• This is the 23rd story in the Just Between series.
• Dedicated to those in HC, and to Marco, for their helpful commentary as I wrote it.
• This story was posted around the last part of August, 1999, prior to the beginning of Voyager's season six.

Captain Kathryn Janeway of the USS Voyager glared at the alien who stood insolently on her bridge holding a very large disrupter rifle, feeling her lips draw back from her teeth in a primitive snarl. With an effort, she controlled it, composing her face into the impassive command mask that had served her so well for so long. The rest of her bridge staff stood uneasily at their posts, waiting for her next command as they regarded the alien strike force with mixed anger and concern, made impotent before they understood what was happening, caught flatfooted by the abrupt materialization of an enemy on the ship. There hadn't even been a warning from the sensors, no indication that there might have been a ship nearby.

There had to be a ship nearby, Janeway thought darkly. Beings just didn't materialize out of thin air. She studied the intruders keenly, assessing every detail as she worked on a plan.

They were all tall and wide, but that could be more a result of the black armor covering their bipedal forms than any particular physiological trait. Bulky helmets with opaque face shields covered their heads, and their weapons were large, silver constructs that were clearly designed so that there was no question about their function. There was a right end and a wrong end to these things and right now, the crewmembers of Voyager were very much on the wrong end.

Beside Janeway, his burly form tense, his big hands gripping the arms of his chair, her first officer Commander Chakotay looked less than entirely Human, his dark eyes glittering ferociously. At the helm near the front of the bridge, the fair-haired Lt. Paris had swung his chair around to look at the command staff, waiting for orders, while at the rear of the bridge, at the ops station, Lt. Harry Kim frowned uncertainly, a lock of dark hair falling boyishly into his eyes. Only the dark-skinned Vulcan, Tuvok, standing passively at his tactical post, seemed unruffled by the unexpected appearance of the aliens, though Janeway knew that was a fallacy. The two junior officers, covering the auxiliary stations, looked absolutely terrified.

"Who are you?" Janeway demanded, her laser gaze boring into the alien who unfortunately, did not fall down dead from the sheer intensity of it.

"Quiet," the armored figure grunted.

Janeway forced herself not to cross her eyes as the muzzle of the weapon centered directly between them. Motion from the corner of the bridge caught her attention, and everyone turned to watch a new figure step off the upper level to the command level. It was also armored, but seemed slighter than the others standing guard, and when the gloved hands reached up to remove the opaque helmet, Voyager's bridge staff was surprised to see the hardened features of a rather diminutive female revealed. She would have been fairly attractive but for the ragged scar that marred the smooth flesh, slashing across her face and bridge of her nose, and the eyes ... solid black, without any hint of mercy or compassion in them.

"You're in charge?" she asked without preamble, taking a position in front of Janeway.

"I am Captain Kathryn Janeway of the USS Voyager," Janeway began, attempting a civil expression, hoping to somehow resolve this in a diplomatic way. "We represent the Feder--"

"Shut up," the woman said in a bored tone. "I'm not interested in your life story." She reached out and grabbed Janeway by the auburn hair at the top of her head, keeping her immobilized. "I'm only going to tell you this once, so listen well and impress the importance of what I tell you upon your crew. This is our ship now and while we would rather not kill you because we have use for workers, we will if we have to."

Before the captain could react, the woman pulled out a smaller weapon from her hip and without looking, fired it at Ensign McCormick at the science station. The blast caught the slender brunette high in the chest, slamming her back against the wall where she slumped to the floor, crimson staining the surface. Her eyes, wide and horrified, never left the captain's and Janeway thought it had been a look of betrayal and accusation in the junior officer's final gaze before her eyes dulled permanently. Janeway herself, only had time to start abruptly before the weapon was being pressed to her forehead, the cold metal cutting into the skin.

"Don't," the woman warned in a deadly voice. Janeway was aware of the rest of the bridge crew also being restrained by muzzles pressed hard against their heads. "That was an example, Captain Janeway. You will order your crew to cooperate with my people. You will be assembled in one of your cargo holds. Any attempt to resist will result in immediate death. Any attempt to initiate a self-destruct of this vessel will result in me killing you, and going to the second in command. I'll work my way down until I find someone who's smart enough to know when they're outmatched. Do we understand each other?"

"You'll not harm anyone else if we cooperate?" Janeway asked, in what she hoped was a perfectly even tone. She had never felt as angry as she did at this moment. Her stomach churned impotently, and tears of rage stung her eyes, but she refused to show it, maintaining her command mask with the greatest of effort.

"I didn't say that," the woman said with black humor, her eyes gleaming unpleasantly. "All I said was that I would kill anyone who didn't." She paused. "Do you require another example?"

"No," Janeway said quickly and harshly. "I believe you." She inhaled slowly. "I'll need to access the communications console."

"Or you can just verbally access the computer," the woman countered flatly.

Janeway did not flicker but inside, she felt a certain apprehension. The invader's words indicated far better knowledge than she should have about how things worked on a Starfleet vessel. That meant that Janeway had to be very, very careful here.

She cleared her throat and the muzzle eased off a little, the alien releasing her hold on her hair abruptly with a final pull that made the captain's head ache. "Computer, relay ship wide," Janeway said stiffly. "This is the Captain. Voyager has been invaded by a superior force. We are in a condition indigo. All crewmembers shall cooperate with the invaders, and assemble in cargo bay one." She regarded the woman angrily. "Is that sufficient?" she asked with a trace of sarcasm that she could not hide.

The woman's eyes narrowed and without warning, she backhanded Janeway across the face, using the weapon for weight. The metal opened up a gash on the captain's cheek and for a few seconds, Janeway saw stars but she managed to return her gaze to the woman, not lowering her eyes.

"Let's have no confusion about who's in charge here, Janeway."

"There's no confusion," Janeway returned in a deadly quiet voice.

"Now you will turn over all command controls to me and my men."

The hiss of the turbolift door drew their attention before the captain could answer, and Janeway felt her heart sink as yet another invader entered the bridge, brutally gripping the small arm of Naomi Wildman. Voyager's only child was obviously frightened, tears glistening in her eyes, but she was trying her best not to show it.

"Look what I found, Kalin," the alien said, the voice filtered through the speaker in his armor though it was clearly male. "They have children." There was a pause. "Can I have her?"

The tone of the question sent a chill through Janeway in a way that nothing else did, the possibilities implicated being far and away the most unpleasant thing she had experienced since this whole thing began.

"Bring her here, Droxin," Kalin said flatly.

Reluctantly, the bulky form dragged Naomi over to the alien leader. Kalin reached out and gripped the child's shoulder.

"Are you scared, child?"

Naomi glanced uncertainly at Janeway, and the captain inclined her head briefly, indicated that she should answer.

"Yes," Naomi said faintly.

"Smart," Kalin said approvingly. "You should be, Droxin's a very scary man." She turned to look at Janeway. "This makes things much easier, Janeway. A species is always easier to control through their offspring. Let me rephrase my earlier statement. Cooperate, and the child stays with you. Do anything to interfere, and I give her and any other children to Droxin. Are we clear on this?"

"Very," Janeway said, hatred a cold, hard ball in her chest.

"Turn over command control," Kalin repeated flatly. "No tricks."

Janeway hesitated, saw the woman's hand tighten on Naomi's arm painfully, though the little girl refused to cry and did so, spitting out the codes reluctantly, but obediently. When she was done, Kalin studied her closely for a moment, and then nodded, releasing Naomi after a small shake. The child hesitantly took a step toward Janeway and then, when she was not restrained, covered the rest of the distance in a rush, flinging herself into the captain's arms. Janeway could feel her trembling as she held her and instinctively, she tightened her hold, hugging her tightly.

"It's all right, Naomi," she murmured. "I won't let anything happen to you."

"Be sure to keep that promise." Kalin motioned to another of her group. "Escort them to the cargo hold. If you have any problems, you know what to do."

He nodded once and made a motion with his weapon. The bridge crew filtered into the turbolift, Kim, Paris and Tuvok going first, herded by two of the aliens.

After they had left, Ensign Pablo Baytart, who had been covering the engineering station, and Commander Chakotay were forced to get up by Droxin, who seemed less than pleased that he didn't get to keep his prize. Janeway was herded along with them, propelled by a sharp shove. Since she was still carrying Naomi who clung to her neck, she was hard pressed not to stumble and it took everything she had not to turn and jam the weapon straight down his throat. As she entered the turbolift, she turned in time to see Kalin sit down in the command chair, surveying the bridge with a possessive gaze before the lift doors slid shut and cut off the captain's view.

Janeway's back teeth ground sharply against each other, but she didn't speak as the lift descended to deck fourteen where they were pushed along toward cargo bay one. She did take an instant to note through her fury, how the small form of the ship's only child felt in her arms. It occurred to her suddenly that she had not held a child for so long that she could not remember when the last time had been. She was bemused by the emotions that rose within her, the fierce protectiveness, the tenderness, the sense of warm affection. Was this what Seven of Nine had been experiencing for the past year or so?

If that was the case, Janeway suddenly realized why her spouse of several months displayed such longing for them to have their own child. Both women knew that their lives were so busy that the addition of offspring would be far too great a complication as long as they were still in the Delta Quadrant. That reality did not ease the yearning in the younger woman, but now, Janeway felt she understood it a little better.

With consummate dignity, Janeway entered the cargo bay under the watchful eye of the alien guards, looking around to check out her crew. Most seemed to be doing fine, though a quick count revealed that there were still a few heads short. Disturbed, she glanced at Chakotay who was also scanning the crowd. He turned to her, nodding briefly. There were definitely several people missing, though the two officers knew that more crewmembers were being escorted in every moment. With an effort, Janeway schooled herself to patience and gently lowered her burden to the deck.

"Naomi!" Samantha Wildman pushed through the crowd, gratefully wrapping up her daughter in her arms. "Are you all right?"

Naomi clung to her. "The captain protected me."

The ensign shot her captain a look of such profound gratitude that Janeway was embarrassed, particularly since she had been unable to protect another of her crew. For a brief second, she mourned the young ensign who had died so senselessly on the bridge but unfortunately, she could not afford too much grief. Not at the moment, and not with the rest of her crew relying on her.

"All right, everyone," Chakotay shouted, getting everyone's attention. "Let's settle down and take stock. Departments, form up."

Janeway found a corner and knelt, the rest of her bridge crew gathered around her, their faces grim and somber.

"Report."

Tom Paris shook his head. "It doesn't make sense, Captain. There was no indication of another vessel anywhere. And we just dropped out of warp on our own. I never touched the controls."

"Mr. Paris is correct," Tuvok added. "If there had been a cloaked vessel, it is of a type that is far more advanced than any we have known."

"What use would they have for Voyager in that case?" Chakotay asked, frowning.

"And what did they mean by 'workers'?" Harry offered. "What kind of workers?"

"I doubt we'll like it, whatever they meant," Tom responded pessimistically.

Janeway's eyes kept searching the crowd, keeping a particularly close eye on the entrance. When the two guards lifted a small device, possibly a communicator of some kind, and spoke into it, she rose to her feet, stepping forward. The guards abruptly went outside and the door slid shut with a solid thunk.

"Try it," she said and the crewmembers nearest to it, obligingly did so. They looked back at her and shook their heads, indicating it was sealed. She glanced at the catwalk that ran around the upper level and realized others were already ahead of her, checking the various auxiliary hatches and vents. Again, the indication was that they were completely sealed, which meant that somehow, the invaders had accessed that part of the computer, putting overrides on the hatches and locking them in. During all this, uneasy feelings of displacement and dismay rippled within her as one individual remained conspicuous by her absence.

"Computer," she said urgently, a feeling of even greater dread slipping over her. "Locate Seven of Nine."

The computer's response was completely even, impassive, reciting off the requested information without emotion.

