CHAPTER 14

Srange fell to the floor as the lights went dark.  She gasped for breath as she struggled to her feet, her mind racing in an attempt to understand all that was unfolding.  The Mata was under heavy attack by a small group of heavily armed rebel starships, and these rebels knew that the Krigi scientific vessel would be disarmed and unshielded -- her doing, her machinations, her responsibility.  She gripped the disruptor gun tightly, her eyes adjusting quickly to the sudden darkness, and then the emergency lights kicked on. 

Only a couple of seconds had elapsed, but this small increment proved vital for Sylvan.  Already moving forward, he had pitched onto the floor, sprawling near Srange as she rose to her feet.  In that split second between darkness and half-light, the lead researcher managed to swing his powerful cybernetic legs within reach of her shaking legs.  As the emergency lights switched on, Sylvan reacted quickly, kicking his legs out to capture Srange’s, and, with an inexorable force, he pinched her legs between his and pulled her forward.  With a startled cry, she fell once more to the floor, her grip on the disruptor loosened.  Another shake of his legs and the senior Intern was sprawled spasmodically on the floor, trying frantically to gain control over her own movements.

But this proved impossible, as Sylvan fully exploited the mechanical power in his legs to throw her from side to side, a helpless captive in a pincer grip, grunting as she gasped for breath with each violent shake. 

Srange was panicking.  This was not proceeding according to plan, she thought in a jagged haze.  She was supposed to have accosted Sylvan and Leov, taken them into her custody, and then waited with her captives, including the restrained drone, until Laric arrived to complete the rebellion.  Belatedly, a shake jolted her into sudden realization that she had lost the disruptor gun.  It lay tantalizingly beyond her grasp, and out of the periphery of her vision, she saw Leov moving towards the gun, picking it up and turning it on her with a grim, intense focus. 

Then the shaking stopped, and Srange blinked her eyes, focusing on a smiling Sylvan.  But the nature of his smile was so alien, so cold and yet so penetrating, that she felt a numbness enter her body.  Leov moved forward, the gun held level at Srange’s temple. 

As if from a distance, Srange heard multiple explosions thunder through the ship, felt the tremors rock more insistently underneath her body.  It was as though the powerful Mata was shaking apart, edging towards a more violent death with every moment.  And Srange knew there would be no mercy for her, an acclaimed senior researcher, one of the most powerful and influential minds in the entire Krigi Empire.  For she had betrayed Sylvan -- and even if he managed to elude Laric and her rebel starships, even if he managed to salvage the remaining vestiges of Krigi hero worship and maintain his control over the direction and destiny of Krigi civilization, the damage would be considerable, perhaps irreparable. 

She felt Leov move closer, then Sylvan had released his grip on her legs, and now the Researcher was gingerly yet decisively removing the phaser rifle from her body, lifting it over her shoulders and then pointing it at her.  No trace of compassion lighted his eyes, and if she herself had not lived the past few decades, as his friend and collaborator, she would have thought him a cold stranger.  His eyes had darkened, resembling the darkest reaches of space -- and equally as cold and uninviting.

His voice, when he spoke, was unbearably distant and hollow.  “Why, Srange?  Why did you do it?”

She found she could not resist his gaze, felt its cold force pulling her into that black stare.  Somehow, she found her voice, and was not surprised to find it as empty as she felt.  “I couldn’t follow you to ... this.  Turning Krigi into drones...this would be unforgivable.  They are still our people.”  Her voice broke on this last phrase, and she could feel the resonance echoing through her body: undulating waves of grief, outrage, horror and, finally, a soul-deep sadness. 

