summary:

Unacceptable Losses by halfofone
Part 6:
Date added: 2000-10-31 Rating of this chapter: R

disclaimer:

TPTB are many. In a perfect world I would be one of them but it's not and I'm not. No infringement of copyright/trade marks or other intellectual property is intended. This story was written for fun and not profit.

warnings:

Warning: This story includes same sex relationships between women. If you are offended by this or it is illegal where you live or you are underage then please read no further.

Full warnings, credits and disclaimers can be found in the contents page and chapter 1.

text:

48 hours later

The greenish glow typical of a Borg vessel suffused the corridor on deck 10. Sweating in the high humidity and temperature B'Elanna followed Seven down to deflector control horribly aware of the sound of her own breathing and the drum of her heartbeats. Hard as she tried she couldn't seem to control the noise. Seven crouched at the corner of the corridor and peeked round. She sat back quickly and held up two fingers. Two they could manage.

B'Elanna gave Seven a nod and they both threw themselves around the corner. The two drones looked their way and started towards them. B'Elanna dropped to one knee, lifted her disruptor and fired once. The plasma bolt removed the lead Borg's head. She was about to fire on the other, when she saw the remains of a blue, science officer uniform jacket and recognised the drone as Lieutenant Dewer. One of the eighteen crew assimilated so far. She hesitated and the drone came nearer.

"It's one of ours Seven." Seven nodded and sidestepped the drone before delivering a crushing blow to the drone's head with the sledgehammer she was carrying. The drone dropped to its knees and Seven leant over it to disconnect the neural processor, deactivating the drone's connection to the collective. She attached a remote transporter device and the drone dematerialised.

"Good." said B'Elanna in a whisper. "Six down and twelve to go."

The door of deflector control slid open and the one-eyed red-eyed glow of at least six drones was visible in the gloom. Not liking the odds B'Elanna tapped Seven on the shoulder and they backed away. B'Elanna was unwilling to shoot for fear of killing any erstwhile colleagues. Two more Borg emerged from the corridor on their right.

"Run" yelled the Captain her voice echoing in the creepy quietness. They turned and sprinted along the darkened corridor. Turning the corner and opening a maintenance access hatch, they crawled inside and slammed the hatch-door shut. B'Elanna threw the lock.

"Seven quick. Up into the ventilation crawl-way." Seven flipped open a trap door above their heads and hoisted herself up and then gave B'Elanna a hand, pulling her up bodily into the even smaller deck ventilation shaft. They crawled and wriggled on their bellies with painful rapidity towards a vertical upshaft fifty metres away and took refuge in the tiny, dusty workspace at the junction of the shafts.

"Think they can follow us here?" B'Elanna asked.

"Unlikely. Borg armour would not fit in these spaces. We should wait five minutes and then approach from a different angle. The drones will resume their tasks without any immediate threat. A direct assault against our superior forces has obviously been deemed futile. They are waiting for reinforcements."

B'Elanna sat back wearily against the wall. Her body sore from all the scrapes and bruises acquired in five hours of drone dodging.

"Well so far the day is not going well. I suppose the main plan was a success."

"The cube's warp engines were off line for twenty point four minutes. When the cube resumed its pursuit sensors indicated that the children could not be intercepted before their rendezvous with the mother ship."

"It's just a shame our engines went down as well. Kahless if it hadn't been for Tom and the 'Flyer we would have been caught completely. We would have had five hundred drones on board instead of twenty." The memory of the near miss was frightening even in retrospect.

"I am sorry the warp engines failed." Seven sounded miserable and was miserable. Failure was not something she could take lightly.

"Seven I didn't mean it like that. God knows how you kept Voyager flying at all in the last twenty-four hours. I couldn't have done any better." B'Elanna took her hand and tried to ignore the way their bodies were in contact in the tiny space which was really only large enough for one person. "And if you hadn't got them up again so quickly, we would have been a sitting duck." A long minute passed in silent hand holding and over-acute awareness.

