Transported

Part 2

Ensign Kim had been assigned transport duties for the duration of the Away mission to Auretori, a planet encircled with a gaseous ring of ionized particles that played havoc with the transporter beams. The interference had not been enough to give up beaming in favor of shuttling the Away team back and forth, but certainly enough to take extra precautions. That is why a transport site had been designated and why pattern enhancers had been erected there to help boost the remote transport signals. In addition, Lt. Torres had rerouted extra power to Transporter Room 1, on Deck 4. But no one had thought to analyze what possible effects the light-refracting properties of the planet's ring might have on the transporter's imaging scanners, which were what helped maintain the integrity of the confinement beams so that Janeway's atoms wouldn't get all jumbled up with Seven's atoms.

Janeway regretted that little oversight now as she looked over at Harry Kim and demanded, "Report."

Harry, who had been looking at the women calmly, was suddenly confused by the command and tone emanating from Seven of Nine. "Seven?" he queried.

Janeway grew immediately impatient, wanting to receive explanations rather than give them. She rushed off the pad toward the transporter controls and almost lost her footing when she stepped onto the deck, unaccustomed to Seven's shoes and suddenly wondering how the young woman managed her almost athletic gait on such high heels. She refocused her attention as she reached the transporter controls and nudged the ensign out of the way.

"It's me, Harry: Captain Janeway," she explained abruptly.

Seeking confirmation, Harry looked to the person who really looked like the captain. She was frowning a bit but seemed otherwise calm as she stepped off the transporter dais, walked toward them, and came to a stop a meter away, standing erect and clasping her hands behind her back. Then she quirked her left brow -- which Harry considered a very strange look for Janeway -- and finally addressed the young officer.

"The captain is telling the truth, Ensign Kim. I am Seven of Nine. The transport evidently malfunctioned, crossing our signals as we rematerialized."

Harry stared back stupefied. The gravelly voice was unmistakably Janeway's, but the words sounded more like Seven's and the inflections -- or lack thereof -- were characteristically Borg. He tried to shake some of the confusion out of his head as Seven......errrr.....the captain spoke again.

"Seven, take a look at this," the blonde commanded from behind the transporter console, pointing to some energy readings on the display.

Harry eyed the shorter, auburn-haired woman in the red command tunic as she walked around the console and leaned in to study the data.

"Yes, I see it, Captain. That anomalous energy spike. I do not recognize the signature, however. I will proceed to Astrometrics and cross-check these readings with the computer's database to see if I can find a match."

"I'm coming with you," the blonde responded.

Contractions. Harry could never remember having heard Seven use contractions before. He felt a little dizzy.

"Are you all right, Harry?" the beautiful blonde asked him, voice laced with a level of concern for him that Harry had often hoped to hear emanating from those full, luscious lips.

'Oh, my God!' he thought. 'I'm getting aroused by the captain!' Harry shook the mood off with every centimeter of Starfleet backbone he could muster. "I'm fine, Captain," he whimpered. Then he cleared his throat and forced himself to concentrate on the problem at hand. "Captain, would you like me to inform Commander Chakotay of the transporter malfunction?"

"Oh, right. No, don't mention anything over the comm link; I'd rather keep this information restricted to Voyager's senior officers for the time being. It could be a little unsettling for the rest of the crew. And I don't trust the Auretoreans with this kind of information."

Janeway took a breath and mulled over the situation for a moment more, biting her lower lip in what Harry considered a very adorable expression. He shook his head again.

"Chakotay should be finished soon with the negotiations," the blonde Janeway continued after a moment. "Inform Tuvok of the situation over a secured channel and have him send a shuttle down to retrieve the Away team when they're done. He is to tell Chakotay that we noticed an energy spike after Seven and I transported onboard and that I ordered you to take the transporter off-line until we could determine the cause. Then tell Lt. Torres to meet me in Astrometrics. Beyond that, you keep this under wraps. I'll assemble the rest of the senior staff for a meeting as soon as Seven and B'Elanna and I have finished our preliminary analysis of this energy spike."

