Shadows of the Night, Part XXXII

Main Unity Shadows of the Night

Luke walked through a Borg ship. It didn't look like a normal one; there was a wide-open space with a grated floor. Lining the wall were drones, tens of thousands, all standing in the alcoves. They were watching him, and yet, he felt no fear. They were observing, nothing more. He walked forward across the wide room, the sound of his footsteps disturbing the regular sounds of a running Borg vessel. There was that descending pulse sound of the transporter, and he turned, and there she stood. Seven was back in full drone appearance, looking at him with that simple, calculating Borg stare. And yet, there was still no fear, as if he knew that this was his Seven, that there was no possible way she could harm him. "Luke Skywalker," 7 of 9 said.

"Seven," he said. "Why do you look this way?"

"Because this is my nature," 7 of 9 said. "Do you love me?" She still spoke in that direct Borg voice of hers, but her appearance and the tone of the question didn't change what the answer was.

"Absolutely." In response she raised her hand and stuck him in the neck with her assimilation tubules. He gripped the spot, but as time passed, he seemed the same. "Why haven't I changed?"

"Because you have already been assimilated," the Collective said. "Your emotions are not your own. They are outside your control."

"From this time forward," 7 of 9 said, "your only thoughts will be of me. Your desires will serve my desires, your choices to serve mine. If it requires abandoning your Jedi teachings you must do so; they are no longer relevant. Your function is to serve and protect me; all other priorities are secondary. You will comply."

"Your existence as it has been is over," the Collective said. "Your designation is One of Two. You cannot function alone."

"We are linked," 7 of 9 said. "When I feel pain, so will you. When tragedy comes to me, you will feel grief. As my fear grows, so too will yours."

"You will be powerless to resist them," said the Collective.

"Your life will adapt to service mine," 7 of 9 said. "Your individuality will be lost. You will merely be a part of what I am. With each passing day you will be absorbed further and further, until you will realize that to exist without me would be impossible."

"You will become one with 7 of 9," the Collective said.

"No," came a dark voice. Luke turned, and there stood Vader. "No, Luke. Turn back from this path."

"He cannot," 7 of 9 said.

"Luke," Vader said, "I have followed this road, and you have seen where it ends."

"Irrelevant," 7 of 9 said.

"Luke, don't repeat my mistakes. Learn from them!"

"It is too late now," 7 of 9 said. "You cannot turn away from me." Her expression changed and she began gasping for air.

"Seven?" Luke said with worry as she reached for her throat. "Father?" he asked turning to Vader.

"This must be done," Vader said, a hint of sorrow in his voice.

7 of 9 looked into Luke's face, and a little piece of him died. Even with all the hideous implants and equipment, with the grey skin and lifeless eyes, with everything he only ever associated with evil, he knew it was his Seven underneath it all, his Seven that was dying. "Father, release her!"

"I can't."

"Father, please!" Luke begged. "Please, you're hurting her!"

"I must do this," Vader insisted.

"Please, father," Luke pleaded with tears in his voice. "I need her! Don't take her away!"

"I'm sorry, Luke," Vader said with regret.

7 of 9 had dropped down onto her knee, her breath strained. Luke paced back and forth, unable to take his eyes off her, trembling in grief. "Stop it!!!" he screamed.

"It is the only way," Vader said. Luke looked at 7 of 9, then at his father. Luke's breathing was heavy, his face contorted in emotional anguish. "If she does not die, then you will be destroyed."

Luke screamed and tackled his father, knocking him to the ground. He began striking him madly on the front of his helmet, never ceasing in his cry. His real hand turned bloody, his bionic one sparked and sputtered, but he was unrelenting, until the mask shattered under the blow. He was about to strike again, when he saw the face underneath.

"Luke," Annika said, bits of the black mask still sitting on her face, "when the time comes, you have to be ready to let me go."

