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  Nearly everyone else aboard Voyager had some relative or friend they were staying with who had been at the banquet. The only contact Seven had was her Aunt Irene, who was ill and unable to attend. When Admiral Paris had learned of this, he had made a gallant show of having one of his protégés formally escort her to her aunt’s home in the country. Seven protested, saying that she could simply use a transporter. Paris would have none of that. And when Chakotay offered her a lift instead, Seven had decided to accept Admiral Paris’s offer. Now she wasn’t so certain.

  “It really is an honor to be the one selected to escort you home, ma’am,” said the youth. His voice didn’t quite break, but he was certainly more a boy than a man.

  “That is the third time you have said so, Ensign Randolph,” said Seven. She regretted her words as the young man’s face flushed bright red. Even his ears were red.

  “I’m sorry if I offended you,” she said genuinely. “I’m not used to being. . . idolized. It is not a comfortable sensation.”

  Randolph turned to look at her, his blue eyes shining. “Oh, but ma’am, you’ve been with the Borg most of your life, and yet you were able to walk away from their evil without a second look back.”

  “Hardly true,” said Seven. “There was a long time indeed where I wanted nothing more than to return to the collective. It was only Captain—Admiral Janeway’s faith in me that kept me among the ranks of humans.”

  He looked puzzled. A little of her allure had no doubt just been removed as far as he was concerned. Seven was glad of it. The sooner people stopped thinking she was some kind of goddess, the better she—

  “What is that?” she said, looking at a small sea of colors as they began their descent. Quickly, she was able to answer her own question as they drew closer.

  Dozens of people had formed a ring around her aunt’s house. A huge banner sported the words BYE-BYE BORG, HELLO SEVEN OF NINE! There was a hot-air balloon hovering close to the shuttle.

  “Geez,” said Randolph. “Oh, geez.” He looked a little panicky as he thumbed the controls. “Ensign Randolph to Admiral Paris. We have a heck of a welcome-home party here for Miss Seven. What would you like me to do?”

  “Damn,” said Paris, and to his credit he sounded rueful. “Someone must have leaked Irene Hansen’s address. Seven, I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to run the gauntlet here. Randolph, I authorize you to use force if the crowd becomes too much for you to handle.”

  “It’s just a welcome-home party, sir. I doubt they’ll become violent.”

  But Seven was staring at the huge crush of people, and her breathing grew rapid and shallow. So many of them. She was used to being with hundreds of drones at a time, of course. She had experienced more years of other voices in her head, other beings at her side, than she had years of being alone. But these weren’t Borg drones, comfortable and familiar in their predictability. These were individuals. Without data, their behavior could not be at all predicted, and that made her nervous. She had thought the people who had gathered around her at the banquet had been bad enough, but that had only been about twenty or thirty people at the most. She was looking now at dozens, perhaps hundreds.

  My arrival here is not a spectator sport! Anger surged through her. She had done nothing to these people. Why were they denying her a quiet, calm reunion with her aunt?

  “We should return,” she stated. “They will disperse once they see I am not disembarking.”

  Randolph laughed. “Ma’am, I’m willing to bet some of these people have been camping out here for days, ever since news of Voyager’s arrival was made public. They know you’re going to have to disembark sometime.”

  “I will transport in.”

  “I don’t think you quite grasp the level of your celebrity, ma’am. Certainly you can transport directly into your aunt’s living room, but this crowd isn’t going to go away until they lay eyes on you in person. It’s you they want.”

  Seven’s eyes narrowed. “Then I shall give myself to them,” she said. Something about her tone of voice made Randolph look at her uneasily, but he did not comment.

  “Shall I take her down then, ma’am?”

  “Proceed, Ensign.”

  The nearest place to land the shuttle was several yards from the old farmhouse that Irene Hansen called home. Randolph made straight for it, and Seven watched with revulsion as the tiny figures raced toward the clearing where the shuttle would set down. Ants. They looked like ants, racing along with a sense of purpose that ironically turned them into mindless beings.

