One of One

by zArkham

As the USS Voyager becomes embroiled in the war between the Borg & Species 8472, a strange anomaly is detected on the Borg Cube where Captain Janeway is negotiating for the life of her crew and maybe for all life in the Delta Quadrant. Within that anomaly hides a centuries old secret. A being who found that resistance was not futile and will continue to resist till the end.

25. Survival Instinct

PRIME DIRECTIVE: "Space may be the final frontier, but I'll never get there by any monies derived from this as Harry Potter and all properties of such are owned by the Dark Lady JKR. All content, characters related to Star Trek are owned by Paramount Pictures, Inc....except maybe some of that stuff that ended up being used in Starfleet Battles which is owned by the Amarillo Design Bureau who used that content via the Starfleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt and published by Ballantine Books.

XxXxX

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – SURVIVAL INSTINCT

(Episode: Survival Instinct w/original content and elements of ST: TOS The Tholian Web)

(References: ST:VOY episode Unity)

XxXxX

PITHY STATEMENT RELATING TO THIS CHAPTER: "Beware the fury of a patient man." – John Dryden – English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was appointed England's first Poet Laureate – 1631-1700

LAST UPDATED ON: 05-17-2021

Commodore's Log, Star Date 51542.3; Supplemental. The life of a starship captain can be odd at times. Now is one of those times. The Fleet has sent out to a strike team to assess the ships which have been gathering at the edge of our sensors. If our suspicions are correct, and if possible, the team will attack. Their mission is simply to buy us time so the Fleet as a whole can prep for our high-warp speed run out of the area. This will be the first time we've attempted to go to high-warp with the Kelionininkas and it's critical we have the time to do it right.

This goal is now mostly in the hands of the engineers and ops personnel. There is little I, or any of the other senior staff can do but monitor their progress. However, a starship is like a small city and it rarely sleeps. There is always something to do and even the minor tasks are important and can be rewarding in their own way.

In this case, however, I am not looking forward to it.

COMMODORE'S READY ROOM, USS VOYAGER, ORBITING THE GARAGE OUTSIDE THE SETARIN SYSTEM, SECTOR 346, DELTA QUADRANT – STAR DATE 51542.5

Ensign Wildman blinked in surprise, "Excuse me, Commodore?" She gave a quick glance around the room at Commander Braga and Tuvok. Both wore impassive faces.

Janeway wanted to sigh but it was important she kept up her professional, neutral face. Commander Braga, however, was not as disciplined and broke into a scowl, "Samantha, you had to have expected this." While Braga hadn't been able to take over the Science Departments as slotted before they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant, he still was very much involved when not acting as Beta Shift commander. Therefore he had a vested interest in the careers of the likes of Ensign Wildman due to her posting in xenobiology.

Wildman scowled in return, "No, I did not expect this! I have served on this ship faithfully since the beginning! I did so while pregnant and while raising a child. How many of the crew have gone through what I've been through. What I've suffered through. Now you're telling me I'm not promotable?"

"It is not your work performance which is the issue here, Ensign Wildman," Tuvok said in a calm tone. "Indeed, your professional performance here on Voyager and on Tartarus has been exemplary. However, there is more to being a Starfleet officer than meeting certain performance metrics. It is there wherein lies the issue."

Wildman almost snarled, "And what issue is that?"

Tuvok briefly glanced at the Commodore who gave him a small nod to go ahead. Janeway was well aware that Tuvok had been her commanding officer (in a way at least) longer than she herself had been to Ensign Wildman. While no longer in Starfleet, Tuvok's counsel was sought throughout the Fleet. Ransom had privately told her that he felt he worked for Tuvok instead of it being the other way around. Janeway wasn't surprised that Rudy didn't seem bothered by this. Tuvok had certainly learned how to handle complex social issues during his 16 years on Tartarus. Him being over a century in age didn't hurt either.

Tuvok leaned forward and interlaced his fingers, "The issue, Ensign Wildman, is you have shown poor judgement. There were and continue to be many factors involved but the fact remains that when things were serious, you made poor decisions which not only reflected badly on you but those decisions had direct consequences on your comrades. If T'Pev had not beamed down when she did, your absence would have had an enormous negative impact. An impact, I might add, would have been added to the already negative impact of you being missed by the children."

Wildman face went blank. "I was doing best for my child as any mother would," she said coolly.

"Yet in doing so you left your other children. Those of your body and your genome. To the children of Arrakeen, you were an important and loved presence. While you have your reasons to discount them, the fact remains you abandoned them."

Tuvok's voice was measured but Janeway had known Tuvok long enough to hear the anger buried deep beneath. Vulcans took child rearing very seriously. They felt that while the need to breed was essential to a species, the children themselves had no say in the decision. Not properly raising a child was thus seen as a betrayal of a debt owed to the child by them being brought into the world unasked. Janeway could only imagine the pain of telling so many children what had happened when Samantha had beamed away.

Wildman sneered, "Most of those kids were cooked in a machine. They were not my children."

Janeway blinked at this. She had known going into this review board that Ensign Wildman had some issues but it was becoming obvious to her that perhaps that not only should be passed over for promotion, but relieved of duty for the foreseeable future.

"While a case could be made for the chamber-born, you abandoned not only Cedric but Victoria and Richard as well. It is illogical for you to assert you wanting to protect Anthea and yet abandoning your children with Mr. Paris," Tuvok said evenly but with obvious steel in his tone. "You and Mr. Paris were not coerced into having those children. When you refused, at first, to have any more natural born children, this decision was accepted. That you changed your mind was also accepted. That you then deprived those children of their mother at a critical point in their life shows a callousness which is unbecoming in a Starfleet officer."

Wildman looked defiant but said nothing.

If anything, this angered Janeway, "I am in agreement with Tuvok for this isn't an isolated incident. One can argue whether Naomi is your real daughter or not. The point is to her, she feels you are her mother. You fobbing her off on Seven and Mr. Neelix is also not becoming of a Starfleet officer."

Wildman sneered again, "Oh so you're giving me parenting advice now? I thought the whole point of having a commissioner was to keep your Starfleet nose out of our private lives."

CDR Braga face turned red but Janeway cut him off with a gesture, "That is true. However, your actions off-shift are causing issues and affecting morale. That and as Commodore, I must look out for the entire fleet. A fleet which includes your children, natural or chamber born. Right now, I'm seeing a woman in pain who is having a hard time adjusting. Giving her more responsibility would not make the situation better."

Like Tuvok, Janeway leaned forward and interlaced her fingers, "But as you said, we're talking Starfleet performance. I didn't want to use this in the official review but let us look at your last day on Tartarus. You risked your life, your daughter's life and the integrity of a critical mission by beaming up to Voyager. You and Anthea survived due to sheer luck of our science teams missing a critical piece of data. A critical piece that would have been corrected if spotted which would have made your trip a fatal one. You disobeyed Tuvok's orders and indirectly, my orders as well. So tell me, Ensign Wildman, what would you do if you sat in my chair? Would you reward dangerous behavior which might be repeated? Will I have to worry about the safety of your fellows on an away-mission? If things get bad, will you too abandon them when they need you the most?"

Wildman's scowl finally turned to a look of disgust, "Harry was right. Some of us just can't get fair treatment." She reached up and took off her rank and comm-badge and tossed it on the table. "There, I resign. You all can now stay the hell out of Anthea's and my life. I'm sure life on the Kelionininkas will be fine since the Varro are all about staying out of other people's business."

Before anyone could say anything, Wildman abruptly stood and marched angrily out of the room.

Braga and Janeway looked at each other and sighed. Tuvok, however, touched his comm-badge, "Tuvok to Security."

"Bowler here, go ahead Tuvok," came the voice of the on-duty security officer. With the advent of the fleet, Security was much more than the ad hoc teams directed from Tactical. It was rapidly evolving into a military/civilian hybrid police force.

"Lieutenant Bowler, Samantha Wildman has resigned her commission from Starfleet. Please have a security detail ensure she removes only her personal items from her quarters. Alert Commissioner Ransom of the need for a berth for her and her daughter on the Kelionininkas. Commander Braga is aware of the situation and he and I will certainly meet with Commisioner Ransom regarding her continued role or not as a xenobiologist."

"We're on it, Bowler out," the security officer said before disconnecting.

"Thank you Tuvok," Braga said gratefully.

"Ms. Wildman will almost assuredly fall under my growing prevue. However, it remains to be seen if she will accept my leadership as she did on Tartarus. I believe it is far more likely Commissioner Ransom will be a better contact for her," Tuvok replied.

Janeway took a sip from her battered coffee cup, "What a mess. I shouldn't be surprised by this. I guess I'm tired of losing crew."

"Well she's not dead, Commodore and neither is Harry. Plus, who knows how things will turn out later? Kim might find his new life a bit lacking and return to uniform in the future. That and at least Samantha's skills won't go rusty on the Kelionininkas," Braga said hopefully.

"Luckily, our wizard has been diligent in ensuring that our future berths will be filled," Janeway said with a small smile. As much as Harry Potter infuriated her and constantly took matters in his own hands, the Fleet had been amazingly open to the children who would be born soon. Most had already been adopted. Even many Varro couples (to include Tal and Harry) had gotten involved. Many, like Tridiva, had told her that they felt it would be a good experience and would allow them to know what was coming when they had their own children.

