A Journey
By Elizabeth Carter
Part One
"Report!" Janeway snapped as she sprang forth from the lift and took her chair. Chakotay barely had enough time to vacate it before the Captain sat. Her fingers danced over the com-panel on the arm of the chair, her eyes reading over the data streaming in.
The bridge was flashing in the amber of yellow alert. "I want to know what hit us."
Even as Harry Kim was about to answer the question, Voyager bucked again. Kim and Tuvok, even sitting in the raised chairs, did well to keep their positions.
"Keep her steady, Helmsmen," Chakotay ordered quickly.
Rothery sucked in a retort. Now was not the time to get defensive. But honestly, did the First Officer actually think she was trying to put Voyager in danger? Janeway knew that mistakes were not made by this crew despite their possible exhaustion, but she was not the type of commander to drive her people unreasonably.
Amber light shifted to crimson.
On the main view screen was an image of a storm with two distinct shapes of vessels trapped within it, struggling ineffectually like flies in a spider's web. The storm was shaped like a rough sphere of shifting colors and brightness. Parts of it vanished momentarily then flared out again in painful brilliance. The ships were almost totally obscured, but now and then they showed clearly for just an instant. It was waves from the storm that caused Voyager to rumble and shiver.
"Captain!" Harry's voice squeaked. "Telemetry coming in…Ma'am! One of the ships matches the Borg signature of the Queen's own vessel. It's a diamond, Captain!"
Janeway rose to her feet as if ascending from a thrown and stared at the viewer with a force ten glare. "She has my people." Her voice was the low rumble of a lioness.
"Captain, we don't know that for certain. They could be on the other vessel," Chakotay's ever-calm wooden voice drifted into the peripheral hearing of the woman who commanded the ship.
Janeway didn't want to hear that. She wanted to be wrong, but all instinct told her the Queen of the Borg and taken her Seven and her engineer.
Faces turned to the their commander waiting for her orders. They knew she would eventually charge in after Voyager's resident ex-drone. It was only a question of when. What seemed like a vast stretch of time passed, even though the crew knew it was less then five seconds. "Helm match course and speed of the Borg vessel. Harry, scan for their signatures." Tapping her combadge: " Captain to Astrometrics."
"Tel Celes here, Captain."
'Oh bloody great...isn't there anyone there more reliable?' Janeway grumbled inwardly. 'I need Seven down there…. not a teething ensign who fucks up all the time.' Outwardly her body and face showed control and calm. None would know her spirit was as agitated as the storm outside the viewer.
"Scan the ionic storm, have Cadet Icheb assist you; he has experience with Borg technology. Use a broadband sweep of the sensor array. I need to know where Lieutenants Seven and Toress are on that ship. Find all the information you can on that storm."
"Aye, Captain," two voices answered, one belonging to the Bajorian and the other to a young Brunali
'Thank God, someone I can rely on.' Janeway's inner voice was elated. Celes had a wonderful heart but she wasn't Starfleet material.
"The storm, Captain!" exclaimed Tuvok at Tactical.
Janeway came back to sudden alertness. The storm was ballooning outward, filling the view 'like a living thing,' Kathryn thought. "Full power to shields, Tuvok."
"Ma'am,' Amanda Rothery said, "it's heading right for us."
"Reverse, maximum warp."
But the Captain had been a moment too late. Even before Rothery could react, the storm engulfed Voyager.
The starfield on the forward viewscreen was gone, replaced by a swirl of glaring colors. The Bridge lights dimmed. Everything was bathed in the shifting colors of the storm on the main viewer. Heavy vibrations boomed throughout the fabric of the ship. Janeway felt her entire body shaking, her teeth ratting together; she clenched her jaws and gripped the back of Rothery's chair to remain on her feet.
"Helm, reverse, maximum warp," the Captain repeated.
"Nothing, Ma'am," Amanda said. "She's not answering."