"Seven of Nine's lifesigns have been terminated."

Recently, in an effort to make a joke, Seven had stated that her intention was to make love to the captain in every part of the ship. To her surprise, the captain had taken it seriously and laid some ground rules about what she expected while Seven attempted to carry out this goal. Seven decided that she would start small, specifically in this tiny auxiliary room located under the teardrop saucer section of the ship, not far from the aerowing that doubled as the captain's yacht. No one knew exactly what this space was used for, but one of its attributes was the ability to transform the surrounding hull to a transparent state, making it appear as if any inhabitants of the room were actually out in space, carried along beneath the ship. It was one of the captain's absolute favorite places on her beloved vessel and Seven hoped that her plan would make it even more popular with Janeway.

The Borg felt a tiny jolt and realized that, for some reason, the vessel had just dropped out of warp. She waited for an explanation, the announcement of an alert, but when none was forthcoming, she decided that she had been in error, though as an ex-drone with enhanced senses, she was not normally mistaken about such things. Her thoughts were primarily pleasant and her anticipation of her spouse's reaction to her surprise was strong, so she did not give it the attention it should have required. Instead, she made a few more adjustments to her props, making sure she had a portable unit to provide music, and then stood up, head carefully bent to avoid hitting the underside of the hatch. Sometimes, there was a decided disadvantage to being six feet tall.

Seven of Nine reached up to press the control panel when the captain's words came over the ship-wide band, issuing thinly through the comm badge on the Borg's generous chest.

"This is the Captain. Voyager has been invaded by a superior force. We are in a condition indigo. All crewmembers shall cooperate with the invaders and assemble in cargo bay one."

Seven's eidetic memory immediately brought up the definition for condition indigo.

In the event of a hostile takeover, the first priority of the Starfleet officer is to secure a position of resistance. If unable to do so, the appearance of cooperation must be presented in order to cover for others who may have succeeded in securing such a position.

Seven swiftly reached out and accessed the control panel with her Borg assimilation tubules, the worm-like appendages shooting from the back of her left hand, bypassing the touch pad's preliminary function of merely securing the hatch and tapping into the main computer. It was unlikely that anyone else on the vessel had the ability to do what she did then, and certainly not as quickly, but within seconds, she had instructed the computer to list her as 'deceased' in the crew manifest and furthermore, to ignore her individual lifesigns, considering them terminated. Then she withdrew her access, reaching over and taking the comm badge from her left breast, crushing it swiftly with her implant so that it could no longer send out any kind of signal.

It was possible that her tampering in the manifest would easily be discovered, but she also realized that for anyone to want to, they would first have to determine that any tampering had, in fact, occurred. After all, why would the invaders be worried about a dead person? Or suspect that the dead person was in fact, not even dead? She was grateful that this tactic had been discussed not so long ago in one of the Starfleet classes she was taking in the evenings. It was actually the Bolian, Crell, who offered the idea that if the ship recognized an individual as being dead, the sensors would tend to ignore it, even if it continued to walk around. It had been in response to a question posed by Tuvok, their instructor that night, about the danger of relying too much on technology over one's natural senses. It had been a lively discussion and Seven had came away from it filled with much information on how to deceive both.

With Voyager's own internal sensors no longer a concern, at least for the moment, Seven turned her attention to any equipment that the invaders might have brought along with them. Since this particular area of the vessel was not crucial, and in fact, it was unknown to a lot of crewmembers, it was unlikely the invaders would think to look here. That gave her a small margin of leeway. She dared not access the computer from any other Voyager console, but it occurred to her that she could utilize the Borg equipment that sat dormant in a room sealed off from the rest of a transformed cargo bay two. The problem was in getting there. The most obvious method would be to use the access corridors and Jeffries tubes, but chances were they would be monitored closely. Even if the internal sensors ignored her lifesigns, they would detect motion within their area of sensitivity. That could be maneuvered around, provided she could make it to a Jeffries tube without being seen.

She did not wish to encounter any of the invaders. That would force her to kill or disable one of them, alerting the intruders that there was a random element loose on the vessel. It was important that they not know that for as long as possible because once they did, they could simply use the crew they had captured as hostages, threatening them to make Seven surrender. Since Kathryn was indubitably one of those hostages, that scenario was simply unacceptable.

Seven placed her ear against the hatch and listened as hard as she could. There was no indication that there was anyone in the access corridor above her and the odds were that there would not be. This was a rarely traveled part of the ship, a hall which ended in the dead end of a plasma relay conduit, serviced occasionally, checked only during routine maintenance or a full red alert by a visual inspection. She determined the risk was acceptable and activated the hatch.

If she was wrong ... well, she hoped they would merely take her to where Janeway and the others were being held in cargo bay one, rather than killing her out of hand.

Her gamble paid off and there was no one in the access corridor. She began to climb out, hesitated, then reached back to open the picnic basket and grab a container of potato salad along with a fork. It was unlikely she would have access to dinner this evening and it behooved her to eat when she could. After all, it wasn't as if she would be able to walk up to a replicator and program a meal.

She closed the hatch behind her and skulked along the hall to the juncture leading to a much larger corridor. She waited until she was sure that it was empty, then darted across to the nearest hatch of the Jeffries tube running along this deck. She crawled in, sealed it and looked down at the grate that made up the floor of the tube. Many complained about the close confines of such conduits but Seven was aware that there was another way to utilize them in order to travel about the ship ... in even closer confines. Most never thought of it. Seven had no choice now but to accept the necessity of it.

Reaching down, she hooked the fingers of her left hand in the mesh of the panel just beyond the one she crouched on, lifting it up to reveal a crawl space beneath. Unlike the relative cleanliness of the Jeffries tube, it was thick with dust and grime, hardly ever cleaned and sure to be very unpleasant to travel through. But it would guarantee that she remained below the level of any sensors and greatly lessen the risk of being discovered.

She squirmed into the hole and twisted and turned until she could pull the panel back down into position. She was left in a space about a meter wide and only half a meter high, the tiny conduit present beneath all the Jeffries tubes throughout the ship. It took a few moments to come up with a form of locomotion that would allow her to move at a reasonable pace and it cost more than a few bruises, as her elbows and knees persisted in colliding harshly with the floor and sides despite her best effort to be graceful. She had never envied her spouse's compact size more than she did right at this moment.

As she snaked slowly forward on her stomach, using her arms and legs to pull her along, wiggling past the metal projections protruding every few meters, it occurred to Seven that this was one of her more miserable experiences since leaving the Collective. Grease and dirt smeared over her normally immaculate blue and grey biometric outfit and dust kicked up to irritate her nasal passages. She tried to distract herself with speculation about the invaders; who they were, where they came from, how they had gotten aboard undetected, what purpose they had for taking Voyager? She hoped that when she got to her Borg cubicle, all her questions would be answered and in such a way that she could come up with a plan to defeat them.

She wondered if any other members of the crew had managed to find a position of resistance. There were many who were certainly capable of it, if the opportunity had presented itself. She realized how fortunate she had been in her timing of preparing her surprise for Kathryn. Chances were, had she been in astrometrics where she was normally supposed to be, she would have been captured along with the others.

She trusted that the crew had been captured. The thought that perhaps they had been killed was something she did not want to contemplate ... not if she wished to function with any sort of competence. She understood that worrying unduly about Kathryn could easily overpower her good sense and intelligence as it had before. The Borg still had a faint scar running along her side where she had rushed several armed guards in a Barellan prison, trying to draw their fire away from where the captain was being transported to the safety of the ship. She had been extremely fortunate that she had not been killed and the foolishness of her gesture had been impressed upon her by a furious Captain Janeway after the fact. So Seven carefully gathered up all her concern for her spouse into a manageable ball and buried it deep within herself.

She hissed as a sharp edged projection caught her right arm, actually tearing the biometric suit and cutting into the flesh beneath. Crimson welled up in the wound but she determined that it wasn't serious and ignored the pain as she resumed her torturous progress, trusting the wound would clot eventually.

Pain is irrelevant, she told herself sternly. I must get to cargo bay two. I cannot allow anything to stop me, least of all, this minor discomfort.

She took several moments to wiggle around a juncture and start up the next stretch. The most dangerous areas were where she had to come out of the crawl space and go through the hatches to the next set of Jeffries tubes. She came to one such transition point, waiting for a long period of time to make sure it was clear before rising out of the crawl space, slithering through the hatch and entering the crawl space on the other side. This one was even dirtier than the last and she knew that by this time, she wasn't recognizable as the neat and tidy astrometrics officer of Voyager.

As she tackled this next section, she couldn't help but be aggravated by the lost opportunity of her planned romantic evening. There was no telling how long this particular adventure would last, but it was certain Kathryn would hardly be in any mood to make love in a different part of the vessel. In fact, depending on how the mission went, it was possible the captain would not be interested in romance at all for quite some time. For no more than that, a burning resentment toward these intruders rose in Seven, fueling her desire to find a solution for this as soon as possible.

She was halfway down a stretch of tube leading to the turbolift shaft and the access ladder leading to deck eight when she heard the sound of someone else in the tube. She froze, silent as the beings approached, not moving as the two forms passed over her. She knew that the lights from the Jeffries tube were situated such so that they did not illuminate the area beneath the grill. The dirt covering her form suddenly became the perfect camouflage, allowing her to blend into the shadows beneath the mesh. She studied the intruders carefully as they passed over her, noting the armor, the markings on the shiny exterior, and most tellingly, the sight of alien features through the open faceplate of one of the helmets.

Seven quirked a brow. Species 2903. Their distinctiveness had been added to the perfection of the Collective some years ago though apparently not all had been assimilated. Possibly because the Kunntarie, as they called themselves, had been a space-faring race under constant expansion prior to meeting the Borg. They had established a presence on many other planets and the Borg's sweep had taken place at the same time as the encounter at Wolf 359 in the Alpha Quadrant. Even the mighty Collective had been spread a little thin and it was conceivable that a Kunntarie colony or two had been overlooked. Seven remembered them as a particularly aggressive species, preying on all the other systems in the sector, utilizing the other inhabitants as slaves in their asteroid mines. Their assimilation would have come as a welcome piece of news to those other races ... except for the fact that the Borg had assimilated them along with Species 2903 as their cubes passed through the sector.

Seven remained still for quite some time after the sounds of the intruders' passage had disappeared, making sure that they were long gone before she resumed her progress. She was surprised a few moments later when she heard some more noise and she froze again. But this time, the sound was closer and she realized with a certain apprehension that whoever was approaching was not in the Jeffries tube.

They were in the crawl space with her.

However, it wasn't totally protocol to do such unnecessary 'space-walks' so she was very careful about how she went about it, the only one knowing she was out here being Ensign Vorik. And that was only so that, if she did run into trouble, there would be someone to tell the captain how very stupid she had been and where they should probably look for the body.

B'Elanna had nearly lost contact with the hull when the vessel abruptly dropped out of warp and it was only by the thinnest of margins that she had kept herself from being thrown onward, hurdling light years away within her own small remnant of warp bubble. Not that she would have had much time to experience it since the forces involved would have instantly crushed her to a paste within her space suit.

Once the Klingon had regained her equilibrium, heart pounding in her chest, she had stowed her tools and hastily headed for the nearest airlock, pausing only when the captain's message came across her suit communications system. B'Elanna couldn't remember exactly what 'condition indigo' was ... there were just so many damned colored conditions in Starfleet ... but her time in the Maquis had taught her how to react quickly to an unexpected threat. She knew that the longer she could remain unknown to the invasion force, the more trouble she could cause in defense of her ship. She shut off the transmit aspect of her comm unit and activated it to receive only, scanning the full broad band spectrum as she tried to tap into the internal communications of the vessel.

