CyBorg

"Come in."
 

Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager was standing in her ready room, gazing out of the viewport at the unfamiliar, ever changing stars of the Delta Quadrant. She didn't look around as Seven of Nine, her ex-Borg Astrometrics Officer entered the room; she was expecting her and she did not want to face her until she was sure that her command mask was firmly in place, hiding the emotions that she felt for this young woman.
 

Seven stood just inside the room, her hands clasped behind her back. She watched her captain watching the stars. Although the form outlined against the viewport was totally familiar to her; the compact figure, the auburn hair, the smart black and red of the Starfleet uniform; she felt as though she could stand and look at her forever. Bathing in the aura of the woman who had captured her imagination and her heart. However, her Borg efficiency overrode her human feelings.
 

"Captain, we have completed the holodeck simulations. Lieutenant Torres and I believe we are ready to begin installation of the Transwarp Drive. Here is our report." She stepped forward and placed a padd on the desk. "If all goes to plan, testing can begin in 48 hours."
 

Captain Janeway finally turned. "That's good Seven. I don't want to test this on Voyager straight away; it's too big a risk. Is it possible to apply the technology to a shuttle before we test it here?"
 

"Unfortunately not, Captain. The engines of our shuttles and the Delta Flyer are not powerful enough to support Transwarp capabilities."
 

Janeway nodded. "Very well. Proceed with the installation."
 

The young woman turned and left. No social niceties, no trivial small talk or leave taking: the conversation was finished. Janeway stared after her for a moment, sighed and turned back to the stars.

 

The familiar hum of the TARDIS console room was disrupted by muffled exclamations, unidentified bangs and mechanical protestations as the Doctor tried for the umpteenth time to repair the time machine's chameleon circuit which allowed the ship to assume a shape that blended in with its surroundings when it materialized. However, it had been stuck in the shape of a police box for most of the time the Doctor had had the ship. Romana, the Doctor's Time Lord companion, stood and watched the proceedings with interest, arms folded across her chest. The Doctor was lying on the floor on his back, working on the base of the central column supporting the mushroom shaped control console. The floor around him was littered with debris. K9, the robotic dog, was connected to the console, monitoring his Master's progress. Draped around his neck was an over-sized scarf and perched on the middle of his back was the Doctor's floppy hat.
 

"This is pointless Doctor." Opined Romana.
 

"Nonsense!" He replied. "I've found the link with the telepathic circuit. It's burnt out."
 

"Do you have a replacement?"
 

"No, but if I reverse the..."
 

"It won't work." Romana stated.
 

The Doctor squirmed out from beneath the console and sat up. "And why not?"
 

"This is an old type 40..." she began.
 

"I know that!" he cut in. "What do you think K9?"
 

"Insufficient data, Master." Whirred the little computer, withdrawing his probe. His 'ear' sensors twiddled as he considered his response, aware that he was being expected to take sides. "Incomplete sentences have too many possible outcomes. Suggestion: do not interrupt one another."
 

Kathryn Janeway stood in the centre of the bridge. Her nerves were not visible in her face or bearing, but she was nervous. The time had come. The Transwarp technology was to be implemented on Voyager. Everyone in the tight knit community who had so melded together that they felt like a family would be risking their lives to get home. Because of her. It was her fault that they were here at all. Her stomach was tying itself in knots but there was no further delaying the order.
 

"Open a ship-wide comm channel." She ordered. "All hands. This is the Captain. We are about to implement the Transwarp drive. Lieutenant Torres?" She left the comm link open so that everyone in her family could be a part of this important moment.
 

"Ready, Captain." The chief engineer sounded tense.
 

"Mr Paris," Janeway struggled not to fidget. The atmosphere was thick with anticipation. "Engage."

 

The two Time Lords glared at the unrepentent, impertinent robot as he trundled around to the other side of the console, trailing yards of stripey scarf.
 

"The chameleon circuits on type 40's are notoriously unreliable," Romana began quickly, "and if it is the telepathic circuitry causing the problem..." she trailed off, aware that her conclusion sounded rather unscientific and more like one of the Doctor's statements than one of her own.
 

He gazed up at her from the floor, his thoughts following hers. He stood and patted the console affectionately. "Maybe the old girl likes looking like a police box?" He suggested. Making it a question, making the conclusion hers.
 

Romana shrugged. During her time with the Doctor, she had come to realize how little of the theory she had learned on Gallifrey could be directly applied in practical situations. The Doctor's optimistic, happy-go-lucky approach seemed to work quite well, especially when tempered a little with her own more considered responses.
 

"It's possible. This model was never intended for continuous use. Perhaps..."
 

