This snippet proved invaluable as it popped into my mind, prompted by the cold, unflinching voice of the computer ticking off the seconds until my depressurized demise. I pulled my knees to my bare chest, and as the computer chimed eight, I briefly wondered why Seven thought it necessary to strip me to my skivvies. I picked absently at the thick red band wrapped around my body, the immense bow at my back chaffing slightly, surmising that the Borg had finally gone barmy along with Torres and the select group who had fixed me in this rather unfortunate position.

As the computer struck two I snapped my eyes shut and took a breath so big my lungs were itching and ready to pop, before everything disappeared with one deafening woosh.

Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager could barely contain the shriek of excitement threatening to burst forth from her gut as she felt the cool hands of her Astrometrics officer wrap around her head, shielding her eyes from the view screen.

They couldn’t have. Oh, God, I hope so.

She feverishly wriggled in her command chair as the bridge crew simultaneously burst into a rather off key rendition of “Happy Birthday”.

Oh it better be what I think it is...

Her knuckles were white against the smooth molded plastic of her chair, the anticipation so great that she couldn’t restrain the faint moan that issued from the back of her throat as the song ended with an atrocious ballad from her helmsman. The crew collectively wished her a happy birthday, and she sprang forward out of the Borg’s grasp just in time to see her first officer jettison out of the air lock into spiraling blackness. His burly form was curled into a fetal position, only illuminated by the hazy light emanating off Voyagers hull, looking as though he was suspended in the immense darkness only from the enormous red and gold bow fastened to his back.

Kathryn was speechless. Every word she had encountered in her forty one years slipped her mind at that moment, and all that issued from her was a long utterance of sheer pleasure that greatly resembled the following:

Heeeegoooobagoddleeeknoogskdrirriggggforolorngaladrielhotdogssevenfucknocreoeldiosshitsmoofoofcatdogwhimperwhimpersighsigh.

Ignoring the faint fecal smell that issued from Kathryn’s trousers, the bridge crew abruptly burst into applause as the last breath slipped forth from between Chakotay’s blue lips, his eyes bulging out of his inflated head, slipping forever into the vast expanse of infinite nonexistence.