"Aye, Captain," Harry replied crisply, relieved that his Starfleet training had finally kicked in.

Janeway favored Kim with a warm grin, and then she and Seven turned and left.

As soon as the door swushed shut behind the two women, the young ensign's knees gave out in response to the captain's parting smile.

*****

The statuesque blonde and her equally lovely, auburn-haired companion made their way down the corridors to the turbolift, looking and feeling considerably less graceful than usual. They were quietly introspective, experiencing very different bodily sensations then they were accustomed to. For Janeway's part, she considered that she hadn't felt this physically awkward since puberty.

"Deck Eight," she ordered, as they entered the turbolift.

She had avoided looking at Seven because the sight of her own face staring back at her had considerably unnerved her. But she couldn't help surreptitiously noticing now, as they rode alone in the turbolift, how the young woman was wiggling her shoulders around and stretching her neck, a pained expression etched on her face.

"What's wrong?" she asked, voice laced with concern.

"I apologize, Captain, but I must have somehow damaged your body. I am sensing discomfort in my neck and shoulders."

Janeway's full lips quirked up in amusement even while her eyes retained a sympathetic warmth. "That's just muscle strain from stress and tension."

"Do you mean to say that you always feel this way, Captain?" Seven asked wide-eyed and incredulously.

Janeway chuckled. "You get used to it."

Having arrived on Deck Eight, the two women departed the turbolift and began making their way to Astrometrics. Veering slightly out of the way to make room for a passing crewman, Janeway nearly tripped as one of the heels wobbled out from under her again. She immediately regained her footing before anyone -- except Seven, of course -- could notice. She gave Seven a frustrated glare.

Seven quirked a brow and retorted, "You 'get used to it', Captain."

*****

Having arrived in Astrometrics, the two women immediately called up the transporter sensor logs.

Seven began punching in commands at her console, directing the Astrometrics computer to display the energy spike from their transport on the left side of the large viewscreen and to scan for any matching energy signatures on the right, running chronologically backward through the ship's stored sensor data. The computer came up with a match almost instantaneously.

"What are we looking at?" Janeway asked.

B'Elanna Torres swept into the Astrometrics Lab just then and momentarily forestalled Seven's response. The chief engineer nodded respectfully to the auburn-haired woman at the console and waited to be addressed, but the "captain" merely turned back toward the screen and announced in an uncharacteristically flat tone: "The signature on the right was recorded 36.7 hours ago from our sensor sweep of the Auretorean ring."

"Is it anomalous or repetitive?" asked the blonde Borg.

"Unknown. I am continuing the search to see if there are any more matching signatures, Captain." Almost immediately the computer chirped back in response, but before Seven could announce the findings, Torres broke in.

"Would somebody mind telling me what's going on here?"

The blonde addressed her: "B'Elanna, I'm Janeway, and that's Seven. There was some kind of energy spike when we transported and it mixed our signals. Still with me?"

"Uh.....yes," Torres answered shaking her head.

"Good. We've just determined that the spike came from the gas ring surrounding Auretori."

"And there is one other match, Captain. An earlier spike that occurred 73.1 hours ago. Allowing that the one disrupting our transport occurred .3 hours ago, I believe these energy spikes are not only repetitive but cyclical. They appear to be repeating at fixed intervals of 36.4 hours. Of course, that conclusion is based on a sample of only two spikes, so it lacks statistical confidence."

"This is going to take some getting used to," B'Elanna mumbled under her breath.

Janeway caught the comment. In fact, she heard it clearly and would have marveled at her suddenly enhanced hearing but for the fact that she was distracted by B'Elanna's remark.

"Don't let this get to you, Lieutenant. We need your expertise here."

It was Seven's voice, but the command in the voice was undeniably Janeway's, and Torres's brain stood at attention upon hearing that tone. "Yes, Captain."

