Disclaimer: The characters are the property of Paramount and were created by Kate Mulgrew, Jeri Ryan and the wonderful cast of Star Trek: Voyager. This is strictly a non-profit operation: the rewards are in the writing and feedback. If you’re under 18, or have a problem with consenting adults in a same-sex relationship, now is the time to find something else to read. Do not post or reprint without author’s permission. © 2007 by BeachBum

 

Acknowledgements: I cannot thank Lyric, Susan, Annie or LZClotho enough for their phenomenal beta-reading skills, encouragement and late-night hand-holding. You ladies save me from myself and my terminal mis-use of the ellipse not to mention chronic comma abuse.

 

OK DAx, challenge accepted! Believe it or not, both DAx and I came up with very similar story arcs independent of each other. So we decided to square off head to head and take our best shots. I hope you enjoy!

 

 

 

CHAPTER 3

 

Tuvok led them through the building into the underground levels. He unlocked a nondescript door and they filed in. To Janeway’s amazement, Lieutenant Ayala and Petty Officers Hendricks, Lee and McCarren were checking over some disruptor rifles.

 

“Lieutenant, gentlemen…what are you doing here?” demanded Janeway.

 

“Commander Tuvok notified me that Seven of Nine had disappeared. We thought you might need a few experienced hands to help get her back.” Ayala, Hendricks, Lee and McCarren were all members of Voyager’s Elite Security Team and some of the best tactical and security men in Starfleet.

 

“Lieutenant, this is a unofficial mission. I can’t…”

 

“Captain, with all due respect, Seven’s family. We take care of our own. Now, do you want to keep arguing about it, or do we saddle up and go get her?” Ayala was a man of few words, but he chose them well. The men began distributing weapons to the rest of the group. As they finished Pulaski entered the room.

 

"People, this is all off the books. We don't know who's taken Seven and we don't know what we're walking into, but I'm grateful to you all for walking into it with me." Janeway nodded her thanks to her crew and turned to her Tactical Officer. "Tuvok, where to from here?" she asked.

 

Tuvok tapped his COMM Badge. “Tuvok to Paris. Nine to beam up.” The group was immediately engulfed in the blue sparkles of a transporter beam and in a moment found themselves in Voyager’s main transporter room. Tom came out from behind the control console.

 

“We’re good to go. The Delta Flyer’s prepped and ready to launch,” The rescue team double-timed into the shuttle bay and boarded the Flyer. Tom slid into the pilot’s seat, Harry took the operations console next to him and Tuvok manned the tactical station.

 

“What’s your plan to get off Voyager and out of the Station, Tom?” asked Janeway.

 

“I checked the command and control codes…some fool didn’t bother to change the launch sequences after we stood down. I didn’t even have to hot wire the shuttle bay force fields. I can drop them from here. As far as getting out of McKinley Station, all we need to do is hitch a ride. And our ride should be coming along any minute now.”

 

The team watched in silence as Tom quickly launched from Voyager and flew the nimble shuttle directly under the keel of the USS Kodiak as she slowly eased from her berth and headed for the Station doors. Tom kept the shuttle within mere meters of the huge battlewagon, virtually invisible to the sensors of traffic control. The only way they would be detected was visually. Once clear of the station Tom veered off sharply to starboard and headed toward Mars.

 

McKinley Traffic Control immediately hailed them. “Unidentified shuttle, you are not cleared to depart McKinley Station. Return to your assigned berth immediately!”

 

Tom grinned as he shut off the communications link. “We don’t need to be bothered by that chatter.” He powered up the thrusters and headed toward Mars at full impulse. The trip took less than half an hour. They never saw the fully cloaked small, sleek ship that followed a few minutes later from the space dock.

 

* * *

 

Tom put them into high orbit over Mars while Tuvok, B’Elanna and Janeway studied the sensor readings of the supposedly abandoned installation. Had they been on a shuttle from any Starfleet vessel other than Voyager their scans would have been inconclusive at best. But this was the Delta Flyer, designed and built by Voyager’s crew, and that meant that it carried every Borg enhancement Seven of Nine knew of and several she had invented specifically for the shuttle craft. No scanners in the Quadrant were as sensitive, powerful or tactically informative.