Suddenly 'down' began to change its definition. Artificial gravity was being disrupted. The bridge crew, indeed crewmembers all over Voyager, fell sideways out of their seats. Janeway gripped Rothery's chair all the harder. A backwards glance to Chakotay and he tapped a button on the arm of the captain's chair.
"Engineering!"
"Engineering, Captain!" It was the voice of Joe Cary.
'God, I want B'Elanna back.' Janeway remorsed.
"Captain, we are all being…."----sound of a crash---- "thrown around down here. Niclolettie had to be taken to sickbay…with Vorik, both with plasma burns. All systems are being overloaded by this storm. We are losing…." The voice disappeared.
"Cary," Kathryn said. "Cary!" this time she taped her own combadge again. But she knew it was futile. She would receive no response.
The lights were fading still further.
"Life support failing, Captain," Tuvok supplied.
Somehow Janeway made it back to her command chair, ignoring the protesting screams of her muscles and the cuts and bruises fast accumulating, just as she ignored those same grunts of pain from others around her. She was listening with all of her senses, listening to the ship, to the booming vibrations and creaks and groans coming from the vessels fabric. Voyager was dying.
Seven was for the moment only aware of herself. Her ears racketed with her beating heart until she was certain she was going to go deaf from the pounding. She was sure the headache she was feeling must be due to CO2 asphyxiation. Had Seven been full Borg she would never have succumbed by such inefficient hindrances as asphyxiation. There had been a few times when she had to space-walk on the outer hull the Queen's shuttle to do repairs without the need of an environmental suit. Now that she was more human than Borg she was constantly reminded of her limitations. Disgusted with her weakness, Seven willed her body to rise and regain control of her motor functions, it simply would not do to lay about like a deactivated drone.
Rising to her knees the tall ex-Borg looked about her trying to gain a foothold on her bearings. She noted the air was stale and stank sharply of O-zone. The latter she could tolerate. Oddly enough it was reminiscent of the environmental conditions on board any given Borg vessel. The staleness tickled her olfactory organ enough to make Seven want to sneeze the odor away from her.
The next thing that Seven was sharply aware of was that her ocular implant had shifted phases turning everything into a dozen different shades of green. The enhancement took whatever illumination was present, however minuscule, and reflected it off of her cybernetic retena as a mirror not unlike that of a feline. This process allowed the Borg to see even in the darkest of circumstances.
The ambivalence of her situation wasn't wasted on the fact she didn't even know where 'here' was. The alien transporter must have triggered her purposely. If the aliens had wanted Borg-hybrids they would have taken Icheb and Mizoti along with her. The aliens had specifically chosen Seven of Nine formally of Tertiary Adjunct Unimatrix Zero-One. But to what end?
The atmosphere on the ship started to change once more, a barely noticeable detection by the enhancements of Seven's Borg implants. Soon a typical human would be able detect the alterations on an elementary level.
The humidity levels had increased to 92% comparable to Voyager and the temperature was 31.1 Celsius. "A Borg Vessel." Seven frowned. Why would an alien vessel alter their life-support in such a manner? It was not logical to change the life-support simply to accommodate her Borg nature. Then of course considering that the ship had not had an active life-support system until she was beamed aboard and a scan of her biology would explain this measure. With no basics of comparison perhaps the ship was automatically responsive to the more dominant factors in Seven's unique physiology. To this conclusion Seven of Nine was impressed by the efficiency of the alien vessel's ability to compensate for a carbon-based life form with her particular levels of comfort in mind.
Having regained her senses, Seven knew her first priority was to learn all she could of her captors so that she could formulate an escape plan. Her first action was to try to contact Voyager, but tapping on the combadge was futile. The small disk chirped angrily back at her as if telling her time and again that it was inoperative and hitting it a third time would be about as functional as it had the first time she struck the badge.