Somewhere in his eyes, Srange detected an answering grief, as he maintained the rifle’s aim.  Then Leov spoke, and the moment was shattered.  “You fool!  You left us exposed to the rebels, didn’t you!  You--” 

Leov’s beginning rant was interrupted by Sylvan’s familiar hollow voice, yet so quietly that both female scientists were stunned into silence.  “You betrayed me.”  His gaze turned darkly intense, somehow more penetrating, and the light of shared grief faded so quickly that she knew it had been extinguished by a far more potent force.  Anger and disgust, inexorable and predictable in their appearance, now took control.  She saw the fierceness enter his eyes, and the numbness in her body increased.  There would be little delay to her inevitable fate.  She steeled herself with this certainty.

“Leov.”  Sylvan’s voice now a broken whisper.  “Go check on the drone.  Make sure it is secure.  If it is not, terminate it.”

Still mesmerized by the black pools of Sylvan’s anger, Srange felt rather than saw the disbelief in Leov, as the junior scientist reacted to the Researcher’s command.  “But, Sylvan, do you really -- “

“Do as I say!”  The Researcher calmly raised his other hand, indicating that he wanted the disruptor gun.  When Leov passed it to him, he gripped it tightly and trained it on Srange, then transferred the more-powerful phaser rifle to the junior scientist. 

“Go!  Now!”  Sylvan’s voice had grown stronger, louder, yet never did his gaze waver from Srange.

Srange felt a slight hesitation, and then Leov moved away, initial uncertain steps growing firmer as the junior Intern walked away.

Finally, Srange found her voice again.  “Please, Sylvan,” she whispered, not caring that resonant desperation and a certain vulnerable fear accented her words, “it doesn’t have to be like this.  We can still work together, towards that day when --”

“Be silent.” 

His words fell like stones in her ear, deadening an already numb body.  She swallowed heavily.  So nothing more would be said further, nothing heard, nothing to salvage a tragic culmination of decades of service and friendship.  Nothing but a judgment of death. 

Long silent moments passed as he stood staring at her, the gun poised perfectly at her temple. She tried to read his face, but, to her frustration, found that she simply did not recognize the expression he wore.

She could do only one more thing, so she did it -- maintain eye contact, watch his dark eyes, his long face tighten as he pulled the trigger, and she felt the disruptor ray slam into her face, into her temple, consume her brain in a searing split-second of unimaginable pain, then nothing at all.

And so she could not see how little accord he gave her, abruptly twisting away from her fallen body.  Not even willing to give Srange, the celebrated and accomplished Senior Intern, even one last moment of respect in an ignoble death.

Leov moved away from the arrested tableau of Srange and Sylvan, forcing her mind to her immediate task, preferring not to dwell upon her deep shock at Srange’s betrayal.  She knew what would happen now between the two scientists -- and knew that right now she simply could not think upon it. 

The rifle lay cool in her grasp, and she checked the power setting.  Despite Sylvan’s instructions, she could not bring herself to initiate the maximum setting that would ensure the drone’s death; instead, she quickly programmed the weapon to inflict a heavy stun effect.  As she moved towards the drone’s biobed, her eyes flitting around the dimmed laboratories, Leov evaluated the series of rumbles and shakes that haunted the ship. 

If Srange truly had sabotaged the Mata’s weapons systems, including disabling their shields and perhaps even compromising critical energy relays, there was no telling how much longer the Mata’s military personnel could hold out against a full-scale assault by the rebels.  She and Sylvan might even be forced to evacuate the master research vessel.  Leov cringed at the thought, yet her mind was already devising methods to transport the inert drone to their special escape pod.

But then she saw the biobed.  It was empty, the light photonic restraints now holding little else but air. 

She clutched the rifle spasmodically, as an intense, sudden fear ran through her body.  Scanning the immediate area frantically, her mind worked rapidly to understand the situation.  Obviously the power fluctuations had provided the drone with a fleeting opportunity for escape.  But it would not be able to escape the laboratories, she determined.  The duranium doors would not respond to its biosigns -- and it simply was not strong enough, at the present time, to force open the heavy barriers.  No, she thought quickly, her eyes alive with an intense concentration, the drone would not be far from this area. 