*****

The three women worked closely for the next two hours, carefully going over the data, analyzing and reanalyzing the energy spikes and the transporter logs to try to determine what exactly had happened.

At the same time, all three women were having considerable difficulty maintaining their focus. B'Elanna for her part kept getting thrown by the switch, momentarily forgetting and then catching herself as she remembered and readjusted her comportment for each woman.

Janeway, in the meantime, was very busy noticing her chief engineer's behavior and becoming progressively more unsettled by what she saw. During those moments when Torres turned toward the blonde as if to address Seven, Janeway could discern the subtle traces of contempt and forced tolerance in the brown eyes until Torres remembered that it was the captain behind the Borg visage. She had always been aware, of course, that B'Elanna neither liked nor particularly trusted Seven, but being on the receiving end of that dislike and distrust -- even for a few nanoseconds -- Janeway silently anguished for Seven, whom Janeway knew was far more susceptible to having hurt feelings than the outwardly stoic Borg ever let on. The captain quietly resolved that when all this was over, she was going to see to it that Seven started socializing even more with the crew so that they could get to know how truly wonderful she is, which Janeway was convinced she was. In the meantime, though, she forced her mind to return to the task at hand.

Finally, Seven, herself, was distracted as well, but for very different reasons. Being in the captain's body was a more alien experience to her than she ever imagined it could be. After all, on some level, they were both human beings. But even though Seven knew better than anyone how her nanoprobes and Borg implants affected her physiology and what there absence meant for the typical and far less impressive physiology of human beings, that knowledge had remained an intellectual abstraction. She was simply unprepared for how a relentlessly biological existence would actually feel. In addition to a kind of lethargic weakness that had started washing over her increasingly in the last hour, and the dull aches and pains she felt throughout this body -- but particularly around the captain's burdened neck and shoulders -- she was now beginning to feel an extremely uncomfortable fullness in her lower abdomen. And she suddenly found herself pressing her legs tightly together against that sensation.

Janeway caught the subtle shifting and pressing and realized what was happening to the Borg, possibly for the first time the young woman could remember. "Seven," she asked gently, "do you have to use the facilities?"

"What?" Seven asked startled and slightly wide-eyed.

"The toilet? Do you need to use it.....to urinate?"

The auburn-haired woman shot a half-embarrassed glance at the chief engineer before returning her eyes to the captain. Then in an unsteady voice, she admitted, "I......I do not know how."

B'Elanna immediately averted her eyes, feeling a sympathetic twinge of remorse for the former Borg. She had always known that the young woman's day-to-day experiences were very different, but she hadn't realized just how different. The vulnerability in Seven's tone made the human side of B'Elanna suddenly despise the Borg Collective for the wealth of commonplace human experiences that they had denied Annika Hansen, while the Klingon side of the chief engineer made her admire Seven's courage in admitting her ignorance.

Janeway had been more aware of Seven's inexperience, but even she felt her right eye water at the utter helplessness in Seven's tone. "Come on," she gently prodded. "I'll help you."

As they made for the door, B'Elanna called, "I hope everything comes out all right, Seven."

Both women picked up on the sympathetic sentiments behind the chief engineer's amused teasing, and they smiled back warmly, each sensing that some rift had begun to close.

*****

The nearest facilities were just down the corridor, and when they got there, they were pleased to see that the room was empty.

"OK, Seven," Janeway began, sounding a little like a school teacher......or was it a tour guide? "Here we have one of the thirty-six public lavatories on Voyager, between one and four of them per deck, depending on the size and average crew complement of the deck. Each lavatory has six different types of bio-waste facilities, each of which, with minor adjustments for body size and height, is suitable for every known physiology in the Federation." Janeway proceeded to tick off the choices: "Running from Type A to Type F, respectively, the options include the raised toilet bowl, the recessed hole, the standing urinal, the biovacuum, the dialyzer, and the enzyme bath."