Unable to raise Voyager, Seven was left to her own devises. Alone. That wasn't something Seven did well. For eighteen years all she knew was the Collective. The trillion fold voices were always a white noise in the background. Then aboard Voyager with a 150 souls aboard she wasn't alone even if she couldn't hear their voices. Voyager was her Collective, and she didn't like being cut off from them anymore than she had when Captain Janeway had ordered B'Elanna to use the EM surge to sever Seven from the Hive Mind. The ex-drone was terrified then, alone and unsure of herself. That feeling of aloneness was creeping ever slowly back into her heart. She quickly squashed the emotion down into a molecule of essence. She was a former Borg turned Starfleet Officer and Seven would adapt.
She decided the best course of action was to first locate what might be the bridge of the alien vessel or better yet the Engineering section. If she could gain access to the ship's engines and main-power supply she might overcome the hold her captors had on her. Seven was already formulating a plan using Borg encrypted forcefields. All she needed was to connect to a power supply. When the tall blonde rounded the dark corridors there was a quick catch in her breath.
What Seven saw before her made her summon all of her Borg enhanced speed and strength. B'Elanna lay haphazard along the metallic flooring in the ship's corridor. The compact engineer looked for all intensive purposes as if she had been carelessly flung against the bulkhead and bounced off.
Sprinting to the Klingon's side, Seven made herself slow down lest in her excitement she do B'Elanna an injury. Checking for broken vertebras, the young woman was please to discover that her beloved remained whole. Desperately, Seven gathered her love into her arms, cradling her to her chest.
Silver encased fingertips lightly brushed over the strong sculpted features of the unconscious woman. Her fingers moved aside the dark locks hoping to see those gorgeous brown eyes flicker open and see her, but they remained shut. Seven's heart stuttered as the woman she loved was none-responsive to her touch. Leaning down, Seven placed a soft almost chaste kiss upon the pouting dark rose lips of B'Elanna.
"Wake, Bella…. comply." Her voice, typically monotone, was an urgent loving plea. "Bella, please…. comply. BangwI…it is unacceptable for you to be damaged… "
B'Elanna felt the blood rush to her head in a slamming headache. It was as if she had logged a weeks worth of double shifts in Engineering with little sleep and food. The Klingon-hybrid felt as if her blood-sugar levels were low and her electrolyte balance was tilting. It wasn't something she was unfamiliar with. After all, only a few days ago…or was it this morning that she had told little Mizoti that she had experienced headrushes? Of course Seven…no her Annika, had gone all Klingon-mother on B'Elanna and little Zot, demanding they eat their breakfast before the gorgeous blonde would allow either of them out of their quarters.
As her body became more and more aware of itself being forced from unconsciousness, B'Elanna Toress was suddenly quite aware that she was quite warm and being cradled in softness. Opening her dark brown eyes she saw blue eyes gazing back at her. And she saw the most brilliant full smile to ever grace the heaven spread across Seven's alabaster full lips.
"Annika." Softly spoke was the name but it was enough to send shivers down Seven's spine. "What's going on? Do you know where we are?"
"Not aboard Voyager." Seven was still smiling. Her Bella, her BangwI was awake.
B'Elanna was about to comment on Seven's ever-blunt statements of the obvious when it struck her that her love was making a joke. It took her a while to catch on to Seven's dry wit, but B'Elanna had to admit Seven could be funny when she wanted to. The humor difference between Tom and Seven was very apparent. Tom's jokes could almost be considered cruel, but certainly sophomoric. Seven's, though dry, was rather sophisticated. To Lanna it was impressive that the ex-Borg was trying to lighten her more than serious demeanor. And to the Klingon it was far more appreciative. Tom was childish, Seven was at times child-like and that difference too was refreshing. B'Elanna, for the life of her, couldn't figure why her mind wandered down that particular tangent. Looking into deep blue eyes, the answer was right there.
"Okay smart-ass, got that down. So figure out where we are?"