 

It was obvious that some force had taken over the abandoned complex. Soon, the rescue team had the locations of the perimeters guards, interior guards, comm center, power matrices and surgical suites. Janeway sent an encrypted message to Admiral Patterson with the data they had obtained, and the rescue team beamed down to a location half a kilometer from the installation. As they moved toward the perimeter Janeway’s COMM badge chirped.

 

“Paris to Janeway.”

“Janeway here, Tom. What is it?”

 

“Captain, hold your position one moment.”

 

“Tom, what’s going on? We can’t…”

 

The air was filled with the blue sparkles of transporter beams. When the forms coalesced a fully-equipped ten-man tactical assault team of Fleet Marines stood next to them. The Lieutenant in command spoke quietly to Janeway.

 

“Admiral Patterson thought maybe you could use a few extra hands. Mind if we tag along?”

 

Her grin rivaled a supernova in intensity. “Not a bit, Lieutenant. Glad to have you.”

 

His answering grin was almost as bright. “Outstanding! What’s the plan, Captain?”

 

Janeway nodded to her Security Chief. Tuvok quickly outlined their assault plan, and the Marines fanned out to flank the rescue team. B’Elanna and one of the assault troops took out a perimeter guard and within a minute Torres signaled that the damping field was down.

 

Quickly they entered the complex. The Lieutenant sent two three-man teams to secure the perimeter and take out the remaining exterior guards. Once inside the facility he and his remaining troops headed toward the security center with Harry to deal with the interior guards and set up their comm links while Ayala sent Hendricks, Lee and McCarren to cover B’Elanna while she dealt with the power nodes for the complex.

 

Several minutes later Janeway had word that they had control of the building and she, Tuvok and the others headed for the surgical suites. The first two were dark and empty, but the third was brightly lit. Tuvok eased forward and ran a tricorder near the doors.

 

“Five life signs; three human, one Bolian, and one human-Borg hybrid, life signs weak,” he reported. Only Janeway saw the tightening of his jaw that reflected his outrage at what the scan had revealed.

 

Janeway signaled Pulaski to stay back until they had control of the room and, on Tuvok’s signal, they burst through the doors. Tuvok and Ayala took out the two guards while Janeway charged toward the operating table. What she saw froze her in place.

 

Seven of Nine lay strapped to the table, nude. One surgeon had removed her ocular implant and was busily cutting away a part of her skull to access her cortical node while the other was slicing flesh away from the bands of her abdominal implant. Ropes of intestine oozing blood were visible where the abdominal implant had already been cut away. Blood splatter was everywhere and in pools on the floor.

 

Bringing her disruptor rifle to bear she bellowed “Raise your hands and step away from the table…now!” Both men slowly raised their hands and stepped back, their faces stony. She moved toward them, intent on immobilizing them when her world stopped.

 

It was a soft sound, the kind an ailing puppy might make. The whimper was repeated as Janeway’s eyes flew back to the bloody figure on the table. Seven moaned again as she tried to turn her remaining eye toward her captain. Janeway saw not only the crater in her face where her ocular implant had been housed, but also the trail of a tear on her cheek. They had not anesthetized her. Seven had felt every atrocity they had performed on her.

 

All her Starfleet discipline, all her years of training disappeared in the wave of white-hot rage that surged through her at the sight of the woman she loved flayed alive on that table. Janeway swung back to face the surgeons and with an inhuman cry she blasted both with her disruptor rifle. Their thoracic cavities exploded, both dead before they hit the floor. She dropped the rifle and spun back to the operating table only to by pushed aside by Pulaski.

 

“Kathryn! Move!” the Admiral barked as she elbowed Janeway out of the way. “I need room to work here. Christ Almighty, what have they done to her?” She began frantically staunching the gaping wounds as Janeway stood, frozen in horror. A moment later one of the Marines jogged through the doorway.

 

“Admiral? I’m the team’s field medic. The Lieutenant thought maybe you could use some help.”

 

“Get a central line started and force all the plasma you can find into her! If we don’t stabilize her right now, we’re going to lose her!”

 

Janeway never felt Tuvok gently move her away from the table and out of reach of the medics as they rigged life support systems on the table, desperately fighting to keep the former drone alive. Slowly she regained rational thought and turned to survey her handiwork. Ayala had restrained both of the guards and was now examining what was left of the surgeons. He nudged one of the lifeless bodies with his boot and looked up at Janeway.