Luke sat there, panting, looking down into her face. He shook his head. "No," he said. "I'm a Jedi; I can protect you from anything."

"But not if it means destroying yourself," Annika said. "You're afraid to be alone?"

Luke swallowed, trying to hold his emotions in. "Yes," he said.

Annika's face looked grief-stricken. "Yet you'll leave me alone? Alone with the guilt that my love killed you?"

"I-" He covered his eyes with his bloody hand and a sob slipped out. "Yes," he croaked. "I'm sorry, Seven." He looked down at her-

"Sorrow is irrelevant," 7 of 9 said. "You have been assimilated. Resistance is futile."

Luke jerked a little as he awoke, causing Seven to withdraw for a moment. "You alright?" she asked with concern. She was surprised when he grabbed onto her and squeezed her tight. "Oo, I can get used to this," she said. After a few seconds, though, she asked, "Are you okay?"

"Seven," he said eventually, "we should probably discuss something. I'm not really experienced with this."

"You could've fooled me," she replied seductively.

"I mean, relationships," he said. "I'm not all that certain what to do."

"You're talking to someone who spent her teenage years in a vat of goo," she replied. "I'm new at this too. We'll just take it one step at a time."

"Okay," Luke said. "There's something you should know about me, because of the Force. I sometimes have visions."

"You mentioned that a little bit before," she said.

"Normally they're private things, but..." he hesitated. "If you're going to be part of my life, then this means it's a message for you as much as for me." He explained what had happened.

"Hm," Seven said. "Sounds like someone's a little afraid of commitment," she said playfully. She caught his look. "I'm just teasing, sweetie," she insisted. "You went into my brain; I know you're not afraid." Still, there was a little something under the surface, but he couldn't tell what it was. "Luke, it's just a dream."

"No," he insisted. "A Force vision isn't just a dream. There's a connection to reality. Before... before you went into the coma, I had a vision about you. I saw you turned into a statue, but you asked me to help you. You said 'Promise you won't give up on me,' and I made that promise. And it was as real to me as if I'd made it here."

"And you kept it," Seven said softly. "You not only brought me back from the coma, you made me a whole person again. I owe you everything."

"I just did what I had to," Luke said.

Seven shook her head. "I owe you everything," she said emphatically. "I have never felt more alive in my entire life," she said as she began kissing his chest. "And I swear I will make you as happy as a cybernetically-enhanced woman with encyclopedic knowledge of anatomy can make a man."

"That sounds pretty happy," Luke admitted, his voice a little hoarse.

"Mm, how do I love thee," she quoted, "let me count the ways...." She nibbled on his ear, then whispered. "I know seven thousand, eight hundred, nineteen." She giggled at the expression on his face. "Did you ever imagine that that girl you saw beating the living crap out of a Wookiee would volunteer to be your personal sexual slave?"

"Imagine? Well, it was pretty lonely on Vulcan..." Luke mused, and Seven cracked up.

"I suppose even before this change I must have seemed an extrovert compared to the Vulcan ladies." She kissed him one more time. "I've got to see Borui; I've put this off longer than I should."

"Think there'll be a problem?"

"Oh definitely," Seven said as she got up. "She'll see I'm completely unstable and probably confine me to quarters. I expect you to cut her down with your lightsaber."

"I couldn't have helped you without Borui," Luke commented as she went hunting about for her clothes.

"I'm just joking Luke," she said. "Quit taking everything so seriously."

"Just a habit," he said. "I'm used to you being so literal."

"Well, times have changed," she commented. "Anyway, after that I'm going to be on the holodeck exercising; I've got a lot of catching up to do. Aw damn," she said as she touched her hip. "Luke, is there an implant over there?"

Luke checked around a little and picked up the star-shaped device. He handed it over. "So that's what that was."

"Yeah," she said as she held it in her palm and concentrated. It seemed to melt into her skin. A few seconds later there was a small, muffled crunching sound as a new implant formed on her hip.