"That was not a priority once I saw you were damaged," the tall blonde admitted.
B'Elanna looked down and saw that she was still cradled protectively by this extraordinary woman. "I love you too, Babe." If their rolls were reversed, Lanna knew without a doubt she wouldn't have thought of anything more beyond Seven's safety.
Looking about her B'Elanna realized that her headache was due to the fact that ordinarily this vessel, for she knew she was on a ship, was not accustomed to an oxygenated atmosphere. For that matter, no space-going vessel was, that was why life-support and air-filtration scrubbers were installed. This life-support system had not been activated for some time. She also decided that who ever was the transporter chief should have a good swift kick in their backside for the lousy transportation facilities.
"I am…'functioning within acceptable perimeters.' But thanks for worrying BangwI." A dark eye winked.
"I do have an approximate theory as to our location."
"Lay it on me," B'Elanna said as she was now sitting on her own. Seven's approximate theories were more reliable than most people's facts. The engineer, when still an adversary of the ex-Borg, had begrudgingly admitted to that.
"We are aboard Species 342. As for what purpose, unknown. Unlikely we are prisoners."
"How can you be so certain?" B'Elanna now looked around at their location. She saw the intricate designs of the bulkheads and decided they defiantly had an organic feel to them.
It was as if H.G. Geiger, Jules Vern and Tim Burton had conspired to create this peculiar setting. The bulkhead held a blending of many shades of blues and greens; the natural lines and curves gave the corridors the feel of an ancient gothic citadel complete with flying buttresses.
"Tell me why we aren't prisoners."
"We have not been bound, nor are we in a brig that I can discern. As of yet we have not been accosted by a security force, and we are allowed to wander the corridors at will."
"Yeah?" B'Elanna narrowed her dark brown eyes. "How about we were kidnapped, set in a cage to which we have yet to find the doors. We could be in a holodeck, for all we know. And our combadges don't work. To me that spells captive."
Seven nodded "I concur in that assessment, however we have not been mistreated, though I do not agree with the way we were taken. Nor do I know why. But I can assess we were chosen deliberately."
"That doesn't make me feel better, Annika."
"B'Elanna, I can only give you theories as I have no facts. You are the Chief Engineer and I am formally of the Borg. Your refined skills and my nanoprobes would prove incentive enough to take us as a commodity."
"Oh, that makes me feel better," the Klingon said sardonically.
"If they wished us harm would they not have done so already?" Seven pointed out.
B'Elanna thought back to some of the Cardassian death-camps that, as a Maquis, she had helped liberate. Sometimes the 'Spoonheads' simply allowed their captives to be caged and did nothing to them, letting the waiting for their fate torture them. For a Klingon, merely being a prisoner was a horrid fate. She turned to her love and shook her dark maned head. "I hate to break it to you, but that might not be the case."
Seven looked around her, her hand trailing the intricate zoomorphic friezes of the bulkheads, the sensitive metal in the mesh sending her teraquads of information about the components used. The interior was nutronium and silicon. To this she frowned.
B'Elanna saw the tick of a facial expression and laid a hand upon the long back of her lover. If it had been anyone but Seven of Nine, former Borg, making that grimace, B'Elanna would have put it down as apprehension, fear stirred by her words. But this was Seven.
"What is it?"
"Gomtuu."
B'Elanna stared blankly. In the tiny corner of her mind a playful child wanted to say ' 'gesundheit' because it sounded like Seven just sneezed.
"Tinman," Seven offered.
That B'Elanna understood. She was an engineer and what engineer wouldn't be intrigued by the prospect of a living machine? Brown eyes shifted to Seven, then darted away. 'Okay, Lanna, old girl, rephrase that. Nic isn't a machine, she simply has cybernetic prostheses from a battle she lost at the age of six. If I ever come across the frigging Queen I am going to kill that bitch. By God, I swear on Kah'less's sword, I will take her down!' The hand on the back became a little more possessive.