"Seven I want to know why you backed out on me that night. Something must have been said or done?"

The ex-drone carefully detached her hand and apparently attempted to create some space between them by shrinking her six-foot frame against the far side of the work area.

She stared blankly at the wall opposite. "I was ashamed. I used you. My behaviour was not honourable."

"We used each other. I knew what I was doing Seven. You should have trusted me."

Seven of Nine stared even harder at the plain grey wall before saying in low choked tones. "There is more Captain." She stopped and bit her lip. "I accessed Captain Janeway's final message to me before you woke." Seven dropped her head in her hands. "She loved me B'Elanna and I had betrayed her with you."

B'Elanna felt her two Klingon hearts twist painfully in her chest. "Tell me what she said Seven?"

Seven accessed the memory and repeated the Captain's words verbatim. As she listened B'Elanna knew the Captain had not expected to die when she recorded this message. Even mediated through Seven's slightly stiff monotone, these were probably the most heartfelt words she had ever heard Janeway say. As though the dead captain was taking the opportunity to rehearse what she didn't dare say to Seven's face. Seven running out now made a whole lot of sense.

The ex-drone was struggling not to cry again and B'Elanna put her arm around the woman's shoulders and hugged her tightly. Seven buried her face in her Captain's shoulder. "I'm sorry - I made love to you and I loved her. How is this possible?"

"Damn" said the half-Klingon quietly as she gently stroked away the still falling tears from Seven's cheeks. "I can't deal with this now, we have to make a move but when this is over we talk."

B'Elanna withdrew her arm and returned to the business of surviving, forcing away the overwhelming emotions that loomed over her.

"We need to clear the two Borg from the comms area before we tackle the ones in deflector control" she said determinedly.

Seven raised her head and awkwardly wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

"Agreed Captain." Her voice was shaky and B'Elanna gently squeezed her shoulder.

"Come on, we still have friends to save."

They crawled through to the next juncture and exited the vent system into the main Jeffries tube and then back out onto deck 10.

Removing the two drones from the comms area turned out to be easier than expected as the Borg conveniently lined themselves up so a single plasma bolt took them both, but after that it became much more complicated and dangerous.

B'Elanna shuddered when she remembered just how close she had come to being assimilated. Seven with strength born of desperation had decapitated a drone at the precise moment it raised fully extended assimilation tubules to B'Elanna's neck. In thirty minutes they killed five drones and salvaged another crewman. The borrowed E'vha plasma disruptors made the killing easier as the Borg could not adapt their shielding although Voyager took a lot of collateral damage from stray blasts. Capturing ex-crewmates was much more risky than killing them.

"Neelix" B'Elanna whispered into her comm badge. "Deck 10 secure."

"Congratulations Captain. Only two more decks to go. Ayala and his team are entering deck 8 now. If you take 9 you should all be able to meet for tea. We count three Borg on deck 9 and two on deck 8."

"How many of our crew have we recovered Neelix?"

"You got seven and Ayala got five. We can confirm three dead Captain, so that leaves three more crewmen at most. The Doctor has his hands full operating on the survivors. We are keeping them sedated while he works through them."

B'Elanna and Seven made their way up to deck 9 and started to search for the three Borg. They found them assimilating the main phasers. With a jolt B'Elanna realised that all three were former members of her crew including Harry Kim.

Harry was a hero. He had sacrificed himself to allow Naomi Wildman and her mother to escape capture. In the opening minutes of the Borg assault he had thrown himself unarmed against several drones, fighting suicidally to give the Wildmans time to get to safety in the maintenance tunnels. B'Elanna remembered her cold despair after a tearful Sam Wildman reported his probable death or assimilation. Whatever had happened recently he had been her first friend from the Starfleet crew.

The three drones had observed their arrival and lurched stiff-legged towards them. B'Elanna called the retreat.