"Does that hurt?" he asked.

She shrugged. "It kind of cramps a little, but that's all."

"You don't resent... you know... having them?"

"Why should I?" Seven said. "I've had them for as long as I can remember; they're a part of who I am."

"Yes," Luke said. "But still, they're... Borg."

"Luke, when you brought the three of us together, I didn't just embrace my humanity, I embraced my Borg nature. 7 of 9 is as much a part of who I am as Annika was, and both just as much as Seven." She crawled back to him. "All three of us loved you," she whispered, "to varying degrees." She ran the back of her hand down his face. "Annika, who saw a good, gentle, giving man. 7 of 9, who saw a skilled champion and leader. And Seven, who saw someone who made her feel feminine."

"I'm- flattered," Luke got out.

"You should be," she said, then grinned. "But I'm Borg, Luke. Even if I wanted to I can't change that fact." Suddenly she became very sad.

"What is it?" he asked. She latched onto him and began crying; he wrapped his arms around her and tried his best to offer some comfort. "Seven?" he asked after a while. "Annika?"

She finally stopped, but when she looked into his face she was so visibly grief-stricken. "There's something you should know about me," she said. "A secret... a terrible secret... but if we're to have any kind of future together, you have the right to know." She took an audible breath. "I can never have children." And as the words came out she began weeping again.

"Oh, Seven," he said softly as he grabbed onto her and held her as tight as he could. "Seven, it's all right. I love you." He repeated it over and over to her.

"I'm so sorry, Luke," she said finally. "I- I realize this is so early in our relationship, but-" She tried to get a handle on herself. "I've found so much of my humanity... but that will always be beyond my reach. I'm obviously not ready now, but one day it's an experience I'd like to have... and I so wish it would be your child. To make life with you-" She started crying again.

"Seven," Luke said, "I can't begin to understand how you feel. But I want you to listen and understand-" She looked at him. "-I want to be with you," he said emphatically. "That's enough for me."

Seven bit her lip and shook her head. "What did I do to be blessed with someone like you?" She started kissing him again, and it became more passionate. The kiss broke as she pulled her uniform top off.

"I thought you said you had to exercise."

"I am," she said with heavy breaths, and kissed him again.

With a bright twist the starlines of hyperspace shortened and a planet quickly rushed towards the fleet. "All ships ready to engage," Thaneespi reported.

"Ahead full," Ackbar ordered, "Fire at will." Four Borg cubes hovered over the planet of Alion. Its heavy defenses kept them from penetrating its planetary shield, but the siege of the planet was starting to take its toll. There was more on the line here then just the planet, Ackbar knew; a solid victory against the Borg could go a long way towards strengthening the waning support of the Republic, and a defeat could be its death knell.

"The Borg have set up an interdiction field," Thaneespi reported.

"Always overconfident," he observed. His command ship, Home One, slid through space towards the Borg ships, flanked by ten smaller Star Cruiser, plus a host of corvettes and frigates and ten squadrons of fighters. The Borg were powerful, but even they couldn't resist such firepower.

The lead cube traveled towards the fleet and was pummeled with a rain of deadly turbolaser fire. The buffeting was so strong it actually slowed the ship down as it continued its approach, two more cubes coming up from behind. Despite their adaptation, the energy blasts ripped into the hull of the ship, leaving craters on its surface. The Cube fired a return shot of its own, tearing into a corvette. After a few seconds the reactor was pierced and the ship exploded, but not in vain; the barrage tore the lead cube to pieces. That wasn't the end of course, the larger portions of the Cube could still be dangerous, but two squadrons of B-Wings, their weapons able to damage the now unshielded portions of the ship, swept in to finish the job.

The two lead cubes now assaulted the ships with combined fire, causing damage to the systems of the Liberty. However, a hundred shots answered each of theirs, and the Cubes were destroyed. The Liberty turned slowly in space, the damage to its systems quite extensive, but it looked as if the ship would survive long enough to be towed to a repair facility. So far, things looked up for the fleet, and they closed the distance to the remaining Cube, which hung near the outer edge of the Alion planetary shield.