Some had even been opened to the idea of not waiting to find a partner and having Ben Spock work his magic to find the best genetic combination. While the memories of the Eugenics Wars still lingered in the collective memory of humans, many in her crew were from planets who used similar methods to quickly increase a colony's population while also encouraging large, natural families. It was just another bit of Federation life Janeway realized she'd been shielded from by growing up on Earth.

Now Janeway knew that in two decades, a lot of crew would be green-skinned and pointy of ears. Amazingly, given her initial reaction to Neelix's first proposal about children, she was looking forward to it.

Of course not everyone was happy with things as they stood, "The wizard," Braga scoffed. "He's trouble with a capital T. I still think it would be best if the next time he goes into the past, we warp away and never look back."

Janeway frowned at this but didn't say anything as the door dinged. The next reviewee obviously had figured out from Wildman stalking past them meant their time had come.

XxXxX

BRIDGE, THE PHOENIX, SECTOR 346, DELTA QUADRANT – STAR DATE 51542.7

"Alignment complete, Captain Potter. We can jump on your command," Veers said.

"Thank you, Veers," Harry said. While they all could probably be more efficient linked up to an interlink similar to how they dealt with the Beast, the consensus was without more modifications, the danger of an overload due to weapons fire was too great. That and even the former drones like to do things verbally as using the interlink reminded them far too much of their time as Borg drones. Bad enough many of these former drones had to do it till the Cube was repurposed enough to allow normal workstations. Luckily, the Cy-Dru were helping speed this process up.

Harry checked his screen and smiled. Everything was where it needed to be for the plan to work. It was a risky plan but the Fleet needed time and time was something they were going to try to give them. So far they knew that most of the ships where from the Hierarchy while the rest seemed to be made of mercenaries and bounty hunters like the Hazari. It was the unknown ships even further out which Seven and Treana had only recently gotten the faintest of contacts on which were of concern.

Almost everyone agreed the fleet was probably directed by the Hierarchy with the Hazari and the other mercenaries there hired as additional muscle. Anyone defeating the fleet and taking control of the Kelionininkas (to say nothing of all the Federation tech) would become instantly rich in so many ways. This was the only reasons, the commodore had felt, the energy-conscious Overlookers would want to throw good money at bad.

This fleet needed to be disrupted and the fact that many of the ships were mercenaries would work for them. If they could increase the energy cost and do damage to the mercenaries, they would probably break off the attack or delay for reinforcements as the Hazari had done in their previous battle with them. Either way, the Fleet would have time to go to high, sustained warp-factor. The way had already been mapped and at Warp 8 for days, it was considered unlikely they'd ever hear from the Hierarchy again.

To do this required a bit of finesse. In order for the Marauder fighters to have enough fuel to warp back to the fleet, they needed to be carried to the target. To do this, the new Phoenix, the Marianne, the Baxial, the Odjurjägare, the Earhart and the new Burton (for Beta Team) were all in a precise formation around the ten new squadrons of Marauder fighters. This would allow them to sync their warp bubbles to encompass the 60 fighters for the jump. This same technique would be used by the larger ships to help get the Kelionininkas up to Warp 8.

The Marianne had point but each ship had its own mission. V'Lana commanded the commandos on the other small ships while Chakotay would take up position with the Equinox and Ark Royal who would follow in after the fighters had engaged. The four original squadrons off the Ark Royal would act in a defensive mode as they were the only ones who had actual organic pilots. The entire plan was centered around a quick strike. In, cause as much damage and then out.

Harry hit the intercom button, "Chakotay, we're ready. Jumping in 3 minutes unless you have any last minute issues."

"None on my end, Harry. I'm also showing everything is linked up properly. Let's go hunting," Chakotay said. While the Marianne had point, it didn't have the special computers and sensors needed to help create a synched warp-bubble like the Phoenix had. Therefore, the jump was at Harry's command.

"Roger that," Harry agreed and cut the link. He hit a different button, "Tahl, we're jumping in three. Chakotay has confirmed my data that our link-up is stable. All droids are on line and Thor says everything is ready to go."

"Understood. Good luck, Captain Potter. It is unfortunate that we won't be able to test your Warp Disruption Torpedoes given if any of the foe flees, all the better for the plan," Tahl replied.

"I'm sure both the remaining Delta Quadrant and the oncoming Theta Sub-Quadrant will give us plenty of opportunities to field test them. Potter out," Harry said and cut the link.

Harry checked his screens again and let out a heavy sigh. Nothing to do but wait. A lot of unknowns made this mission a nail-biter. The new Phoenix was one of them. Slightly larger than Hugin or Munin, the new Phoenix was essentially a copy of the fictional Millennium Falcon. However, this wasn't done due to nostalgia or his kids love of the old series. It grew out of the realities of the ship's mission. Like the old Romulan Vas Hatham class Warbird (the same ship Dhael had been assimilated off of) the new Phoenix was built around a singular weapon and sported a cloaking device. Unlike the Warbird, the Phoenix wasn't built around a powerful torpedo launcher but instead a variant of the Hirogen weapon used to knock shields down.

Harry, V'Lana and Yin had worked to adapt the weapon from records Harry had lifted from the Borg. The whole concept was to breach a shield long enough to beam commandos on or off a ship. Totally bringing down a shield was difficult and usually a ship would retreat or surrender before their shields failed. However, if one could temporarily breach the shield to allow for transport, commandos could do a lot of damage in a fraction of the time it would take to do the same via ship-borne weapon's fire.

Due to the nature of the weapon, named the Polaron Ram, the bridge was off to the side, just like on the Millennium Falcon even though there was an identical bulge on the other side which housed many of the ship's sensors. Additionally, the twin protuberances at the front of the fictional ship were now longer and ended in sharp spikes akin to the wings of an Imperial TIE interceptor. These focused the polaron ram's energy. However, that's where the similarity ended. The ship sported two warp nacelles attached to the bottom on either side. Also, like the old Miranda class, the Phoenix had a superstructure over the hull which housed the few weapons the ship had. This had been necessary to keep the phasers and counter-missile launchers from being damaged every time the polaron ram was fired.

A lot was riding on the Phoenix as using commandos was their primary force multiplier. The fighters (and long range fire from the larger ships) were mostly to cover their insertion. While there were quite a few of the new combat Zimbots scattered through the ships, most were all sentients. Sentients they really couldn't afford to lose.

Harry smiled sadly. Unfortunately, a lot of the crew came from martial stock and thirsted to prove themselves. As a Gryffindor, who was he to deny them their chance to boldly (if perhaps stupidly) leap into danger?

A tone sounded and Harry ordered, "Engage!"

OoOoO

Harry grinned at Warg's Klingon war-cry. He wasn't sure why his Universal Translator hadn't done its job because it was pretty obvious that Warg was boasting of how bad-ass he was. The numerous Hazari corpses at his feet were a testament to his prowess.

Warg, surprisingly, had taken to his new weapon with a will. Harry had been surprised to find the bat'leth, such a big thing in Klingon culture, was a ceremonial weapon only used in ritual duels. For regular combat, Klingons used weapons eerily similar to their Earth counterparts. Then again, it made sense. There was only so many ways you could make either a cutting or piercing sword or spear. What amazed Harry was for all their 'Space Viking' vibe, the Klingons bladed weapon combat style was built on speed and their main weapon was a heavier version of a rapier. It was the Romulans, in fact, who had heavier weapons like maces and axes to better use their great strength. So that Warg took to an axe as well as he did was gratifying.

Of course Warg's axe was still a lightweight even by Klingon standards. This was because Harry and V'Lana had gotten drunk one night while in the past and tried to come up with a way to make an actual light-saber. They failed at making a plasma weapon but instead went with another concept: the variable sword. Instead of a main blade, Warg's axe was a reddish blade of light...or so it looked. The light was simply the intense forcefield keeping a super-strong carbon-filament in place. This micro-thin wire made the initial cut which then was split by the metal blade, also made of super strong metal, behind the filament. In keeping with Klingon's need to stab, the axe had a dagger-like spike at the top.

Sporadic laser fire came from down the corridor. Harry grinned at this. Another reason commandos were so useful is that so many of the powerful weapons like phasers or ballistic rounds were the last thing the defenders wanted to be shooting on their own ship. Lasers were the most common weapon used on ships but even they could be spoofed with the right smoke grenades which contained small, reflective dust in it. It was why, even in the future, melee weapons were seen as the safest option.

At least for the defenders that is. Borders, however, usually didn't have that issue unless they were trying to capture the ship outright with as little damage as possible.

While Harry was wearing his 'Iron Man' armor, the rest were wearing powered armor taken and adapted from the many dead drones from the Cube. They acted to protect the wearer from weapons fire, blunt melee weapons, acted as an environmental suit to include magnetic boots in case the gravity failed. Thus, they weren't worried if they accidentally (or on purpose) breached the hull or were gassed.

Harry motioned to those behind them and a 'Zimcombot' lumbered forward. While the boarders all had shields made of resistant metal, they also had a short-lived deflector shield built into it which could be activated with a touch of a button. However, this particular type of Zimcombot was geared toward defense and sported a much more robust internal, adaptable Borg deflector shield.

As enemy fire increased, this shield activated to deflect it. Another advantage to the Zimcombot was it also beamed video of what it was seeing into the HUD of the other borders. After appraising the threat, it was Warg who next made a hand signal which signaled the Capellan Tamal to move up. He carried an enormous mini-gun which Harry would be hard pressed to pick up if it hadn't had its own built-in lifter unit. Of course, this weapon was purposed built for Tamal's size given the Capellan was almost as big as Uriash the Gorn. That this weapon also used the smaller and more efficient caseless rounds meant Tamal could end a lot of firefights before running out of ammo.