She started to make a circuit of the ship, taking care around any portholes where someone might look out to see her. Every so often, she would cautiously glance through the large windows, able to catch glimpses of the crew herded from their quarters and work areas, being escorted to cargo bay one by massively armored aliens. The Klingon was greatly impressed by their intimidating appearance and worried by the unknown capabilities of their armor.

The engineer guessed that Vorik must have kept quiet about her presence outside, not that she would have expected anything less of the Vulcan. The invaders could have easily reversed the polarity on the hull, shooting her away like water beading off a duck's back and she stepped lightly, making sure her safety line was connected to the available clamps at all times, afraid that at any moment, her margin of error would narrow to nothing.

Most of the subspace chatter within the ship had been taken over by the aliens and it bothered B'Elanna tremendously. As she mounted the side of Voyager to creep around to the bottom, she realized that none of it was being sent externally nor could she see any vessel in the area around her. Granted, visibility was a tricky thing in space but the fact remained that to transport a strike force large enough to take the Intrepid-class vessel, a ship should have been both close enough, and large enough, for her to see. But none had appeared, nor had any of the proximity alarms in her suit activated.

Where were these guys from? And how had they managed to invade Voyager without so much as a warning from the many sensors designed to prevent just that sort of threat?

As B'Elanna cautiously slipped from one shadow to the next, Voyager's hull unfortunately having very little in the way of cover, she found that she was profoundly worried about her crewmates and most tellingly, a few specific individuals far more than others.

Seven of Nine appeared in her thoughts and dismally, B'Elanna trudged toward the auxiliary lock near cargo bay two, trying to ignore mental images of the tall cool blonde who had become her good friend after their initial period of intense antagonism. B'Elanna knew that she had warmed up to the young woman because Seven had fallen in love with Janeway and the softening of the arrogant attitude had allowed the Klingon to see the vulnerable and gentle woman inside. B'Elanna wasn't sure when her friendship for Seven had turned to attraction on her part, but she had kept it carefully hidden, refusing to acknowledge it in any way. Not only did she have the utmost respect for Janeway, though she wasn't always good at showing it, she knew, deep in her soul, that Seven would never be able to love the Klingon with the all consuming, absolute passion that she did the captain.

So B'Elanna had kept silent, always on the outside looking in, warmed by the pure glow of such a fine love, but always aware that she was not experiencing it herself. Was that the real reason she had broken up with Tom? she wondered. Not because he had changed, but because her expectations of what love was supposed to be, had? Then, there was Voyager's first officer. B'Elanna's affection and respect for the darkly handsome man had roots stretching back to their earliest days in the Maquis, but when they escalated that into a romantic relationship, she found it lacking. She had wanted the same purity and power of the heart that Seven seemed to have with Janeway, but B'Elanna never managed to achieve it with Chakotay. She was never sure  whether it had been her doing or his, or both, but when he told her that they needed 'a break' from each other, despite her pain, there was also this great sense of relief.

Now, there was this new situation and it was the most baffling of all. In truth, B'Elanna had known Ara Lerona as long as she had known Chakotay, though certainly not as well. Indeed, B'Elanna had been as surprised as anyone when Ara had turned out to be Ro Laren of the USS Enterprise. For almost six years, Ro had maintained the secrecy, doing whatever job was asked of her quietly and competently, not attracting any more attention than she had to. But her great abilities and potential could not remain hidden forever and when it was finally revealed that the officer was in fact, good enough to have served under Jean-Luc Picard, commander of the fleet's flagship, Captain Janeway has been willing to grant the woman another chance to redeem herself. And in doing so, allowed the real woman beneath Ara Lerona's sullen persona to shine through with the most brilliant sort of light.

B'Elanna found herself drawn to that light as strongly as a moth to a flame and had no better chance than the insect of resisting, it seemed. Ro was highly intelligent, cool under fire, and had a way of moving that combined deadliness and grace to such an extent, B'Elanna would have gladly spent all day simply watching the woman walk. The Bajoran beauty was as reserved and distant as Captain Janeway herself, as arrogant and efficient as Seven, as broodingly attractive as Chakotay, with a dry wit that far surpassed Tom's more juvenile approach to humor. If only the Klingon could find a way to touch Ro's heart as the Bajoran had so inescapably touched B'Elanna's.

Unfortunately, B'Elanna had yet to come up with a way to make the Bajoran feel that way in return. Sometimes it seemed like she was making real headway toward a romantic tryst, but other times, the engineer thought she would never get through to the unfathomable woman. Recently, a silly argument over something B'Elanna couldn't even remember had put them at odds, which was quite discouraging when one considered the friendly interaction they had shared during shore leave a month earlier. The woman was a complete mystery to the Klingon.

It only made her more appealing.

For a second, Lt. Ro Laren's face appeared so strongly in her mind's eye that B'Elanna could have sworn the Bajoran woman was standing only a few feet away, the dark hair and eyes lit by starlight, her slender, willowy form so refined in her gold and black uniform. The Klingon was embarrassed by the wave of vertigo and excitement which swept through her and she tried hard to bottle it up. It was bad enough that she acted like a complete fool whenever the woman was around, but it came to her that, as much as her failed romances with Tom Paris and Chakotay had hurt, this one had the potential to destroy her completely.

The Klingon decided that agonizing over her love life ... or lack, thereof ... was hardly the way to come up with a concrete plan of action to defend her ship. Grumpily, she shook off her musing as she knelt beside the airlock situated right next to the huge bay doors protecting cargo bay two from space. She knew she needed to find a method to activate the airlock seal without alerting the bridge that someone had entered the ship unannounced.

She touched the control panel, moving with a delicacy that was belied by her stocky form, her fingers incredibly sensitive even through the bulky gloves. B'Elanna set up a repeating cycle within the control circuits so that it would inform all the internal sensors and alarms that the lock was closed ... no matter what happened in the future. A dangerous program because the last thing a starship needed was an airlock that could open without warning, but in this case, it was necessary. Finally, she keyed in the commands to open up the manual override.

Soundlessly, a small panel a few inches above the control panel slid back, revealing a heavy, metal lever. She reached over to grip the red handle though it did not move easily, taking all her Klingon strength to pull it. She made a note of that, aware that this meant it had not been serviced lately. Any crewmember, regardless of strength, needed to be able to access this lever and obviously, full maintenance was not being carried out as it should be. She hated to think that anything on Voyager was being neglected, even the external airlock manual overrides which were rarely, if ever utilized.

The door to the airlock slid back, and cautiously she stepped inside the darkened compartment. Before activating any of the controls, she opened her tool pouch and pulled out a scanner, normally used to detect energy leaks. She altered the settings so that it could detect the equivalent of Humanoid energy output, and placed it against the inner door, scanning beyond. There was nothing detected but she was also very aware that the armor the aliens were wearing somehow masked their lifesigns. At least, that's how she would design them if she were doing the job. But surely they would put out some form of energy signal inconsistent with Voyager's cargo bay.

B'Elanna went through the settings and finally, set it for motion. Still nothing. It was possible that the armored figures were standing inside, just waiting her for her to step through, whereupon they would promptly blow her to dust, but she had to take a chance sometime. She couldn't stay in the decompressed airlock forever. Taking a deep breath, she shut the outer door finally and activated the decompression cycle, first making sure her repeating signal was still sending a normal reading to any internal sensors.

Thankfully, the area around the airlock was clear and B'Elanna stepped out into the bright illumination of cargo bay two. Months earlier, a virus had swept through the ship, one of its symptoms being an increased desire to 'mate' and as a further side effect, disrupting the birth control implants every crewmember were required to have, resulting in ten pregnancies. The women were expected to deliver en masse in a month and the crew had been working feverishly to prepare Voyager for its new role as a generational ship.

The cavernous bay had been transformed into a hydroponics 'park' by the efforts of team from biometrics, assisted by Seven and headed up by Ensign Samantha Wildman. The deck was covered with a genetically designed form of earth gel where lush, green grass had been seeded while a grove of genetically enhanced trees stretched two decks high. They towered over a profusion of smaller bushes that divided the large area into smaller clearings where children could run and play, bordered by flowerbeds boasting a litany of colors. The lighting was set to the spectrum of Earth's sun, requiring far more energy output than most ships would normally be willing to expend, but all of this was deemed necessary for the well being of the expected offspring who would be arriving very soon. The park was turning into one of the crew's favorite parts of the ship and fortunately, the alien intruders did not seem equally attracted to its charm. At least, not yet.

B'Elanna shed her bulky, white outfit, leaving her communicator stuck on the squarish propulsion pack that would disrupt its signal. She inhaled the warm, moist air, grateful she had worn only a tank top while in the space suit rather than the full uniform sweater and tunic. Moving quickly along the hull that had been painted to resemble a brick wall, she made her way toward an innocuous door set in one corner. It was double-sealed against the cargo bay to insure no one could enter inadvertently, but she bypassed the encryption codes easily and entered the small room. Inside were the Borg alcoves that Seven of Nine had occupied when she first arrived on the ship. Included was a work station and B'Elanna went to it immediately, powering it up by tapping into the cargo bay energy systems so that the drain would not be detected by any bridge sensors. Through the open door, the 'daylight' of the park dimmed into night mode, four hours early, and B'Elanna hoped that no one passing by would notice the incongruity. Or know about the twelve hour cycle of light and darkness programmed into the park's illumination system.

She carefully slipped into the ship's database, freely utilizing the Borg masking codes that Seven had taught her, and played the logs of what had happened on the bridge while she was outside on the hull. She was infuriated by the death of Ensign McCormick and absolutely enraged by the threat made to Naomi and the rest. She wanted nothing more than to grab a bat'telh, head for the bridge, and lay open this Kalin person, spreading her intestines all over the lower command level. Common sense kept her where she stood though she was literally shaking as she brought herself under control.

She was hit by a second shock when the computer listed Seven's lifesigns as being terminated, but not taking anything at face value, she checked deeper and discovered that the piece of data was added not long after Janeway's announcement. Furthermore, it was added utilizing several Borg encryptions, Seven's touch on the worm as distinctive as her genetic code. A sweet sense of relief swept through B'Elanna and she took the time to refine the program, listing the Borg's termination as having happened several weeks earlier in a minor accident when the power relays overloaded, injuring two crewmembers but did not actually kill anyone. Then for good measure, she added her own death certificate for that time as well. As she did, she tried not to think of the damage these worms and erroneous files were doing to the databanks and how long it would take to clean it up after this immediate mess with the intruders was taken care of.

A sound in the outer cargo bay reached her keen ears and swiftly, she shut down the board. She looked around for a weapon, finding a steel bar lying negligently by the dais. Definitely not to the work standards of Voyager but at that moment, B'Elanna gave thanks for the carelessness of that unknown crewmember who had been sealing off the dormant alcoves. She picked it up and concealed herself in the shadows of the entrance, cursing herself for not shutting it behind her. But she hadn't wanted to be trapped in the small area with no way out.

B'Elanna's lips drew back in a silent snarl and she hefted the bar over her shoulder, ready to do as much damage as possible to whoever was crossing the lawns outside and heading directly for the Borg alcoves.

"Davis," she hissed. "Indigo."

He looked at her, looked baffled, then nodded. "Form up," he ordered in a low tone. "Condition Indigo."

From both ends of the catwalk, aliens were approaching and the team turned to meet them, not resisting, hands spread out to show they were unarmed. But in doing so, they formed a concealing wall around Lt. Ro who crouched down and opened a panel in the hull near where they had been standing. It didn't sit easy in her stomach to be doing this. In fact, it felt like she was abandoning her people and worse, it was possible that some of them could be harmed in covering for her. Yet,  indigo was a tactic practiced by security ever since Voyager had been taken over by the Kazon at the end of their second year in the Delta Quadrant. They hadn't always had a chance to initiate it at times but they were all well trained in it. She was the closest to the panel and if she could get away for the moment, giving herself a chance to tackle the fight later, from another angle, she had to take it. She pressed her communicator into Davis's hand and dived through the opening.