"Interdiction field still in place," Thaneespi reported.

"Stubborn 'till the end," Ackbar replied as they closed to point blank range with the Cube. From here the population should actually be able to see the battle, which could help their reputation even more. He didn't like having to fight with political motives, but he had little choice, given the circumstances.

Thrawn smiled in his office on board the Star Destroyer Vendetta. "Admiral," he said quietly, "I expected better of you. How you disappoint me."

"Admiral!" Captain Verrack reported, "Borg ships approaching from hyperspace."

"They've adapted their tactics," Ackbar muttered. Yes, Fey'lya, the Borg are tactically stupid. "Fire the DIT, I want to be ready to leave if we're overwhelmed."

The Data Interdictor Torpedo was based on the weapon used against the Death Star. While ineffective against the battlestation, its affect on the gravity well projectors of Interdictor-class ships was notable. It had become the latest weapon in the arms race of space combat. The torpedo arced from the ship and exploded a hundred meters from the Borg Cube, setting up a hyperspatial disturbance that fed through its projectors and caused a great deal of damage within the Borg Cube; it likely wouldn't survive the battle. Unfortunately for the Rebel Fleet, the Interdictor wasn't there to stop them from leaving, but to cause them far more difficult problems. Before the field collapsed the distortion was sufficient to cause the entire Borg fleet to stop just a few kilometers short of the fleet, leaving them surrounded; Borg ships on one side, the planet on the other.

The Republic, while surprised, were nonetheless prepared to fight against sudden enemy attacks. They barely slowed as they came about to engage these new vessels. Excluding fighters they were obviously outnumbered, but they had determination, experience, and a great deal of firepower. Immediately they began concentrating a wall of fire in the direction of the advancing Borg swarm, hoping to slow them down while the larger guns on the star cruisers did their work. The Borg once again seemed to ignore the damage they were taking, concentrating their weapons on the Independence, which nevertheless fought on against the Borg, even after its shields were battered down.

"Admiral," Thrawn said with a shake of his head, "You still don't seem to understand. The time for your rebellion," he spat the word, "is at an end."

Suddenly the green beams of the Borg stopped firing on the Independence. The brief pause in that particular engagement soon ended when a new weapon fired, a blue one.

"What are they doing?" Ackbar wondered aloud.

"Sir!" Verrack reported. "That's not an energy weapon; it's an ion beam!"

Before anyone could even think the report came in. "Independence is off-line; repeat, Independence is off-line."

"Increase power to the shields!" Ackbar ordered. "All vessels, shields at full."

They watched in mute horror as two cubes began slicing up the star cruiser. There was nothing that could be done for them; their only hope now was to try to blast their way past the blockading Borg ships. As one the ships formed together to barrage a single point of the Borg fleet. The Borg ships slowly began slipping out of the way as the ships began to race past the perimeter. Ackbar's scans noted several shuttles escaping the Independence, but his heart sank as he saw them snatched, one by one, by the tractor beams of the Borg. Nearby, three other ships that had succumb to the Borg weapons hung helplessly in space. Retreat was their only option for survival.

"Another interdiction field is in place," he was informed.

"Fire the DIT," he ordered. "Every ship is to go to hyperspace as soon as we clear the perimeter."

Again the torpedo slipped from the launcher towards the Borg ship, spinning towards its target. It exploded, just as before, the shockwave rippling through hyperspace.

The interdiction field remained.

"Admiral," Thaneespi reported with a sinking sound to his voice, "They've adapted."

Home One shook as the Borg concentrated their fire on the command ship. "All power to shields!" he ordered.

"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated...."

"Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own," Thrawn said. "Your culture will adapt to service us," he smiled, "Mr. Ackbar."

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