Eye of the Cardassian

 

The Borg drone stirred on the sickbay bed.

“Don’t try to move. I’ve removed your ocular implant but I haven’t properly recalibrated your biologic...”

“Assist me.” said the drone as she sat up, and suddenly discovered she was quite blind. The feeling of helplessness was something she was not accustomed to. The male doctor steadied her. His flesh was different. The substance had the same consistency as human tissue, but none of the characteristic odors or chemicals.

A hologram, she thought.

“Hold still.” there was a momentary multicolored flash. Then the drone saw Voyager for the first time through human eyes.

 

“How could I have been so blind.” said the Maquis commander as he paced around the federation cargo bay.

“He fooled all of us. Vulcans aren’t supposed to be able to lie.”

“I should have known better.”

“Chakotay...” came a reassuring female voice. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I just can’t stop thinking that maybe there are others like him.”

“I will never betray you Chakotay.” said Seska, wrapping her arm around his.

 

“I will betray you.” said the drone to Janeway, more as a statement of fact than of intent.       Janeway had her reservations about keeping the drone on board. The others had all been swept into space. What made this drone any different?

Intent, she thought. The other drones were killed when the cargo bay was depressurized and the ship was in danger. It was impersonal, driven by emotion and the rapidity of the situation. This was different. She was here, in front of her. Could Janeway order her execution for no reason other than her origin?

No, she could not. She could not exile it either, as it would pose a tremendous danger to any organism it happened upon. The only choice was to keep it on the ship and try to humanize it.

The doctor was quite certain he could modify her appearance to some degree, perhaps to the point where she could pass as human.

 

The doctors had done an excellent job turning her into a human. Seska ran her pale fingers over the smooth flesh on her face. It sickened her, to be trapped in this bizarre body while she figured out what to do next.

She had gradually accumulated herself to being human, but she felt she would never fully assimilate into the crew.

In the alpha quadrant, her job would have been over long ago. All she had to do was trail Chakotay for another few months and report back to the Obsidian order. Now she only reported to Janeway. She deserved better than that.

The idea of going to Janeway and revealing herself as a Cardassian agent had crossed her mind, briefly. That idea faded into the image of a young cardassian female standing behind very heavily secured federation prison force fields.

 

“I have decided to allow you to leave the cargo bay as you wish. You may go anywhere on the ship, with the exception of certain secured areas.”

Seven stared impassively at the Captain as she continued. She could hardly believe it. Just a few months ago Seven was actively plotting the assimilation of Voyager, and here she was becoming a crew member. The idea excited and terrified her at the same time.

She was beginning to lose the collective consciousness, and many of her more human instincts were emerging. She desired to be with people, and wanted more than anything to have a friend. She could never admit that, of course. Emotions were so alien to her. Unlike a Vulcan, she had no training in how to suppress them.

That was the terrifying part of interacting with the crew. Meeting new people would mean leaving the security of the cargo bay. The humans called such comforting surroundings “Security blankets”.

“Do you understand, Seven?” asked the Captain.

“Yes Captain.” she said. The captain turned to leave. Seven felt a wave of emotion inside her. Her enhanced brain tried to find the words to express her gratitude from saving her from the living, eternal hell of the collective. She owned her entire existence as an individual to this woman standing in front of her.

“Thank you Captain.” she said, which was piteously inadequate.

 

“Thank you.” said Seska, trying to restrain the urge to strangle Neelix. If they were on Cardassia he would already be screaming for mercy. She took her lunch ration and sat down with some of the fleshheads.

Harry Kim choked on some of his food, as did Chakotay. Neelix had tried to make a “Classic” human recipie called Tacos but had botched it miserably. Ensign Kim’s watering eyes told her that he had put in too much of something hot.

That pleased Seska, not only because she found Kim’s pain funny, but because she really liked Neelix’s food. In actual fact, if he was to cook like this on Cardassia, he would probably be fought over by every Gul in the fleet.

In her time with the fleshheads she had gotten quite close to a few of them. Some, like Harry, she wouldn’t miss. Others like Tom and Chakotay she had grown quite fond of. She had a relationship with Chakotay during her time with the Maquis. Of course she didn’t love him, but she did miss his affection. She often wondered if Chakotay would ever want to start a relationship again.

 

Seven felt Chakotay kiss her, as he did every night this past week. Even though it was holographic, it made her feel good. She had never been kissed, not as a lover or even as a friend.

“Janeway to Seven of Nine.”

“Yes Captain.”

“Please come to my ready room Immediately.”

“Yes Captain.” She turned off the Combadge. “Computer...” she hesitated. Then she grabbed Chakotay and gave him one last, very long, very passionate kiss.

“Computer, end program” she said after a minute or so. Chakotay disappeared and she headed to the Captain’s ready room. She understood now why Tom Paris got such a thrill from disobeying authority.

 

Seska yawned as she routed Tuvok’s security clearance through the thirty second workstation before looping back into sickbay. She had to contact the Kaizon or else everything would fall apart.

They had been in communication for several months now, co-ordinating attacks and passing vital information and technology from Voyager. Seska had hoped to seize control of the ship long before this, but the cowardly Maquis would never rebel against their precious captain Chakotay.

Janeway was too timid to do what needed to be done to get the ship back to the Alpha Quadrant. That would change when Seska took over the ship. Those starfleet persons who wanted to stay on the ship would be welcome to stay, the rest would be stranded somewhere, or sold to the Kaizon as slaves.

It suddenly occurred to her that if this didn’t work, she would never see another member of her species again. She was the only one of her kind in the Delta Quadrant.

“You are unique” said the Queen in her deceptively soothing voice. Despite the hideous screams of men, woman and children being torn apart, Seven felt safe with the Queen. For some reason the Queen had kept her as an individual rather than reassimilate her.

The queen paused and got a look of satisfaction on her face.

“Their distinctiveness has been added to our own.” Seven felt a brief surge of hope which very quickly faded as the queen continued.

“But not completely.  There are survivors.” she waved her arm and the image of a small shuttle moving away, carrying four partially assimilated humanoids materialized on a monitor.

Seven waited with baited breath. The queen would certainly be displeased with her for assisting the escapees. She also felt a twinge of guilt for allowing them to have the faint hope of escaping the collective.

To Seven’s astonishment, the Queen let them go. She never expected the queen to show mercy. She grew more apprehensive as the queen turned her attention towards her.

“Perhaps I have expected too much of you too soon. Assist with the shield repairs.”

Seven was very relieved that the Queen had not taken any sort of punitive action against her. Of course, the only punishment the queen could dish out would be assimilation. There was no middle ground with her.

 

There was no middle ground with her. Janeway would kill her, or exile her off the ship. There was no possibility of remaining on board, even if she would condescend to be a prisoner.

The federation crew had taken most of the ship back and would soon be on the bridge. Her carefully laied out plan had failed miserably, all because Janeway was too weak to execute an obviously deserving crewperson.

Seska tried to raise the forcefields around the bridge. As she expected, the computer was unable to comply.

Sounds of conflict came closer. The federation would be here soon. She tried to transport all the air off the ship, but the computer once again was unable to comply. Without warning, the turbolift doors opened. She looked up just in time to see a phasar aimed in her direction.   

There was a brief multicolored flash of light, and the image of voyager faded rapidly from Seska’s once human eyes.