Chapter Three

"You’ve broken a bone in my lip, you foul temptress, with your wily smile and wicked frown..."

Species 644, Borg classification. The Fivan people, originally from Ramon VI. Humanoid, somewhat shorter that most Delta quadrant species but with exceptionally strong arms and legs. Their nocturnal ancestors had given them delicate skin accustomed to moonlight and huge, sensitive eyes. Entirely vegetarian, they survived on a diet of fruits and nuts which they themselves grew even after achieving warp technowledgy.

None of the information remaining from Seven’s Borg days mentioned anything about singing.

"I’ll never recover," the voice continued in a misshapen echo from beyond the wreckage blocking Seven’s path down the hallway, "nor love another, for you’ve broken the bone in my lip."

Seven lifted a piece of melted support beam and cast it aside. "When I suggested that we remain in verbal contact," she called through the six-inch hole she had managed to create, "this was not what I had in mind."

"That’s a song from my race, written in the days before space," the man, who had identified himself as First Officer Chae-Mi Fa’Chetsie, told her. "Lost love, that’s all they ever sang about."

"They were not alone in that respect," Seven noted. "Most cultures contain a preoccupation with failed romantic relationships, often centering around a particular body part."

"The lips are organs of fire," Fa’Chetsie agreed.

Seven checked the time. She had six minutes to free the commander, reestablish communication with Voyager, and beam out before Fa’Chetsie would run out of oxygen. Time was short, they melted scraps of the ship were heavy, and the last time she had called out to Ensign Kim, he had failed to respond. She would have gone to assist him immediately, if not for the sudden humming that had first alerted her to Fa’Chetsie’s presence.

Seven had set her flashlight on the floor, propped at an angle on it fold-out legs so that the light shone into the pile of metal debris. Every few minutes she pulled out her tricorder and checked the life sign on the other side. The further into the thicket of bent plates and burnt shards she went, the stronger the signal became.

Seven jerked her hand back as a sharp edge of metal sliced through her skin. She made a meaningless hiss of pain and Fa’Chetsie called, "Are you all right?"

"I have been damaged," she informed him, realizing that Ensign Kim had the only med-kit.

For the first time, she heard a hint of command in his voice. "Is it serious?"

"No, merely annoying."

The twisted lump of golden metal she had been fighting with fell free and clanged against the floor at her feet as she pressed her palms together. There was now a hole almost two feet high in the clog.

Turning, she grabbed the flashlight off the floor and shone it through the hole. "Where are you, Commander?"

"A console fell on top of me. To the left of the door."

Her Universal Translator paused before giving her the word "console," which explained why Seven wasn’t able to see anything resembling her idea of a console. Instead, she saw a metal arch almost as high as she was with strips of fabric and wires hanging off it, resting atop a silvery body. "Commander, can you move at all?"

A purple circle lifted a few inches off the ground and dropped. The Commander’s foot, perhaps?

"I’m going to climb through. Stay where you are."

Fa’Chetsie muttered something Seven didn’t catch but doubted she needed to hear. Bracing one foot on a pile of rubble, she swung the other through the empty space she had created. There was vicious pain in her shin and she rocked her weight back out of the hole. Using her light, she saw a razor sharp piece of metal sticking out of the other side of the pile. It was twisted so that she couldn’t help but hit it as she slid down the inner side.

"There’s a pole above your head," Fa’Chetsie said, his luminous gray eyes peering up from the floor. "If you grab it and swing over the debris, you can get through without impaling yourself."

"Thank you," she replied automatically, shining the flashlight up to look from herself. The pole wasn’t more than half an inch in diameter and covered in black ash. "I am not entirely certain that it will hold my weight."

She checked the time again. Three minutes left, no time to clear out another section of the blockage and hope for an easier crossing.

"I am coming through."

She braced herself again, crouched down, and sprung up. Her hands closed around the pole and she pulled her lower body through the hole. The flashlight beam swung wildly around the ceiling, leaving her ministrations blind.

She felt around beneath herself with one foot until she found the spike of metal. Directly to the right of it was what she thought was a clear spot of floor, but just as she was about to ask Fa’Chetsie to confirm, the ash mixed with the sweat on her palms and she lost her grip on the pole.

The drop to the floor was only two feet, and she absorbed it with one knee. The muscle on her inner thigh screamed in protest while she felt an intense, slick pain in her left side. Her wrist slammed against the exposed wall. Her own gasp filled the dead silent room as the flashlight died.

"Seven?" Fa’Chetsie asked.