Since all of this information had been discarded by the Borg as "irrelevant," Seven was dismayed by the variety and by the fact that she was apparently expected to make a choice -- even though she had no point of reference. Fortunately, the captain offered some suggestions.

"Types A and B are best suited for bipedal, humanoid females," Janeway explained. "So," she asked after a moment, "do you prefer to sit or squat?"

Seven quirked an eyebrow, feeling suddenly annoyed. "Neither, Captain!"

"Right," Janeway acceded, finally realizing that the young woman wanted directions not options. "Go in there," she instructed, tilting her head to indicate the nearest Type A stall, "and -- you know -- pull down your pants, of course" she said half-muttering, assuming that Seven remembered at least that much but not wanting to risk an "accident" by withholding any information from the often too literal Borg. "Then sit on the toilet seat and just relax the muscles you're body has been instinctively tightening to hold it in. And when you're done, wipe yourself dry with some paper, pull on your clothes again, and then come out here to wash your hands."

"Captain," Seven frowned, "when I 'wipe myself', as you put it, will I not have to touch your body in what is considered a 'private part'?"

"I'm sure I won't feel a thing," Janeway quipped. "And anyway if you're shy about it, you can always close your eyes," she added mockingly.

"Well, you make it all sound easy enough, Captain," Seven noted, but the tone was dubious.

Janeway sighed, and then offered gently: "Don't worry, Seven. My body will know what to do. In you go."

"Can you not come in there with me?" Seven asked hopefully.

"Uhm.....that wouldn't be entirely appropriate, even under these circumstances. Besides, someone could come in."

"And that would be awkward?"

"Well, how would you explain it."

"Why would I have to explain it?"

"You're the captain," Janeway retorted, completely amused -- despite her better judgement -- by the scenario her imagination was conjuring.

"Then I will say that I ordered you to assist me," Seven insisted, becoming even more irritated and stubborn.

Janeway smirked. "Adults don't usually need help going to the bathroom......And," she added after a moment, "Starfleet captains never do!"

"I see," Seven countered with apparent indignation. "You won't assist me because you wish to protect your own reputation."

Janeway wasn't fooled. "Seven," she responded gently, "I am helping you. And you're just stalling. Now go," she said, nudging the woman into the stall. "I promise it won't hurt a bit. In fact, you'll feel a hundred times better when you're done."

Seven pouted but relented, entering the stall and closing the door behind her.

Janeway listened intently, hearing the rustle of clothing and then Seven's surprised gasp.

"What's wrong?"

"This 'toilet seat', Captain. It is cold!"

Janeway chuckled, leaning up against the door to Seven's stall and crossing one foot over the other at the ankles in a casual stance that was uncharacteristic for the Borg although very typical of the Starfleet captain.

Just then, Ensign Jenkins walked in. Jenkins formerly ran the helm on the Gamma shift, but she had impressed Janeway so much during the captain's recent stint on the late-night rotation that Janeway talked Chakotay into expanding the ensign's training by trying the young woman out at the Beta shift ops position. This explained why Jenkins was already up and about so early in the day, and perhaps also why she was in such an apparently sunny mood, since her face lit up the moment she saw the Borg.

"Hello, Seven. I don't usually see you in here," she beamed.

Janeway hadn't expected to be addressed as "Seven" and hadn't expected that the stand-offish Borg would be addressed so cheerfully. But being a natural actress -- "a natural ham," her sister Phoebe used to say -- she recovered quickly from her surprise, instinctively straightening up and adopting the Borg's stiff, ostensibly "at-ease" pose: shoulders back, chin up, back rigid, and hands clasped firmly behind her.

"Ensign Jenkins," she nodded politely, trying to keep all inflections out of her tone.

"What are you doing anyway?" Jenkins asked curiously.

Janeway thought quickly and remembered that something approximating the truth was always the best way to proceed when one wants to dissemble. Plus she knew the effect that her presence typically had on her crew, especially junior officers and crewmen. So she stressed, "The captain and I were in the middle of an important conversation and did not wish to interrupt it while she engaged in a necessary biological function."