  Randolph landed the shuttle with great skill, considering the circumstances. He turned to her and started to say, “Let me go out first and—” But it was too late. Seven had already opened the door and jumped lightly to the grass.

  A cheer rose up. Seven saw the handmade banners waving, saw the horde of people literally running to her. She stood her ground and tapped a small device on her chest, similar to the communicator she had worn every day on Voyager. The adjustment would magnify her voice.

  “Attention!” Seven cried. “I am not here to converse with any of you. Not the press. Not curious onlookers with nothing better to do. Not any of you who claim to be long-lost friends of my parents. Not those of you who have subjected your children to this barbaric gathering in order to let them supposedly have a glimpse of history. I am not your plaything. I don’t belong to you, and neither does my aunt. You are on private property. You will leave this place at once and not return. If you do not comply, I will order this ensign to fire into the crowd with a phaser set on stun. Am I understood?”

  Without waiting for a reaction, she strode through the crowd. It didn’t part for her, and she heard the happy cheers mutate into outraged, wordless cries of insult and anger. She pushed. They pushed back. Before she knew what was happening, she was trapped in a tight circle of strangers. Their faces were furious, and they were yelling things at her, grabbing at her. She steeled herself to fight back. She was stronger than anyone here, and she could—

  There was the sharp whine of a phaser. One of the biggest men pawing at Seven collapsed.

  “Everyone, please!” Randolph’s voice was high, but his young face was resolute. “Seven of Nine has undergone a great deal. I’m certain she didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but she is exhausted and unused to this kind of attention. Please let her return to her home. I have no wish to set this phaser on wide-range. Let Seven alone.”

  They backed away from her, but not far. She heard the taunts and jeers as she strode as swiftly as she could toward the beckoning of her aunt’s front porch.

  “Didn’t get your heart back when they made you human, huh?”

  “Think you’re better than us?”

  “You were my hero!”

  “We thought you were human again, but you’re still a Borg!”

  Her heart was pounding rapidly in her chest and her neck hurt from holding her head so high. She wanted to break into a run but would not give them the satisfaction. Seven tuned out the scathing words shouted by the crowd and then, at last, her feet touched the wooden steps of her aunt’s porch. She ran up them, unable to control herself, opened the door, and escaped inside.

  “Oh, this is just great,” said Randolph, who had barely made it in behind Seven before she slammed the door shut and leaned against it. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone alienate a crowd quicker in my life.”

  The hero worship that had shone in his eyes was gone. He now looked merely annoyed and a little frightened of the people outside.

  “They had no right to be here,” Seven said, a touch defensively. “This is private property. Is it so much to ask that I be allowed to greet my aunt without a swarm of people demanding my attention?”

  Randolph sighed. “You just don’t get it, Seven.” No more “ma’am,” Seven noticed. “You’re a celebrity, a hero. You’re a Borg who was liberated from the collective—a symbol of humanity’s triumph over the worst enemy we’ve ever encountered. All you needed to d
o was say a few polite words, smile and wave, and they’d have gone home happy.”

  “You are just like your parents,” came an elderly woman’s voice. Irene Hansen was slowly coming down the stairs. She clutched the railing, but was moving under her own power. “Iconoclasts, both of them. More interested in ruffling feathers than smoothing them, I’m afraid. That’s not the Borg in her irritating those people outside, young man. That’s her mother and father.”

  A wave of pleasure rushed over Seven, along with a sense of awkwardness. “Aunt Irene,” she said, her voice sounding stiff and formal in her own ears. “Are you well enough to be walking?”

  “I’m over the worst of it,” Irene said. “You come here and give me a hug.”

  Even as she heard Randolph speaking to Paris, with words like “situation here” and “could use some security” and “need to issue a statement” sprinkled in his conversation, Seven moved quickly toward her aunt. Irene stood on the last step, her arms extended, her wrinkled face alight. Seven extended her own arms and enfolded the older woman in a tight embrace. She smelled a pleasant floral scent, felt the odd combination of fragility and strength in Irene’s body, and wondered if her parents would have felt this way in her arms. The thought made tears come to her eyes.

