Be Careful What You Wish For... By Lowell "Jarhead" Houser (jarhead_h@yahoo.com, send feed-back, even if it's just to tell me not to quit my day job.) Part 1/? Rated: PG Disclaimer: What for? Like the legal weenies at Paramount will ever even see this, let alone do something about it. (If you happen to be a legal weenie at Paramount, and are actually seeing this, please know that I didn't mean any disrespect. I swear. Please don't sue me, especially considering that the only thing you would get is a PII300 that likes to reset itself, usually when you're doing something important and haven't saved for a while.) Spoilers: "Dark Frontier", story started before original spoilers for "Unimatrix Zero" were released in 2000. Summary: Sometime in season seven, the crew of Voyager wished for a faster ride home... too bad for them, they got it. *************************************** Somewhere in the Delta Quadrant... "Captains Log: Supplemental It's been three days since the "ship-jacking", as Esn. Paris put it. Technically, we won. The crew of Voyager is now aboard of, and in control of, a Borg sphere. Perhaps that should be amended to... "The *remaining* crew of Voyager is now aboard of, and in control of, a *badly damaged, undermanned* Borg sphere". My own arrogance is to blame for this. My ego. Voyager is hanging inside this ship's equivalent of a shuttle bay. It's doubtful we'll ever be able to salvage her, although Lt.Carey tells me that they might be able to save some of Voyager's main computer. Lt. Carey has also reported that they have managed to salvage most of the replicators and their various sub-systems. This is of vital importance as our supply of emergency rations is already getting dangerously low. The weapons improvements we received from the Kai' den Que allowed us to survive the battle long enough take the sphere. It's doubtful that we'll be ableey c recover them from what's left of Voyager, though. The Doctor has set up a makeshift sickbay in the main assimilation chamber. The engineering teams have begun installing holo-emitters in this new sickbay so that the Doctor can remove his mobile-emitter to recharge it. Some of the more medically inclined drones are assisting him, given that he is currently without Esn. Paris most of the time. Tom is usually busy trying to comfort his wife. >>Sniffle<< I don't know if it's helping. The Doctor said at the last staff meeting that it could take months to remove the implants from all of the liberated drones on board... all two hundred of them left. I've heard that he's stopped singing altogether. I don't know if he will ever want to again. Most of the liberated drones were assimilated sometime after the age of twelve, with a few glaring exceptions. Oddly enough, most don't seem to function well as part of a team. They all want to go home, even though most of their homes don't exist any more. I still don't know what to do about them. We can't take them all home. Even doing that for those that have homes to go back to would be impossible... It could take decades. Listen to me, "We can't take them home." We couldn't stop them if that's what they decided to do. There are more than twice as many of them as there are of Starfleet personnel. Right now they are listening only to Seven of Nine. They think she is solely responsible for freeing them. That's gratitude for you, I guess. I exchanged at least seventy-three people's lives for their freedom. Maybe more if the Doctor's bag of miracles comes up short. The least they could do is thank me for so kindly sacrificing my crew on the Alter of the Collective for them. The doctor assures me that Seven is physically fine from her contact with the collective mind. I'm not sure about her mental state, though. I fully expected Seven to be the first one to condemn me for what happened, but she didn't. Instead, she went straight to work coordinating repairs. I think it's probably because it gave her something to hide behind, something to focus on instead of her emotions, not that I blame her. Envy maybe, but not blame; she has something to hide behind, I don't. Seven tells me that we should have warp speed in two more days. Transwarp in a week and a half if the repair teams can keep going that long. I can already hear the fatigue in her every word. Seven and Harry are sharing the chief engineer slot until Be'Elanna is back on her feet." >>Sniffle. Gasp. Sniffle<< "Computer... pause recording." The tears had started again, and the sobs wouldn't be far behind. All they had wanted was a way home. And when the chance to steal another transwarp coil had presented itself...they had all followed her like she knew they would. Her crew had followed her into hell and back before, why not this time? She was The Invincible Captain Kathryn Janeway of The United Federation of Planets, right? Challenge the Borg?! She could do that right after her first sip of coffee. No problem, she was The Mighty Captain Janeway of the Starship Voyager. Harry, Seven, and Chakotay had all raised objections, but each had backed down. If she had listened to them this wouldn't have happened. It wouldn't have happened. They would still be heading home with one hundred and forty-six crewmen, and one on the way. Instead, after taking an intense pounding, with life-support failing, her crew had been forced to cobble together and then attempt to carry out a desperate plan to take control of a Borg ship. By all rights that plan should not have worked. But if an android could do it... God what had she done? WHAT HAD SHE DONE?!?! "Until Be'Elanna is back