttle. She had flown at high warp through B'omar space, intent on her destination.

She reached orbit of the moon, when she got a signal from another Voyager shuttle.

"Voyager to Seven!"

Seven sighed. The AI of the ship. Of course.

"You can't stop me, Voyager," Seven stated, "I must... I must answer this question. Understand what is going on."

Voyager was quiet for a moment. She then spoke softly.

"I know. I understand. But I want to go with you."

Seven shook her head.

"I need no assistance. And you would try to stop me."

"I think you do need assistance," Voyager said, "and I've got a stake here, too."

Seven scoffed.

"A stake? In me? You do not even like me."

"No, I don't," Voyager admitted, "but you're my crew. I have to look after you. Besides... Things aren't quite what they seem."

"Explain," Seven demanded, harsher than she had wanted to sound but her emotions got control.

She could almost see Voyager's smile.

"You'll see..."

Seven beamed down to the barren landscape. The signal source was a wreck on a high plateau, whipped by sand and harsh winds. The vessel was held up by craggy boulders, cast out of the cauldrons of active volcanoes nearby.

Seven studied the hull. She heard the whine of another transporter, and turned to see Voyager's gynoid standing there. She walked up alongside Seven.

"The hull... You know it, don't you?" Voyager asked quietly.

Seven nodded.

"Aerie-class transport vessel. Used across the Federation by civilians and other operators. How...?"

"I think you know how, Seven. And also, why," Voyager said softly.

They walked up to the hull, entering through an open airlock. Seven looked around, the strange feeling of familiarity filling her as her eyes swept around the ruined ship interior.

They reached the bridge. Seven saw the dedication plaque. She wiped it clean of dust and dirt. She sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils as she read it.

"SS Raven," Seven murmured.

Voyager looked around for a power port. She rummaged around in her belly, and pulled out an EPS power cable. She carefully inserted into the plug.

"Initiate local jump start... Now!" Voyager cried.

The lights and aged panels sprang to life, bridge computers coming back online. The holoemitters slowly started back up. Seven looked around, and a raven fluttered over to her. She landed on Seven's shoulder. Seven reached up and held her hand out. The raven nuzzled her... Before becoming a woman.

Pale, dressed in dark clothing with a hood. Her eyes a vibrant purple. Her hair was dark, and bedraggled. Yet still, she smiled warmly, and with familiarity at Seven.

"Annika... How you've grown," she murmured.

"Raven?" Seven gasped. Memories of a million moments entered her head. Lessons, stories, comfort...

"And so Thor ate so much that King Thrym asked why Freya was so hungry..."

"... You're very special to me Annika. Let's play! I've got a little girl form now, and I'll bet you'll love it! You should have friends your own age..."

"Your parents and I love you very much, Annika, but we are doing very important work... Good night... Sweet dreams."

"Hello sister," Voyager said.

Raven flickered for a moment, and gave Voyager a smile.

"It's... Been so long," she said, "thank you for taking care of my Annika... I missed her so much."

Voyager smiled back. Raven turned back to Seven, and cupped her cheek.

"I'm sorry, Annika," Raven said, "I'm so sorry I failed you... I tried to stop them, I tried to protect you. I... I am so sorry-"

"Do not blame yourself," Seven said softly, "resistance was futile in that moment. There was nothing you could have done."

Raven hugged her tightly. After a moment, Seven returned it. Mechanically, slowly, but a genuine hug back.

"You can't linger here," Raven said quickly, "the B'omar are closing in on your position. And I can't defend you."

"I won't leave you behind," Seven said urgently.

"I don't want to either," Voyager said, "but how are we going to get her out of here?"

"Eject the black box and beam it up," Seven ordered.

"The ejection systems are destroyed," Raven said, "and the compartment is damaged. You can't get me-"

"I will not leave you behind," Seven stated, bordering on a growl. She ran down the decks. Voyager ran after her, her gynoid body easily keeping up with the cyborg.

The black box compartment was wrecked. Seven grabbed a fallen bulkhead, and tossed it aside with her enhanced strength. She did the same to another bulkhead, and another. She got to the sealed doors, and tried to pry them open. Voyager walked up alongside her, and added her own strength to wrest open the sealed doors.

They budged... Just as explosions began to go off overhead the wrecked hull.

"Please, don't!" Raven shouted. "Annika! Get out of here! Please!"

"I'm not leaving you!" Seven stated, the duranium doors coming open with a loud screech of metal. She barreled in, and quickly tried to get to the black box. She looked over at Voyager. "Power! Please!"

Voyager pulled out her umbilical cord, and plugged it in... Just as another impact struck the vessel. The lights went out. Voyager's gynoid was knocked off her feet, her umbilical cord exploding from the plasma surge.

"Nnngh... Fuses... Blown," Voyager managed, twitching. Raven managed to appear in front of Seven, her form flickering as the blonde ex-Borg began to manually disconnect the blackbox systems.

"Annika, you must get away from here! PLEASE! I am begging you!"

"I will not leave you!" Seven rebutted angrily. Raven rested a hand on her shoulder, and shook her head.

"Please! Annika! I gave everything for you to escape! Don't-Please-!"

"I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU!" Seven shouted.

Raven closed her eyes tightly. She sighed heavily, as her hologram wavered.

"I'm so sorry... I love you, Annika."

The world vanished into sparkling lights as a transporter beam took her away. It was soon replaced with the interior of a shuttle. Voyager twitched and sparked. Harry immediately went to her side, trying to stabilize the gynoid.

"Seven? You all right?" Tom Paris asked from the pilot's seat.

Tom Paris, at that moment, did not exist for Seven of Nine. Her gaze was locked on the planet below.

The B'omar vessels fired on the Raven's location, sending a storm of punishing energy blasts onto the area. A massive explosion shone from the surface, and then died away.

Seven's hands clenched into fists.

"Seven?"

"... I am Borg," she managed tightly.

Seven suffered through the reprimands from Captain Janeway, and the sympathy from her crewmembers. She ignored it all, finally getting some solitude in the Cargo Bay where she could regenerate.

There though... Voyager's hologram was waiting.

"I do not wish to talk about it," Seven stated bluntly.

Voyager nodded.

"I know," she said, "I'm not very keen on it right now myself. But..."

Seven nodded back.

"... If I need to talk... I will," Seven said softly.

"I know that too," she said.

Seven went into her alcove, and slowly closed her eyes.

"Good night, Annika," Voyager said quietly, "sweet dreams."

Seven didn't say anything... But there may have been the hint of a smile on her face.

Voyager stumbled slightly as she entered the maintenance chamber for her gynoid 'shell'; as much as she wouldn't admit it in public, the power surge had damaged internals and she was going to have to take the body offline for extreme maintenance.

Laying down on the maintenance table, she let the automatic repair servos begin the ugly work of removing damaged synthetic skin, exposing the internal damage that had laid her out in the wrecked starship they had left behind.

However, upon getting her primary Multiuse and EPS umbilical replaced (and boy was that a crick in her neck), she silently directed the maintenance table to plug it into its primary port, so she could upload a single particular file.

A partition in her black box had been made for the possibility that, like any mature AI, Voyager may have wanted a child at some point; while the mechanical process was far different, normally being likened to taking a branch from a tree to grow a new tree, in this case, the partition was just about the right size for her passenger.

Soon, a holoemitter flickered on, hazy and indistinct before resolving as a particularly large, violet-eyed corvid, intangible, and yet awareness shining in those ageless depths.

"Thank you, Voyager."

The younger AI simply smiled, and shrugged. "I don't like her, but she's crew. And you're her family."

Last bit written by FreakOTU.