She sank down against the pile of rubble she had just climbed through. The floor was wet, and in a moment her uniform was soaked with warm liquid. Or else she was bleeding, very badly. Or possibly both.

"Seven, are you all right?"

Trying to answer, sparks suddenly sprang up in front of her eyes. The flashlight’s casing had been crushed and the wiring was on fire. The hot metal was still snug against her skin, held in place with a cloth band.

She used a few words she had picked up from Torres tearing the thing off and throwing it into the darkness. Across the room, it hit something, which topped and fell from what sounded like a height of several feet. Her breathing was coming hard, accompanied by a vicious pain in her side, and she could feel the thick blood seeping into the water.

"Seven?" Fa’Chetsie asked finally.

"I have been injured."

She grimaced as she said it, as much from the physical pain as from the mental. Her pride didn’t take kindly to falls in the dark.

Pressing hard against the open wound in her side, she tried to clear her mind and take stock of the situation. She was definitely sitting in some sort of liquid, the ship was almost out of air, and her flashlight had been broken.

"Ensign Kim!" she shouted, but she doubted he could hear her. Her voice echoed in the room; it sounded smaller than she had originally thought.

Fa’Chetsie’s voice was now distinctly more in control than hers, although his breathing was becoming labored. "Are we running out of air?" he asked.

She went to check the time before remembering her flashlight. "I have a supply worth approximately twenty-five minutes."

"For one person?"

"Yes."

"What about the ship?"

"Life support is down. There was three minutes worth of oxygen remaining when I attempted to climb through the debris."

She leaned her head back against the wall and tried to slow her breathing. There was just no time-

"Can you walk?" Fa’Chetsie asked.

The pain digging into her lungs when she exhaled indicated damage to her ribcage. "I do not believe so."

Fa’Chetsie sighed. Or maybe he was fighting to breathe at all. "If you can crawl across the room to the opposite wall," he said, "you’ll find a weapons locker."

"I do not consider suicide a necessary measure at this point," she told him, slightly indignant. "I prefer to-"

Fa’Chetsie laughed haltingly. "I’m not suggesting we kill ourselves. But the wall with the locker in it is part of the ship’s hull. If you can blast through it, we can take out chances with the atmosphere of this planet."

Seven sat up a little straighter, her eyes automatically searching the darkness. What was it Harry had said about the planet earlier?

"It’s an M-class planet," she recalled finally. "There will be oxygen outside."

Fa’Chetsie wheezed, "I would appreciate oxygen."

She heard a small splash, and wondered if he had passed out. She wondered if he was currently drowning in whatever they were sitting in.

Concentrate, think, move, she told herself. Grimacing at the splitting pain, she hugged her left arm to her body and rocked slowly to her knees. The ache in her knee was minimal in comparison to the pinching in her chest every time she inhaled.

Splashing, through the warm water, she sloshed forward, ran into a wall, and changed direction. Another wall. When had she gotten turned around, and how was she supposed to find a weapons locker in this blackness?

She hissed in frustration. Think, think. What did she have that was light now that her wrist attachment was gone?

Nothing that was intended to work as a light, but she did have a tricorder. With fumbling hands she managed to get her waist pack open and the tricorder flipped on. Its readout glowed a soft green. The illumination was hardly anything, but Seven was at least able to make out the edges of fallen equiptment.

"Zeynep?" Fa’Chetsie moaned. He sounded less than half-conscious.

"I do not know Zeynep," Seven told him, "but I am attempting to reach the weapons locker."

"You found a light," he noticed.

"It is hardly sufficient," she said, "but as it is all I have left, it will have to do."

"I can see very well."

She was about to tell him that oxygen deprivation was known to cause hallucinations in some species when she remembered his race’s nocturnal origins and adapted eyes. "Can you tell where I am?"

"Yes, you’re about to crawl over Zeynep."

Stopping, she reached out and groped until her hand found a warm body. "Zeynep is a crew member?"

"She was."

Seven aimed the tricorder at her. "She is still alive, but in critical condition. There’s nothing I can do for her without a medical kit."

"The locker is ahead of you."

She propped Zeynep’s head against one outstretched arm to keep her face from submerging in the inch-deep water and kept crawling. By the dim light of the tricorder, she was able to make out a row of doors in the wall as she reached it.

She and Fa’Chetsie were both gasping for breathe. Seven knew she was using up her stored oxygen more quickly that way, but every time her lungs emptied pain tore through her chest.

"Which door?"

"To your left."

She jerked at the handle of the door he directed her to. It wouldn’t budge. "It’s locked."

"Do you see the lock?"