She wiggled upward into the conduit, grateful that she had been gifted with a slender, flexible physique, her speed and acrobatic ability making up for the brute strength that others in the team like Crell and Davis boasted. She snaked her way though the opening until she reached a cross tube, hearing rather than seeing the panel hiss shut behind her, no doubt activated by another of the security force. She did not look back as she entered the larger confines of a Jeffries tube. Immediately she pried open the nearest mesh grate that made up the floor of the tube and slipped into the crawlspace, letting gravity drop the panel back into place, easing it down with her feet. She utilized the military crawl she had learned all those years ago on Earth at Starfleet Command when she had returned to take advanced tactical training, knowing that she needed to travel far and fast, getting clear of any search that might be made of the tubes around engineering.

She was surprised to see the amount of dirt inhabiting the crawl space, but pleased as it began to cover her uniform, particularly the band of bright yellow on the shoulders. She paused a second to darken her hands and smear some over her face before resuming her progress. She left the crawl space at a juncture, swiftly mounted the ladder to the next deck and slipped back into the crawl space. It wasn't the best way to travel between decks, but for those that had been taught, it was an effective way to avoid ship sensors and hide from visual detection.

As Ro squirmed her way past a juncture, she wondered what Tuvok was doing at the moment. Her immediate superior, and the one who had been her tutor during her training, as well as her mentor while on Voyager, normally pulled bridge duty at this particular time. She hoped that he had managed to secure his own position of resistance but she knew it was unlikely. A starship's senior staff were generally left quite vulnerable to this form of invasion and chances were, he had been secured along with the rest. Sometimes, there was something to be said about being one of the silent majority on a starship, one of those people who rarely got noticed on the lower decks but were so necessary for the ship to function. It worried her that, ever since her real identity had been revealed, she had attracted the attention of  Janeway. The feisty captain had actually gone so far as to indicate that she wanted to see Ro on the bridge more. The Bajoran didn't know how comfortable she was with that idea.

On the other hand, Ro couldn't deny that she was feeling a great deal better about herself. The fact that she was suddenly being expected to accept bridge duty had brought her a wealth of emotion that she hadn't felt since that brief, bright time on the Enterprise. Pride and renewed passion for Starfleet were beginning to assert themselves in her once more. She had always been known as a bit of a rebel, but what a great many people overlooked was that she had been accepted by Starfleet Academy that only took those who belonged there and could meet the stringent requirements. She had graduated respectably high in her class, completely determined at that time to uphold the ideals of the Federation ... with her life, if necessary. Things hadn't always worked out the way Ro would have chosen in her career, but Starfleet was still something she had chosen to pursue with everything she had been, and walking away from it, along with all it represented, had hurt almost as much as disappointing Captain Picard.

Given yet another chance, on another Starfleet ship, now older and hopefully a great deal wiser than she had been when she made that fateful decision those years ago, Ro really did not want to screw it up again.

Her breath rasped hard in her chest as she squeezed through another juncture and she almost missed the noise ahead. She froze, listening intently and tried to bring her pounding heart under control so that she could hear. It almost stopped completely when an almost unrecognizable Seven of Nine came into sight.

"Lt. Ro," Seven remarked calmly, as if the two women were meeting in a brightly lit corridor.

"Prophets, Seven," Ro hissed. "What are you doing?"

"I am engaged in condition indigo." Seven tilted her head, her narrow features black with grime and dirt, her blonde hair grey with dust, random strands falling about her face. Yet for all that, Ro still found Seven to be a formidable beauty, though cold, displaying a hard shell of Borg arrogance that kept most people from knowing her well.

"So am I," Ro whispered tersely. "Where are you headed?"

"Cargo bay two. I hope to access the computer from my Borg alcove. It is an external database, independent of the ship, though I can tap into Voyager's banks from there."

Ro considered that. "That's a good idea." It occurred to her suddenly that although she had this vague idea of getting to the armory for weapons, she hadn't really worked out what she would do after that. Coming across Seven, however, had immediately doubled the strength of Voyager's resistance cell.

She noticed the container in Seven's hand. "What is that?" She quirked an eyebrow. "Did you manage to grab some tools?"

"It is potato salad."

"Potato salad?" Ro repeated blankly. "Where'd you get potato salad?"

"From the picnic basket," Seven replied.

Ro stared at her. "Of course, you did. Where the hell else would you get it?"

Seven quirked an eyebrow. "Where else, indeed?"

Was there a glint of humor in those pale eyes? Ro hadn't thought that Seven had much of a sense of humor, which of course, made the woman a perfect match for the captain whom she had also considered somewhat humorless. Except, there had been those times when Ro had seen a more Human side of Janeway ... moments of repose in a cavern where the captain had been sitting next to her spouse, her hand unselfconsciously on the Borg's thigh, her face alight with something that could only be described as pure, unadulterated love. Or the barbeque at a recent ship-wide shore leave where they had been gathered around a bonfire singing, even the Borg who possessed a surprisingly sweet voice. Seven had held the captain in her arms as Janeway beamed with a combination of pride, pleasure and far too many bottles of ale.

Perhaps she was being entirely too hard on the captain and her spouse, the Bajoran decided. Maybe it was just that she, as a crewmember, was simply not allowed to see these women the way they saw each other. And the rare glimpses the crew did get were hardly enough for anyone to determine who these women really were. Yet, that didn't stop people, including herself, from judging them. Ro felt somewhat ashamed. She had spent most of her life being judged ... and found wanting ... by a great many people who had no clue as to who she actually was inside. It bothered her that she could so easily be guilty of the same thing.

"Would you care for some?" Seven offered politely.

Ro eyed her narrowly. Was the Borg making fun of her? She dismissed that out of hand and was astonished to realize that the thought of food was actually an attractive one, saliva flooding her mouth.

"Uh, maybe just a little," Ro said reluctantly, trying hard not to think about the absurdity of having potato salad in the crawl space between decks while an invasion force had taken over the ship.

Seven produced a fork and Ro unzipped her tunic to get at her sweater, using its relative cleanliness to wipe off the grime from the utensil. Seven deactivated the stasis lid and, with an odd sort of the polite formality, they shared the fork as they consumed the potato salad hungrily.

Rule one, Ro thought. Eat and rest when possible in a battle situation. Who knew when one would get another opportunity?

When they finished, they discarded the container and began to head for cargo bay two together. The next little while was something that Ro hoped she would be able to forget about soon, a nightmarish journey with Seven bringing up her rear, hoping that the next junction would not reveal them to the enemy. The Borg had explained about the Kunntarie, who they were and where they came from, though she couldn't explain where they had gotten the technology to transport a strike force unannounced onto a vessel of Voyager's capability.

"We're here," Seven said finally as she entered the last tube.

Ro lifted up the mesh over her head, grunting with the effort it took, and shinnied up into what now seemed the most spacious of Jeffries tubes, helping the larger Seven emerge from the dank crawl space. She wondered if she looked as bad as the Borg and decided that she would just not think about it from now on.

Seven immediately accessed the nearby panel, hesitating before opening it, and Ro realized that she was listening intently. The Bajoran wondered how much Borg enhancement the woman retained, but didn't say anything when Seven finally wiggled through the hatch. The fresh smell of growing things hit Ro strongly as she crawled out onto the soft grass and she gratefully accepted the hand Seven reached out to help her to her feet. The Bajoran stretched gingerly, feeling twinges that would probably take some time to go away and looked around warily. They were behind a grove of trees, concealed from the rest of the cargo bay, and Seven took the lead, working her way through the bushes toward the other side of the bay.

As they skulked across the park, Ro was struck by the sheer expenditure of effort and energy this transformation represented. It was commonly known that children raised solely on starships, under artificial gravity and lighting, tended to be weaker and more susceptible to illness than those raised on planets. Sometimes, holodecks simply weren't enough and offspring needed real sunshine and unfiltered air from living plants to grow strong and healthy.

The ship's only child, Naomi Wildman, had been required to spend time in sickbay in a specially designed hydroponics closet once a week but that was deemed unsuitable for a large group of children. Ships with family facilities always included a park and Ro's prior posting, the galaxy class USS Enterprise, had actually boasted two, well-tended, hydroponic areas. On a Scout ship like Voyager, there wasn't anywhere near the capacity or energy generating capability of the Explorer Type flagship. This park was a real demand on Voyager's systems yet, for all that, the crew welcomed its addition and seemed more than willing to sacrifice in other areas to make it work.

Ro supposed she understood that as she caught the fragrance of several flowers growing in a bed by some thick bushes. She did wonder why the lights were dimmed to the night time cycle however, aware that the plants required a twelve hour cycle of light and dark to grow. Had she and Seven been in the crawl space that long?

"Someone has accessed the alcoves," Seven said suddenly, stopping in her tracks.

Ro peered over her shoulder, the two women hidden in the shadows of a tree, seeing the eerie green illumination issuing from within a small, innocuous door. She immediately took the lead, utilizing hand signals to position Seven on the other side of the opening, in the concealment of yet more bushes. Then the Bajoran picked up some gravel from the path they were on and carefully tossed it some distance away where the bits of rock loudly and distinctly landed.

Nothing, no motion from within. Ro considered that, concluding that the aliens would have certainly rushed to check it out. Their mode of operating was hardly that of sneaking around ... not with the weapons or armor they possessed. She crept closer, eyeing what little of the interior she could see. Though that wasn't much, it was clearly unoccupied and she relaxed marginally.

She motioned Seven to follow her and entered confidently. Ro never knew what alerted her, perhaps the sound of a heavy object whipping through the air, but she ducked instinctively and the metal bar passed cleanly over her head to thud into the mesh covered hand of Seven who immediately grasped it, holding it immobile.

"B'Elanna Torres," Seven identified calmly. "There is no need for violence at this time."

Ro stumbled forward and turned around to see the Klingon staring at them both with confusion and glee.

"What are you doing here?" the engineer said, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was still holding onto the other end of the metal bar being hefted easily by Seven.

"Almost getting my skull crushed," Ro said with annoyance, though whether it was with the engineer or herself for not realizing the room was far from empty, she didn't know.

B'Elanna flushed guiltily and Ro felt a touch of remorse for her tone. She was aware the Klingon was interested in her romantically and depending on how things went, Ro thought that just possibly she could return that interest ... though it was taking her a long time to trust feelings and sensations that she had thought long buried.

"I thought you were the intruders," B'Elanna said in a subdued tone.

"If we were, you'd be dead," Ro said harshly. "A metal bar would hardly be a match for the disrupters they're carrying."

"I know that," B'Elanna retorted, anger rising. "But it was all I had to work with."

Ro glared back at her and then realized Seven was regarding them both as if they had lost their minds.

"Perhaps if we spent our time concentrating on the immediate problem, rather than indulging in useless emotional displays, we would be far more productive."

That brought them back to reality and Ro looked away, unable to hold B'Elanna's eyes. When was she going to get this temper of hers under control? she wondered. And why was it so easy for the chief engineer to make her lose it?

"I've accessed your board, Seven," B'Elanna said, pointedly ignoring the Bajoran. "It was a smart thing to terminate your lifesigns. I've added to it and now, as far as Voyager is concerned, we're both dead."

"That is a good idea," Ro said, instantly seeing the possibilities of this. "Terminate my lifesigns as well."

B'Elanna's eyes met hers, the dark gaze a touch stormy.

"That can be arranged," she said with a savage grin, revealing slightly pointed teeth.