The Capellen glanced back at Harry and grinned. Harry could see this as while the actual helmets faceplates were a blank, a special projector in it showed the likeness of the face beneath the armor. Harry had modified his own helmet to do the same.

Tamal turned back and then took a quick jump to the left and cried out, "Let's rock!" and unleashed an unrelenting torrent of death down the corridor.

Harry grinned as well. Tamal had liked the Alien movies just as much as Hermione had!

On seeing their enemy break and retreat, Tamal stepped back behind the Zimcombot's shield. Warg made another gesture and Midshipden Moleg rumbled down the corridor. It constantly amazed Harry how fast the Horta could move. It quickly began to burn through the blast doors the Hazari had closed behind them as they retreated in the face of Tamal's fire.

Harry felt a bit sorry for the Horta. It had already said going through the dense material was like eating through a door made of cheesecake. Moleg had already vomited up once after getting the team through a door. Still, from a mission perspective, it was a win given the vomit burned a hole through the hull and had depressurized that part of the ship before the emergency forcefields came on line. Harry was all for unintentional mayhem at the enemy's expense.

As Moleg had the door partially breached, Warg and his team (mostly made up of former Maquis) moved up to continue towards the bridge. Harry was contemplating his next move (he'd was on his third ship helping out) when his comm beeped.

"Harry here, go!" he ordered.

Alars voice answered him, "Captain, the situation is becoming unstable. We are reading a number of Hirogen vessels approaching the Equinox. Worst is our long-range scans show that ghost image we were worried about has turned out to be a squadron of Devore vessels. Looks like a dreadnaught, two cruisers and four smaller craft about the size of the Ark Royal. They could be here in under 20 minutes."

"Buggering hell!" Harry cursed, "Didn't expect them this far from their territory especially given they seemed to be having themselves a nice bit of war when we left. Okay, I'm going to jump back to the Phoenix. Is there any identifiable lead Hirogen ship?"

"There is one that is larger than the rest. I would assume this is carrying a larger clan and thus would be the hunting party Alpha," Alars replied.

"Got it!" Harry said. It was good they'd already damaged this ship's shields to the point where he could apparate through them. That and apparition was affected less by shields than a transporter beam. He quickly filled Warg in before apparating back to the Phoenix. "How are we doing?"

Alars gestured to a screen to the left of the command chair which Veers was currently sitting in and attached to via Borg tubules, "So far we are doing well. We have not lost any of the crewed Marauders and so far have had only 4 remote fighters destroyed and 6 others damaged. Those have already been sent them back to the rendezvous point. Captain V'Lana reports only two casualties so far among the commandos and three wounded."

Harry nodded, "Better than I hoped. Still, we can't let the Hirogen get too close. They are hard to kill and they'd ripped through the Equinox if they get onboard. Time till we can ram their shields?"

Veers spoke up, "We will come out of cloak in 32.5 seconds and firing in 15 seconds after that.

Harry blinked and cursed, "Shit! No rest for the wicked." He quickly spelled his armor clean and switched his helmet configuration back to normal. As he did this, he looked at another screen which was projecting the variables he'd need to apparate safely to the target. Warp-field mathematics was such a boon to a wizard! Just as he had committed them to memory, Veers said calmly, "Disengaging cloak…Firing!"

The brilliant blue-white beam shot toward the approaching Hirogen ship and its shields flared in an intense green glow.

"Go!" Alars said from his science station.

Harry apparated away.

OoOoO

Harry cursed and then cursed again in Gobbledygook. The Hirogen were damn nasty! Harry had hoped to just jump over and start doing some magical damage and leave. While he had accomplished this, the hunters were on him faster than Ron was on food at Feast Night.

He was already out of ammo for his rifle and associated grenade launcher. With the hunters closing, it was now down to doing it the old fashion way. Harry threw his rifle over his shoulder and felt it lock into place. He gripped the hilt of his sword and drew it. With a flick of his thumb, the blade activated into an evil, reddish glow.

Magic was nice but he'd learned before that he couldn't assume he could keep a Hirogen warrior from closing to melee weapons range.

Harry's 'light-saber' was a hybrid weapon is so many ways. While the blade was typical of most European broadswords, the bulk of the blade was missing to allow for the same filaments that Warg's axe had on both of its edges. While it still had a wicked point so it could be used as a rapier (given it was as light as one) the hilt was long enough for Harry to use it like a katanna if he wished.

Susumu Kurobe, the same general of Khan's that had gotten him onto various Japanese shows, had taken it upon himself to see Harry trained in the use of the katana. His daughter turned out to be terrifying with a blade and she hadn't even been enhanced! Still, the lightness of the blade and it having a point allowed Harry a lot of options while using it.

Of course, he was the only one who had one. While the fictional Jedi might have the Force to keep from accidentally slicing their own body parts off, this was a very much a danger in the real world. This was why almost all of the variable weapons were axes. The risk of an accident was a lot lower due to that type of fighting style which came with such weapons. Still, Harry knew eventually someone might lop off a body part. Hopefully Thelan and the Doctor would be able to reattach it.

In Harry's case, he had charmed his armor with a low-grade Infragilis spell to help make his armor resist the type of glancing blow one might expect to accidentally happen. Sadly, Harry couldn't put too much power into the spell or it would ruin the tech in the Borg armor so he still had to be very careful.

As his sword lit up, a war cry went up immediately as three Hirogen rushed him with the largest being up front and the other two behind him. The width of the corridor wouldn't allow the large Hirogen to fight side-by-side which was boon for Harry. The Hirogen had little in the way of finesse as it simply did an overhead smashing attack with a spiked mace-like weapon.

Harry countered this with a parry which, due to the downward thrust of his enemy's attack, sliced the Hirogen's weapon in two. Harry then continued the parry into an attack. Sadly, the height difference made it so Harry only sliced the Hirogen's throat instead of taking off his head completely. A wandless banishing spell pushed the dying Hirogen onto his fellows.

This allowed Harry to make short work of the other two. He checked the map projected in his helmet which gave him an estimated route to either the engine room or shuttlebay. Both were worthy targets as this large ship carried smaller kill-craft Harry didn't want following them back to the Fleet.

As he made his way towards the engine room (which seemed his best bet) Harry took the time to magically cause destruction as he went. The problem was the Hirogen were there to meet him along the way. One pair of Hirogen had made the mistake of stopping in shock when Harry had made a hand gesture to the corridor wall before jumping through it as he had transfigured it into paper. That shock proved fatal for them. Remembering his issues with the Hirogen armor, Harry had spelled the tip of the already super-sharp & strong metal as much as he could to make it able to pierce even the strongest of metals. Thus Harry was able to stab deep enough to where he could then pull the sword to the side and have the variable filament cut through. This left a massive wound which would cause his enemy to bleed out almost instantly. Beyond the ripped bulkhead now made of paper, Harry had left the corridor a mess of blood sprayed out of such wounds.

Before he could get to the engines, Harry felt the gravity go off and a draft as the area was depressurized. Harry grinned like a wolf as his magnetic boots engaged to keep him stable. The Hirogen were panicking as space-faring races only took this option when they knew they were in trouble. But before he could decide what to do next, his comm beeped urgently.

"Harry, this is V'Lana. We're out of time. The Devore ships are accelerating and the Hierarchy don't seem to be as inclined to retreat as the Hazari are. I'm beaming everyone onto two Hazari corvettes we've taken and we're heading out. Tahl is prepping a volley to cover our retreat. Whatever you're doing, finish it and get back to the Phoenix."

Harry glanced at the internal clock and swore; he'd lost track of time, "Acknowledged. Going to blow the engines and I'll be on my way." He mentally activated the recovery signal. A count-down started after a second which showed him how much time till the Phoenix could get him out of there. Luckily, it wouldn't be long so he had to hurry.

Harry turned his sword off and sheathed it. Harry hadn't named it yet as he figured his kids could come up with something better than he could. He manifested the Wand as this was going to take some work. Harry then began to transfigure the bulkheads into a hydrocarbon rich oil-like liquid. Just enough for him to get through towards the engines. In a quick, but tiring 30 seconds, he'd burned through to the engine room while closing the path behind him by freezing the liquid (which was highly flammable!) to keep it pressurized. The look of surprise on the faces of the Hirogen engineers was funny but this was tempered by the fact they'd all be dead soon. In fact even as they all scrambled for weapons, the countdown was almost out of time. The entire ship shuddered as the polaron ram hit causing the Hirogen to cry out in surprise.

With his way home clear, Harry made a flick of his wand which created a flaming match which dropped to the floor. He apparated away from the fiery explosion which followed.

XxXxX

BRIDGE, DIV VĖRITĖ, SECTOR 346, DELTA QUADRANT – STAR DATE 51543.1

Admiral Maxence swore as sensors sweeps beamed to him from the Hierarchy showed the cursed Federation ships and the two Hazari ships they had pirated jump to high warp. Without adequate star charts, the risk was too great to attempt to follow them at a speed fast enough to catch them. Maxence wished he had the same Astrometric sensors the cursed Federation had!