In the periphery of her vision, she saw a slight movement.  She pivoted towards the shadow, seeing the drone’s slim, shadowy shape moving jerkily towards a far corner of the laboratories.  Unhesitatingly, Leov trained the rifle on the figure and fired.  A white phaser burst crashed into a console behind the Borg, then the drone seemed to dive for the ground, tumbling to one side and disappearing behind a small column.  Leov smiled unpleasantly.  There was nowhere the drone could go from there.  It was cornered.

She advanced slowly towards the drone’s position, popping off a few shots at the column simply to discourage further movement by the Borg.  It seemed to work.  The drone did not attempt flight again. 

Fifteen feet from the column, Leov sneaked a glance over at Sylvan, just in time to see a disruptor flash and Srange’s final collapse.  A shudder rasped through Leov, a welling of regret and pain at the loss of her troubled, traitorous colleague, but she shrugged it off, turning instead to study the column.  She pondered her next move.

Seven of Nine knelt behind the column, catching her breath.  Every muscle in her body seemed to groan with a slow-burning pain.  She was grateful, however, that she had regained consciousness in time to ascertain the situation and discern that fortuitous instant when the photonic bonds had faltered.  The first moments off the biobed had been the hardest, when she had almost collapsed as sharp lances of pain screamed through her body, the ill effects of Leov’s tortures and a disturbingly low energy level rendering the Borg weak and clumsy.

She sank further onto the ground as the column shook with phaser fire.  Clearly, Leov was trying to pin her down to the present position, and Seven recognized clearly her disadvantage.  Her eidetic memory had pieced together much of the laboratory’s floorplan, and she knew that this corner offered little in terms of escape or tactical advantage.  Originally, she had sought out the duranium doors, where at least she stood some chance of surprising guards, but that particular plan had been dissolved in the moment of Leov’s phaser attack.

Around her, she could feel the ship itself trembling under assault from an unknown force.  She barely paused to wonder at the source of the disturbance, for she had already ruled out the possibility of Voyager itself returning to inflict such quick, severe damage on the Mata -- after all, the Krigi’s overall technological superiority, in addition to the fact that the Mata was the most advanced tactical ship in the Krigi fleet, would certainly have proven far more of a deterrent to the ship from the Alpha Quadrant, even considering its recent weapons upgrades through the barter. 

No, Seven concluded, this present threat likely was directed by an unspecified enemy of the Krigi, and she possessed no rational basis for hope that this other, strange group would be more hospitable to an ex-drone.  Her best option was to evade capture by either faction, secure a vessel, and launch into space itself amidst the confusion.  Or be terminated in the attempt.  After all, she reflected logically, Leov’s attentions already had demonstrated that life among the Krigi would be one long, grueling passage of scientific experimentation, torture, then certain death once her usefulness had ended.

The barrage of phaser bursts continued intermittently.  Precious moments had passed, but the Borg could not seem to formulate an optimistic plan.  Her brain synapses were working more slowly and her body continued to weaken.  Indeed, she realized, maintaining constant levels of energy and aggressiveness necessary for a successful escape would be most difficult.  Unavoidably, her mind already had calculated the minimum and maximum possible time frames, according to varying levels of energy output, for her to remain conscious and active -- and the prognosis was not encouraging. 

She sent another command to her nanoprobes, ordering them to deaden her nerve endings while also raising adrenaline levels.  But the sluggishness of their response, so different from their usual instantaneous activity, graphically demonstrated the dire state of her physical condition.  She swallowed once.  Then she heard Sylvan approach, joining Leov mere feet away from the column.  He said nothing, but Seven sensed that an aggressive movement would occur. 

She called on the only weapon available to her -- with a single mental command, the fingertips of her Borg hand whirred to transform into sharp pincer claws.  Another thought was directed at her nanoprobes, telling them to enhance her adrenaline level once more.  Taking a breath, she crouched, then sprung out from behind the column, clearly surprising Sylvan, who was in the process of rushing her position.  His hand flung out, a weapon in its grasp, and, as she slashed her way past him, hearing him cry out in pain as her Borg claws ripped bloody trails across his chest, the gun went off.  Seven’s momentum carried her forward, past his falling body, but then she also was crashing to the ground, a new explosive pain erupting around her waist, in her left side.