  “Annika,” said Irene. “Sweet, sweet child. Welcome home.”

  * * *

  Three days after the welcome-home banquet, Tuvok materialized in the front hall of his own home. The colors were slightly different. He took a moment to note the changes his wife had made in his absence. Instead of the muted, dark purple hues he remembered, there were now shades of blue and green. The ancient urn that had stood in the hallway alcove had been moved to the top of the stairs. It had been replaced by a landscape painting of the Voroth Sea. It was quite striking. Looking closer, he saw that it bore the name of his youngest child, T’Pev. He raised an eyebrow. T’Pev had always had an eye for fine art, and it was good to see that the child had not squandered her talents.

  “They told us that you did not wish us to travel to Earth to greet you, once Sek had completed the fal-tor-voh,” a soft, female voice said.

  Despite himself, despite his years of discipline, Tuvok could not suppress a quickening of his pulse. He did not permit himself to turn around immediately.

  “That is correct,” he said, keeping his voice modulated. “There was no logic in disrupting the present status of your lives for an excessive and unnecessary human-inspired celebration. Once I was cured, I would then be debriefed and able to return to Vulcan shortly thereafter.”

  “I agree, husband,” said T’Pel, stepping into the light as he turned around. “There was no reason to rush this reunion. I have waited seven years for your safe return. A few days more is insignificant. I trust that the fal-tor-voh was successful?”

  “Entirely. Sek is a worthy son and performed the mind-meld admirably.”

  He moved toward her. They were only inches apart now. Her shining brown eyes, tranquil as a pool on temple grounds, met his evenly. Slowly, Tuvok lifted his right hand and extended the first two fingers. T’Pel hesitated, and then lifted her own hand. Their fingers touched.

  He did not wish it, but something stirred within him. Tuvok was still recovering from the effects of the recently cured neurological dysfunction. The mind-meld with Sek had been a balm to an injury. Peace had descended upon Tuvok’s restless, churning mind once more as his son reached and touched his mind, calmly eradicating all hints of the degeneration.

  A faint frown rippled across T’Pel’s smooth, lovely face as she sensed the agony and confusion he had undergone. . . and something more. Something that was, no doubt, directly caused by the lingering effects of the condition.

  “On the other hand,” T’Pel continued smoothly, “it is also illogical to behave as if you had not been gone for so long a time, is it not?”

  “Most illogical,” he agreed. Her flesh was warm against his, her mind open to him through the intimate touch of finger against finger.

  Although he had, most inconveniently, undergone Pon farr very recently aboard Voyager, where the primal desires thus roused were slaked by a holographic version of the female now standing before him, Tuvok experienced an echo of that powerful desire. Sensing his thoughts, T’Pel lifted an eyebrow in inquiry.

  There was no need for words. As he accompanied his wife to their bedchamber, Tuvok reflected on how, under certain extreme circumstances, the descent of Pon farr was not always required to elicit the mating response.

  Chapter

  7

  THE FORMER FIRST OFFICER AND CAPTAIN of the U.S.S. Voyager had enjoyed the past few days they’d spent together, although Chakotay refused to reveal their destination.

  The ship that he jokingly called the “Alpha Flyer” zipped along with a smoothness that belied its rough exterior. Janeway relaxed and leaned back in the copilot’s seat of the little craft.

  “Nice ship, Captain Chakotay,” she said. He threw her a quick grin.

  “Always told you I wanted a nice little ship of my own,” he said. “You know, as a first officer, you’re not half bad.”

  “Coming from the best first officer it’s been my pleasure to know, I’m flattered.” “You know, Tom Paris would call this a ‘road trip,’” she added.

  “I like this better than a Camaro,” Chakotay replied.

  The stars streaked by as they sat in comfortable silence for a while. Finally, Janeway said, “I understand that all the former Maquis on Voyager were offered the opportunity to return to Starfleet, with all rank returned.”