As his squadron made its way into the system, Maxence sneered at the image of the fleet he had hoped would help him crush Janeway and the others. What had been a powerful force was licking its wounds in disarray. Most of the minor mercenaries had already decided to try their luck elsewhere. It was obvious the Hazari were preparing to do the same. It wouldn't take anyone from the xeno-science division to tell him that the Hierarchy would retreat as well. They'd lost far too much this day on top of the cost of their first encounter with the Federation fleet which continued to butt their nose into other's business.

"Orders, sir?" his XO asked him.

Maxence made a gesture for him to wait. Given his massive failure, having Colonel Kashyk as his second had raised some eyebrows. However, beggars couldn't be choosy and to fill the fleet up needed every Devore willing to turn their back on the Imperium. Especially so as their enemies were aggressively working to use the chaos in the Imperium to their advantage.

Kashyk had the same shame and thirst for revenge towards the Federation as Maxence had. This thirst had led him to help make this avenging fleet possible. So Maxence had rewarded this with a place where he could redeem himself. They all needed redemption and/or revenge after what happened to Galaron III.

Maxence was filled with so many emotions. The desire for revenge. The desire to avenge so many deaths. The shame of being one of the few who managed to survive the disaster. The even deeper shame of inadvertently bringing the demon fire to Galaron III in the first place. Only breaking the Federation fleet, bringing them back to Devore space to stand trial before their painful execution would put these emotions to rest. They could not stop.

"We know their mission. While the route they will take could vary, we know we're they're going," Maxence said slowly thinking through their next course of action. Retreating back to Devore space wasn't an option. That Maxence and the crews had essentially mutinied would almost assuredly be a death sentence. Not only was the DIV Vérité going to be sorely missed, the other ships which accompanied the dreadnaught were further blows to the Devorian navy. They had to succeed! Bringing in the butchers of Galaron III would turn them from mutineers to heroes of the Imperium.

Kashyk nodded, "While who knows where they will go to get away from the Hierarchy, they will return to the best heading to get to the Alpha Quadrant. It is only a matter of time for them to do so."

"Exactly! Plot out what is the most likely route out of this sector. Then bring the fleet to a parallel course which allows us to follow them and still be able to resupply. Their new ship will force them to stop longer. This will give us time to catch up even if we lose track of them for a time," Maxence ordered.

Colonel Kashyk smiled an evil, self-satisfied smile, "And with the size of our ships, they cannot expect what they did here today to work. It's just a matter of cornering them."

Admiral Maxence frowned, "It isn't enough to just corner them. We must cut off the head of the snake first. Never forget that this wizard Harry Potter didn't destroy us out of hand when he could have. Until he is dead or neutralized, we must be cautious unless you wish to end up like Prax did."

Colonel Kashyk frowned. The fate of his one-time subordinate was best left unremembered. Even when the magic had finally faded, Prax was a psychological mess. One who couldn't seem to be able to choose between acting like an animal or acting like a Devore.

Still, on thinking of how Harry had done this made Kashyk think of a possible counter. "Sir, perhaps before the Hierarchy leave we see if we could hire one of their covert teams. Pay them in advance so they will be willing to come with us. They are the masters of spying and covert insertion. If anyone could spy on the wizard or possibly assassinate him, it would be them."

Admiral Maxence unconsciously rubbed the burn on his cheek as he mulled this over. His body had quite a few of these burns where a tiny fraction of the demon fire had licked at him as he escaped. Many of his trusted subordinates had all but forced him to the escape pod and had saved him at the cost of their own lives.

Finally he nodded, "Make it so. If a team is willing then yes, they would have the best chance. Plus, their ships are fast and stealthy. They can shadow the Federation fleet allowing us to stay back and remain hidden." Maxence's face broke into its own evil smile as he realized how this would increase their chance of staying undetected till they could attack. "Yes, an inspired plan."

XxXxX

Commodore's log, Star Date 51548.6. I believe the Fleet has successfully outrun our Hierarchy pursuers even though we managed only five days at Warp 8 instead of the seven we had hoped for. Still, this has proven fortuitous for us as this put us near the Markonian G'kamazad Trading Outpost which Mr. Qatai assured me was an important trade-hub for the region. This has proven true and has opened many opportunities to us. A trade-fair was on-going with delegations from many nearby races in attendance. Even better was learning it was a joint effort between the Markonians and Shivolians which kept the Setarin System under fallow protocols. Captain Potter along with Mr. Qatai are in negotiations with both groups to manage the Garage in the same way the Zahl agreed to do with the Pit-Stop.

Due to the Varro and Skurk being uncomfortable with strangers, only Voyager and the Equinox are docked with the outpost. The rest of the Fleet have taken position orbiting an outer gas giant. This vantage point gives us an excellent defensive position and a better sensor coverage of anything entering the system. We do not expect trouble but as Captain Potter likes to say, "Constant Vigilance!"

This unexpected stop allows us to fine-tune our Fleet, mourn our recent deaths in battle, as well as have a culturally rich shore leave.

COMMODORE'S READY ROOM, USS VOYAGER, G'ZAMAND TRADING OUTPOST, SECTOR 345, DELTA QUADRANT – STAR DATE 51550.4

"Thank you Commander Baxter. Step up security a level but let us remember that the amount of good-will and information we're gaining is worth the security risk. Just ensure that we keep the truly important stuff away from any alien light-fingers," Janeway said as she read the three page security report her Tactical officer had brought her.

"Understood, Commodore," Baxter said with a nod to her and then Tuvok before leaving.

"I find myself not missing the responsibility which comes with being head of Tactical operations. Especially in such a complex environment as this," Tuvok said dryly.

Janeway chuckled at that, "I can imagine. Although I'm surprised you have the time to be here. I'd think managing the Exiles who want to take part in this would be a bit of a trial."

"Mr. Neelix has that duty well in hand," Tuvok said as he sipped from a small glass of Crimson Rye Vodka which V'Lana had gifted him. "I will be going next to Astrometrics. A trader, not unlike Mr. Neelix, had some information which might lead to another surviving group of Skurk. This could have a significant impact on our course."

Janeway frowned at this before nodding, "True but as much as I want to make best speed to the Alpha Quadrant, we need to take into account the needs of the people in the Fleet. Given their species being assimilated by the Borg, well every opportunity should be taken to bring the survivors together. Even if this does delay our trip."

Janeway gestured to another report on her desk which Seven had sent up earlier, "Then again, not only do the Varro want to explore, but we can't just remain focused on one course. It is inevitable we will deviate in the future so we might as well plan for it. I've seen a few areas from the information we've already traded for which might need to be brought up to the Fleet council."

Tuvok nodded but before he could reply, the door beeped. "Come!" Janeway called out.

The door opened and Mr. Neelix rushed in with all the hyper energy of a toddler on a sugar high. "Commodore! Mr. Vulcan! I have wonderful news!" Neelix said as he waved a PADD almost like a fan.

Both Janeway and Tuvok gave identical looks with a raised eyebrow. It was enough to cause Neelix to take a breath before continuing. "I heard about the trader which brought us info about the possibility of finding more Skurk. This got me wondering about the group of Talaxians which the Tartarus party got separated from. I have had three separate sources point me in a direction where that group may have traveled through. It mostly matches our projected course. Isn't that wonderful? We might be able to find where they colonized on our way through that space."

Janeway reached out and Neelix enthusiastically gave her the PADD. She perused it quickly before handing it to Tuvok, "That is good news, Neelix. Although it would be a bit of a wrench if we find them and our entire Talaxian contingent wants to leave. Not that I'd even think to stop them."

Neelix blinked at this, "I…I hadn't thought of that."

"Do not trouble yourself Mr. Neelix," Tuvok said as he read the report. "Whatever course the Talaxians take, we will persevere. We have done so on Voyager just as we Exiles did on Tartarus. This is merely a potential problem as it is a potential opportunity. We shall meet which ever it turns out to be as it happens."

OoOoO

Harry woke to find V'Lana spooning him as he himself was spooning B'Elanna. He raised his head and saw Treana being likewise spooned by Seven. Harry shook his head at the sight. If only young Harry could see him now! The boy who could barely bring himself to ask for a date. The boy who hadn't gotten his first kiss till he was 15 of all things! Now here he was in bed with four of the finest woman in the Fleet. A bed transfigured to be big enough for them all that is.

"Quit moving! I'm not done sucking the heat out of you," V'Lana murmured into his ear.

"Well you certainly sucked a lot out of me last night," Harry quipped.

Harry felt a painful pinch on his thigh and stoically ignored it.

A beeping alert from a PADD on B'Elanna's vanity caused all to mumble and groan.

"Can we all call in sick or something? B'Elanna grumbled as she disentangled herself from Harry.

"I believe both the Commodore and Tuvok would be displeased if we were not to continue with the trade-fair," Seven said primly. B'Elanna gave her a sour look.

"Well I do need to get going. Treana here has some interesting readings I want to dissect. After the last mission, I'm all for doing something a lot less dangerous. Then I better go check on the kids before Robert tries to hack the replicator again or something," V'Lana said as she got up and stretched. It didn't escape her notice that everyone stopped to look at her nude form as she did so.

Harry chuffed at this, "Bobby isn't that bad….ish. It's Yorik we're going to have problems with when he gets older."

V'Lana gave Harry a dismissive gesture, "Oh please! I told you naming him after a famous pirate would only enable him as he got older." She glanced around the room, "So, who gets to share the shower with me?"

"My shower; I call dibs!" B'Elanna said even as Treana shook her head and sighed, "As much as I'd like to flip B'Elanna for it, my shift starts soon."

