Seven of Nine - Christie Golden [26]
She reached to stroke her daughter's cheek with a bright-red, seven-fingered hand "Let us go, " was all Seven could find to say.
The world she had known was no more. The thriving urban center near her home in the hills was under attack, and even as the three of them watched, the entire city was dug up with the conqueror's weapons and rose high in the air above them, floating with an incongruous grace toward the gaping maw of the waiting alien vessel.
They hadn't even made it to the transport vessel when the attack came.
Dozens, perhaps hundreds of the enemy came out of the night to descend on the fleeing populace.
Rel, no warrior born, nonetheless fought to the death, taking one of the black-bodied, white-headed machine-beings with him. Oplik shrieked in horror at the sight of her mate's broken, bloody body lying on the purple grass. She was easy prey, gathered up into the arms of one of the obscenely evil intruders as if she weighed nothing at all.
Through it all, Seven remained oddly calm. She grieved, bitterly and with all her sculptor's sensitive soul, for her people, for her children, but for herself, she could find little to lament. She had had a full life, with a loving mate and children who were a daily joy.
She had sculpted all her life, and the only thing that caused her a moment's pain was the knowledge that her hands would never again caress simmik stone.
The one who claimed her was female, although only just. Young, still.
And monstrous. As the woman machine advanced purposefully on her, Druana demanded, "Who are you?"
"We are Borg." Arrogant, the voice and the eyes.
"No!" demanded Druana, turning the tables if only for a few seconds.
"Who are you? What is your name?"
The abomination slowed, halted. "We are Borg, " she repeated. "My designation is irrelevant." The Borg woman's eye-she had only one, bright blue and full of contempt-narrowed. She reached out for Druana and 84
"She can't take much more of this."
"You've got to stop it. You said the part of the brain that was overstimulated was the, what, the-" "Hippocampus, among other areas.
Lieutenant, don't you think if I could stop this I would?"
Someone could. Dimly, Seven knew it. The image of nine black birds flying in a circle plucked at her mind. Someone could stop this. When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing They had her strapped down, the harsh metal casing crumpling her beautiful feathers. She wasn't supposed to be awake, Seven knew that much, but she was, though her voice died in her throat. She couldn't move her head, but her eyes darted about wildly. In the... pod? ... beside her, she caught a glimpse of her beloved. Fresh terror flooded her. His left arm was gone, replaced by a black metal substitute. He had only one eye, the other socket was crammed with a twisted piece of machinery out of which a red light gleamed.
Sulmi!
Her heart ached for him, but he was no longer Sulmi, really, was he?
He had become- what did the Destroyers call themselves-become Borg.
She had heard the whispered tales, knew what the machine things did to those they captured, or, as they coldly referred to it, "assimilated " It had been done to Sulmi, and now, it was being done to her, Aman, First of six in her household.
She felt a sharp prick of pain as something was jabbed into her arm.
Then, as she watched, one of the
Borg-a female-stepped forward and cut off her arm.
"Seven? It's Neelix. They tell me you've been having a pretty rough time of it." A pause. The sound of fidgeting. An image: a short, rather stout being with puffs of whiskers and a friendly countenance.
Talaxian; Species 218. A man whose duties on the ship were many and varied.
"I thought I'd just pop in and tell you to hang on.
Nobody knows what's going on inside that pretty head of yours but let me tell you,