All she saw was a swinging arm that looked like a stopped pendelum. She described it to him and he said, "That’s it. Push it all the way to the left, then back a quarter to the right..."

It took three tires before the door would open, and by the time Seven was ready to crawl back across the room, Fa’Chetsie had passed out again.

She was beginning to feel an emotion she recognized: panic. The unstoppable desire to begin screaming and run. The screaming certainly wouldn’t help, not with her limited supply of oxygen, and there was no where to run, but the image stuck in her brain. It was strong enough to be distracting when she most needed to concentrate. The Fivan weapon was unfamiliar and she knew that even if she figured out how to work it, she was likely to shoot herself or one of the crew members instead of the wall. She knew that in all probability, she was going to die in this black box, and her only chance at survival was hampered by her own trembling hands.

Zeynep began moaning, a horrible, frantic sound. Seven backed up across the floor until she could run her tricorder over the figure and saw the woman’s eyes blinking rapidly. Her mouth opened and closed wide as if she were attempting to scream but the air was too thin. All that resulted was a thin whistling sound.

Seven pulled the elastic bands holding the oxygen mask over her head and pressed the soft plastic to Zeynep’s mouth. "My name is Seven of Nine," she said quickly, without thinking about it. "I’m from the Starship Voyager on a rescue mission to save you. Can you show me how to assemble this weapon so that I can get us out of here?"

Zeynep’s eyes closed and reopened a moment later. Her throat worked convulsively as she reached out for the slender disk Seven was holding. Fingers covered in blistering red burns attached the disk to a bar and several small power packs. "Hook to your arm," Zeynep whispered. Her words were scratchy, but she managed to indicate that the bar could be strapped to Seven’s arm and the disk to her palm.

Seven wrapped her free arm around Zeynep and dragged her across the floor, until they were both leaning on the far wall. Seven took back the oxygen mask for a few deep breaths before returning it to Zeynep, aimed the center of the disk at the wall of lockers, and fired.

The first shot did nothing but cause two locker doors to snap open. "Hold the button down," Zeynep whispered, sagging against Seven’s good side.

A streak of pure white fire tore across the room. The beam was as thick as Seven’s calf, emminating from the full breadth of the disk. Seven kept her thumb crammed down but found herself turning her face away and trying to shield herself with her other hand. The wall burst outward, metal melting and peeling back. Wiring that ran through the hull caught fire and the room was filled with a shock of cold air.

Seven didn’t realize she was screaming until Zeynep told her to shut up. "Stop it," she said again, clamping her hand over Seven’s mouth. The disk had burnt out and was smoking slightly.

Seven looked back at the spot where the wall had been. Now the remaining edges of it bent gracefully outward and thirty feet below the jagged metal edge of the ship, land covered in green grass six feet tall and trees with flat gray leaves was dotted with bits of smoldering hull. Water rushed across the floor and through the hole in the hull until it leveled off. Sunlight poured across the earth and into the room full-strength, so that Seven found herself covering her eyes again until they adjusted.

Zeynep was panting as she removed the oxygen mask. "Thank you," she said weakly, and pushed at a strand of thick aquamarine hair. She had the same huge gray eyes as all the Fivan’s, and when Seven looked closely she could make out the tiny, hinged bones in her lips that Fa’Chetsie had been singing about. She was bloody and bruised, and Seven knew from the tricorder readouts that she had received a sustained electrical shock from a bolt of lightening that had hit the ship while it was crashing through orbit.

"What is your rank aboard this ship?" Seven asked.

"I am Lieutenant Zeynep Arowshka. How many of my crewmates are alive?"

"I am uncertain. When last I checked, Commander Fa’Chetsie was still alive."

Arowshka glanced at the fallen form of her commanding officer. "Chae-Mi?" she called. "Wake up." She sighed. "I can’t get up to go over there and help him. Can you?"

Seven ran the tricorder over herself. She had lost a lot of blood, three ribs were broken and her right knee had been sprained. Additionally, she was going into shock and the water she was sitting in was actually radioactive sarrium. "No."

Arowshka sighed again. "How many of your people are on board?"

"Only three at last count, but they will each run out of stored oxygen within the next fifteen minutes."

"Can you send a distress call to your ship?"

"I have lost communication," Seven told her, and paused. She pried the comm-badge off her uniform and smacked it against the floor. "If we can break the casing on this, it will send out an automatic distress call."

Arowshka took one of the battery packs for the disk-lazer Seven had used before and smashed it against the comm-badge. The casing split three different ways, and Arowshka fell back against the wall. "Now what?" she asked.

Seven felt the room begin to blur. "Now we must wait," she said.