Janeway was staggered, her balance faltering as she heard the words so dispassionately stated and it took her a few moments to get her mind to start working again. It isn't true, her little voice noted stubbornly. I'd have felt that somehow. It's a mistake of some sort ... or ... yes, it's her doing. She's initiated condition indigo and this is just part of it. Straighten up, Katie. There's a crew counting on you.

Janeway swallowed hard and turned to her senior staff who had also heard and were looking at her in a mixture of shock and concern. The captain couldn't believe that the aliens would have killed Seven out of hand. What reason would they have for such a thing when they had been so careful to round up everyone else for use as 'workers'? On the other hand, the image of McCormick's fate splashed crimson across her mind and she felt sick. Would one of the brutal aliens have used Seven as an 'example' as well?

"When was the last time anyone saw Seven?" she asked, trying to contain the fear and urgency in her tone.

"1500 hours," Jennifer Delaney spoke up. "She asked me to cover astrometrics while she performed an errand."

"What errand?".

The pretty young ensign shook her head. "She didn't say, Captain. Just that it should not take more than an hour. The intruders showed up about 45 minutes later."

"Seven must have found a way to confuse the internal sensors," Janeway said in an oddly toneless voice. She didn't know who she was trying to convince, herself or them, but obviously they were not about to disagree with her, for whatever reason. She wondered what her eyes looked like at that moment and decided they must be pretty bad since so many of her crew were doing all they could to avoid meeting them.

"Did anyone else manage to initiate condition indigo?" she said thickly, forcing herself to continue.

"It is possible that Lt. Torres was able to," Ensign Vorik offered from the crowd.

The captain glanced at the young Vulcan.

"Explain," she demanded, unaware of the faint echo of Seven's enunciation in her voice.

"She was outside the vessel performing hull maintenance."

"While Voyager was in warp?" Chakotay burst out, staring at him.

Tom Paris cleared his throat. "She always liked taking 'walks'," he said, looking with a hint of challenge at his ex-lover's ex-lover, as if satisfied in some fashion that he knew this and Chakotay didn't. "She said it helped her work things out."

The burly first officer stared at him, annoyance coloring his gaze but Janeway ignored the byplay, concentrating on the engineering ensign. "Would she have been flung off the hull when we dropped out of warp?"

"The sensors indicated she was still there after the vessel came to a stop," Vorik revealed calmly. "Of course, when the intruders began to materialize, I immediately wiped the records from the time she went outside. I anticipated the possibility of a condition indigo."

"Good work," Janeway said approvingly.

And it was. The Vulcan had thought quickly and correctly, though Janeway was not thrilled to know that her chief engineer continued to indulge in what could be considered dangerous behavior.

"Anyone else?"

Tuvok moved forward. "I've been conferring with my Beta Squad. They inform me that Lt. Ro was able to initiate condition indigo before the intruders captured her." He held out his hand, a gold comm badge sitting in his palm. "As far as the ship is concerned, she's in cargo bay one with the rest of us."

Janeway nodded. Then looked around, disappointed to realize that no one else was stepping forward.

"That's it? Out of the entire crew, only three have managed to implement condition indigo?"

"It is not an easy tactic to initiate," Tuvok noted calmly. "It relies on many variables, including timing and ... 'luck'." He said this last with a touch of distaste and Janeway understood that it wasn't his favorite mode of operating.

"All right," Janeway nodded, accepting the news. "We have to make sure the intruders don't know they have three random elements on the ship that they haven't accounted for."

"Or at least, we hope they haven't accounted for," Chakotay said, then looked as if he wished he could rip his tongue out as Janeway regarded him, knowing he was referring to the 'terminated' lifesigns the computer had revealed.

"Furthermore," Janeway said coldly, deliberately turning her back on him, "We have to be ready to either provide a distraction if necessary or to move in an instant if any of our people manage to reach us. In the meantime, I want you all to prepare as best you can. We may be here for awhile."

The crew began to drift off, forming up their own little groups. Janeway returned to her corner, kneeling down as Tuvok came over to her side.

"Tuvok," she said in a low tone. "Honestly, how good is she?"

"Lt. Ro?"

Janeway nodded shortly.

"The only one better qualified to carry out condition indigo is myself." He glanced at her. "If she is able to hook up with Lt. Torres and Seven, they will prove a formidable guerilla force."

"I hope so." The captain swallowed and realized it had been some time since anyone had eaten. She wondered if they were to be fed or if the intruders considered that starving the prisoners for a little while was a good way to weaken any resistance.

Tuvok rose and moved over to where Chakotay was standing with Paris, obviously coming up with some sort of grandiose schemes judging from their intent looks and muttered conversation. She knew the Vulcan would interject a useful shot of logic to whatever they were discussing and she let it be for the moment. Her eyes swept her crew restlessly, her mind ticking over a hundred ways to counterattack these aliens and not coming up with any that were feasible. She could still remember how Kalin had threatened Naomi, how a great deal of Janeway's resistance had crumbled at the thought of the little girl in the hands of the guard, Droxin. Even now, the Kunntarie poked his head in occasionally, having removed his helmet to reveal greasy long hair and a scarred visage. He would look them over with beady little eyes, lingering on the area where Samantha and Neelix shielded the child from his view and it was all the captain could do not to attack him ... though it would have been a very short struggle. And not to her advantage either.

Was this how it was going to be? she thought dismally. Did children really make that much of a difference in how I need to respond to perceived threats?

She realized that for most of their time in the Delta Quadrant, she had managed to regard Naomi's existence as only an abstraction, another member of her crew but not really recognizing that she had a child on board. Naomi's schooling, her early development, her growing into the bright, well-mannered child she was, had all taken place outside Janeway's purview and it was only in the past year or so that the captain had been forced to interact with her on a personal basis. There was no question that the captain's reactions on the bridge had been influenced greatly by that. Janeway knew that she might not have been so quick to give up the command codes if it had been any other crewmember being threatened by Kalin.

Janeway swallowed hard. As captain, she had to be prepared to sacrifice any individual crewmember for the good of the ship, including herself. And she had to be prepared to sacrifice the ship for the good of the Federation, knowing that she could not allow its technology to fall into the wrong hands. But in that moment, when she should have tried to weave a self-destruct code into the command instructions, and then tried to negotiate from that end with the intruders even if it meant her own life, she couldn't. The sight of Naomi's terrified features seared into her mind, the thought that Naomi might have to see her be shot dead, or worse, been killed herself as Janeway implemented the self destruct, prevented the captain from doing her job.

Kalin was right. A species was far easier to control through its offspring. Threaten the children, and practically any reasonable adult would accede to their wishes. It was a weakness that Janeway was not sure she could afford, yet without question, it suddenly existed for her. And it would only get worse with the addition of more children. She wouldn't be able to ignore the presence of ten at once. Not the way she had with Naomi for all those years. The ship had required too much renovation, protocols had been altered too much and becoming too woven into the everyday fabric of her crew's lives.

And these weren't the only children they could expect. Other couples had come to Janeway since the initial crisis, requesting that they too, be allowed to reproduce. She had held them off, explaining that resources would only allow for the new additions for the time being but of course, the captain knew that was only a temporary measure. In a year or so, they would be back, or worse, would simply proceed to have their own children, and she would not be able to find the justification to stop it.

This was what being a generational vessel meant, she thought dizzily. They had to increase the security of the entire ship, not just in the areas where the children were supposed to stay. Nor would she be able to implement protocols that only fit adults. She had to find a way to nurture these defenseless beings, cherish them, find a way for them to grow up safely.

She wondered if this was how Picard approached captaining the Enterprise? Did he have these qualms and fears for the children or was he able to just completely ignore the fact that there were babies on his vessel. It was true that the Galaxy-class vessels were used more for exploration and diplomacy than the Intrepid-class ships like Voyager that generally ran courier and rescue missions, but they still faced danger. How did those captains balance going into a threatening situation with the constant presence of the children? How did they balance the needs of the Federation with the needs of the crew's offspring? Was there special training for that, which she had not received since she'd never had any intention of commanding such a vessel?

She had to protect the children. That was an instinct within her beyond anything that Starfleet or all her training could overcome. What would happen when the children were actually her own flesh and blood? When they were small reproductions of Seven and herself, a little girl perhaps, with blonde hair and those pale blue eyes ... or a little boy with a shock of reddish hair and the same kind of bold, fearless attitude that Janeway had when she was that age?

Janeway wanted to bury her face in her hands, to hide herself away from her thoughts but she remained where she was, looking alert and with what she hoped dearly, was utter confidence. No one could know the fears and doubts swirling around in her mind. That was the last thing her crew needed. As for what she needed ... she inhaled slowly.

Where are you, Annika? she thought bleakly.

Quietly, she clicked on her comm badge.

"Computer, personal request, locate Seven of Nine. My badge only."

The computer did not respond and Janeway knew that finally, the intruders had cut them out of the communication system entirely. She rubbed her forehead and stood up, doing a circuit of the room, needing to stay in motion, hoping that would ease her thoughts a little. She stopped here and there, offering a word of encouragement, answering the questions posed to her, constantly presenting an aura of quiet competence.

Her eye was caught by a group assembled by some containers and she realized that the Doctor and Sek were among them. She was surprised that she had forgotten about the holograms and immediately went over.

"Doctor?"

He turned and looked at her, an apologetic expression spreading over  his face. "I'm sorry, Captain. Of all the crew, I should have been able to initiate condition indigo, but the intruders were in sickbay before we could transport our matrixes into the computer. I thought ... well, if they didn't suspect we were holograms, perhaps we could use that to our advantage."

"We can," she said, pleased. "You made the right decision, Doctor. You both have your emitters that could be used to transport you back to sickbay."

He hesitated. "Normally, we would be glad to, Captain, but there's a problem."

She forced herself not to react though the urge to slam her fist through a nearby hull was a fairly attractive idea at the moment.

"What kind of problem?"

He stepped aside and motioned to Ensign Megan Delaney who was on the floor, made as comfortable as possible by an array of uniform tunics provided by various crewmembers cushioning her from the cold surface. Her belly protruded from beneath her grey sweater and sweat beaded on her forehead as she breathed in oddly short breaths. Sek was kneeling beside her, holding her hand while on her other side, her husband, Lt. Harry Kim looked worriedly on.

"It appears," the Doctor noted, "that at least one offspring is intent on making an early appearance."

"I gave it to Davis," Ro said, glancing at her as she pulled off her tunic and sweater, leaving her in only the brief tank top, matching the one the Klingon was wearing, both women obviously uncomfortable in the humid air of the small room. "Why?"

"We can assume then that the ship's computer now records you as being in the cargo bay with the rest of the crew," Seven pointed out. She, of course, was perfectly cool in her biometric outfit, the sensors keeping her body temperature at the perfect level, even though the outside of it made her look like she had been dragged through a compost heap. "If we terminate your lifesigns, that would be noticed by anyone monitoring the cargo bay and surely, would in turn, send someone to investigate."

"Then they'd find no body nor any hint that you had been there." B'Elanna looked at Seven. "You're right, Seven. Good catch."

"What of your comm badges?" Ro responded, seeming somewhat embarrassed that she had missed it.

"I destroyed mine immediately," Seven remarked.

"And mine wasn't active while I was outside," B'Elanna said. "Now it's masked by the propulsion pack on the suit. They still don't know I exist and thanks to Seven's worm, according to the crew manifest, we died two weeks ago."

"What is our next course of action?" Seven regarded the other women expectantly, hoping that they would have a tactically sound idea for taking back the ship.

Ro and B'Elanna looked at each other.

"I guess I'm in charge..."

"My choice would be to..."

They trailed off, a bit of tension filling the air between them and Seven stifled a sigh.

"I'm the senior officer," Ro pointed out.

"I'm the chief of engineering," B'Elanna retorted.

"I'm actually a member of Starfleet," Ro noted coolly.

Seven winced.