"Seven out of here. We can't do this alone. We need help or we will have to kill them." The two women ran for cover but surprisingly the drones seemed uninterested in pursuit and gave up after a few metres.

Her comm badge bleeped. "Captain", it was Neelix. "We have visitors. A transwarp conduit is opening half a light year from our position. Twenty minutes to intercept."

"Damn and damn again. Status Neelix!"

"Engines on-line, shields on-line, structural integrity 83 percent, phasers off-line, quantum torpedoes - 3 left. Ayala reports deck 8 cleared, he is on his way to meet you."

"Evasive manoeuvres Neelix. Try and keep Voyager out of the way. And tell Ayala to hurry but he is not to kill any of the drones. They're all ours."

Fifteen minutes and three close shaves later the lost drones were in sick bay being heavily sedated with enough tranquiliser to kill a horse as the EMH kept saying. It was hard to keep the drones under as their nanoprobes fought to remove the tranquilising agents from their Borg blood streams faster than the drips could feed more into their veins.

B'Elanna was back on her bridge and watching the rear view screen as the Borg cube steadily gained on the tired vessel. "Ideas anyone? Any convenient spatial anomalies, dark matter nebulas?"

"Sorry Captain. This is a peculiarly boring and empty bit of space" said Nicoletti.

"Okay Susan." Unconsciously B'Elanna rose to her feet. "All hands. Battle Stations. Prepare to engage the Borg. Is anyone else getting bored hearing me say that" she joked feebly but was pleased to see faint grins on the tired faces of her bridge crew.

"One minute to intercept Captain." reported the operations officer.

"Arm torpedoes and fire at propulsion section on my command. We may get lucky and hit something vital."

"They have got us in a tractor beam Captain."

"Cut warp engines Tom. Full power to shields, try and throw them off. Fire torpedoes."

"Torpedoes away" said Nicoletti. "Full impact. No real damage, sorry Captain."

"We've cut the tractor beam." Ayala yelled, overexcited. "No it's back."

B'Elanna sighed. This was not getting easier. "Okay we are down to the last resort people. Nicoletti reinforce the shields, keep them up as long as possible. Seven - when they drop their shields and try to board, transport our little present from the E'vha."

"They've dropped their shields Captain."

"Transporting E'vha bomb now." said Seven coolly.

"Big explosion in central area of cube Captain. It worked. The tractor beam has collapsed."

"Get us out of here Tom. Now!"

"Aye sir. Cube is pursuing. They're gaining. Hey they must be really pissed at us" he grumbled cheerfully. Voyager might be in mortal danger but flying her at the limits was what he did best and he could not help enjoying it.

"Captain there is a huge disturbance in subspace, bearing 3489, five hundred thousand kilometres" reported Nicoletti.

"Transwarp conduit?"

"No. Much bigger. The rift is two hundred thousand kilometres across."

"Head straight for it Lieutenant, there's nothing for us here. Forward view-screen."

A boiling cloud had appeared and even the hardened Voyager crew was awed by the sheer size.

Tom whooped loudly. "It's the cavalry" he shouted to the puzzlement of the rest of the bridge crew. "Our rescuers" he explained.

In the centre of the vast cloud sensors detected a ship. At ops Nicoletti was disturbed but didn't quite know how to break the news.

"Report Lieutenant" said B'Elanna.

"Sensors detect a single vessel moving towards us at warp ten. The configuration is E'vha. But Captain it is tiny, hardly bigger than a Starfleet shuttle. Perhaps there are more to follow" she added hopefully. "Time to intercept 58 seconds."

Behind the small vessel the rip in space closed and the fiery cloud dissipated along with the hope of rescue. A blast from Borg phaser cannon rocked Voyager and then another. The shields were losing strength with every hit.