"This is a Tinman?"
"No. But a species much like 'him'. As I said in the briefing, species 342 is a living ship. The species 5708, which Tinman or Gomtuu belongs to, is as related to 342 as I am to you on the genetic level. We are both humanoids."
"You seem to forget I am half human."
"You have encouraged me to use metaphors, Bella," Seven said as if she was correcting a child, but the corners of her lips curled into a ghost of a smirk. It was warp nine fast, if you didn't see it you missed it. But B'Elanna knew her love.
"Smart ass." And she then playfully struck Seven's backside. "I am rubbing off on you."
Without blinking an eye Seven said, "You always have, even from the very beginning."
B'Elanna was left staring open mouthed as the retreating ex-drone fluidly made her way down the blue-green corridors of the ship. With a snap of teeth, B'Elanna closed her mouth and jogged after her blonde beloved.
"And here from that first year I thought you were Janeway's girl," B'Elanna teased.
"There was a time when I too thought that could be a possibility. The affection she showed me. The touches more intimate than those she would give another crewmember, more than a hand on the shoulder or a squeeze on the arms. She was found of touching my face and often she would stoke the length of my back, just as you do, BangwI.
"When I attempted to reciprocate she at first allowed such contact. Perhaps I misread the intent, the 'signals she delivered to me. Perhaps she was only attempting to show tactile care as a maternal figure. But I, and apparently everyone else, was led astray but such an overtly obvious connection between us. I knew Kathryn wished to form a physical relationship with me. I thought it might have been possible. The crew often spoke of it as if we had already cop…had sex. I could hear their comments often. They did not overtly insult the Captain or I would have protested, but they simply remarked that 'Janey is a lucky gal…' and similar words to that effect. Their distain for me didn't escalate; it remained steady, as it had always been.
"Kathryn continued to confound me with her desire to be within my company, to share a physical bond, but she would become detached anytime I returned the touches and the desire. Then I realized she would not allow herself to love me. She chose instead a photonic lover. She made herself believe that 'it' wasn't a real solid being. But The Doctor proves otherwise."
B'Elanna thought for a moment and realized that to Seven, Michael Mac' Whatever-his-name was very real to her, as real as the Doctor. And how she must have been hurt by Kathryn's choice. Tom's indiscretions with Constance Goodheart or the countless other photonic babes he copulated with didn't impact B'Elanna as hard. But then she didn't have the relationship with the Doctor Seven had. Seven had to see the physician for the first year every week for physicals because of her implants. (B'Elanna had even started to wonder if they were very necessary or if the photonic physician just wanted to ogle Seven.) Then the second year it was bi-weekly checkups and, of course, there were the social lessons, a major foul up on Janeway's part. An annoying egomaniac in charge of social lessons….'Hell,' Lanna thought, 'I could have done better with her.'
Seven shrugged. "Now she has taken a full human to her bed."
"Nic, I …don't think it had anything to do with you being Borg." The compact engineer took the love of her life's hand into her own and squeezed it. "Look at Rothery. You two are the exact same height. Same hair coloring. If it weren't for the doe eye brown rather then blue….."
"Are you saying Lieutenant Rothery is …a replacement for me?"
"Not even you are that naive." B'Elanna said. Then she flashed a small smile. Though it was not an expression birthed of mirth but rather as a shield to hide behind. " Neither am I, BangwI." Her voice was soft and melancholy.
"Bella?"
"Me...a trade in for Janeway. I know tha….."
Seven whirled around and caught B'Elanna in her arms in a grip that was extremely painful and sure to leave bruises. The ice filling those blue eyes chilled B'Elanna to the marrow of her bones. "No. Never! You are not a trade in. You are not second best!"
"Annika…."
"Never think that," the ex-Borg demanded.