She was interrupted by the TARDIS shuddering. The brightly lit console room went dark, the roundels glowing dimly. The disturbance in the space/time vortex was sensed by both Time Lords as physical pain, like a sharp kick to the stomach. The Doctor clutched at the console and Romana doubled over. The lights came back up.
 

"Wh...what?" Romana gasped, panting as she staggered over to study the readouts on the console.
"A localized disturbance. Totally unshielded."
 

"Can you localize the repercussions?" She asked.
 

"Aaaaah...limited as yet. I'd say it's a preliminary experiment."
 

"Time experiments? But the Time Lords..."
 

"Are easily distracted." The Doctor frowned. "Especially by important things like internal politics." He flicked switches on the console, setting the TARDIS to scan for similar temporal disturbances and take them to the source of the trouble.
 

Everything was calm on the bridge of Voyager, the Transwarp drive was functioning according to expectations and she could feel the beginnings of a stress headache now that the adrenaline was beginning to wear off. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and sat back in her chair. Almost immediately, she was flung out of it. The ship bucked again as she struggled to her feet.
"Report!" She barked.
 

"The Transwarp corridor is unstable Captain." reported Ensign Kim. "It's nature is changing, but I can't get clear sensor readings. Our shields and engines are also being affected."
 

"Tom, bring us out of Transwarp."
 

"I can't Captain, it won't disengage."
 

"B'Elanna?"
 

"The antimatter containment field is becoming unstable Captain. Containment failure is likely in the next fifteen minutes. If I can't isolate the problem I will have to jettison the core. If we drop out of transwarp now, we risk further strain on the containment field. The warp core could breach without warning."
 

"Understood." replied Janeway tersely.
 

The Doctor had given up on fixing the TARDIS for the time being and he and Romana were putting the console back together as they waited to see if the temporal disturbance was repeated. They were playing a game as they worked, but as usual it was just causing arguments.
 

"Antares 4."
 

The Doctor looked at his companion as though she had just said the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.
 

"But that's a diagonal. You can't play a diagonal after shunting. We're playing Brightling's Convention!" He insisted.
 

"That wasn't a diagonal, and anyway, you were in nip, so that wouldn't have applied."
 

He pursed his lips. "Hmmm. Well then, Dione 7."
 

Romana grinned. "Skaro."
 

"Mondas."
 

"That's a little obvious Doctor, but allowed I suppose. Ummm, Metebelis 3."
 

Their game was disturbed by a grinding noise from the console as the ship began to dematerialize. A second later they felt the disturbance themselves.
 

Seven of Nine walked onto the bridge and accessed the sensors from the station next to Kim. She reached over him and transferred main deflector control to her panel.
 

"Seven?" Questioned Janeway.
 

"I believe I am reading an unprecedented build up in negative chronoton particles and a corresponding change in our shield harmonics and the warp containment field. The concentration of these particles is liable to increase if we maintain the transwarp corridor. It should be possible to disperse them using a short burst of positive tachyons through the main deflector dish. This will allow us to drop out of the transwarp corridor and repair the containment field."
 

"Do it."
 

"Yes, Captain."
 

As the stream of positive tachyons were expelled from the deflector dish it looked like a cloud of green powder had exploded directly in front of the ship. It began to crackle with energy as the negative chronometric particles dispersed. The green energy fluctuations of the transwarp corridor glowed and looked more like a stream of liquid silver. It was as though the stream was flowing around them, as if they were an obstruction. Then there was nothing. The ship had been thrown clear of the corridor.
 

B'Elanna's voice came over the speakers. "Captain, there is no longer a danger of a warp core breach, but the engines are off-line."
 

"How long for repairs Lieutenant?" Asked Janeway.
 

"Difficult to say Captain, but it's a mess down here. I would estimate two weeks at least."
 

"Shields and weapon systems are also off-line Captain." Reported Tuvok straightforwardly.

 

"Understood. Where are we?"
 

"Unknown Captain." Reported Seven.
 

Janeway was about to question her further, but was interrupted by a strange mechanical wheezing sound echoing around the bridge. Everyone watched astonished as a large, blue box with a light flashing on the top started to materialize by the entrance to the Captain's ready room.

 

Tuvok immediately requested a security detail to report to the bridge. They piled in, phasers drawn as the last echoes died away and the battered-looking box finally solidified. The light stopped flashing and there was silence. Written like a title above some grimy looking windows were the words "Police Public Call Box" in standard English. It made no sudden or aggressive moves and the security team approached tentatively.

 

Romana quickly checked the environmental readouts as time rotor at the centre of the central console shuddered to a halt, all too aware of the Doctor's propensity to leap before he looked.
 