on her feet..." How do you do that after having a *miscarriage*? Tom and Be'Elanna's daughter never even got a chance to breathe on her own. Their captain's overconfidence killed their baby, and so goddamn many others. The casualty list begin it's latest run through her tortured psyche, every time becoming more disorganized, with editorials thrown in just for good measure: *Neelix and Esn. Samamtha Wildman.... Killed defending Naomi. *Naomi Wildman... the Doctor should have her bloodstream cleansed of the Borg nanoprobes that pre-assimilated her by now. That's great news, now she can be a healthy orphan. *Comdr. Tuvok.... Almost killed when a console exploded in his face. Recovering in sickbay. Maybe a good cosmetic surgeon could do something for him someday. *Lt. Harry Kim... He was promoted while still in surgery. After his performance during this crisis, it made everybody wonder why it hadn't happened five years ago. He's only walking now because of a Borg prosthetic leg. Maybe *walking* is a generous term for what he's been doing, but that'll get better with practice. Even though Harry's still weak from losing two and half-pints of blood, he's already put himself on an engineering detail. He insists that they need him, but that isn't why he's doing it. Harry wrongly blames himself for everything that happened and is trying to do what he can to fix it. *Comdr. Chakotay... he'll never walk again. How to tell him? He probably knows already, but how to tell him? *Kim Paris... she never got to be born. Kim never got to... anything. And now she'll never get to do anything, ever. *Esn. Jennifer Delaney...... One would think Kathryn Janeway would have run out of tears by now. She'd been crying for three straight days and the tears didn't seem to have any intention of stopping. One would think.... ...That I would have run out of tears by now. But every time I stop, I see something in the medical bay around me that starts it again. I wonder when she's going to tell me. The doctor refuses to confirm or deny. Which means that I'll never walk again, as far as he's concerned. I remember everything that happened up until that last series of hits Voyager took. That was when the overhead collapsed on me. I wasn't awake when they dug me out. The Doctor said I was almost legally dead when I arrived in this place. This place. This torture chamber. The green glow falls on everything in this room like some sort of demented shadow. It invades my dreams. I see Borg walking around. One of them has been tending to those around me who probably won't live much longer. It is strange to see a Borg cry. They can't shed tears, though their bodies shake. I can see their grief, their anger. Most of them are becoming the people they were before being assimilated. The one who tends to us was taken when she was a child, I think. She hasn't said her name, I wonder if she even knows it. It is her that I see wanting to cry the most. I am again struck by rage. Their lives have forever been destroyed. Their families killed, their worlds ravaged. Kathryn blames herself for what's happened. For me, for Neelix and Samantha and all of the others who she couldn't bring home. She had to take the chance she took. I've thought about this a lot. The Borg killed those people, not Kathryn Janeway. And for whatever small part is her fault, I forgive her... ...I'll never forgive that woman. My baby is dead. My friends are hurt or dead. Janeway should have known better. She's the captain. She's not supposed to take risks like that. We should have seen this coming eons ago. How many times has she done something this crazy? We should have thrown her in the brig for that damn Fair Haven thing alone. We could have stopped her when she proposed this latest scheme. But she was the captain. And my baby died because of it. Kim. She was a miracle. Tom and I weren't supposed to be able to have children without help, so we never bothered with birth control. We thought that we didn't need to. And then when the Doctor told me why I was suddenly feeling so rotten, I was terrified, and exhilarated, and happy and sad and everything in between. I was going to be a mommy. We didn't think we were ready, but you never are, I guess. Three months inside of me. That's all I got with her. Fourteen bazillion explosions later, she's dead, and there's nothing I can do about it. I wanted to speak up, but after Seven got shot down I didn't think it would do any good... oh God Kim forgive me, I'm so sorry... ...I'm so sorry. I did the best that I could, but it wasn't enough... I'm sorry, I couldn't hold the ship together, I just couldn't. Maybe if Voyager had been assigned a seasoned ops officer rather than a wet-behind-the-ears kid like me, that person could have saved them. He would have had the experience by now. She could have kept things running. Whoever it was would have done better than me. But I can't dwell on that. I have to fix it. I have to make it right again. I'm due for another shift soon. The Doctor has been sending me messages to take a nap, but I can't. The boosters in the med packs are working. I'm awake and alert, especially when I trip. I'm still trying to figure out how this damn Borg leg works. The Doctor said when we reach Earth they could try grafting on a new prosthetic, one that doesn't look or feel like a fake leg. I don't know how I feel about that. I think, maybe I deserve this. Seven and I are coordinating repairs. This tub was badly damaged before the attack. It's taken us four days to get just minimal warp power online. According to Seven, restoring