"BangwI…I…"
"I chose you as my mate, not Janeway! WE fought. She and I fought. You….you confused me as much as she did when I attempted to reciprocate your desire. WE argued and you pushed me, so to prove I was a worthy mate I pushed back. I would not retreat. I would show you I was an intellect as well as a capable warrior. To show you I was worthy of the attention you showed me." Seven couldn't stop now that she had started expressing her feelings.
"But like Janeway you retreated. She went into the arms of a hologram you into the arms of a helmsman. The only thing that would have made the experience worse was if I had allowed either the Doctor or Commander Chakotay to try and court me." She shivered at that last statement. "Neither of you pursued me the way you showed me you wanted. I had feelings for Kathryn, yes, but they diminished even as mine flourished for you. My heart wanted you, B'Elanna. The Son of Kovok hunted you because of MY desire to be with YOU. I came to Engineering when I was dying, to be with you. I didn't hide with the Captain, I hid with you. You, B'Elanna. You are not second choice. In fact, Kathryn was 'runner-up.' She is a brilliant scientist and she understands the principles of engineering, but she can not 'hold a candle' to your talents. I love you, B'Elanna Toress. More to the point I am IN love with you." Blue eyes ignited in flames. "Doubt this again and I will become more then agitated."
It was then that Seven realized she was still holding B'Elanna tightly in her arms. But instead of releasing the diminutive Klingon, the hold became fixed. One arm coiled around her muscular waist as the other maintained a hold on her arm.
"Jih'dok!" Azure fire blazed in the eyes gazing upon her. A pale hand enclosed in silver metal took up B'Elanna's left hand and took in the scent upon the wrist. Swiftly, Seven bit B'Elanna's cheek. This time it wasn't the son of Kovok but Annika Erin Hansen.
B'Elanna shivered, her breath catching. Had Seven's arm not been around her waist she thought her knees would have definitely given out. Her hearts pounded, her blood singing out Annika's name. With the captured hand B'Elanna touched the soft skin of her beloved's creamy face. In a voice steeped in smoky passion she didn't think was her own B'Elanna whispered back, "Maj'dok."
The captured hand pulled against the restraint of Seven's grip in an effort to take hold of the blonde's neck. And for all to see just whom Annika belonged to, B'Elanna bit the pale flesh just enough to cause blood to trickle forth.
"Tlinghan jIH." They whispered together, their bodies holding each other tightly. And for a moment they existed only for each other. They had put aside their capture, and the uncertainty of whether they would die in the next few moments or would live to escape. The universe was held only in the eyes of their beloved.
"Annika Erin Toress." Seven smiled as her forehead rested upon her wife's ridged brow. "It has a musical note to it."
B'Elanna felt tears trickled down her eloquent caramel cheeks. "'Ring to it." She smiled kissing her wife. "' The term is 'ring to it.' And yes, it does have a musical note to it, Benel."
It was at that particular moment that the ship decided to launch its 'guests' into a bulkhead as the vessel lurched hard to port. B'Elanna's body slammed into Seven's in a bone crushing impact.
The Queen was not pleased.
In fact, the Queen of the Borg was downright pissed. Here, virtually laid in her lap, was the ever-elusive Species 342 and her Beloved, favored above all others, Seven of Nine and both had slipped through her fingers. She was irate. The Diamond had scanned Voyager to get a lock on Seven, but her 'mate' had vanished and along with her that Klingon-hybrid.
If the Queen had felt generous she would have allowed her mate to keep the hybrid as a plaything…..if only to keep her Seven content. But her feelings of generosity and compassion were quickly fleeing. Within her a storm as equal as the one that trapped her vessel raged. Janeway had somehow managed to hide Seven yet again. That small captain was beginning to become an irritant to the Queen.
When she had bargained with Janeway, the Queen never suspected she was making a pact with Chaos itself. Chaos in the world of Perfection was demonized and, as with Chaos, Janeway was a potentate of such disorder. That vexed the Queen even further. Her Beloved was trapped in the hellish world of Chaos, her body violated by those small imperfect beings that made Seven into a mindless automaton. It was unacceptable.
