Chapter Text
Doctor Jeff Fitzgerald looked at the readings on his medical tricorder, then closed it. They were out of time. Behind him, the sound of the doors opening made him turn in time to see his husband arriving, though not alone.
“Are you sure we can’t do better than a cargo bay?” Captain Aaron Cavit said, crossing Cargo Bay Two and approaching where a series of Borg alcoves remained, though only one had power.
Or an occupant.
Beside Cavit, Lieutenant Scott Rollins, Voyager’s chief of security, kept his gaze levelled on the occupant in question, a single Borg drone they knew as Seven of Nine. A former human, assimilated around six years old—at their best guess—and recently disconnected from the Collective.
Fitzgerald noted Rollins was armed, a type-two phaser clipped to his waist. He supposed he couldn’t blame the man.
In answer to Cavit’s question, Doctor Jeff Fitzgerald shook his head, then let Doctor Emmett Hall, their emergency medical hologram—and their chief medical officer—answer the question, even though Aaron had aimed it at him.
“Right now our patient requires the alcove,” Emmett said. “Borg don’t sleep, but instead enter a regeneration cycle. We’ve had her in that cycle for the last nine hours.”
“You don’t sound like that’s a good thing,” Cavit said, frowning slightly as he looked up at Seven of Nine. “Her skin. It looks healthier now.”
Fitzgerald had to agree that Seven of Nine’s appearance—her skin no longer the oddly slick and grey of a Borg drone—was improved by its reversion to her naturally pale caucasian appearance, but he’d seen the tricorder readings, and he knew the truth of what was going on inside her.
“At the moment she's stable,” Emmett said, stressing the word moment in that breathless way he had when speaking quickly. “But the prognosis isn't clear. Her human physiology has begun to reassert itself.”
“And that’s not good?” Rollins said, the big man still keeping his eyes on the immobile drone.
“No, it’s not,” Fitzgerald said.
“Respiratory system, neurological functions, immune response—they’re all under strain.” Emmett tapped his fingers. “Every system in her body is swarming with Borg implants. There's a battle being waged inside her body, between the biological and the technological, and I'm not sure which is going to win.”
“Keeping her like this isn’t a long-term solution,” Fitzgerald said. “But we’re at the moment of truth here, Aaron.”
Cavit’s pale blue eyes met his. They’d already had this discussion. They knew what it could mean, and how difficult this could be. But thanks to Crewman Abol Tay, they also knew they had a real chance of success.
“What’s step one?” Cavit said.
“We’ll have to wake her,” Emmett said. “She won’t remain in a regenerative state if we remove her from this alcove, and I need to return her to Sickbay. Kes and T’Prena are already preparing.”
Fitzgerald couldn’t help but note Emmett had already decided this was the path they were taking, and wondered if it was due to his ethical subroutines, or just Emmett being Emmett. Give the man a challenge? He seemed always driven to rise to it.
“Okay,” Cavit said. “Wake her.”
Emmett tapped in a few commands on the circular Borg control panel, and a tone—a kind of low note that snapped off after a second—proceeded Seven of Nine’s organic eye opening by barely a moment.
“Captain Cavit,” Seven of Nine said, in her usual firm, arrogant voice. But after the briefest of pauses. Her expression shifted. Her eye lost focus, and she swallowed visibly.
A fear reflex.
“What have you…?” Seven of Nine’s chest rose and fell faster. “The others. We can't hear the others. The voices are gone.”
“We neutralized the neurotransceiver in your upper spinal column,” Fitzgerald said, moving to stand more directly in front of her, to bring her attention to him with his presence.
It worked. Her eyes—one biological, one a piece of technology—both locked onto him.
“We had to sever your link to the Collective,” Cavit added beside him.
Seven glanced at him, and when she spoke again, her voice returned to something closer to angry, though Fitzgerald heard the fear beneath it. “You will return this drone to the Borg.” It might have been intended as a command, but in truth it had an air of pleading to it.
Fitzgerald bit his bottom lip. When they’d discussed this before, he’d noted to Aaron that he didn’t have a road-map here. They were working on a lot of variables, but the one thing he’d been somewhat sure of was the closest analogy he’d imagined to what Seven of Nine might be going through.
Withdrawal. Instant, cold-turkey, withdrawal.
“We can't do that,” Cavit said.
“You will return this drone to the Borg!” Seven of Nine shifted in the alcove, and Rollins’s hand drifted down to his phaser. Fitzgerald shot him a look, and Rollins’s jaw worked, but he said nothing.
And he didn’t draw the phaser.
“We can’t,” Cavit said. “We still don’t have warp engines. The Borg are still recovering from their war with the Undine, and I have no intention of my crew being assimilated. I’m sorry. You have to stay with us.”
“You will supply us with a subspace transmitter and leave us on the nearest planet.” Seven of Nine was breathing heavily, nearly panting. “The Borg will come for us.”
She’s still using “us” and “we.” Fitzgerald reached out to touch her, but she flinched back, so he stopped. Clearly, human contact wasn’t going to be an advantage here. “We can’t do that either. Your human physiology is reasserting itself.”
“You will return us to the Borg!” Seven of Nine’s voice rose.
“You won't survive without medical care,” Emmett said.
“We need nothing from you.” She took a step forward, and they backed away as a group as she climbed down from the alcove. “We are Borg. We are—ah!”
She stumbled, one hand rising to the ocular implant that had replaced her organic eye, and she cried out once, then twice in pain. Fitzgerald caught her by her free arm, keeping her upright, and Cavit was there on her other side, doing the same. Emmett had his medical tricorder out, scanning her.
Rollins still had his hand on his phaser.
“This implant is being rejected by the tissue underneath,” Emmett said. “It's going to have to be removed.”
But Seven had rallied, somewhat. She shook their hands off her arms, and managed to draw herself to a semblance of standing upright again. Fitzgerald, though, knew pain. He saw it in her face, the twitch of what flesh was visible.
“You will suppress the human immune system,” Seven of Nine demanded.
Fitzgerald exhaled, sorrow dragging at him.
“I’m sorry, but the process has gone too far.” Emmett shook his head. “We've got to get you to Sickbay.”
“No!” Seven of Nine swung her armoured arm out at them, and both Fitzgerald and Cavit had to duck back out of her range. “We are Borg!” Her voice rose. “We are Borg!”
Emmett lifted a hypo, and Rollins and Cavit moved to take Seven of Nine’s arms tightly enough to give him the time he needed to press it to her neck. It was a sign of just how much her cybernetic systems were failing that it worked as fast as it did.
Seven of Nine drooped, and Rollins took most of the weight. He eyed Fitzgerald with worry, and Fitzgerald wasn’t about to tell him not to.
They had no idea what they were doing here. None at all.
“Get her to Sickbay,” Fitzgerald said, and watched as Rollins and Emmett worked together to do just that. Cavit waited a step behind them, joining him a moment later as he followed.
“Doctor Hall to Sickbay.” Emmett’s voice carried back from ahead of them. “Kes, T’Prena, prepare the surgical biobed for immediate use.”