 

“You did good, Captain,” he said with a nod, then turned away to link up with the rest of his men.

 

Janeway could only stare at the evidence of her lapse in sanity. With a sigh she turned to her Tactical Officer.

 

“Tuvok, once we get Seven back to Earth and I’m sure she’s stabilized, I’ll turn myself into Starfleet Security to be charged.”

 

“Charged with what, Captain?” he inquired mildly.

 

“I just killed two defenseless men who were in the process of surrendering. Capital Murder,  Tuvok.”

 

“And who exactly will be charging you with capital murder?”

 

“I expect your after-action report to accurately describe today’s events, Tuvok. I’m sure Security will have a cell waiting for me when it’s logged.”

 

“My report, Captain, will be accurate and precise. It will read that we entered the operating theater to discover two unidentified males in the process of murdering your Astrometrics Officer and that you used the necessary force to stop them. And Captain, that is an accurate description of today’s events.” With that, he moved away from her to confer with Lieutenant Ayala.

 

As Janeway stared transfixed at the bloody bodies at her feet, Pulaski came up behind her.

 

“Are they dead?” she asked.

 

“Yes,” replied Janeway dully.

 

Pulaski clapped her on the back. “Good. And thanks. You saved me the trouble of killing the bastards myself.” With that, Pulaski returned to the life support systems surrounding Seven of Nine.

 

Janeway continued to stare, thoughts churning at the words of Tuvok and Admiral Pulaski. She had always thought of herself as an enlightened human being. She lived by a code of ethics that reflected the highest principles of society and Starfleet. Life was sacred to her. Yet she had killed without thinking in the heat of her fury. And two exemplary Starfleet officers had tacitly endorsed her actions without a qualm. She knew there would be repercussions from her actions. She would face them later. Right now she needed to focus on Seven.

 

When she turned to look back at the operating table Seven of Nine was unconscious and completely covered by a life support module. Pulaski was deep in discussion with B’Elanna about how to transport the entire operating table back to Starfleet Medical. Janeway beckoned Tuvok over to her.

 

“Yes. Captain?”

 

“Tuvok, make sure Tom knows that we’ve secured Seven and have him clear enough room on the Flyer so we can get her back to HQ. I’m sure Admirals Paris and Patterson will be interested in what we found here. Have you contacted Security yet?”

 

“Just a moment ago. A rather large Security and Intelligence detachment is en route to interrogate the prisoners and download the data terminals. Lieutenant Martin and his Marines have secured both the prisoners and the facility. There is a Security detail waiting at Headquarters to debrief us. As soon as Dr. Pulaski is satisfied that Seven can be transported safely we can leave for Headquarters.”

 

“Good work, Tuvok. I’m afraid I’m not totally focused right now. I believe you’ve thought of everything. Thank you.”

 

“Captain, your focus should be on Seven of Nine and nothing else right now. No one expects you to take care of the details. Just take care of her. We will do the rest.”

 

Janeway nodded and moved next to the operating table. Pulaski and the medic had Seven secured and were monitoring her vitals. B’Elanna had detached the table from the deck plating and was busy hooking up portable power cells for the flight back to Earth. Pulaski wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t showing any of the frantic activity of her arrival and told Janeway that Seven was critical but holding her own.

 

In what seemed like mere moments, Pulaski announced they were ready to beam back to the Delta Flyer. After a brief conference with Lieutenant Martin, who had turned control of the facility over to the newly arrived Security forces, it was decided that Lieutenant Ayala, Hendricks, Lee and McCarren would travel back to HQ with the Marines and the rest of the rescue team on the Flyer. The transporters made short work of getting them back to their respective ships and in minutes both craft were enroute to Earth at full impulse power.

 

Janeway sat at Seven’s side for the return trip. There was no place for her to touch Seven and she desperately wanted to do so. The top half of Seven’s head was swathed in sterile drapes leaving only her nose and mouth visible. Life support modules encased the rest of her body keeping her alive. Not thinking of the others on board Janeway leaned over and placed a brief kiss on Seven’s lips. It was all she could do to reassure the young woman, and herself, that Seven was safe and that Janeway would not let further harm come to her. She never saw the surprised look on everyone’s face except B’Elanna’s. The Klingon hybrid merely smiled knowingly.