"Breathable atmosphere, no extreme weather conditions, artificial gravity." She reported.
 

"Hmmm. Let's see for ourselves shall we?" The Doctor retrieved his hat and scarf from their resting place on K9 and reached for the door switch, striding out into the unknown before Romana could activate the scanner and actually look at what awaited them. "Come on K9," he called without bothering to check whether either of his companions were following, "keep up, there's a good dog!"
 

He walked straight into an armed and uniformed reception committee. This was not particularly unusual and he paid them little attention, more interested in discovering where they had materialized. The bridge of a space craft by the looks of things. Romana and K9 had arrived behind him now, so he turned his attention back to the watching guards.
 

"Hello!" he bellowed cheerfully. "I'm the Doctor, this is my friend Romana and that's K9." He reached into his pocket, and the nearest guard's weapon twitched. He held up his other hand and grinning maniacally slowly produced a small, crumpled paper bag from his pocket. "I'm out of Jelly Babies, would you like a Licorice Allsort?" He asked and held the bag out to the twitchy guard.
 

"I am Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager," she began.
 

The Doctor bowed. "Madam." he said, as he removed his hat and waved it about, somewhere near the floor.
 

"Welcome aboard." Commented Janeway wryly.
 

"Thank you." The Doctor straightened up. "Now, what about a tour of the ship. I'm very good at those." He strode straight between the armed security guards in the direction of the turbolift, calling out "I take it the engine room's this way?" over his shoulder.
 

"Stand still." Instructed Tuvok, quietly.
 

The Doctor came to an abrupt halt, hopping on one foot to avoid taking another step. He spun around, his mouth shaped into a surprised 'o', eyes wide.
 

"I say," he commented. "I do like your Vulcan, he's so calm."
 

Romana sighed and stepped forward.
 

"Captain Janeway, the Doctor and I are Time Lords," her glance at the Doctor suggested 'not that one of us behaves like it', "and we are concerned about the effects of a temporal experiment that we monitored in this area. I realize that our arrival was rather...unconventional, but as you can see our ship does not travel in the same way as yours."
 

"We haven't been conducting any 'temporal experiments'," pointed out the Captain, "we are stranded many years from home and have been trying to use Borg transwarp technology to speed up our journey."
 

"Borg?" questioned the Doctor, seemingly back in the land of the coherent.
 

Captain Janeway's eyes grew cold and her aversion to the Borg was apparent as she described them to the Time Lords.
 

"I don't remember coming across them, and they sound like the sort of people it's hard to miss." Commented the Doctor. "K9, do the TARDIS databanks contain any references to the Borg?"
 

K9's ears whirred backwards and forwards in contemplation. "Negative, Master." he chirped after a couple of minutes.
 

The Doctor and Romana exchanged glances.
 

"Have you experienced any problems with your 'Transwarp' experiments?" asked Romana.
 

"I want you to tell me exactly what you're doing here before we go any further." Stated the Captain, placing her hands on her hips.
 

"Or these nice members of your crew will show us to 'secure' accommodations, no doubt." The Doctor looked bored.
 

"Captain," Tuvok interjected. "A vessel is approaching, it has armed its weapons."
 

"On screen, open a channel."
 

The viewscreen displayed a long, silver ship. It was shaped like a rocket. Tubular, wide at one end narrowing about one third of the way along it's length, with a point at the front.
 

"I am Captain Jane..."
 

"Irrelevant. You will prepare to be boarded. Resistance is useless." Came a harsh, robotic voice and the communication was cut off.
 

"Cybermen!" breathed the Doctor.


 

The Cybermen had attached their ship to Voyager, managing to create a pressurized connection to one of Voyager's airlocks. In her weakened state, the larger ship was unable even to run. They had entered the ship and immediately attacked her crew. The tall silver armoured, cybernetic warriors were outnumbered, but were proving difficult to despatch. A series of hand-to-hand battles were being fought in the corridors, but as the Doctor had informed Captain Janeway, Starfleet handweapons were proving to be of little use against the Cybermen and many of the crew were already prisoners. Engineering had been taken quickly and the invaders were moving up through the ship largely unchecked. The ship was in turmoil. Reports of losses streamed constantly over the communication channels as the Captain attempted to coordinate the defense of her ship. The Doctor and Romana were being left more or less to their own devices in the confusion.
 

"Romana, I need you to try and hold them off. I need some time." The Doctor stated.
 

She nodded. "I'll need some help."
 

"I will assist you." Stated Seven.
 