B'Elanna took a step closer, her jaw stuck forward pugnaciously. "You forget, I've been Chief Engineer for six years. You only came out of hiding a couple of months ago."

"I'm a bridge officer, which means that I hold command of this vessel in lieu of any other command staff."

"I'm the head of the engineering department," B'Elanna responded. "I am command staff."

Seven turned around and left, walking out into the park. Behind her, she heard the hasty sound of the two women following her.

"Seven," Ro hissed. "Where the hell are you going?"

"To the armory to acquire weapons," Seven said calmly. "And then I shall rescue Kathryn."

"Seven, you just can't go out there," B'Elanna protested, dashing after her. "Look, I'm sorry we were fighting. She just makes me crazy sometimes. Come back. We need to make a plan."

Seven hesitated, regarding her. "You will work with Lt. Ro? It is irrelevant who is in command as long as the results are positive."

B'Elanna looked stubborn, then exhaled audibly. "All right."

Seven nodded and returned to where Ro was waiting, a sheepish tinge to her dark features.

"I'm sorry, too. It was unprofessional."

Seven inclined her head, accepting the apology.

"What is the plan?"

Both women glanced at each other, waiting for the other to go first and this time, Seven did not stifle her sigh. She went over to her console and ran several sweeps, carefully masked in order to prevent their detection by the internal monitors. As she did, she filled B'Elanna in on the Kunntarie, and of the Borg's encounter with them a decade or so earlier. Finally, Seven's sweeps began to turn up some concrete information.

"There were three squads; one materializing in engineering, one that appeared randomly throughout the ship and one that took the bridge. Each squad consisted of ten armored individuals, giving us a total of thirty soldiers, led by a single commander who is on the bridge. The armor signature for that person is different ... more powerful."

"Kalin," B'Elanna blurted.

Seven glanced at her. "Yes?"

B'Elanna hesitated, an expression crossing her face that indicated she was sorry she had spoken. At Seven's unwavering scrutiny, she dipped her head and added in a quiet voice; "Maybe you two should take a look at the bridge logs."

Seven felt a sudden sense of foreboding ripple through her but she did as the engineer suggested, calling up the logs that B'Elanna had already accessed. As she watched, she put her hands flat on the workstation. The creak of metal sounded beneath the left one when she saw Kalin strike Kathryn across the face, opening up a small cut beneath her eye and bruising it. Her fingers actually depressed the console when she saw and heard the threats being made to Naomi.

When she looked up, she noted that the other two women were looking at her with a mix of apprehension and concern.

"Seven, you can't go off half-cocked here," B'Elanna said worriedly.

"Lt. Torres is right," Ro added, tentatively putting her hand on the Borg's forearm, inhaling slowly when she saw the damage the mesh covered hand had inadvertently done the console. "The Captain cooperated with these thugs for a reason. It's far too dangerous to go against them directly. We have to keep that in mind and any plan we come up with has to go perfectly the first time. It doesn't, and people will die ... maybe even the very people we need to save."

Seven trembled but brought her emotions under control. She remembered a time when she had been able to witness such things and accept them dispassionately. She still could, to a certain degree, but not when Kathryn or Naomi was involved. Now fury and hatred raged within her and it took a great deal of effort to damp them down, to channel the emotions into a burning, ice-cold resolve to terminate this force that would dare threaten the people she loved.

"I must disobey the captain," she said, in an oddly distant voice.

"What do you mean?"

"She has requested that I not kill sentient beings unless I or my crewmates are directly threatened with death. I do not see how I can avoid it in this instance."

Ro's face firmed, her eyes growing even darker. "Seven, our crewmates are being threatened with death. As the commanding officer on this, I am authorizing you to carry out whatever actions are necessary to secure Voyager from enemy hands. I accept full responsibility for that, but I also expect you to obey my orders implicitly. We won't get a second chance at this and none of us can afford any unplanned forays. Do you understand? Or must we leave you behind?"

Seven was aware of B'Elanna looking at Ro with widened eyes, as if she had never seen her before. Or rather, as if she really liked what she saw. There was a difference, Seven decided idly as she tried to bring her thoughts under control.

"I understand," she said. She raised her head, her eyes sparking blue fire. "I will deal with Kalin."

"No," Ro said, gripping the Borg's arm tighter. "This is exactly what I mean, Seven. No vengeance, no personal agendas. There will be repercussions from this, one way or another. If we're lucky, it will be the captain we answer to and not the Kunntarie. You will fulfill a function, not go haring off to wreck your own kind of disaster."

Seven stared at her, then finally lowered her eyes. "I will comply."

Ro hesitated, then nodded. She looked over at B'Elanna.

"I need that from you, as well. This isn't personal, B'Elanna. We can't let it become that. That allows for far too many mistakes."

"I know," B'Elanna said gently. "I'm sorry. You're right, you are the senior officer in this situation."

Ro inhaled deeply, then looked back at Seven. "We need weapons. We can go to the armory or we can bring the armory here. Is there any way you can transport what we need from there to here using your console, without it being detected?"

Seven thought about that. "I do not believe so."

B'Elanna, who had also been deep in thought, concurred. "Even if we can mask the coordinates of the transport, it produces a signature that they're sure to pick up on the bridge. But," she added with sudden enthusiasm. "it may be possible to transport Seven there and back without using the ship's transporter system. And any energy signature it would give off would be Borg."

"Which should give them a whole lot to think about," Ro said, smiling unpleasantly. "How?"

"It would require a certain amount of adjustment to my cranial implant," Seven explained, glancing at B'Elanna in puzzlement. "And to my manipulative implant as well as the addition of specific modules." She paused. "Where would we get such modules?"

"I got it covered," the chief engineer said with assurance.

Seven nodded trustingly and went over to the dais. "We could utilize components from the alcoves if necessary," she speculated as she sat down.

"Way ahead of you," B'Elanna said, opening a compartment nearby, pulling out various items.

Seven froze as she saw what B'Elanna was bringing out and the Klingon looked vaguely apologetic. "I'm sorry, Seven. The captain authorized their removal and storage just in case ... well, we needed them. And it turns out that we do."

"Kathryn ... can be efficient," Seven allowed faintly.

Seven took a deep breath and tried not to flinch as her friend started to work on the silvery implant surrounding her eye, adjusting the cranial settings so that she could accept and utilize an internal transporter node. As she did, she watched Ro pick up the steel bar and drift over to the doorway, keeping a watch out into the park. She carefully did not look at the node which B'Elanna intended to implant in her ... a module removed from the body of an individual drone known as One, who had died saving the ship.

"You and Lt. Ro seem ... at odds," Seven ventured quietly after a few moments, trying to find a subject that would not remind her of her protégé's death.

B'Elanna's manipulation faltered a bit, then resumed. "We had an argument."

"About?"

The Klingon sighed. "I couldn't tell you, 'Nik," she replied, using the diminutive of Seven's Human designation. "All I know is that it was stupid and immature and probably my fault."

Seven considered that. "Do you still care for her?"

"I don't think that's going to change," B'Elanna said in a very sad voice.

Seven glanced at her. "Then you must not give up."

An annoyed expression ghosted over the Klingon's face. "What would you know about it?"

"You forget, when our relationship first began, Kathryn also experienced trepidation which displayed itself by her rejecting my love, insisting that she was going to disregard her feelings for me."

B'Elanna was silent, obviously remembering that time. "She did, didn't she?"

"But I utilized patience, Kathryn eventually accepted her feelings and we were able to be together. B'Elanna, it is possible that Laren is afraid of what she is feeling. Especially if she has not felt it in a long time."

"So what do I do, just wait for her?" B'Elanna asked plaintively. She reached down and utilized a probe to change the make up of Seven's biometric hand, creating a compartment where she inserted the transportation node. She covered it over with a band of silver which encircled the Borg's wrist, controls sprinkled over the metal surface. "I'm not really good at waiting, 'Nik."

Seven bent her head, closing her eyes as she felt her physiology accept the new node, the nanoprobes adapting to it quickly, incorporating it into her system. There was a faint wave of dizziness that passed through her before she was fully functional once again.

"That is, of course, your decision, but I know that if it were required, I would wait for Kathryn forever."

"But maybe Laren honestly doesn't want me," B'Elanna said, discouraged.

"Possibly, but that is not the impression I receive. I grant that perhaps I am not the best judge of Humanoid behavior or motivations, but it seems to me that Lt. Ro looks at you the same way Kathryn used to look at me. As if she cannot understand what is happening to her, but knowing that something is and that you are causing it. If she felt nothing for you, I do not believe she would look at you in such a manner."

"Yeah?" B'Elanna looked over at the willowy form of the security officer, her eyes lightened with hope and something else, something Seven had never really seen in her friend before. It made her realize that perhaps the Klingon was a little more involved in this than she had anticipated. "So I need to continue what I'm doing?"

"Perhaps with a little more ... subtlety," Seven advised. She paused. "B'Elanna, although I desire Kathryn greatly on a physical level, that is not why I fell in love with her nor is it why I love her now. It is only a small part of all I feel for her. By displaying only that aspect of it, your emotions may seem superficial to Lt. Ro." She hesitated. "Do you remember when Kathryn lost her memories?"

"Yeah," B'Elanna said. "You seemed pretty upset ... but it all worked out. She fell in love with you again."

"Yes, but what many people do not know was that for weeks afterward, I was uncertain about Kathryn's love," Seven revealed. "I did not believe it was sincere because she insisted on displaying only her physical attraction for me. I did not think that she really and truly cared for me. Instead, I was afraid that she was attracted only to the concept of being with me. That is something that I have observed quite often in Humanoid behavior. The physical can often be mistaken for an emotional and intellectual attraction, but it cannot be trusted in the same way."

B'Elanna sighed glumly. "It's easier with men. They're perfectly happy to accept the physical at face value."

Seven quirked an eyebrow thoughtfully. "It may appear that way, but I am sure that once they have experienced the strength and substance of emotional and spiritual bonds over the emptiness of purely physical relationships, then they too, learn not to trust the physical attraction entirely."

"Well, the men worth having, you mean," B'Elanna agreed.

Seven hesitated. "In truth, I cannot speculate for certain. I have never been involved with a male on an intimate level so my conclusions may be faulty."

"No, they're not, 'Nik," B'Elanna said. "Sometimes you see us clearer than we see ourselves, simply because you haven't been involved in all the confusion we have." She patted Seven on the shoulder in a way that was both gratitude and a gesture of encouragement. "You're done. Time to see if this plan is gonna work."

"Seven, how well do you know the armory?" Ro asked.

Seven tilted her head. "I have accompanied the captain and Tuvok there to secure arms on many occasions."

"They always retrieved the weapons, though, right?"

"That is correct."

"All right," Ro said, leaning down over the work console and tracing out her instructions in the dust. "The phaser rifles are here to the right of the entrance. Underneath those shelves, there is a large compartment with weapons that aren't exactly Starfleet issue. We want the ones that look like ordinary rifles but have a red band around the muzzle. The code to enter that compartment is delta gold, alpha six five three."

"Waitaminute," B'Elanna interjected. "You have non-issue weapons in there? Does Tuvok know about this?"

Ro shot her an odd glance. "Who do you think built the compartment?" Her dark eyes narrowed a bit. "I think people on this ship underestimate Tuvok. They don't realize there was a reason he was sent to infiltrate the Maquis. He doesn't always play by the rules but he doesn't brag about it or take pride in it like other people do."

B'Elanna bristled, wondering if that was a reference to her, then she remembered the Borg's words and forced herself to calm down. If she always overreacted to everything, it was not much wonder the Bajoran was leery of getting involved with her.

"What kind of weapons are these?" she asked instead. "Will they be effective against the Kunntarie armor?"

"They're the same weapons we used against Species 8472."