Jenkins' eyes went wide as she pointed to the stall nervously and silently mouthed "The captain is in there!"

Janeway had to bite back her laughter. "Yes," she said aloud, "the captain is in this stall."

'Poor Jenkins', she thought. But despite her sympathy for the embarrassed ensign, Janeway couldn't help feeling very pleased with herself for playing such a convincing Seven of Nine. After all, discretion was hardly one of the Borg's strong points.

The real Seven, of course, had overheard most of the exchange and frowned in sudden confusion sensing that this was some sort of cue to her. Frantically running through a list of possible responses, she finally cleared her throat and simply said, "Good Afternoon, Ensign Jenkins."

Not expecting Seven to play along -- and so perfectly -- Janeway had to cover her mouth immediately to stifle the laughter that was bubbling up. Fortunately, Jenkins was too distracted by "the captain" to notice.

"Uhm," the ensign stammered. "Good Afternoon, Captain." She started backing away. "Well, you know, I can come back later. I don't want to interrupt your conversation. Uhm. Bye!" And with that, she turned and charged out the door.

Janeway finally did break down laughing, wondering, not for the first time, why the idea of her going to the bathroom was so off-putting to her crew. 'Aren't Starfleet captains supposed to pee?!' she thought. After a moment, she heard Seven call out from inside the stall.

"I take it she is gone?"

"Yes," Janeway replied through her subsiding laughter. "Are you done yet."

"No! I have not yet started!"

Janeway sighed. "All right, Seven," she began again. "I want you to take a deep breath and then let it out slowly." She stopped to listen. "Come on," she prodded.

Seven breathed deeply.

"Now another."

Seven breathed again.

"And just let yourself......relax," she said slowly.

Janeway's lips curled up in satisfaction as she heard the unmistakable sound of liquid trickling. Then she smiled broadly as the trickling was followed up by Seven's very relieved "Ahhh."

After several moments, the trickling subsided. Janeway then caught the subtle sound of paper rustling, and then Seven must have gotten off the seat because the toilet flushed.

"Ah, interesting. The device expels the waste automatically when one's weight is taken off the seat. Correct?"

"Actually, it works off a motion sensor on the wall."

"Oh, yes, I see. How efficient."

"I'm so glad you approve," Janeway quipped. "Now hurry up and get dressed. B'Elanna's waiting."

Janeway then heard the snap of elastic.

"Ow."

"Did my underwear attack you, Seven?" Janeway teased.

"That is not amusing, Captain!"

Janeway just laughed unapologetically, and she could see the humor and considerable relief in her former eyes when Seven emerged out of the stall.

"Thank you," Seven said shyly, proceeding to the sink to wash her hands.

"Not at all. I imagine we're going to have to help each other through a number of similar processes: showering, eating, sleeping....regenerating. But this one was probably the hardest bit you'll have to go through. And after the first time......well, it's like riding a bicycle."

Seven frowned. "Captain?"

"Never mind," she smiled.

"Well," Seven concluded happily as she dried her clean hands, "at least I have mastered your body's waste disposal function."

Janeway's face dropped with sudden realization. "Come to think of it," she winced, "this may not be the hardest part for you."

"What do you mean?" Seven said in a low, threatening voice.

Janeway did a doubletake at the tone and shuddered inwardly, recognizing it as a perfect imitation of what she once heard Tom Paris call "the captain's disemboweling register." That label seemed particularly fitting given what she was about to explain.

"Actually, Seven, we've only dealt with how my body -- uhm -- your body discharges liquid waste."

Seven's eyes grew wide as she looked down at her crotch considering what Janeway was saying and wondering how it was possible.

Janeway shook her head "no" and then tilted her chin indicating Seven's backside.

Seven twisted and glanced behind at herself over her shoulder. She then shot a nervous look back at Janeway. "You mean......I will have to expel solid matter out of my....my.....bottom?!"