  “It was a generous offer,” said Chakotay, reaching down and tapping the console.

  “Will it be one you accept?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He turned to look at her, and his dark eyes were serious. “I hadn’t expected our return to be without its difficulties, but I confess, I’m surprised at some of the emotions it’s stirring up.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” said Janeway, thinking of Mark, Carla, and little Kevin. “I don’t think we realized just how sheltered we were on Voyager.”

  “I had a chance to meet with Sveta and some of the other Maquis at the banquet. For them, it’s all the past, but for me—well, not having been there, not having gone through it with them, it’s still pretty raw.”

  Even at their most intimate over the last seven years, Chakotay had never spoken quite so freely. Janeway was touched by his confidence. She had thought they had grown close, and was certain that they had, but clearly, that barrier between captain and crewman had blocked off more than she had thought.

  “Speaking of the banquet,” she said, “and feel free to tell me to mind my own business if you’d like, but I noticed that you and Seven weren’t sitting together.”

  His face was impassive. “Seven feels that while our relationship might have flourished had we stayed on Voyager, it won’t now that we’ve reached Earth. She needs to find out who she is here, and I agreed. Hell, I need to find out who I am here.”

  Janeway nodded her comprehension. She thought so. Much as Seven liked to think of herself as cool and collected, her emotions were an easy book to read to anyone who knew and loved her. She was sorry for Chakotay, but not surprised.

  She took a look at the coordinates of their destination. Somehow, it seemed familiar. Then Janeway realized where they were headed, and her stomach tightened. Chakotay was bringing her along with him to face some of the demons of his past.

  They did not speak the rest of the time, but sat, each lost in private thoughts. Finally, Chakotay dropped out of warp and into orbit around a small moon. He leaned back, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly through his mouth. Janeway recognized it for what it was: a calming breath, to steady himself for what lay ahead.

  He straightened, resumed control, and took the Alpha Flyer down. Tom Paris couldn’t have made a smoother landing, and when he set them down gently, Janeway looked out at the deceptive beauty of this moon that housed such a horror.

&nb
sp; They got out and walked toward a tall standing stone. On it was a bronze plaque. “I didn’t know Starfleet had marked this already,” Janeway said, her voice hushed and reverent as if she were in a holy place. In a very real sense, she was.

  “They haven’t,” Chakotay replied, his own voice soft. “Sveta and some of the other Maquis did this all on their own.”

  Strangely, Janeway felt stung by the comment. “I’m certain Starfleet would have gotten around to making this official,” she said.

  “I’m not. There’s a lot on their minds right now. Memorializing people once considered traitors can’t be very high on their list.”

  The plaque read:

  On this site, on Stardate 50953.4, one of the most brutal massacres of the Dominion War took place. For many months, Tevlik’s moon had been a secret base for the group calling themselves the Maquis, who fought a private war based on their highest morals and ethics against the Cardassians, whom they regarded as the enemy. It was considered a safe place, and many brought their families here to protect them from repercussions. Due to the betrayal of one of their leaders, a Bajoran called Arak Katal, the entire population of the base was wiped out by a surprise Cardassian attack.

  Four thousand two hundred fifty-six men, women, and children were slaughtered. The Cardassians took no prisoners. This plaque is to commemorate the dead. May they never be forgotten, and may the principles for which they stood always be remembered.

  There followed a list of names, many that Janeway recognized. She’d been told about the attack, of course, but she hadn’t realized there had been whole Maquis families based here. Nor had she fully appreciated the sheer number of lives lost. And she had not known that they were betrayed by one of their own. For a moment, she and Chakotay stood in reverent silence.

  Finally Janeway said softly, “What became of Arak?”

  “No one knows,” answered Chakotay. “He could have been a Cardassian agent, like Seska. Or he could have had other reasons for betraying us. According to Sveta, he simply disappeared. He had better never show his face in this quadrant,” he added, his voice suddenly harsh and angry. “I know many who’d kill him on sight. I’d be one of them.”