Seven looked intrigued. "Those contain altered nanoprobes. But they will not have the same effect as they did on Species 8472. The energy output they produced terminated that species. The effect on the Kunntarie will be ... assimilation."

Ro smiled grimly. "Yes, it will, won't it?"

B'Elanna was once again impressed by the Bajoran's grasp of tactics ... and somewhat cold-blooded strategy when it came to defending her ship. In fact, it aroused the Klingon incredibly, making the blood race in her veins and her heart pound in her chest. Even the redundant organ, normally dormant, gave a little quiver and her respiration increased marginally, all of which she struggled hard to conceal.

"Smart," she complimented with what she hoped was cool approval. "If they have any memory of their people being assimilated, coupled with the Borg energy signature, this is going to make them very nervous."

She was gratified when Ro's eyes met hers, a smile lightening them. "That's a good way of putting it. I hope it scares them spitless."

B'Elanna flat out refused to blush under the Bajoran's scrutiny, concentrating on the console. "Okay, Seven, you transport to the armory. I'll channel the signature through the deflector array so that it appears as if you're transporting from outside the ship at a distance of two hundred kilometers directly into the engine room. While they're running around there, looking for a Borg, you grab the guns and come back. I'll make sure it will look like you returned to that point out in space."

"As if there's some sort of cloaked Borg vessel out there," Ro noted with satisfaction. She patted B'Elanna on the back. "Good work."

B'Elanna grinned quietly to herself and looked Seven in the eye, warmed by that pale blue gaze which seemed a trifle amused. "Ready when you are. And, Seven?"

"Yes, B'Elanna?" the Borg responded politely.

"Be careful. We don't want to lose you now."

Seven smiled faintly. "I shall, B'Elanna."

The Borg touched the silver band on her wrist, her fingers dancing over it lightly as she input the necessary coordinates. Emerald illumination and the distinct sound of a Borg transport signal surrounded her before she disappeared in a burst of sparkles. B'Elanna piggy-backed the signal along a sub-space communication band, feeding it out into space and bouncing it back, imagining the consternation occurring on the bridge ... or worse, in engineering that would be reading the intrusion of a Borg transport signature. Then she rested her hands lightly on the metal casing, her fingers tracing the indentation of a hand there, waiting for Seven's return.

"How long do you think this will take," she asked quietly.

"I'd give her ten minutes," Ro said in an equally low tone, her eyes glued to the readouts. "That's more than enough time for her to access the compartment and grab the enhanced phaser rifles. Longer than that and we should think about getting out of here and trying again from someplace else. Without Seven, because we can assume that she's captured or dead at that point. Maybe the hangar deck where we can access a shuttle or the Delta Flyer."

B'Elanna nodded, not liking that assessment, but accepting the accuracy of it.

Seconds became hours as they waited tensely, the time ticking off with agonizing slowness on the chronometer inconspicuously displayed in a corner of one of the screens. B'Elanna discovered that a part of the console was reflective and that she could see Ro Laren clearly in it. At the moment, the Bajoran had taken her eyes off the data display and was watching the Klingon with a very odd expression. B'Elanna was bemused to discover that it was exactly as Seven had described it, as if the woman didn't quite know what to do next but still looked to the engineer as if she had all the answers ... even if they were the sort that Ro wasn't quite ready to accept.

It made B'Elanna feel very warm, but not as she had previously. This was the warmth of tenderness, not the heat of desire, the comfort of affection, not the demand of physical want and need. Maybe Seven had something, after all. Patience was a virtue. B'Elanna had read that somewhere though she couldn't remember exactly when or in what at the moment. She guessed it was accurate, however.

The lights suddenly dimmed over them, the crimson wash of a red alert as klaxons began to sound. They were automatic, resulting whenever someone hit the panic button on Voyager's bridge.

"Got their attention," Ro murmured.

"You think?" B'Elanna said, feeling anticipation and the first hint of battle readiness surge through her. She wanted to growl, to hit something ... preferably Kalin. Instead, she readied her hands, waiting for the return signal.

"Three minutes," Ro read off.

B'Elanna couldn't believe it. Surely it had been an hour or more at this point.

"I hope she knows she's on a time limit," Ro muttered.

"Seven will come through," B'Elanna said confidently. "She always does."

Ro smiled without humor. "That used to piss you off, and you told anyone who would listen how purely accidental it was that she did. You really turned a lot of the crew against her."

B'Elanna firmed her jaw. Her behavior toward Seven had not always been honorable, especially in the beginning. It made it all the more important that she deal with her friend in the best possible way now. Sometimes she slipped back into old habits, but she was determined that as she grew older, she would also grow wiser.

"I was wrong," she said simply.

That seemed to stymie the Bajoran for a moment but when B'Elanna turned to meet her eyes, there was a new respect in them for the engineer.

"Sometimes, it's not always easy to admit that."

"No, it's not." B'Elanna held the gaze. "Sometimes we can be so afraid of appearing foolish that we never realize that the consequences of not admitting a mistake can be much worse. I'm glad I was able to admit this one to myself. Otherwise, I'd have missed out on a really good friendship, and knowing a really good person."

Ro nodded, appearing captivated by the Klingon's eyes, the pair staring at each other in a form of communication that seemed to be beyond mere words. The chirp from the console interrupted whatever might have been said in the next moment and B'Elanna was startled to realize nine minutes had passed. Where the hell did the other six go all of a sudden?

"She's on her way back," B'Elanna said, funneling the signal back out to space as she and Ro were illuminated by the green glow of Seven's return.

The Borg had an armload of rifles, as many as she could carry and the other two women immediately snagged their own from the pile.

"How many?" Ro asked.

"I managed to acquire fifteen," Seven said, holding them as she would a stack of firewood.

"Thank Kahless, your arms are long," B'Elanna remarked, checking the power supply of her weapon, feeling a great deal better now that it was in her hands. She kicked aside the steel bar as unnecessary and started looking for something to shoot.

"Okay, here's the plan," Ro said. "Seven, you transport to cargo bay one with the rest of the weapons. Tell them what's going on. B'Elanna and I will go to engineering and try to secure that. By the time we get there, Tuvok and the Captain should have managed to break out of confinement and be on their way to the bridge. I'm hoping that all the Kunntarie will pick up is that their soldiers are being assimilated. That should confuse the hell out of them, especially after we've primed them with our 'invisible' Borg in the engine room."

"What about this assimilation?" B'Elanna protested, the thought occurring to her somewhat belatedly. "Won't we have a bunch of Borg drones walking around, assimilating everyone else?"

Seven shook her head and went to the console, accessing the board. "I will channel their proximity transceivers through this location, preventing them from contacting the Collective. Then I will transmit instructions to assemble in one place."

"Instructions from where?" Ro asked, frowning.

Seven regarded her calmly. "From my cranial implant." 

"You'll be controlling these ... 'drones'?" B'Elanna wasn't sure if she liked that idea or not. "You can do that?"

"I do have experience in controlling drones," Seven reminded her.

The memory of Seven's assimilation at the hands of the Borg many months ago, of actually becoming their Queen before Janeway rescued her, crossed the Klingon's mind. Or did Seven rescue Janeway? Details had a way of getting lost in the passage of time, but if Seven thought she could do this, then B'Elanna guessed she believed her.

"Would you be able to control them enough to fight for us?" Ro asked, always quick to leap on a possible tactical advantage.

Seven considered it. "The first few individuals perhaps, but the more that are assimilated, the more difficult it will become to control them. It would be more efficient to simply shut them down to a regenerative phase, even if it means tying them into the ship's energy reserves."

B'Elanna thought quickly. "Assemble them in the engine room, Seven. They can tap into the plasma relay system. We always have too much spare plasma exhaust anyway."

Seven quirked an eyebrow approvingly. "Excellent. It will also help cover your approach to engineering. The appearance of the drones will occupy the squad in control of that area of the ship."

B'Elanna tightened her grip with grim satisfaction. "Okay, it sounds like we got us a working idea now. Anything we're leaving out?"

The other two thought hard, then shook their heads.

Ro lifted her rifle. "Just remember to be careful. Shoot first, ask questions later. We've already got them stirred up with the Borg transporter signals. They're going to be jumpy and quick on the trigger."

"What if this Kalin initiates a self destruct sequence?" B'Elanna offered.

Ro took a breath, smiling with black humor. "We still win. We just don't get to enjoy it for very long."

"Wonderful," B'Elanna responded. "Just freakin' wonderful."

The first hint of it came in the form of a blast that ripped by Ro's head as they entered the juncture of two crossing corridors. The black, armored forms of two invaders bulled their way around the corner, their weapons gleaming silver in the muted light. The heat of the bolt had been so close that it had scorched the Bajoran's cheek, the smell of burning hair filling her nostrils.

"Whoops," she said inanely, and fired back.

The enhanced phaser rifles discharged bolts of golden energy that carried along their payload of nanoprobes. It occurred to Ro suddenly that she had to be careful not to miss because the last thing Voyager needed was for the little microscopic elements to start assimilating the ship. That rather disturbing conclusion came to her in a flash and she wished she had thought of it sooner. She could only hope the others using the rifles would think of it as well and pick their shots carefully.

Her shot took the first alien high on the chest and he must have thought he was safe because it didn't even rock him. The two aliens exchanged a look, laughed with dark intent, and began to approach with purposeful efficiency. But before Ro ducked back behind the meager cover of the other corridor, she had seen the emerald glow spreading over the black armor. She wondered how long it would take for the assimilation to go into effect.

"Be careful," she snapped to B'Elanna who was trying to angle for a good shot. "Don't miss."

"You just think of that?" B'Elanna said carelessly, her dark eyes glowing as her lips drew back from her teeth in a purely ferocious grin. "I know I don't want to have to replace any more of the hull plating than necessary."

The Klingon seemed oblivious to the red bolts of energy slamming into the wall around her while she took careful aim. She fired once, then casually avoided another shot that emitted sparks as it struck the wall, strolling over to where Ro was standing. Suddenly, the firing stopped and cautiously, Ro peeked around the corner.

"Two down," she said flatly. "Twenty-nine to go."

B'Elanna nudged her aside so she could look as well. Down the corridor, the two aliens were suddenly straightening, their weapons falling from nerveless hands, the pair turning around and walking away in that peculiar gait that was so unique to the Borg. Ro wondered ... if she could look under the opaque helmets, would she see their skin turning white as implants erupted from their flesh? She could certainly see them erupt from the smooth surface of the armor, marring the glossy black metal with silvery webs of starburst-shaped mesh that rapidly spread over it. She felt a shiver go down her spine, feeling incredibly cold suddenly.

"C'mon," B'Elanna was saying, hauling her along with a hand under the Bajoran's arm. "We can use them for cover."

Ro shook off the assisting appendage and dashed up the corridor, carrying the rifle gingerly. Now that she actually saw the consequences of utilizing these weapons, she suddenly understood why they were used only under the most dire of circumstances. She wondered if Tuvok had realized what could happen by entrusting her with the access code to the compartment containing them? She could only hope he would understand why she had chosen these weapons over the more traditional phaser rifles, that being so outnumbered had left her with little choice. She was squeamishly aware that she could never have used such a weapon on the Cardassians, no matter how much she hated them.

She swallowed hard and held her weapon at the ready, taking the starboard side of the corridor as B'Elanna took the port. The aliens who were now Borg strode jerkily toward the turbolift. It opened and two more Kunntarie burst out, firing at their own people. Ro decided that meant that they were picking up readings on the bridge that indicated the assimilations and the gloves were now off. That was fine with the Bajoran. The quicker they could get this over with, the better. Ducking behind their Humanoid shields, she and B'Elanna fired back, helped by the fact that their shots only had to touch the target to be effective though, at the same time, hindered by the way the nanoprobes spread over the inner hull.