Reasoning that two targets were better than one B'Elanna decided to keep heading for a rendezvous with the E'vha ship hoping that it was the first of many. She ignored the reports from her crew about the failing shields, the collapsing integrity field and willed her ship to extract every possible additional fraction of speed from its warp drive. As they reached the oncoming vessel, the E'vha flew straight past them towards the chasing Borg cube. The Borg fired at the new target and the little vessel's shields glowed red. The small ship returned fire. A solid stream of super-heated blue ion plasma bolts strafed the side of the cube. The bolts seemed to pass right through the cube separating it neatly into two wedges along the line of the plasma cut. For a brief moment in time the two wedges of the cube travelled together until one half exploded and knocked its fellow off the original trajectory in a violent and rapid spin. The E'vha fired a single torpedo at the remaining wedge. It disintegrated into a thousand pieces.

The E'vha ship threw itself into an exuberant and wholly unnecessary roll. Tom felt immediate kinship with the pilot. If only Starfleet rules permitted .... "See I was right it was the cavalry or at least the lone ranger."

"The E'vha ship is hailing us Captain" said a gleeful Nicoletti.

"On screen."

"Hi there." said a very large and very wrinkled grey adult E'vha. "Glad to see you are still in one piece. Sorry forgetting my manners here, my name is Jerry and this is Jeffers my co-pilot."

"Hi" said his companion and waved.

"B'Elanna Torres, Captain of Voyager. Thanks for the help. Very impressive." said B'Elanna amused by the informality of the E'vha.

"Our pleasure B'Elanna. Thanks for helping out our kids and for putting up with them. The little tykes are grounded for several lifetimes" replied the lead pilot.

"Well I don't think we'll be volunteering for babysitting again" she said bitterly thinking of her lost crewmen.

The two E'vha snorted noisily through their one metre long nasal appendages. "Thank you anyway B'Elanna Torres. We would like to offer some assistance. Our laws forbid us offering technology to less advanced species but we are transmitting to you the location of several useful wormholes. They won't take you all the way but they should cut your journey to about ten to twelve of your years. Well we've got to be gone, Good luck and great flying." The E'vha cut the transmission.

B'Elanna saw the look of elation on the crew faces and briefly she shared the same joy until she remembered the cost. She felt the full weight of her new responsibilities for the first time. She had made a decision that cost three crewmen their lives and left several others with permanent damage. She had the uncomfortable feeling that she was being rewarded for their sacrifice. Perhaps Harry had been right when he had expressed the opinion that the E'vha children would have been okay without Voyager putting herself at risk.

'Playing the knight in shining armour again Torres' she thought. 'I'll have to watch that compulsion. A captain can't afford it.'

"Wormhole data received Captain" said Nicoletti.

The E'vha vessel was speeding away at maximum warp, starting to glow. The glow rapidly expanded until it filled the view screen and then the small ship had vanished. The fiery inter-dimensional rift collapsed and vanished.

"Nice to have met you, nicer to see you go" muttered Nicoletti aloud. "Sorry Captain" she said flushing.

"Forget it Susan. You said it for all of us. Get us away from here Tom. Evasive pattern until we're sure there are no more Borg around. Susan, full sensor sweeps for any signs of the Borg, Astrometrics are to find a suitable, uninhabited, planet for rest and repairs. All section heads - full damage reports please. I'm going up to sickbay. Seven come with me."

B'Elanna was half way to the bridge doors when Seven spoke.

"I should return to engineering Captain" she said.

B'Elanna stopped and looked at her. The Borg was looking stubborn and B'Elanna didn't know whether to be pleased or irritated. Seven being difficult was normal and strangely that made B'Elanna cheerful. But she couldn't let Seven win.

"The Doc may need your help with the assimilated crewmen, engineering will cope without you for a little bit longer."

"As you wish Captain but I will speak to Carey first" said the ex-drone with customary arrogance.

B'Elanna stomped on her rising temper "Okay but I expect you in sickbay in ten minutes. Understood." The Captain hurried from the bridge before the bloody woman could argue any more.

"Understood Captain." said Seven looking after the Captain with something approaching a smile.