She cried out softly, unable to silence the agonizing repercussions of the disruptor wound.  Her arms moved shakily to lift herself off the ground, but they faltered as a fresh rush of pain seared through her system.  The sensory onslaught told her that the wound was serious -- and that her nanoprobes, which should have dramatically reduced pain perception, were performing badly.  She sank to the ground again, desperately gathering energy for another burst of movement. 

But she heard Sylvan scramble to his feet, and Leov was nearing.

Sylvan stifled a groan as his left hand clutched his chest.  He felt the wetness, the slickness, of fresh blood.  The drone had wounded him in its mad, unexpected rush from behind the column.  But he had hit it with the disruptor, had seen it go down even as he crumpled to the floor.  He had no time to feel triumphant, to feel satisfied at his successful attempt to stop the drone, for his postulthe was flaring up again, this time more harshly than ever before.  It was as though an entire side of his brain was erupting in a cacophony of noise and pulsating pain, meshing and melding with the violence being wreaked on his ship. 

Sylvan blinked rapidly, felt himself swaying slightly. He stumbled forward, bloodly left hand moving to massage the postulthe in a vain attempt to stop the noise, calm the disturbance, anything at all to end the pain.  His right hand gripped the disruptor, pointing it shakily at the fallen drone. 

For a split second, he saw his wife once more, the way she had looked that final, fatal day.  Mata’s beautiful flowing silver hair was gone, and ugly metallic implants glinted dully from her bald skull and her deathly pale face, with those beautiful green eyes that had gone dull, had seemed utterly washed out, nearly translucent in their emptiness, and focused with a singular mad intensity that only the Collective could induce.

Now, he decided somewhat hazily as he stood, he would finish the job.  He stared down, for a long moment in the dim lighting, at Seven of Nine, her shorn head and metallic implants confusedly overlaid with his mental image of Mata.  Then Seven turned her head to watch him, and the alien’s clear, light blue eyes resembled so much Mata’s strange translucent stare that a familiar panic overtook him and he pulled the trigger.

But the shot went awry, blasting hard into a nearby console, for Leov leaped and batted away the gun.  Astounded at the Intern’s action, he stared as the gun dropped to one side, skittering near the column.  Then the junior scientist advanced closer, whispering urgently to him.  “Don’t kill her!  We can still use her.  She is no threat.  See how weak she is!”

And Sylvan wanted to look at the fallen drone, his scientific mind needing to ascertain the truth of these frantic words, but he was caught suddenly by the fierceness in Leov’s hard stare, by the troubling sensuous, hysterical undertones powerfully resonating from her plea.  The pain in his postulthe already was lessening, clearing his brain and allowing a more rational assessment of the situation.  Rationality, however, seemed rather secondary to the proceedings, as he processed the first implications of Leov’s reaction. 

Stunned, he stood still as, slinging the phaser rifle over her shoulder, she bent to pick up the disruptor gun.  And he remained still as she turned back to him, the words on her lips dying as she read his face. 

An odd expression ran across her face, almost too quickly to catch, and then her narrow face was composed, almost cool in its careful attention.  “Researcher, it would be unwise to terminate the drone,” she intoned formally, and he noted that her resonance was restrained, muted, as though she was trying hard to hide her real feelings.  Yet a sensual undertone leaked through, as did a certain sense of shame.

“Leov,” he said quietly, careful not to move too quickly as his hand reached out, “give me the gun.”

She stared at his hand, then met his eyes directly.  “The drone is no threat.”  She did not move to relinquish the gun, and a definite fear accompanied her words. 

He stared at her, feeling great pity rise up in his chest at this woefully misguided scientist.  “The gun,” he repeated, more gently this time, his voice almost a whisper and his eyes never wavering from hers.  How far gone was she, he wondered in shock and revulsion.  She could be dangerous, he admitted to himself, for her reluctance to respond to his command clearly suggested that she suspected his comprehension of the situation.