 

Warp capable interstellar ships, regardless of size, make a great deal of noise descending to a planetary landing. A large crowd had gathered on the fringes of the grassy quadrangle between Starfleet HQ, Medical and the Academy; drawn by the screaming sounds of the Delta Flyer and the Marines’ shuttle cutting through the atmosphere. Tom held the Flyer briefly at five hundred feet while the Marines’ craft touched down. As soon as the landing skids touched the grass the Marines and Voyager’s Elite Squad spilled out of the hatch to form an armed perimeter into which Paris set the Flyer down. As he did a trauma team led by Voyager’s EMH moved quickly from the Medical Center’s receiving bay toward the Flyer. Janeway and her team followed Admiral Pulaski and the Marine medic as they moved the table and Seven out of the Flyer’s hatch, and as soon as it was clear of the ship Tuvok motioned to Ayala and the Elite squad to form up around the table. The Marines took outside positions flanking the rescue team and the heavily guarded phalanx moved as a unit toward the medical center.

 

When the EMH reached Pulaski there was naked fear in his photonic eyes.

 

“How bad is it?” he asked without preamble.

 

“It’s not good. The only positive thing I can tell you is it looks like they hadn’t reached her cortical node yet. We got there just in time. As for the rest of her critical implants, you’re going to be very busy.” Briskly, the medical personnel took charge and moved Seven into the trauma bays.

 

Every fiber of her being screamed at Janeway to stay with Seven, but she turned to Lieutenant Martin as they reached the doors of the medical center.

 

“Lieutenant, I can’t thank you and your men enough. Please convey that to Admiral Patterson in your after-action report.”

 

“Captain, my orders were to see to it that you and your officers came to no harm and to assist you in any way necessary. Those orders are still in effect, ma’am. So with your permission, my men and I will just hang around a little longer and make sure nobody gets anywhere near your officer who shouldn’t.” They entered the trauma bays and Martin quickly positioned his troops to cover the entire area. If the trauma teams were disconcerted by the presence of heavily armed Marines in their medical center they didn’t show it. Pulaski and the EMH barked orders and a flurry of activity surrounded the bed on which Seven lay. Janeway joined her officers and crew in a small conference room to wait.

 

They hadn’t been there long before Admirals Paris and Patterson arrived with another Security team in tow. Voyager’s officers and crew were separated and their debriefings began. They didn’t take long since the action had been fairly straightforward and none of Voyager’s officers or crew had been involved in interrogating the Section 31 operatives. Janeway told of killing the surgeons and was surprised when it caused no stir from her debriefing officers. Neither Admiral Paris or Admiral Patterson raised so much as an eyebrow when she described the shooting. When she had given her complete statement and the intelligence officer questioning her had gone she turned to her former Academy mentor.

 

“Owen, what’s going on here? I just confessed to murdering two men and nobody but me seems at all concerned by the fact.”

 

The elder Paris looked at her kindly. “Kathryn, that’s probably because anybody in your position would have done exactly the same thing. Those two might have called themselves surgeons, but they were butchers. And what they were doing wasn’t surgery, it was torture. No human being could be expected to watch that kind of brutality on someone they cared about and do nothing. Your response was natural. Nobody blames you for what you did.”

 

“But they were surrendering and they were unarmed. And despite that I cut them down.”

 

“They might have had their hands raised, but I’m sure surrender was the farthest thing from their minds. Remember Kathryn, these were Section 31 operatives. They excel at survival and use any means to accomplish their goals. As for them being unarmed, that isn’t the case. When my people searched them, they found hand weapons on both of them. That’s not exactly the equipment you associate with physicians. I have no doubt that if you’d let them get their hands a little bit higher you would have been facing a couple of phasers set to kill. Needless to say, the outcome could have been far different.”

 

Kathryn was astonished at his comments. Her response was interrupted by the arrival of Admiral Pulaski in surgical attire. “Kathryn? I need to talk with you for a moment.”

 

The others in the room quickly filed out leaving the two women alone.

 

“Here’s the situation. The EMH has her in surgery now. She’s stable…critical, but stable. We’re going to reseat her optical array and then regenerate her abdominal implant. That’s going to take some time. Once we finish the surgery she’s going to have to undergo a long regeneration cycle. It could take a month or longer before she’s back on her feet again, and full recovery could take months. Make no mistake, she was within a hair’s breath of dying in that operating room.”