There was a bustle as people threw on robes. Harry apparated Treana to her quarters to speed things up and to keep the amount of people coming out of B'Elanna's room to a minimum. Shipboard gossip didn't need any help.

Harry returned and found Seven patiently waiting for the shower. Harry smirked; he was sure she was also waiting for Harry to share it with her. A throaty gasp from the fresher cemented this idea as Seven looked at the door and unconsciously wet her lips.

Knowing it might be a bit, Harry grabbed his own PADD and brought up a file he'd been working on. After a few moments, he felt Seven behind him. After another few minutes (and a few more moans from the fresher) Seven asked, "That is a rather unique set of calculations. What are they?"

Harry didn't look up but smiled, "This is arithmancy. It's a branch of mathematics used by wizards for various things. Not to dissimilar to warp-field calculus as it turns out."

Seven pulled up a chair, "I did not think you had the knowledge base to do such work from previous discussions we have had."

"I didn't do this. It's from a book Principa Arithmatica written back in 1496. I nicked it while I was back in 1993," Harry said smugly. "I tell you; I wish I had been able to scan all my textbooks into a PADD when I was back at Hogwarts. Nothing better than having the computer create an index for you. Lazy-ass wizards; couldn't be bother to put them in most books other than potions and herbology."

Harry could feel Seven stiffen next to him, "How is that possible? Captain Ducane said you had an almost perfect temporal coefficient!"

Harry laughed, "I keep telling you folks that magic cares not for your petty rules! Seriously though, I got away with it due to some special circumstances. First off, the place I got this book, and a whole lot more, was from a special place called the Room of Requirements. In this case in its aspect as the Room of Lost things. I found, well from my younger self's frame of reference, this room two years later. So I know what has to be there. As Captain Ducane said, a lot of times close is close enough for the timeline. So I apparated there before I went on my mission. Due to the wards, I shouldn't have been able to do that but my learning of warp-field mechanics allows me to apparate places no wizard could manage. Now Hogwarts and its wards are tough and so I'm sure that the temporal scanners would have a hard time seeing through them. That I was in an even more secret and secure room makes that more so. Anyway, I told the room what I wanted. Got a lot more than I dreamed possible!"

Seven frowned, "But how did you sneak them past when the Relativity beamed you back?

Harry laughed again, "I cheated. It's pretty much what I do. First off, I transfigured everything into little beads. Then made a lot of little necklaces out of them. This allowed me to stash them in my Mokeskin pouch. Besides my knives, it's the only thing besides my House rings I have left. It's like a little piece of sub-space I can put stuff into. I previously used up everything I had in them while on the Borg Cube. Anyway, I made copies, simple copies really, of what I took and then apparated away. I didn't go digging through that room much and it was all destroyed at the end of my Seventh Year.

Seven's eyebrow went up, "Ingenious. Having such items in a pocket of sub-space, hidden by your magic would make it an ideal way to shield it from the time agents."

Harry smirked, "Yeah, not too often you can shake hands with cops while you brazenly smuggle stuff right under their nose."

Seven gestured to the PADD, "What will you do with your ill-gotten gains?"

Harry made a dismissive gesture, "Most of what I brought back were books. I couldn't take the chance of trying to head out to Hogsmeade and get more. I have a few items but mostly books. Still, that should be enough for Cedric and the rest to have a better understanding of other facets of magic I never learned or didn't get too deep into. A lot of the stuff I got turned out to be really old and so has lots of information which was later banned. I'm just trying to wade through it before letting all the wannabe Magi have at it. It's been a long task and even with my time in the past, I'm still not done. Once we get back underway, I'll probably get with V'Lana, Sohn and Yin regarding some of the more mental arts info I've found."

A cry of orgasmic release echoed through the room. Seven and Harry both looked at each other which made Harry smirk, "Does B'Elanna scream like that for you?"

"Of course. I am very efficient at pleasing Commander Torres. It does not surprise me that Captain V'Lana is also as proficient," Seven said in a tone Harry knew was of grudging praise. For all her Borg equanimity, Harry knew Seven was rather protective of her relationship with B'Elanna. Still, like Treana, V'Lana was very much a free spirit and never tried to get territorial. Even after sort of being married to her, Harry felt he was in more of a relationship with B'Elanna and Seven than with V'Lana. Still, Harry had grown to love V'Lana deeply and it made him happy she got along so well with his other lovers.

"Well someday I hope I can get you to lose control like that," Harry said with a smile.

"Doubtful. Still, a worthy goal to strive for," Seven said with a haughty look which Harry knew was her way of poking fun at herself.

XxXxX

SICK BAY, USS VOYAGER, G'ZAMAND TRADING OUTPOST, SECTOR 345, DELTA QUADRANT – STAR DATE 51552.7

Harry appeared in the medical office with a pop. Orienting, he turned to Senior Lieutenant Thelan. "You wanted to see me, Doc?" Harry asked the chief (organic) medical officer.

The blue-skinned Andorian's antenna barely twitched at Harry's entrance, "I do or rather the Doctor and I do. Have you been appraised of the situation with Seven of Nine?"

Harry blinked at this, "What? No; is something wrong with her? I've either been working on the Cube to help move things along repairing the Marauders or helping Tom with the shake down of the Burton." While mostly the same, the Richard Francis Burton had some new additions which needed to be tweaked now that it was in service.

Thelan shook his head, "Not something wrong with her precisely but a situation I believe you are best to deal with. Follow me."

Harry followed the officer to the main med bay to find the Doctor and the Medbot working on three different sentients. Seven stood off to one side with LCDR Baxter and two security team members.

Harry blinked in surprise. He didn't recognize the two males but he immediately went to the bed with the Bajoran woman. "Marika," He said quietly.

"You know her Mr. Potter?" The Doctor asked as Seven and Baxter moved closer.

Harry made a so-so gesture, "I know of her. She is Staff Sergeant Marika Wilkarah. She was assimilated off the USS Excalibur in 2368. She was transferred to a Cube in the group my Cube was in about 30 years ago. I tried to get her transferred but ended up losing track of her. It's obvious she somehow got herself, and these other fellows it seems, out of the Collective." Harry looked at Seven, "You look like you've had a hard go. What's going on?"

Seven hesitated so Thelan jumped in, "These drones were part of Seven's original Unimatrix."

"Really?" Harry said. He looked at them curiously. He turned to Seven, "Is this true?"

Seven looked a bit confused that Harry hadn't taken SLT Thelan at his word, "Yes. We were the only survivors of a Scout Sphere crash which killed the other five in our Unimatrix. After we were brought back into the Collective, we were separated."

"Brought back into the Collective?" Harry said with a raised eyebrow.

Seven hesitated then visibly took hold of herself, "We were temporarily severed from the Collective. I only have vague flashes of memories from that time."

Harry almost frowned at this but schooled his face. To cover his disquiet, he turned to Thelan, "So what do you and the Doctor need from me?"

Thelan gestured to the older male's scars and obvious remnants of Borg tech in one arm. "Well I felt the obvious first course of action would be to offer them your treatment to remove as much of the Borg tech as you can. As you can see, whoever attempted to remove the tech made a horrible mess of it."

Harry looked at one of the screens which were showing some form of link between three images of brains, "I'm sensing a 'there's more to this' coming up."

The Doctor finished his latest scan and tapped his medical scanner off with a beep and turned, "You would be right, Mr. Potter. Somehow, their brains have been transformed into biological interlink nodes. How this was done, I haven't the foggiest idea."

Harry glanced at Seven, "But you don't have anything like that. We would have detected that long ago."

Seven merely nodded. It was obvious she was troubled by the encounter with her former Unimatrix mates.

Harry rubbed his chin. He didn't want to bring it up with everyone in the room, especially Seven, but he wondered if Seven being a secret Centurion drone might once again account for the many odd things about her. Beyond the secrecy of her status, there was still the issue with her having all the biological characteristics the Borg had no need of. Traits which would have had to be actively allowed while Annika Hanson transformed into Seven of Nine. Then there was the fact that Scout Spheres only had berths for five drones. So, unless it was a specialized ship of a type Harry had not gotten a hint of in his two centuries of contact with the Borg, there was something, as it was said, fishy in the state of Denmark.

"Okay, well let's wake them up and see what they think," Harry finally said. Maybe getting them into one of his 'de-Borging' chambers might shed some light on the mystery that was Seven.

OoOoO

Harry ate mechanically, not really paying attention to the food he was eating. It was rare for him to eat alone as he had plenty of people to share meals with these days, especially his own horde of kids. Today, however, he ate alone while the second group of Alpha shift ate their lunch. Harry barely heard Neelix's happy chatter from where he was dishing out seconds to the hungry crew. Markonian food had turned out to be very popular.

Not that Harry seemed to notice. After two days, Harry was left with more questions than he had answers for. The three former drones were doing well in the tanks which was a plus. They would require a great deal of time to fully heal but not the months or years it normally took.

But the link between their brains was baffling. Nothing they had tried worked. Seven had volunteered to join their link but that plan had been shot down as too dangerous. She could easily get trapped into the link as well or have her own memories damaged instead of restored. The Commodore had agreed with Thelan and the Doctor that it would be better to wait to let Harry's chambers do more of their work and see if more data came to light.

Luckily the two males, Lansor and P'Chan, didn't have any problems with taking all the time needed. Having their Borg tech more fully removed was an added bonus for them. Marika would stay regardless as where else would a Bajoran go?

