Chapter Text
Destiny
("Icheb 2") by jamelia 116
Star Date 54198.2
"Isn't the sea beautiful, today, Mezoti? Let's play Kadis-kot on the beach." Pink and yellow shells and shiny black pebbles. "We should replicate these. We don't want them to disappear when we walk through the arch!" Naomi is laughing. Mezoti smiles at her. Friends forever.
Seven calls out, "Time to regenerate."
"I'm ready. See, I've already cleaned up the Durotta game." Icheb holds out his hand, helps her up the platform steps.
Naomi is sitting on the edge of the platform, combing her red hair. "We have to get ready for the wedding, Mezoti. It's going to start any minute now. Get into your party outfit. We don't want to be late. Everyone will talk. It's a small ship."
There's the captain, talking to Tom and B'Elanna. They're dressed in their dress uniforms. "Nothing fancy," Icheb said; he approves. Everyone is smiling: the captain. Harry. Commander Chakotay. The Doctor is snapping away with his holoimager again. "Say cheese, everyone."
The Ambassador is there, too. He smiles at her. His grin is evil. She doesn't like it. She walks up to him. "I'm Norcadi, and they don't want me."
Skipping around Tom and B'Elanna in the mess hall with Naomi. They're all dressed up. "You're my best friend, Mezoti."
"Of course we're best friends. I'm your only friend who's a girl." Giggling, from both of them. Aimee is too little to be a best friend yet.
"Mezoti! Time to come home to regenerate." Seven's voice echoes in their cargo bay. The walls and ceilings are so far away, even with all the boxes in the way.
"Is it time?" Standing in her alcove dressed in her wedding party outfit. Such a happy day. Happyhappyhappy . . . happy?" But where is Icheb?
"Icheb! Seven! Where are you? I can't find you . . . "
:::Regeneration cycle is complete.:::
"No, not yet. It's not time yet." Mezoti mumbles. Her eyes open. The room is small and dark. Too small to be Borg Central. It's never completely dark in there. The regeneration alcoves spark green waves of power all the time -- except when the Haunt was released. When Neelix told them that story. Where is she now? She's here, on Wysanti. Not Voyager. Never again on Voyager. Never again in Cargo Bay Two. Borg Central.
Mezoti stepped out of her portable regeneration unit. Arebi had fastened it to one wall in her room when she arrived, so she would feel more comfortable in their home. Mazani's home. Arebi's home. Azan and Rebi's home. Now Mezoti's home. That's what he'd told her. This was her home now.
Why didn't she feel at home here?
She sighed. She was totally awake now. Her regeneration cycle was over. The computer voice had announced it, and she could feel the power rushing through what remained of her implants and her cortical array. Her room was so dark; it must still be night. She could lie on the bed in her room and rest until morning, like non-Borg people did, but she didn't want to. She must have rested that way in the past, but even after all this time, she still could not recall what her life had been like before she woke up on the cube with Second, Three and Four of Six, and Six of Six.
And First. She shouldn't forget him, even if he hadn't been strong enough or wise enough to know when Seven was telling him the truth about the Collective. The Collective didn't want them. The Queen had ordered them to terminate themselves, in a message they had been unable to read because they hadn't become fully Borg, and they didn't know Borg alphanumerics well enough to understand it. So they didn't terminate themselves. First had terminated himself, in a way by, refusing to listen to Seven's advice. He fought against accepting reality, not because he was obeying the Queen. To the end, he thought she would send someone to help them, but she didn't. He fought. He lost. He died.
The rest of them lived on because they'd believed Seven. They left the Children's Collective and their dying cube to join the Voyager Collective. They'd learned to live as individuals, even if regeneration still was easier if they stood up while doing it. That's the Borg way. Even though they're all individuals now, they still have that little bit of Borg in them and need to regenerate on a daily basis. Mezoti didn't need to spend as much time regenerating as Azan and Rebi. They'd been in their maturation chambers longer, so they needed more power to get them through each day.
But Mezoti, born of the Norcadi people and living now with the Wysanti, no longer was so much of a Borg that she needed to regenerate long. She often woke up early like this, after dream images made her remember that other place where she could still be living, if she'd chosen to stay there instead of coming here.
In the darkest hours of the night, she always thought about that choice. She'd made it, so she was here. It was too late to undo it, to choose again. Perhaps in time she would understand why she'd thought coming to Wysanti with Azan and Rebi would be better than staying on Voyager with Seven and Icheb.
When she woke up in the middle of the night, that was hard for her to do.
She stepped out of her alcove, through the doorway of her room, and down the corridor. The house was as silent as it always was in the middle of the night. No one else was awake. She wasn't a little baby like Aimee Gilmore. She could take care of herself in most ways now, even if she was only going to be nine years old in a few weeks. After regeneration, she often needed biological nutrition, too. Mezoti went into the kitchen and prepared a shake for herself in the family replicator. Nutritional Supplement Number Five, with chocolate sprinkles and whipped cream. Her favorite. And Seven's.