Leov continued to stand unmoving, her eyes boring into him and the beginnings of naked fear unfolding on her face. 

He knew that something must be said, that the issue would have to be spoken -- and now.  After all, the present situation with the rebels was still dangerous, and somehow Leov had to be controlled until its resolution.  “Intern, we need to work together to fix the weapons and shields,” he said softly, slowly.  “Work with me on this.  Anything else can be dealt with afterwards.”

Still she did not move. 

He suppressed a shudder.  Clearly, the junior scientist felt deeply about ... the drone.  He tried again, this time using a harsher, cooler tone, hoping to use her natural deference to him to break through her fear.  “Leov, we must act now.  Let me have the gun.  We must secure the drone and then fix the weapons.”

Again, no reaction.  His patience was thinning, as assorted rumbles shook the floor and the lights flickered once more.  “Leov,” he asserted harshly, “give me the gun.  Your fixation on the drone is no issue right now.  Work with me.”

Something changed in her eyes, and she whispered hoarsely.  “Then you know.”

“Yes.”

She shook her head.  “It is abomination,” she stated wanly, and a clear wave of shame wafted from the woman.

He said nothing, mutely holding out his hand once more.

“You will tell.  You will report me.  I will be destroyed.”  Her eyes shone bleakly.

He answered carefully, glad for once that his inability to resonate shielded the lie, “I will help you.”

Her lips seemed to curl slightly in pained amusement. 

Sylvan decided to advance slowly, his hands out in a beseeching gesture.  “Please.  Let me help you.”

She tilted her head, watching him carefully.  Suddenly, a hardness filled her face, and a strange light glimmered from her eyes.  “You lie.”

He shook his head, then another heavy explosion shook the ship, and the two scientists swayed.  Sylvan used the opportunity to lurch forward, grabbing for the gun, but Leov anticipated his movement and twisted away with a cry.  Then another rumble and she stumbled forward, right into his path.  He gripped her arms, ignoring the sudden flaring pain in his chest.  His right hand slipped down quickly, closing over the disruptor gun, its cool metal biting into his hand as he grasped at it roughly. 

She tried to push him away, her left hand clawing at his chest, pushing into the fresh wounds and drawing a tortured yelp from Sylvan.  Somehow, her grip tightened on the gun as she struggled with him for control of the weapon.  And then it fired.

The first things he noted were her wide, stunned eyes, her slack jaw, her mouth open in disbelief.  After recording these observations, he noted the peculiar way he fell backwards.  It was as though he had entered a vacuum, where no noise or pressure could be heard or felt.  When he hit the floor, he wondered briefly how Srange had felt in that moment before death.  He remembered Mata’s dead drone face.  And then nothing at all.

Leov stumbled backwards, stunned and silent.  She watched as the Researcher fell to the ground, saw his eyes widen, fix on her, then turn towards the ceiling, forever still. 

The disruptor slid from her numb fingers, a noisy clatter on the floor. 

She knelt down beside Sylvan’s still form.  A shaky hand extended to touch his cooling face.  She had killed him.  The one man she had admired.  The scientist she had chosen to follow, who in turn had elevated her throughout the years, encouraging her to indulge her interests and develop her talents.  She heard a sudden, pained scream, and realized dazedly that it had issued from her own lungs.

Then she turned to look at the drone.  As her eyes fell onto a puddle of blood that lay where the drone should have been, Leov felt her numbness increase.  She visually traced the bloody smear that led away, towards a far wall.  She started to rise.

Then the shuffle of fast-approaching feet drew her eyes to the front of the laboratories.  When the navy-clad rebels surrounded her, when their fast words and clipped questions assaulted her senses, when the triumph lighting their eyes became apparent, Leov was mildly surprised to realize that she still felt nothing. 

Nothing at all.