"Come with me." Romana led Seven inside the TARDIS and crossed to the console, quickly closing the doors behind them. Seven scanned the console room, fascinated.
 

"It is..."
 

"Yes," cut in Romana, "it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside."
 

Seven raised her optical implant. "I was going to say that it is dimensionally transcendental, but you are essentially correct."
 

Romana rummaged through a storage cupboard, an odd pile of junk began to accumulate around her. Eventually she found what she was looking for. A small velvet bag tied with drawstrings. She handed it to Seven.
 

"It's gold dust," She explained, "unfortunately not enough to incapacitate the Cybermen, but it clogs their breathing filters. If we can get it into Voyager's air supply, it should be enough to slow them down."
 

"We will need to access engineering. If we climb through the Jeffries tubes, we may be able to get through."
 

"Let's go."

 

The Cyberleader watched as his troops studied the engines of the ship that they had captured. They had been modified in a most fascinating manner, with technology similar to that used by the Cybermen themselves but much more advanced.
 

"Leader, we are progressing quickly in the capture of this vessel. The lifeforms that inhabit it will make good slaves and some seem suitable for becoming Cybermen." Reported one of the tall, silver soldiers as he strode into engineering.
 

"Excellent." Replied the Cyberleader.

 

The Doctor took up a position at one of the active workstations on the bridge. He looked it over. "K9, come over here. Can you access the main computer?" He asked, opening a panel at floor height to give the little dog access to the circuitry.
 

K9 trundled over and extended the probe from his forehead. "Affirmative, Master." He whirred.
 

"Good. I want you to access all information on the Borg and run an analysis comparing it to the data in the TARDIS databanks. I want you to confirm why we have no records of them. And see if you can find out what the Cybermen are up to. In the meantime I need to find out exactly how this ship got here."
 

Seven of Nine and Romana had successfully navigated the ship's network of cramped passageways and made it, unchallenged, into engineering. Seven had brought them in through a tube that led out onto one of the higher levels around the warp core. As she had suspected, the Cybermen were all on the lower level, guarding the main doors and studying the engines from there. There were not as many of them here as they had been expecting. The two women crouched out of sight, surveying the room.
 

"This will be difficult," whispered Seven, "I will access the environmental controls over there." she pointed out a panel on the far side of the room. "You will need to place the gold dust in the air purifying systems over there." Romana nodded and crept away from her.
 

Seven quietly climbed down a ladder, hidden away as far from the warp engines as possible. Most of the Cybermen were concentrating on them. She moved as quickly as she dared and hid behind the console. She knew the layout of the controls by heart and reached up without looking to make the necessary adjustments that would distribute the gold dust quickly throughout the ship. Before she could complete them however, her wrists were seized in a vice-like grip and she was hauled to her feet. She was dragged away from the panel where she had been working, struggling fiercely. Two Cybermen held her, while another smashed the side of her head with his armoured fist, knocking her unconscious.
 

The Cyberleader lifted her face. "She has cybernetic implants. Study her. I want to know how one such frail looking specimen can be so difficult to restrain."

 

Seven came round to find herself looking up into the face of the cyberleader. She tested the bonds that held her still. Her right eye did not seem to be functioning properly and she was finding it difficult to disregard the pain that was searing through her. Pain is irrelevant she informed herself firmly.
 

"She has an eidetic memory and an implant that seems to have been used as a neural link. She was part of a collective consciousness, although this is no longer active. I have accessed this vessel's main datastore. She is Borg. This race use 'nanoprobes' injected through these 'tubules'" the Cyberman lifted her hand to display her tubules to his leader, "to 'assimilate' others."
 

"Excellent!" Intoned the Cyberleader, planting his hands firmly on his hips. "We will 'assimilate' her. She will become a Cyberman. We will learn from her and 'the Borg'."
 

"You will not." Stated Seven in her uninflected 'borg' voice.
 

"Resistance is useless!" Boomed the Cyberleader.
 

"Futile." Came the unexpected response.
 

"Explain."
 

"Resistance is futile. Except in my case."
 

"Futile. And in your case?"
 

"In my case, resistance is efficient." She broke free of the restraints, taking her captors by surprise. Using all of her Borg enhanced strength, she threw them away from her, sending them smashing into the wall. She crossed to the environmental controls and completed the sequence which started the gold dust circulating through the air vents. The Cybermen began spluttering almost immediately and she was able to release Romana who had also been captured. Together, the two women made good their escape through a jeffries tube.

 

On the bridge, Janeway was running out of options. More and more of her crew were being defeated, the emergency bulkheads that had been put in place were hardly slowing the Cybermen down and she had no weapons that could really stop them.
 