"This is gonna be such a damned mess to clean up," B'Elanna muttered as their escort now numbered four and they jogged past a green patch busily spreading over the wall. "Maybe as long as it took to clean up after we went through Borg space."

"That's good, Torres," Ro said dryly. "Be optimistic. Believe we will have a chance to clean up afterward."

"Are you kidding?" B'Elanna shot back. "This is turning into a cake walk."

Ro groaned. "I wish you hadn't said that. That's just asking for things to go wrong."

Torres sniffed. "Superstition."

The Klingon yelped suddenly as a bolt nearly took her head off and she ducked, turning around. Ro whirled, firing at the group that had come up behind them. Oblivious, their assimilated 'shields' continued toward the engine room without them as the women dove for cover. Cursing, Ro hit the deck rolling, the door to a nearby lab sliding open for her. She rose to her knees in one smooth motion and used the entrance for protection as she shot back at the aliens. Across the corridor, she saw that B'Elanna had also made it to cover in the opposing doorway and together, they were able to set up a continuous fire that assimilated three more and sent the fourth scurrying away.

Ro shot a look behind her in time to see the turbolift doors shut behind their original Borg allies.

"Damn, we'll have to wait for the next one." She looked across at B'Elanna, taken aback when she saw the pinkish blood streaming down the Klingon's arm. She was shocked by the intensity of the dismay that shot through her. "B'Elanna?"

Torres glanced casually down at her arm. "It'll heal." She hefted her rifle. "What now, fearless leader?"

"Maybe we should get out of the main corridors."

"And try the Jeffries tubes?" B'Elanna shook her head. "Closer quarters. They might have the advantage. Plus, there's a lot more sensitive equipment in the access conduits to be assimilated."

"You're right." Ro inhaled sharply. "Break's over, Lieutenant. Let's go."

"After you," B'Elanna invited. They scooted up the hall ahead of the three aliens who were staggering toward them like something out of a horror holo-program. Ro felt a shiver of dread ripple up her back and she slammed her hand on the turbolift controls, shutting the door before they could join them.

"We could have used them as another shield," B'Elanna said mildly.

Ro breathed deeply. "We could." She hesitated. "They give me the creeps."

B'Elanna laughed. "Me too, but we'd better come out firing."

"Definitely," Ro agreed and she pressed up against one side of the door as Torres took the other. The lift traveled swiftly through the shaft, then abruptly jolted to a stop, midway between decks.

"Guess they caught us," B'Elanna said, dropping the rifle and linking her hands together.

Ro didn't hesitate, stepping up onto the Klingon's offer of support as she was hefted easily into the air. She fumbled with the panel in the ceiling, finally opening it and clambering quickly through the hatch. She reached back, holding a hand out for B'Elanna who grasped it firmly after retrieving her rifle. Grunting with effort, Ro helped the Klingon through the small aperture and the pair quickly stepped off the lift onto the access ladder, pressing their bodies into the recess containing the rungs.

Not a moment too soon as the lift started again and shot upward. Ro felt it scrap her back as it passed and she wondered if her adrenaline levels had simply overloaded. She hadn't even taken a second to think what could have happened if the lift had activated while she had been stepping onto the ladder. The turbolift would have mashed her to a paste and for just a brief moment, it was all the Bajoran could do to hang onto the rungs, she was shaking so badly.

"Hey," B'Elanna said, coming up beside her so that her athletic form was pressed against Ro's more slender frame, her arm around her to hold her to the ladder, the warmth of it penetrating through the tank top to stave off the chill washing over the Bajoran. "Close, but still a clean miss."

Ro swallowed convulsively. "I suppose Klingons don't get scared."

"Klingons might not, but I damn near wet my pants just now," B'Elanna retorted wryly.

Despite herself, Ro offered a weary bark of laughter. "Prophets, this is not how I wanted to spend my day," she said, resting her forehead against the cool metal of the rung.

"I can think of better ways."

Ro was suddenly aware of the woman so close to her and she turned her head, looking into the dark eyes. Before she realized what she was doing, she leaned over and pressed her lips to B'Elanna's. There was a second of brief surprise, then the full lips parted and B'Elanna kissed her back, firmly but sweetly, tasting her with a tenderness the Bajoran would not have expected. Ro was actually a little dizzy when they parted.

B'Elanna stared at her a moment, a wealth of emotion shading across her features but in the end, she merely cleared her throat softly.

"We need to get to the engine room."

Ro stared at her. "Maybe after this is over, we could ... get together for dinner?"

"You're asking me out?" B'Elanna said, raising her eyebrow with a touch of disbelief. She smiled. "I'd like that."

Ro resumed her climb, not knowing what would happen next but aware that something just changed. Something deep and fundamental ... and things would never be the same for her. But she couldn't deal with it now. Now it was time to climb to the next deck and make her way into the engineering section, hoping to get there relatively intact. She could hear the respiration of the Klingon who was climbing below her, and she decided that, aside from Tuvok, there was no one else on Voyager that she would want covering her back more than B'Elanna Torres.

They crowded into the recess of the hatch leading to the next deck and manually pried it open. Ro poked the muzzle of the gun through the first opening, firing at the black armor she glimpsed only to see that she had wasted a shot, the figure moving away from the exit toward the large doors at the end which barricaded the engine room. There were other figures and Ro realized they were the drones, converging as instructed.

"Guess we know where the party is," B'Elanna quipped as they spilled out into the corridor. There were yells coming from ahead and the Bajoran suddenly understood that when Borg had a directive to follow, they weren't gentle in carrying it out. And apparently, the weapons the intruders were using were of little use against the shielding the drones already had activated.

"Stay alert," Ro warned. "There's only seven drones so far."

"Don't worry, I will. You're not getting out of our date that easy."

The Klingon bent over, peering around the dark forms preceding them and fired in the space between the armored bodies. So far, the aliens did not seem to realize their real enemies were actually members of the crew that had seemed to accede so easily to their demands. They were so completely occupied with the Borg attack that no one had taken the time to stop and realize this was hardly the way the Collective tended to assimilate ships.

The drones were single-mindedly set on reaching the plasma relay conduits and Ro was aware that once they reached them, they would tap into the energies swirling there, shutting down into a regeneration mode. And the two women would lose their cover at that point. They had to retake the engine room as quickly as possible.

"I have starboard," she yelped.

B'Elanna nodded quickly and scooted to the left, mounting the stairs leading to the catwalk that ran around the warp core. She fired as she ran, picking her shots with great care, knowing that this was the last place they needed random splashes of assimilation nanoprobes. Then Ro was abruptly too busy to watch her companion beyond that. She was forced to take the ladder on the other side, knowing she would have a better chance at picking off her opponents in an elevated position.

If only these damned nanoprobes worked faster, she thought as a bolt streaked by her leg so close it scorched the material of her trousers and left it smoking. That thirty second delay it took for them to assimilate the alien beneath the armor was liable to get her killed. The one advantage they were maintaining was the mass confusion and the fact that the Kunntarie considered the drones to be a far worse threat, apparently not having worked out the fact that it was actually the two women who were creating them.

The air was filled with smoke and yells, the deadly whine of disrupter fire and the distinctive reverberation of shots dissipating off Borg phasic shielding. Ro lost track of time, ducking and firing, utilizing all her skill to avoid the ruby bolts that streaked through the engine room without regard for who was on what side. Then abruptly, there was no more weapons fire and the Bajoran straightened.

"B'Elanna?" she called tentatively, eyes searching the area, the hiss from leaking plasma a disturbing counterpoint to the throb of the warp drive.

"Down here," came the Klingon's distinctive voice. "Get to the main console, try to override the warp engines. I need to seal that leak."

Ro did not quibble over the presumption of the tone. After all, in her engine room, B'Elanna Torres was completely in command. The Bajoran slid down the ladder and headed for the console, determined to finish wresting control of Voyager back from the Kunntarie.

"Is she really going to give birth?" she said in a low voice to the Doctor. "Can she do that?"

"It's not bridge duty, Captain," he informed her. "Specialized training isn't required."

Janeway resisted the urge to smack him, even considering the fact that he was capable of altering his matrix's density to allow her hand to pass right through.

"I meant," she said in a much more dangerous tone, "is it safe for her to give birth here?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Not particularly, but Humanoid females have been having babies for millennia in much worse places." He hesitated, watching as Sek carefully wiped the woman's brow with a cloth. "It's entirely possible that this is a false alarm."

Janeway shot a disbelieving look at the sweating, panting woman and then back at the Doctor.

"What?"

"It's called 'false labor', Captain," he explained patiently, almost condescendingly. "With all the stress and tension that's occurred and considering the amount of pregnant women we have at the moment, it was bound to happen. Actually," he added cheerfully, "I'm surprised the rest haven't developed the same symptoms."

Janeway inhaled deeply. "Keep me informed, Doctor," she said, deciding that she had witnessed as much as she wanted regarding the miracle of birth for now.

She was slightly dizzy as she turned away. Was this part of what she was going to have to go through? Until now, the idea of becoming pregnant was an abstraction, a concept contemplated within the neat, tidy confines of her thoughts. This had brought it home with a jolt and she tried to imagine herself tottering around with this huge belly in front of her, unable to bend or stoop, constantly running for the bathroom ... unerringly, her eyes picked out the rest of her pregnant crewmembers and she noticed the distress that not having the proper facilities was causing. A single device, normally used for the pets on the vessel, was located in the cargo bay, but it was clearly insufficient for these women. At least they had something. Janeway could only thank the deity above that she had prevented Tom and Harry from taking the thing apart to try to construct a weapon of sorts in that first hour.

We have to get out of here, she thought in a moment of sheer, unadulterated panic. We have to do something! We just can't sit and wait for condition indigo to play itself out any longer.

The next second, her ears detected the faint, but distinctive sound of a transporter beam, unlike the normal Starfleet sound but definitely familiar. She was impressed by how quickly Tuvok's security team formed up, placing themselves between the rest of the crew and whatever was materializing. Janeway forced herself through the uneasily shifting crowd to the area in front of the door where the barely recognizable form of a Borg took shape, her arms full of weaponry. Janeway goggled at her wife, the normally immaculate blonde covered in black grease and grime, her hair stringy and wild about her smudged features, her outfit torn and filthy.

"Seven?"

The young woman ignored her. "Tuvok, quickly."

Voyager's chief of security leaped forward, instantly assessing the situation and grabbing a rifle from the top of the stack she was carrying, tossing it back to one of his security personnel.

"Cover the door," he instructed firmly as he distributed the rest.

His security force formed up immediately, led by the beta squad who took up a position around the entrance to the cargo bay. Just in time because it seemed that Seven's arrival had not gone unnoticed, the large doors sliding open as the Kunntarie guards plunged through. The security officers fired only to have the golden bolts splash over the armor, seeming to have little impact. The guards returned fire, their bolts finding their marks with devastating effect. Janeway was terrified that the battle would be over quickly.

Then suddenly, the guards stopped shooting, their motion becoming jerky, robotic, as an emerald glow spread over the armor, the silver webbing of erupting implants appearing. The captain understood immediately which weapons Seven had brought. Meanwhile, the young woman had sunk to the deck, her hands to her temples, trembling as she hunched over.

"Doctor," Janeway cried, forcing her way quickly to her spouse's side. She knelt down, putting a hand gently on the woman's shoulder. "Seven, it's me."

"Captain," Seven responded, her eyes filled with stress as she looked up into Janeway's concerned face, the lines around them deep and defined. "I am controlling the new drones ... directing them to the engine room." The words were pushed out in fits and starts. She was obviously putting forth a great, mental effort. "I am implementing a regeneration mode ... Ro and Torres are there now, but you must ... retake the ship from the Kunntarie. There are 31 intruders in total ... they are concentrated ... on deck one ... engineering ... patrolling the corridors ... 17 have been accounted for ... It is diffi