"You look unhappy, Paĉjo."

Harry looked up and smiled brightly in seeing his daughter Anthea and Naomi holding their own food trays. "Maybe, but now that you both are here; I am happy again. Come here my little bela flora!"

Anthea set her tray down and hugged her father tightly. Harry kissed her on the top of her head. He looked over at Naomi, "You too!"

Naomi's face broke into a matching, beaming smile as she replaced Anthea and got her own kiss. Harry knew that Samantha felt that he was trying to steal his children back but Harry was just trying to give both children the attention he knew neither was getting enough of.

The pair sat and Harry eagerly listened to the two half-sisters tell him about their studies on Voyager. While most schooling was being moved to the Kelionininkas, quite a bit was still held on Voyager given so many of the Federation personnel worked here.

After Anthea had finished gushing about their recent trip to the Txajzeb's 'electric' forests, Naomi looked at him, "So you looked like you had a problem. Is this about Seven? She's been rather mopey a lot lately."

Harry couldn't help but snort at this. Seven would be cross for half a shift if anyone accused her of being mopey. Still, it was a rather accurate depiction of how she was acting. Harry suspected that while Seven might not remember what happened, she had some sort of deep feeling that whatever had happened had been bad and possibly her fault. Harry certainly felt so. Being severed from the Collective due to a crash?

Preposterous!

While the Borg saw drones as expendable, they also didn't build so poorly as a simple crash would knock them out of the Collective. The only reason the Borg Cube Chakotay had encountered had been severed from the Collective was the micro-wormhole they had used to return to the Delta Quadrant from the Alpha Quadrant had collapsed early and the resulting chaos of inter-spatial energy burned out their connection.

"Seven says you won't let her join their link to see what happened," Naomi said with the typical, no-nonsense tone she had picked up from Seven. To Harry, it reminded him so much of a 11-year-old Hermione it sort of hurt.

"Well it wasn't just me. A lot of people are looking out for Seven's well-being. We don't want to lose her. She's special to a lot of people, yourself included," Harry said genially.

"So why don't you have Omotayo and the other Cy-Dru link them to one of their virtual realities they play around in? That way they control the rules. That would work, right?" Naomi said before taking a big bite of fish and munching on it happily.

Harry blinked, "What?"

Naomi swallowed. "What, what?" She asked.

Anthea giggled at this.

Harry made a 'get on with it' gesture.

Naomi rolled her eyes as if to show she couldn't understand how Harry couldn't see what was obvious to her, "It's like the holodeck, right? You program the simulation and all the rules involved. Can't the Cy-Dru do the same? It's their virtual world after all. If there is a problem, they can cut Seven and her old friends out of the simulation before something bad happens."

Harry just stared at the little girl in shock as he processed what Naomi had suggested. The more he thought about it, the more it made perfect sense to try.

Anthea giggled again, "You look all konsternita, Paĉjo.

Harry shook his head as if to clear it. Flabbergasted was pretty much how he felt. How did all of them miss this obvious avenue? Even the Doctor and Zim had missed it!

Harry leapt from his chair and kissed Naomi hard on the top of the head, "You, my little Ravenclaw, are a genius!" and dashed out of the dining hall.

The girls looked at each other in surprise before Anthea grinned, "I call dibs on his desert!"

XxXxX

THE AMELIA EARHART, THE BEL'TETH SYSTEM, SECTOR 345, DELTA QUADRANT – STAR DATE 51553.4

"How we looking Tom?" V'Lana asked from her command chair. Unlike the Delta Flyers, both the Earhart and the new Burton had a trapezoid bridge arrangement with the command chair in the middle. In front of her, Tom was to her right at the helm with Yin in the co-pilot/ops to her left.

Behind her on her right, the Elasian Damir Tsmirci was at tactical and the Bolian Shreen was in the science and communications station to her left.

Tom shook his head, "Hard to say. It's like trying to thread a minefield but instead of mines there are all these gravitic pockets. I wish I could go faster than the crawl we're on but it's just too dangerous."

"We have time. The Fleet isn't going anywhere for a bit. The trade negotiations Harry and Qatai were working on still need to be completed now that they have a better handle on what to do with those drones who used to work with Seven. It's up to the Cy-Dru now."

V'Lana absently fingered the rank on her collar. Except for Warg and Uriash, all of the Earhart team wore the Romulan fleet uniform. Both Warg and Uriash wore the Klingon uniform as Uriash felt that style was closest to what he wore in the Gorn navy.

The rank on her collar was new. Commissioner Ransom had taken her thoughts about medals and gone one step further. Instead of the circles and squares the Federation used to denote officer and enlisted ranks, Ransom had used diamonds and stars for those who held a job which needed a way to denote where they were in the fleet hierarchy. Her stars matched those of a commander just as Tom's matched those of a senior lieutenant when he was on a mission with her. When working with Tuvok, he wore diamonds as he held the equivalent rank of a lieutenant commander. Of course most of her crew had actual naval rank. So far, the new system seemed to be working especially since the Varro felt this system was much easier than the Byzantine ranking structure they themselves had been using.

She frowned at the screen built into her chair. This part of space had been considered a dead zone by the Markonian and Shivolians for centuries. Its pockets of gravitic distortion, weird energy which confused sensors all made navigation almost impossible. Even worse, was the area was in a Class D nebula which meant even trying to move around visually could be difficult if the pockets of dense gas were thick enough.

Still, Treana had found some interesting readings which had piqued her interest. While nicknamed the Rogue, V'Lana like to think of herself as a daredevil. While Tom might like his corny, Earth science fiction, V'Lana felt drawn more to those who sought out treasures of antiquity. In fact, at a symposium many years ago, Jean-Luc Picard had replicated a brown hat and given it to her as a joke. It wasn't till V'Lana had done a great deal of digging did she find out why he'd give her such a hat. It was the fact they were at an archeological symposium which finally gave her the clue. After viewing the old 20th Century film, V'Lana could appreciate the compliment Picard had given her. For in many ways, she was a treasure hunter. Yet for her, she was usually after actual treasure. Any worthwhile archaeological finds she stumbled on; she gave up to the appropriate authorities to be curated.

And there was treasure out there. V'Lana could almost taste it. While she'd sometimes had had to play the role of a pirate (like she did in Kzin space on a secret mission for the Federation which paid very well) V'Lana felt it gauche to steal by force. Using one's wits and cunning to find treasure lost long ago and potentially trapped was far more her style.

V'Lana sighed. She sort of wished she had Picard's gift on her head right now but that was safe back in her quarters she kept in her mother's home. The thought of her mother made her smile. She'd often told V'Lana she'd end up with a bad crowd and neck-deep in trouble. She was sure that when her mother had been told the news that V'Lana was stranded in the Delta Quadrant she had probably merely raised an eyebrow and said, "Typical!"

"V'Lana…whoa, hold on. Okay I'm getting some really weird readings," Shreen said as she worked her stations, her face tight in concentration.

"Whoa is right!" Tom said. "Full stop!"

V'Lana merely waited for her people to do their jobs. Prodding them wouldn't accomplish anything.

"I don't know what Shreen is reading but I'm looking at a field which seems like it can't tell whether it wants to be a temporal field or an interphasic area of space," Tom finally said.

"Agreed! Although I'm leaning towards interphasic," Shreen said after a moment.

"Well I guess we know why so many probes and scouts who come through this area are lost. Trapped in time or between inter-phase is not something I want us to fall afoul of," V'Lana said as she rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

"Thank you, no," Tom said. "Sixteen years on a desert planet is enough for me. Still, I think Shreen is right, the readings keep shifting back and forth in a pattern much more like a zone of interphasic space. Bad but we do have a way to compensate for that."

V'Lana swiveled to Shreen, "What do you think Shreen? Will the added mods based on what got the Ark through the Anomaly work here?"

The Bolian frowned but nodded after a moment, "I think so…if Yin can modulate the field to accept a range of inter-phasic frequencies. As Tom says, the field is fluctuating."

V'Lana swiveled back, "Yin?"

The Romulan turned to face her, "I believe it is possible. However, I do believe Uriash will need to be linked in fully to enable for faster corrections to our compensators as the inter-phasic field shifts back and forth."

V'Lana smiled, "Well then we seem to have a plan." She got up to go to the aft section to brief the rest of her crew.

OoOoO

Mission Log, Star Date 51553.8. The modifications to the Earhart's spatial-temporal compensators seem to be working to allow us to mimic the interphasic field enough to penetrate farther into the nebula. Uriash likens it to surfing the fields. So far, it is still slow going as there are still many pockets of gravitic 'mines' we must avoid. Shreen believes we may lose or gain some time while in the field. Only on the orders of hours or days. It is to be expected and I'm not worried. If we exit to find us a few days behind, there is plenty for us to do in this sector to keep us busy till we catch up. We can also use the outer edge of the nebula to hide so we don't get scanned by our previous selves.

So far, no sign of anything but I'm feeling good about this mission. All sorts of interesting stuff gets trapped in interphasic space. Hopefully, we'll get lucky and I'm all about making my own good luck!

"Tom, can you change course to one, three, mark eight? I'm getting a reading which might indicate a ship or maybe ship debris. Looks like hull material," Shreen said breaking the long silence. Threading the nebula was exacting and boring at the same time. They had mostly worked in silence.

"One, three, mark eight, aye!" Tom said with a jaunty tap to his forehead.