 

“But you think she’s going to be all right?”

 

“Yes, Kathryn, I think she’s going to be fine. But her regeneration could be a problem. I think we’re going to need to talk to your engineer about that.”

 

Janeway stood without a word, walked to the door and waved the others back into the room. They gathered around the surgeon. Pulaski briefly told them that Seven would live and outlined her concerns about the regeneration cycle. “Your EMH said that you’d built a portable regeneration unit for her on the Delta Flyer. Would it be possible to modify that so that it can be moved here?”

 

B’Elanna thought about it for a moment. “I think I can rig it so that it could be used anywhere, but Borg regeneration takes a lot of power. We’d have to modify power cells to handle the load. How soon will she need to regenerate?”

 

“I doubt the surgery will be finished before early tomorrow. It’s going to be…extensive.”

 

B’Elanna looked at her husband and Harry. “Let’s go guys. We should be able to modify the portable unit in time if we get started now.” As the three of them stood, Admiral Paris told them to make sure they took the Delta Flyer back to Voyager before they began work on the regeneration unit.

 

“We can’t have your hotrod shuttle craft littering up the lawns, you know,” he said with a chuckle, the pride in his son’s design evident.

 

Tom grinned back at him. “Aye, aye, Admiral.” The three officers left to return to Voyager. As they walked out of the room, Tuvok also rose.

 

“Admiral, I will take Lieutenant Ayala, Hendricks, Lee and McCarren with me to the Security section. We can help with the analysis of the Section 31 data we retrieved on Mars.” He nodded to the Admirals and Janeway and took his leave as well.

 

Janeway turned back to Pulaski. “Admiral, you’re sure she’s going to be all right?”

 

Pulaski smiled back at her. “She’s going to be fine. It’s just going to take a while. Trust me, Kathryn, I wouldn’t lie to you. Your Seven of Nine will recover fully.” The relief Janeway felt at those words made her knees weak. Fumbling for the armrest, she sank unsteadily back into her chair.

 

“Thank you, Admiral. Thank you so much.”

 

Nodding to Paris and Patterson, Pulaski returned to the surgical suites. Patterson looked at Janeway gravely.

 

“We’re not out of the woods yet, Kathryn. I still have some serious concerns about our ability to keep Seven of Nine safe even here.”

 

“Do you think Section 31 will come after her again?”

 

“I doubt this time they’d be concerned with anything as time consuming as harvesting her Borg technology. This time I think they’d just try to kill her. And in a hospital there are a lot of ways to kill someone that are very difficult to determine after the fact. In here it’s too easy for them to make her death look like a natural occurrence.”

 

“What can we do to keep her safe?”

 

“I’ll keep Lieutenant Martin and his Marines around the surgical suites while they’re operating. Once the surgery is complete she can regenerate anywhere. We need to think about moving her to a secure location.”

 

“But you said yourself that Section 31 had probably infiltrated most of Starfleet. What location is secure enough?” Janeway’s alarm was rising.

 

Owen Paris replied with a twinkle in his eye. “We weren’t thinking of a Starfleet facility.”

 

His meaning dawned on Janeway and she smiled. “Might you be referring to an isolated agricultural reserve in the heartland where strangers can be seen coming several miles away?”

 

“Do you think your mother would mind?”

 

“My mother, Admiral, will take one look at Seven and make it her mission in life to nurse her back to health. She’ll cook twenty-four hours a day and I’ll endure endless lectures on the need to keep better track of my officers. She’ll be in her glory.”

 

Patterson smiled at her in turn. “That’s what we’d hoped you’d say. I can establish a security perimeter around the agricultural park that won’t interfere with the residents and yet can keep a sensor lock on your farm 24/7. Nobody we don’t know will be able to get close to your family farm.”

 

“I want her safe, Admiral. If we can do it in Indiana, so much the better.”

 

“Seven of Nine will be safe, Kathryn. You have my word on that.”

 

“Mine too, Kathryn,” added Paris. “Your father would come back from his grave to haunt us if we allowed any harm to come to you or yours on the farm.”

 

Janeway grinned at the thought. “He might at that.”