As she sipped her shake, she closed her eyes and pretended she was sitting at a table in the mess hall on Voyager. Tonight, she was sitting in front of the transparent aluminum windows. If she concentrated very hard, she could see the stars and nebulae streaming by the ship as it moved through the Delta Quadrant, headed towards the Federation's central world, Earth. She heard Naomi, Icheb, and Seven chatting over events of the day. At times like these, Mezoti always remembered the good things, like visiting the holodeck and going to Fair Haven or for a visit with Trevis and Flotter. She'd remember the aftermath of the play, when the entire "company" went to the mess hall to celebrate --even little Aimee in her miniature Lieutenant Torres uniform. She'd remember Neelix buzzing in the background, calling out to them and asking if they were sure they had enough snacks. "You've got to keep up your strength," he used to say. She missed Neelix fussing over them. She missed everything about Voyager.
The dangers of being on a ship no longer seemed so overwhelming. Maybe that was because Mazani and Arebi kept her safe here, but she didn't think it was the whole reason. "I let my fears overwhelm me. Me, Mezoti the Fearless. I let myself be talked into doing what the captain thought was the 'right thing' by Captain Janeway herself -- which was really the 'safe thing' -- instead of following my destiny and doing the 'brave thing.' I should have trusted in the captain, and Seven, and all the crew of Voyager to keep me safe." Mezoti understood things much better now. While life on a ship can be dangerous, regrets over a mistaken choice might last longer, maybe throughout an entire life. Which is more dangerous? To worry about what will happen on a ship flying through space, or to live with those who know nothing of what a Norcadi child who once had been Borg had experienced in her life -- and cared less? How did the danger from traveling through the stars compare to feelings of isolation and loneliness, in what was allegedly her own home?
When she'd finished her shake with chocolate sprinkles and whipped cream, she opened her eyes. The kitchen was dark. She hadn't needed to put on a light to make her middle of the night snack. She could do it automatically, as if she were still a drone who could do things because it had been programmed into her.
She liked this kitchen. It was a very nice room. This was a very nice house. She was living with very nice people -- well, the adults in the house were nice, anyway. Azan and Rebi were simply Azan and Rebi, her accidental brothers who cared for each other, but still didn't relate to other people very much, even to their biological grandparents. The twins didn't include her when they participated in their activities, in the way she understood brothers often did. The way Icheb always did.
When she still hadn't stopped crying several days after Voyager left orbit, Mazani and Arebi brought her to their physician. Voyager's EMH had sent her records and instructions on how to treat patients who were or had been Borg. The physician identified one part, the emotional inhibitor chip, which had not formed completely in Mezoti. It was "misfiring," she said, and she removed it. The Doctor recommended that should be done with any implant which was not working properly, as long as removing it didn't compromise overall functioning. Her cortical node was otherwise intact; Mezoti could still overhear the twins when they spoke subvocally to each other, thinking no one else could hear them. When they were up to mischief, they never seemed to understand why Arebi and Mazani caught them at it almost every time. How smart were they, if they couldn't figure out Mezoti was the one who told the grandparents what Azan and Rebi were planning? Hadn't she tattled on them to Seven often enough on Voyager? Really!
She couldn't say she felt much different than she did on Voyager when it came to feelings, but maybe that problem chip made the bad sensations worse. Two tears fell down her cheeks, one from each eye. "One for Seven, and one for Icheb. I was afraid I was making a mistake by the time I was leaving the ship, but I was too afraid to disappoint Mazani and Arebi. I didn't want to change my mind at the last minute, after I told them I'd come to them. I thought I would adapt. Now I'll be sorry I wasn't brave enough to admit I was wrong for the rest of my life."
A little light shone through the kitchen window now. Soon it would be morning. Mezoti placed her glass in the recycler before going to the doorway and looking out back, to the woods behind the house. Darkness was giving way to the outlines of tree trunks and branches, heavy with fresh new leaves. A few birds began to chirp hesitantly, as if they weren't sure it was quite time to sing yet. Soon a whole chorus would greet the dawn in joyful song. The misty air carried the odors of soil and springtime vegetation to her knife blade of a nose. In moments like this, Mezoti recognized this was a beautiful place to live.
So why did she wish she could smell a whiff of machine lubricant in that air, along with a hint of the ozone that always wafted out of the big regeneration units on the platform, barely perceptible to most noses, but not to hers? She missed feeling the faint vibration of the life support and propulsion systems beneath her feet.
As lovely as early morning on Wysanti could be, Mezoti would rather be looking out at stacks of empty storage boxes and containers filled with raw materials away teams brought into the ship, which would be fabricated into useful items without needing to use much of the power Voyager's crew always had to conserve, and towards the crates on the opposite wall containing the non-perishable foods Neelix always liked to store in his "supplemental pantry" in Cargo Bay Two.
Borg Central.
Home.
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