Janeway's words of truce and cooperation to defeat species 8472 from Fluidic Space were indeed mutually beneficial and proved an opportunity the Queen would not lose. The Queen saw a way to place her operative into their collective and disconnected her Prime from the specialized alcove.
Like the Queen, the Prime was, when not active, connected to the core of the Hive Mind, with firewalls and black-ice safeties to insure the Prime's survival should the Queen become deactivated. The Prime's consciousness would, in a matter of seconds, due to Royal Protocol become the new Queen with all the memories and knowledges and qualities of the predecessors dating back thousands of years since the Borg first became a Collective.
Therefore, when she speaks as 'I,' she is presumably referring to all previous manifestations of the Queen since the first was generated. For the most part, they were virtually identical. The current Queen knew she was from species 125 and she had been the former queen's Prime, mate, and beloved above all others. Now she was 'One who was Many'. 'She' was there when she had ordered Seven to assimilated Jean-Luc Picard. The former Queen wanted the captain to give himself freely to the Borg, but he resisted and was transformed into Locutus of Borg. The new Queen was there when 'she' had copulated with Data, and his subsequent lure into the Perfection of the Collective, but he too refused. But even with these discretions there was always the Prime who was always first in the eyes of the Queen. The Prime was now Seven of Nine.
Her Beloved Chosen… her Seven, the prefect drone, the one she had carefully constructed to suit the Queen's needs, both as her Prime and as a Mate, was taken. Seven was, yes, her daughter, as all the drones were her children, however Seven was to be her mate, an equal…and the vessel to carry the consciousness of the Queen. But Janeway ripped that away when she commanded that mongrel to violate Seven of Nine with a powerful EM surge. Seven was torn from everything that had ever meant anything to her. And Janeway sped away with her captive.
Almost two years would pass before the Queen attempted to lure Seven of Nine back into the Perfection of the Collective again, by having her give herself voluntarily. Her Prime would be her equal, remaining an individual within the Hive. She had even told her beloved that she was favored above all others. This was new protocol that had never been used before. The Queen even brought in Three of Seven: Magnus Hansen to convince Seven that her 'family,' her true family, was the Collective.
In spite of the Queen's seductive appeals to her Prime, Seven of Nine refused to assist in the destruction of yet another race, when she had been ordered to program nonoprobe viruses that would be used surreptitiously upon Species 5618, the human race. Janeway had again proven her hand with the taint she had passed to Seven. The temptations of the Queen's desires, promises and stimulations ultimately failed, and Seven was stolen yet again by Janeway and the Voyager Collective, to the Queen's chagrin.
The Queen would use what means she had. She longed to have her Prime back into the Hive mind, to feel Seven's consciousness caress her own. If Seven wanted copulation, the Queen was more then willing to give that to her Prime, Seven of Nine need not give herself to that hybrid. If her beloved mate wanted a smoky purring voice, she could do that too. It was just a matter of realigning her sub-vocal possessors. Her Prime wanted her individuality and the Queen didn't want a drone, she wanted her Prime with all that she had become. That distinctiveness was to be the Queen's own as it was her Prime's.
The queen had been taxed of her patience and now it was time to take what she wanted by force. She had followed Voyager into the ion storm in order to use the disruptiveness of the storm to breach the weakness aboard the vessel in order to recover Seven of Nine. The Queen was taken by surprise when she discovered Species 342 within the eye of the storm.
That was when the diamond bucked and erupted into teeth jarring explosions. Even the sturdiest tactical drone was sent hurling into bulkheads and alcoves. The Queen herself was dislodged and spiraled into Three of Seven, a drone that was once Magnus Hansen.
'Chaos be damned,' the Queen thought to herself as the diamond once again shivered in its desperate attempt to adapt to the spacieal occurrences around it. This was definitely not a good day all around.