V'Lana got up and stretched before moving to look over Shreen's shoulder. She could have called the data up on her own screen but she'd been sitting for too long, "What have you got, Shreen?"

The Bolian woman pointed to a screen projecting the surrounding area, "See that? Readings indicate a higher concentration of dense materials. Not the sort of thing which occurs naturally."

V'Lana looked at the data and nodded. She pointed to another screen with other readings, "And that might indicate decayed warp plasma. If some ship got caught in this area and couldn't get out, the containment fields would finally decay and you'd get degradation similar to those readings."

V'Lana sat back in her command chair, "Tom best speed. Fast as you can safely go."

The Earhart accelerated and within ten minutes Shreen spoke up, "Definitely getting minor ship debris ahead. Also potentially a ship or two further in."

As the Earhart continued on, Tom remarked, "Looks like the remains of various probes. Not surprising. Without many normal ship systems, probes get chewed up fairly quickly…whoa!"

Tom wasn't the only one who cried out in surprise as a shadow of a ship's warp nacelle darkened the light the nebula shined into the cockpit.

Tom was cursing slightly at not detecting the ship before they got so close. V'Lana smirked slightly. Once again it was easy to get distance wrong in space. What felt like an imminent collision with the ship was merely a fly-by at over 10km.

However, as the Earhart got closer, it was V'Lana's time to gasp, "That is a Romulan Warbird! One of the old Van Hatham class! My mother once commanded one of those!"

The crew stared at the small ship with the stylized bird painted on the underside. For while much larger than the Earhart, the Warbird was only 100 meters longer than the Earhart itself. Bigger than the Ark Royal but much smaller than the Equinox.

The ship was drifting without power and was nose down relative to the Designated Galactic Horizon line.

The Earhart continued around the ship which Shreen had said, to no one's surprise, had no life signs. As they made their sweep, another ship could just be made out in the nebula's mist.

It was Damir who identified it, "That's a Kt'moD class Klingon cruiser! Looks to be an early model."

Tom nodded and pointed, "Damir's right. Has to be the original D-6 ships. Look at the nacelles. That's a pre-dilithium warp engine alright."

"What the hell are two early 23rd century ships doing out here?" V'Lana asked rhetorically.

Shreen, however, answered, "Well it has been long theorized that many inter-phase areas can act like worm-holes in that they connect to other pockets of instability. So it would seem reasonable that these ships fell into a pocket in the Alpha Quadrant."

This caused Tom to give a jerk of surprise, "No way!" before his hands began to dance over the controls. With a flourish, he pressed a button on a side console."

"Want to tell me why you're just up and doing things without my say-so, Mr. Paris," V'Lana said lightly but with a hint of menace.

Tom turned and looked sheepish, "Sorry, sorry! But I think I know what is going on."

A loud ping came from Shreen's science station, "Whatever you did, Tom, paid off. We just got a hit bearing three, four mark seven."

Tom looked at V'Lana who just gestured, "Make is so."

As they flew around the old Klingon cruiser, V'Lana noted that neither ship had any damage she could see. She wondered if both ships had been pulled through inter-phase and lost power causing all to succumb of the cold of space given that would kill the crew before their air gave out.

Finally another ship, a far larger one came out of the dust of the nebula. Tom cackled, "I knew it!"

"Care to share, Tom?" V'Lana asked.

Tom pointed at the ship which was now becoming more visible and more identifiable as clearly a Federation ship. "That is the USS Defiant. It was lost back in 2268. Your dad was on the mission that was sent to investigate it failing to check in. It disappeared into interphasic space on the edges of Tholian space."

V'Lana blinked as she went through her memories to bring up what she knew about the mission. Yes, she remembered Spock telling her how Kirk had almost gotten dragged away with the ship. "Well that explains why there is a Romulan and Klingon ship here given Tholian space borders where all three Empires meet. I'm betting the Empire and the Imperium lost ships early and marked the area as proscribed."

She turned to Shreen, "Are you reading any more potential ships in the area?"

Shreen shook her head, "Uriash has made some more alterations to the scanning frequency so I've got a better range now. Looks like the pocket of actual space subject to inter-phase is rather small. I'm just reading some more debris and two small, shuttle-sized ships on the other side of the Defiant. Given what we know of where the other side is, I'd almost bet from the profile that they are the old Orion Star Runner scout runabouts. They seem pretty banged up though."

V'Lana nodded. Orion wasn't too far from Tholian space… or at least wasn't far to 24th Century ships. Back in the early 23rd, it was on the outer edge of what was known space at the time. "Okay team, we have some serious prizes here. But the inter-phase elements are going to make it difficult to get them out of here. So let's do what we need to do to figure a way to break these ships free of this zone."

OoOoO

Seven ran through the trees, heedless of where she was going. She just needed to get away. The cries of anger from behind her filled her with dread. So she ran like wolves were following her. Branches scratched her and tore at her clothes and caught her hair.

Her flight ended when she burst through some bushes only to find them hiding an embankment which she fell down and into a stream bed. The cold water was like a slap in the face and she began to cry as she struggled to cross the stream. It wasn't very deep but Seven was weak, her short legs struggling keep her moving against the current.

She finally got to the other side but couldn't get up the steep slope. Still fearing for her life, she found a hollow under a fallen tree and crawled inside. Shivering and hugging her knees to her chest, Seven continued to cry in fear and guilt.

She didn't know how long she did so but a twig snapping made her go deathly quiet and still. They had found her!

Yet it wasn't the three angry adults who had raged at her who poked a head into her hiding place. Instead it was a beige-colored woman. She had no hair but instead had various black markings all across her face and skull. Her cheekbones, chin and ridges about her eyes were stark and her eyes were red but filled with concern.

"Well hello there, little one. Why are you hiding in here and crying?" The woman's voice was smooth and comforting.

Seven sniffled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, "They are going to kill me."

The woman pursed her lips and looked stern, "No one is going to kill you. I won't allow it. In fact, why don't you come with me. My place is warm and I can get you something dry to wear."

Seven shook her head violently, "No! They'll get me!"

The woman laughed softly, "No they won't. Look, you want to see a magic trick?"

Seven eyed the woman warily, angrily swiping some of her hair out of her eyes to do it. Finally she said, "Okay."

The woman snapped her fingers and suddenly Seven found herself in a clean, dry blue dress and seated in a soft chair. Around them was a room Seven felt might be from a resort cottage. A fire burned merrily in the fireplace and there was a smell of something good to eat coming from somewhere.

"There! How's that for a trick? Now your safe, dry and warm." The woman said. She was wearing an odd set of clothing which looked like it couldn't make up its mind between being armor and clothes. "My name is Omotayo, what's yours?"

Seven looked down and unconsciously smoothed out her dress. She noticed she was wearing white, knee-high socks with shiny black shoes, "I'm…" She trailed off. Who was she?

Omotayo patted her on the head, "There, there little one. Don't push the memories." She ran her fingers through Seven's long, blonde hair, "So soft. Pretty in its own way."

Seven drew back and hugged herself. Something was wrong with her body. It was like she was missing parts of herself but she couldn't see anything wrong. As she looked at her spangled, pink fingernails, a name bubbled up, "I'm Annika. Annika Hansen."

Omotayo smiled, "Well it's good to meet you Annika. You are a lucky little girl. Wandering around the dark is dangerous for someone so young. What were you running from?"

Seven shivered, "The past…"

Wait? Why had she said that?

Omotayo gave her a knowing look, "Exactly. It's a common thing to do when there are terrible truths you'd rather not face. But you can only run for so long. To be truly safe, one must face up to what you fear or you'll never be free."

Seven shivered again as memories began to resurface, "They…they wouldn't obey. They wouldn't listen! Why didn't they listen? I had to do it! They made me do it!"

Omotayo knelt and took Seven's hands into her own, "No they didn't. It was your fear which made you do it. You are to blame. You must accept that, little one."

Seven shook her head again and again, "No! No! You have to understand! They wouldn't listen!"

Omotayo pressed a finger against Seven's lips, "Shush! You are to blame but there is much more going on, young one. Those others? They were taken by the Borg when they were older. They had lived full lives. You? The Borg took you, transformed you, forcing you to become something detached from what you had been. When the others began to remember, they had years of life to fall back on. You only had childish fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of being left alone in the dark. I wonder, did you feel that at some level in your maturation chamber? Being alone, abandoned in the dark?"

Seven began to shiver uncontrollably and bit her lip to keep from starting to cry again.

"Yes, you linked the other three to force them back into the only safety you had. The safe, calming voice of the Collective. It was a bad thing but not an evil thing. You acted out of fear and fear can make us do terrible things."

Seven was surprised when Omotayo leaned forward and kissed her on the brow, "Let me tell you of evil. I was born of it. I was constructed by the Druoda," She made a long flowing gestured from her head downward. "They made me and my siblings for one purpose only. To kill. And not just kill but destroy on a massive scale. To ensure we could do this tasks, my makers knew their enemy were tricky so they had to make their weapons smarter than them. But in order to do that, I needed something extra my programming couldn't give me."

"What?" Seven asked in spite of herself.