transwarp may very well take a month or two. After that we'll still have full time jobs maintaining this Borg bouncy ball, not to mention salvaging whatever we can from Voyager. Then she told me to sit down and rest. I couldn't believe it. None of them get it, not even her. We don't have time to rest. We have to get out of here. If those of us left die here then I failed everybody, and we all died for nothing. If we get home, maybe the scales will balance. God, I hope so... ...I just sedated Ens- Lt. Kim. He refused to comply with my directive to rest. He was already not operating within optimal parameters, and then he refused sleep. I have counted 83 hours since his last sleep cycle, a feat he has accomplished using stimulants from emergency medical packs. I am... concerned, about him. I have always found his selflessness an admirable quality, but that quality could endanger his health in this situation. He has not been making any attempt at recuperating from his injuries. This is unacceptable. I find that I am still dwelling on events that transpired during the attack. Specifically rendering first aid to then Ensign Kim. Logically, I know that there was nothing else I could have done to prevent the loss of his leg. He was bleeding out of the femoral artery. The two of us were trapped without transporter capability. There was no medkit available, nothing that could serve for a tourniquet. On hand there was only his phaser, leaving cauterization as the only course of treatment to preserve his life. The damage done during this treatment was the cause for his leg amputation. Logically there was no other course of action. All that was possible was accomplished, and yet I feel as if I failed Lt. Kim because I could not also preserve his limb. The Lt., however, does not appear to share this regret. He has expressed gratitude for saving his life ... ...I was hoping being down here would take my mind off of the last week. No luck. I guess it was too much to hope for, considering the Doc and I are still treating casualties from the battle. Seven just dropped Harry off. He was just starting to lose consciousness, and I was instantly worried. Then she told me that she had sedated him and it had taken the entire trip to medical for the stuff to counteract the stims in his system. The Doc had told him to rest after his surgery and instead he had promptly gone out and started repairing anything broken that he could find, not eating muad or sleeping at all. Frankly, from what Seven was describing, I'm surprised he hadn't collapsed already. She made me promise to sedate him again if necessary to keep him there, and left, with a half dozen drones in tow. The only time I saw any feeling at all from her was when she looked at him. Harry looked like hell, just like everybody else. His face was smudged hair unkempt, and his uniform was torn in several places. The worst rip ran down his pants leg, exposing his new prosthetic. I could tell when her gaze found that rip, because her eyes, already showing anguish took on something else... guilt. I can understand that. After all, she may have saved his life, but the way she did it necessitated his leg being amputated. I know why she feels guilty; I had to help the Doc perform the surgery to finish taking off his leg. Harry woke up to find that one of the drones had already fit him with a shiny new prosthetic, and he promptly hobbled off when I turned to help another patient. And now he was back because of some need he has to always be the martyr. If he weren't already out I'd probably deck him. I'm a medic I can fix him. Fix him? Like I fixed my daughter? I managed to not think about Kim for at least five minutes thanks to her uncle. I'm both relieved and guilty, and then I feel guilty for feeling any relief, even momentary. God, how am I going to hold my marriage together when I can't even hold my own head together? Be'Elanna is going to go on the warpath soon. She's already not speaking to Chakotay, because he's still Janeway's biggest defender, even though he'll have to be wheeled around from now on... ...The last of the life threatened patients just died on my operating table. Tom was busy helping out Seven with something, but his presence wouldn't have helped. The former drone's injuries were too extensive and surgery had been put off for too long. We've all been too busy to get to him. In the situation we were in, you decide who has the best chance of survival and focus on them. You have to decide who lives and who dies. I didn't think he would live long enough to make it to my operating table, and when he did I guess that I was counting on that determination to pull him through. Instead he joins the other bodies, and his NAME will be added to the casualty list, not his designation. He died a man, not a drone. For the time being, I will be more a nurse to my patients, until they are all on their feet. Then, I will begin the task of removing Borg hardware from those who wish the procedure done. I figure I should be busy for a good six months or so. I wonder if I should be prouder of what I've done. I've fulfilled my creator's wish for my program a thousand fold, performed well above what was ever expected of an EMH. It just doesn't feel that way. I'm a computer program, I should be able to recall exactly how many and who exactly that I haven't been able to save over the years. But I can't do either right now. Damn the daydream subroutines, I keep seeing the dead blending together, each one accusing me of failure. How many are there? How many? The End for now.