"Captain Janeway, please listen to me." The Doctor knew that what he was going to say was not what the Captain wanted to hear. "This is not a fight you can win."
 

"I can't give up!" She insisted. "Stop distracting me!"
 

"Captain," came Chakotay's flustered voice over the comm link, "the Cybermen have stopped advancing. They seem to be having problems breathing."
 

"This is it, Chakotay, hit them with everything you've got." Janeway turned to the Doctor. "You see? This is not hopeless."
 

Seven of Nine dropped out of an overhead ventilation conduit by the turbolift, closely followed by Romana. Janeway gasped when she saw the mess that the cybermen had made of Seven's face. Her right eye was bruised and swollen shut. The implant in her right cheek had been partially cut out of her face and she was bleeding profusely.
 

"The female Time Lord and I have dispersed gold dust through the ventilation system. It will slow them down, but is not enough to stop them apparently. With the main power systems still off-line we do not have enough power to replicate more." She stated without preamble.
 

"Your weapons are still ineffective Captain." Pointed out the Doctor mournfully. "Your attempt to use Borg technology has created a temporal paradox. You have traveled hundreds of years back in time. At this point in history, the Cybermen have been practically annihilated, they are fighting for survival. They are a cybernetic race, very similar to the Borg, but a lot less successful. You have brought Borg technology to them. They are studying it now in your engine room. You know they are accessing all the information that you have on the Borg, you can trace their actions through your computers even if you can't stop them. They are learning where they have gone wrong. The reason I have no information on the Borg is because your actions now are creating them. The Cybermen will become the race that in hundreds of years from now you know as the Borg, because you are here. My TARDIS is protected from the effects of your temporal incursion, but you have been living in an altered timeline all of your life because of your actions here and now."
 

"That's ridiculous!" Janeway snapped at him.
 

"Destroy the ship and the Cybermen with it and the timeline will be restored. This should never have been about to happen." The Doctor frowned. "There aren't enough tenses in this language. This is not supposed to have already happened soon? No, that doesn't work either. Most of your crew are already dead, or at least well on their way to becoming slaves or Cybermen. Stop this now."
 

Seven stepped forward, moving to well within her Captain's personal space. "They are researching the Borg, Captain. They have captured and studied me. Please listen to the Doctor."
 

"I refuse to believe that I am responsible for the creation of the borg." Janeway could not take her eyes off of Seven. This was the no-win scenario all over again. The Kobayashi Maru, only this time, she wouldn't be walking away, talking it over with her instructor when she lost. She looked up at Seven and opened her mouth as though she was about to speak. But she couldn't say it. Seven stared down into her eyes and spoke quietly, almost whispering.
 

"You have strived to make me human. To give me back my life. You have the chance now to make that unnecessary. If we stop the cybermen from becoming Borg, I will not be assimilated. I will be human." Seven's eyes pleaded with her, tearing into her heart, shredding her soul.
 

"Seven, I...You...are more important to me than anyone, than anything has ever been. I don't want to lose you." They stood facing one another, so close, and yet the distance felt like light years to Kathryn. She reached out and tentatively brushed the younger woman's cheek with her fingertips. It was as though the gentle touch gave her the courage to continue. "Seven, I love you." She spoke quietly and looked away.
 

"And I love you Kathryn. I do not want to lose you either."
 

Janeway stared up into Seven's eyes and whispered, "You love me?"
 

"Yes." Seven replied. She bent down and lightly pressed her lips to Kathryn's. The soft, hungry sigh that this evinced from her Captain scrunched up her insides with desire and a tear rolled down her face as she murmured "Please Kathryn, let me live."


 

The Doctor, Romana and K9 slipped into the TARDIS unnoticed. They made a short hop and rematerialized hovering not far from the two ships. They watched on the scanner screen as the enormous explosion of the Starfleet vessel's 'self-destruct' mechanism ripped both ships apart. The only trace of the encounter the spinning, hot debris that shimmered out of existence as they watched.


 

Epilogue

Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager was standing in her ready room, gazing out of the viewport at the unfamiliar, ever changing stars of the Delta Quadrant. She shivered suddenly, as though someone had walked over her grave. She had felt odd all day. Empty. A nagging, lonely ache in the pit of her stomach as though something was missing, but she had no idea what it could be. The door chime sounded.
 

"Come in."
 

She looked around as Annika Hansen, her ex-Maquis Science Officer entered the room and a smile lit up her face. Her sometimes stormy eyes shone, nagging doubts and loneliness forgotten. Then, too late, her command mask was forced back into place, disguising her feelings for the young woman standing just inside the door, hands clasped behind her back, smiling at her Captain.


END