"I'm afraid so. And......uhm.......possibly some......well, gases," Janeway added, trying to be as delicate as possible.

Seven was appalled at the notion. "I will not!" she refused, and then crossed her arms stubbornly as if she could will herself to avoid a necessary biological function.

Janeway could never remember seeing herself pout before, but she thought the expression made her look adorable -- if she did say so herself -- and she suddenly realized why her own parents had always laughed when "little Kathryn" went on one of her tirades. Big Kathryn, however, found this revelation disconcerting, and she silently hoped that she didn't come across quite so childish when she stomped around the Bridge.

Turning her attention back to Seven, she smiled wanly at her and then pulled her into a warm and comforting embrace. "Listen to me," she whispered softly, "I will get you through this. I promise."

Dismayed at first by the contact, Seven found herself hugging back tighter, giving herself over to the tenderness of the moment.

*****

"Senior officers to the Briefing Room," came the unmistakable voice of the captain over the ship's general comm system. Of course, by this point, half of the senior staff knew that Seven was the one who had made the announcement. But when Chakotay, Paris, the Doctor, and Neelix (who had also been called to the meeting) arrived, they immediately concluded that something was a bit off because Seven of Nine was sitting in the captain's usual chair at the head of the conference table, and the captain, in the meantime, was sitting at the opposite end, where Seven usually sat.

"What's going on?" Chakotay immediately asked.

'Seven', or rather the woman who looked like Seven, placed her implanted left hand on the First Officer's forearm, trying to calm him. The too-familiar maneuver coming from Seven's alien hand, however, left the commander feeling decidedly less calm. Janeway caught the reaction and immediately removed her hand.

"It's all right," she said, trying to reassure with a smile. "There's been a transporter malfunction," she explained, now addressing the group. "When Seven and I beamed back from the planet, our bodies got switched somehow."

As before, the captain's command tones and inflections emanating from the Borg's body were having a disorienting effect on Voyager's crew, as Janeway could tell from the way that the First Officer, the helmsman, and the Talaxian were mimicking their other colleagues' earlier gesture of shaking their heads in confusion. Even the holographic doctor was shaking his head, despite the fact that he didn't actually have anything in there to shake. Janeway pressed on.

"Obviously, we need to recreate the conditions to see if we can reverse the effects of the transporter accident. To that end, Seven and B'Elanna and I have spent the last few hours analyzing an energy spike from the Auretorean ring that we think probably caused the accident. Seven?"

The woman who looked like the captain stood up and walked over to the computer display along the side wall calling up an image of the ringed planet alongside a wave-analysis of the energy spike. In a droning tone atypical for the Starfleet captain but perfectly like the former Borg, the woman began her report.

"The spike occurred at the same instant that the captain and I were beaming up. Preliminary analysis indicates that the spike refracted the transporter beams, temporarily disengaging the individual imaging locks and inverting our patterns.....with the obvious results. We are hopeful that if we duplicate the transport at precisely the same instant during one of these energy spikes, we will be able to reverse the process."

Janeway broke in at this point. "Fortunately for us, the spikes appear to occur at regular intervals."

"When's the next one," Chakotay asked.

Seven began to answer but frowned as she realized she couldn't remember the exact time and needed to consult her PADD.

Janeway, however, answered immediately: "In 32.6 hours." Just then, she looked over at Seven and saw her flinch. She frowned, seeing that Seven was visibly disturbed that she couldn't remember that little detail and then realizing that the young woman wasn't accustomed to forgetting anything. She sighed, then refocused on the meeting.

"I don't think we're going to be able to prepare in time for the next spike, but we're shooting for the one after that, which is almost three days away. That will give us more time to analyze all of the transporter logs, particularly the imaging scanners and the pattern enhancers that were down on the planet. We also need to run medical scans, Doctor, to make certain this was just a simple switch and not a more complicated intermingling of DNA, like our incident with Tuvix," she added, regret lacing her tone.

"Tuvix?" Seven asked.