"Experience. They went to their fellow Druoda, ones who were sick and fearing death. They lied and said they had a potential cure if they'd agree to an experimental procedure," Omotayo said sadly. "Instead, the 'cure' murdered them as it extracted their memories. I was 'born' X4-2995-L, a warp-capable, A.I. driven Hellburner anti-planetary missile. This likeness? That was the real Omotayo, the one who died thinking she was getting a cure. What resulted was a weapon of mass destruction. My target was a N'Kree military base next to a major metro area which housed many industries linked to their military. Thus it was considered an acceptable target. Yet if I had accomplished my purposed, I would have slaughtered 2.3 million N'Kree civilians. So, Annika, out of fear, you did what you felt was necessary to survive. That is something you must face. But many of us have our own demons to face and let me say again, running from them is not the answer. Your lover killed an entire planet, something it would take at least five others of my fellows to accomplish. He has accepted his guilt and resolved to atone for it. So too must you accept your actions and work to atone."

"But how? They want to kill me!" Seven cried out.

Omotayo shook her head, "They are angry now, yes. But their anger is not the issue. The issue is you hold the key. Until you accept, fully accept what you did, I and my friends cannot help them. If you truly wish to be safe, you must face your fear."

Seven trembled and hated herself for the weakness it showed. Still after a few moments she shook her head, "I don't know what to do."

Omotayo chuckled, "You just have to look into yourself and accept that which you cannot change." She suddenly had a hand-mirror in her hand which she raised to eye-level with Seven.

Seven looked at the mirror and a frightened 6-year old girl looked back. She stared at the image, blue eyes staring into blue eyes. Without conscious thought, her hand crept to her chest. Her fingers clenched. She was not whole. She was missing parts of herself. Seven squinted at the girl and realized that the image was also wrong; also missing parts of her.

As she thought this, the image began to blur and change. Beneath her hand, she felt her chest grow. Soon, the image in the mirror was of an adult woman, her hair in a severe bun with technology embedded into her face.

Seven looked down and instead of a little girl in a blue dress, she was in her silvery cat suit. She looked to Omotayo who nodded, "Now we can get to work on you and your friends."

XxXxX

COMMODORE'S READY ROOM, USS VOYAGER, G'ZAMAND TRADING OUTPOST, SECTOR 345, DELTA QUADRANT – STAR DATE 51555.8

Janeway was reviewing various reports with Hylan Beth. While not the over-all leader of the Varro, Hylan was the closest thing to a captain the Kelionininkas had. He was the one Janeway and Ransom interacted with the most. While the Varro had a Ship's Council, this was overseen by the Triad. Janeway felt it interesting that the Varro had a similar triumvirate that the Tartarus Talaxians had. In the Varro case, there was the religious head, the secular head and Hylan's position as ship's head. She counted herself lucky the man proved to be far more open minded than the others of the Triad.

A beep interrupted their reading of crew suggestions, "This is Janeway; go ahead."

"Sorry to bother you Commodore but I just got a message from the wizard. He says the Cy-Dru feel they have made a break-through and they are very confident that Seven and the others will be able to be treated and have their inter-link removed," SLT Mohindra reported.

"I'm glad to be bothered with such news," Janeway said as Hylan nodded in agreement.

"There's more. We just finished decoding an audio message sent from the Earhart. There was interphasic interference we had to clean up," Mohindra said.

"Let's hear it," Janeway said.

"Voyager, this is the Earhart. Sorry about the crap message but this is the only way we could get it through the nebula. We were able to penetrate into a section of interphasic space and hit paydirt. This region of space is tied to a sector in the Alpha Quadrant near Tholian space.

In it we've found three ships and two runabout type scouts. The latter are in bad shape but the three ships are in good condition if you discount the dead crew. Beyond the USS Defiant, lost in 2368, we've identified the other two ships as well. The first is the IKV Thunderchild, an early model D-6 lost sometime after 2354. The other is the ChR Tovarek, a Romulan Warbird which we think might be from the 2320's or so. The two damaged runabouts are Orion Star Runner scouts.

Right now, we are working on a process where we use a combination of ships to create a pulse similar to what the Ark needed to get through the Anomaly to force the ships back fully into normal space. Then it's just a matter of towing them to the Fleet. Uriash believes it will take a day or so to gather the necessary data. Of course there is a temporal component to this so we may already have gotten the info and are just waiting for you to respond so we can stop hiding from ourselves."

"By the stars!" Hylan said as Janeway digested the news.

"Mohindra, send a message back to the Earhart we got their message. Also send another using standard protocols. If they are waiting for our signal, the targeted message might not get picked up," Janeway ordered.

"Aye, Commodore," Mohindra replied and cut the connection.

Janeway looked at Hylan, "Well it looks like we might need to speed up training some of your people."

Hylan frowned, "I wish it were that simple. You'd expect with a population over 50,000 that we'd have plenty of Varro free to take up crewing a ship. The truth is we're down so many major systems we left behind on the Aušrininkas that almost the entire adult population is engaged in some form of critical work. I don't see that changing for another year or two."

Janeway frowned but nodded, "Well without going to the past, which Harry doesn't want to do unless absolutely necessary, it will take a long time to retro-fit the ships in the shipyard berth Harry is creating on the Cube. Still, the Kelionininkas has plenty of berths to dock these ships till we can use them. If anything, they will make good training areas."

Hylan nodded in agreement but another beep interrupted before he could say anything further.

"Commodore. We're received a standard message back from V'Lana. She and her team has the necessary information and are returning to the Fleet at best possible speed. She says that it will be possible to recover the ships from interphasic space. They were only off 28 hours from standard galactic time so the time differential won't be that bad," Mohindra reported happily.

"Excellent, Tridiva. Put out a call for the Fleet Council to meet immediately. This is going to impact a lot of our future actions," Janeway ordered.

She turned to her Varro counter-part, "Well it looks like these reports are going to have to wait. Should we invite the others of the Triad to come?"

Hylan laughed, "No need, Kathryn. They have bluntly told me that it's my responsibility to interact with you all. Maybe by the time we can spare some Varro for crewing some of the ships, they might actually deign to grace you with their presence."

Janeway rolled her eyes but smiled, "Two less VIPs to add to the arguing so I won't take it personally."

As Hylan excused himself to use the fresher, Janeway thought about the ships V'Lana had found. A Constitution class cruiser had a crew of over 400. Even with modern improvements which would enable them to have a smaller crew, it was still a lot of billets to fill. It would take at least a decade to get a crew of Talaxians up to speed and another decade for the Fleet's children to be ready as well. Was there any way to crew them faster?

Janeway sat and sipped more coffee as she looked out the viewport at the various ships docked like Voyager was and pondered this new conundrum.

XxXxX

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This chapter is another which takes a bit from other fics. Warp field mechanics being similar to arithmancy is from Darth Marr's The Forever Mage. Using a 'unbreakable' charm can be found in the fic I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For by kathryb518.

The New Phoenix: The new Phoenix looks like a heavily modified Millennium Falcon. First off, as previously mentioned the two protuberances in the prow of the ship are longer and end in dagger-like points. Not too long, mind you, but they act as the focusing element to the Polaron Ram which is in the middle with an aperture similar to the ion cannon on the Malevolent as seen in SW: The Clone Wars. On the opposite side to the bridge is an identical bulge but instead of a cockpit, it's where most of the sensors are. Connected at the back-end of both sides of the ship are your typical Federation warp nacelles similar as seen on the Norway class destroyer. Like the USS Reliant (ST:TWoK) the Phoenix has a similar superstructure which houses the ships only defensive weapons.

Druoda: Yes, given the Druoda aren't shown in canon, I'm using the Narn from Babylon-5 as a base. One of the best alien races in sci-fi in terms of make-up.

Translation: I've harped on it enough but I'm totally giving up on the Universal Translator. Just pretend it, like the doors which don't open because someone pauses dramatically in front of one, that the UT knows when a person is using a different language and thus want that to come through. Anyway, a lot of the Tartarus kids will use Paroli slang in their speech as to many it's their natal tongue.

Paĉjo – Dad/Daddy

Bela flora – beautiful blossom. Alludes to Anthea's name which means Blossom in Greek and is another name for the Goddess Hera.

Konsternita – Flabbergasted.

Infragilis – My version of the unbreakable charm.

Kids: Here is a partial list of the children. Like Hogwarts, there are a LOT of characters and it's hard to try and give time to all of them. Harry, for example, has a lot of chamber born kids as do the rest from Tartarus. Just ONE iteration of combing all the possible gene combinations (via natural or chamber methods) resulted in 81 kids. Then with extra Exiles and T'Pev, that went up even more. So yes, the few listed here are done so because they are the oldest and thus most likely to be shown.

Harry Potter (Note! Treana & V'Lana's children almost never have a middle name)

Cedric Arthur (13yo w/Sam Wildman) – Tartarus [Natural Born Magical/Human}

Rigel & Bellatrix (9yo w/Treana) – Tartarus [Natural Born Magical/Orion]

Oliver Frederick Potter, Jean Phileas Paris & Auoda Kimberly Paris (9yo w/Tom) – Tartarus [Chamber Born Magical/Human] (They flipped for Auoda's last name; Harry lost)

Robert "Bobby" Bart, T'Lin, Yorik, Caithlin (9yo & 4yo w/V'Lana) – The Garage [Natural Born Magical/Hybrid]

Godric George Potter, Joan Boudicca Hommein (6yo w/Jondra) – The Garage [Natural Born Magical/Angosian] (Angosian children's last name matches the gender they share with a parent)

Samantha Wildman

Victoria Elizabeth Paris, Richard Francis Paris, (9yo w/Tom Paris) – Tartarus [Natural Born Human/Human]

Anthea Rose Wildman (7yo w/Harry Potter) – Tartarus [Natural Born Magical/Human]