Janeway swallowed. "A transporter accident involving alien fauna with symbiogenetic properties. The presence of the plant in the transport.....temporarily......merged Tuvok and Neelix into a new, hybrid form."

"I see," Seven said, immediately sensing that Janeway had had to make a difficult decision involving the fate of this "hybrid." And since Tuvok and Neelix were present, she could guess what that fate was. She resolved to read the logs to see if there was anything relevant to the present situation.....and to learn more about the sorts of difficulties that had apparently left their traces in painful layers along this delicate woman's shoulders.

"Finally," Janeway continued, "I don't want anyone outside this room to know about the switch. We can't take the chance that the Auretoreans will find out since they might decide this accident places us at a disadvantage."

"I don't see how," Paris broke in.

"Well, it shouldn't, Ensign Paris, and by the way I do appreciate the vote of confidence," she said smiling. "But I can see how much trouble each of you is having adjusting to this. So it could confuse the crew about who exactly is running the ship right now. And even if it didn't, that perception might be enough to provoke the Auretoreans to question my authority, which could in turn lead them to think that they don't need to honor our trade agreement. In retrospect, it probably helps that they wanted to complete the transactions with you two," she added, indicating Chakotay and Neelix.

"Do you consider the Auretoreans belligerents, Captain?" Neelix queried.

"No, Mr. Neelix. But given their values regarding women, they are barely tolerating my command as it is. As you can attest, there have already been certain.....misunderstandings. I just don't know how much we can trust them."

"Understood, Captain, but we will, I assume, need to obtain their permission to return to the planet when the time comes for us to duplicate the transporter inversion. Won't we?"

"Quite right, Mr. Neelix, which is why your role in all this is going to be absolutely crucial. I need you to keep the Auretoreans friendly and unsuspicious for the duration."

"Understood, Captain," the Talaxian responded, his mutton chops jutting out in pride.

"In the meantime, Chakotay, you're going to have to maintain command. Seven and I need to keep a low profile since neither one of us is likely to pull off acting like the other with any degree of plausibility......at least not for any length of time."

"Actually, Captain," Paris interjected with an oily charm, "given your top-notch performance as Queen Arachnia, I bet you could pull it off."

"It isn't crunch time, Ensign," Janeway quipped, "but thanks anyway for the second vote of confidence."

Paris just flashed one of his boyish grins, but it quickly fell from his face when he caught sight of his lover and saw her flashing one of those Klingon sneers of hers that spoke volumes. In this instance, B'Elanna's expression warned Paris that if he did not stop flirting with the suddenly Borg-embodied captain, the young ensign would find himself just as suddenly dis-embodied, and from one particular part of his body.

Despite her flash of anger, however, B'Elanna understood why Paris was behaving like that. The switch was giving them all a new perspective on both Seven and the captain. Janeway's vivid personality animated the typically stony Borg's features and made everyone realize how much more beautiful the already-stunning Borg would be if she just smiled every once in awhile. At the same time, Janeway's body devoid of her bigger-than-life personality now made them all realize how incredibly small and frail the captain actually was.

In a sense, then, Janeway's strength was a strength of character, and that's what made the physically tiny woman seem so formidable; while Seven's strength and beauty lay in her Borg-enhanced body. Without that body, Seven was actually more meak and vulnerable than she seemed, and that realization made her suddenly more human. B'Elanna marveled at it, and at her own perplexing desire to protect Seven. She guessed that the captain had always known this part of Seven, had always been able to see what the others hadn't been able to see because they couldn't get past the implanted surface. In a way, the accident was giving them all a little insight into the real Janeway and Seven.

Janeway's words interrupted B'Elanna's thoughts. "There's a report of our preliminary analysis of the energy spike in your PADD's along with a duty roster for what I'd like each of you to do. Are there any other questions before we proceed?"

She paused but no one said anything more, their goal having been clearly outlined by the woman who didn't look like the captain but clearly was the captain.

"Dismissed," she finally said.