The BLTS Archive - Raindrops in Hell
by Jeanita Danzik

---

Hi all.  This is specifically done in response to Alara's call for
more Seven stories.  I had no intention of writing it, but there it
was, sitting on my screen one sleepless night.  Thank Killa for the
ending. She told me what was wrong, and I flat-out stole her reshaping
of it. Thank you, Killa.  Alara caught a glitch here and there.  Thank
you, too.

There's no violence, and only a little bit of sex.  Paramount owns the
character Seven, the universe in which she exists, and the ship on
which she travels.  Wing is mine.

---

Trang Wing's people had been farmers since forever.  Even when they'd
moved out into space, they hadn't gone as explorers, traders or
adventurers.  They'd gone to their new home with computers and
elaborate communications equipment, but they'd also brought hoes and
axes, seed, oxen and plows, willing to endure hard, even gruelling
work in order to make the lush Mai Lin farm land come to fruition.
They had not, however, been willing to suffer Cardassian interference
on their lovely new planet, and Wing and her younger brother Lao had
joined the resistance and returned to space, this time to fight.  It
had been a necessary move, but a bad one.  Lao died when Voyager had
chased them into the badlands.  Now Wing was stranded seventy
lightyears from home, all alone out in the delta quadrant.

She'd been enraged at Janeway for destroying their one chance to get
home, and then she'd been absolutely demoralized by what she felt was
Chakotay's easy betrayal.  Wing had been ready to fight, room by room
if necessary, to take over Voyager's operation.  She'd waited for news
of the mutiny which Seska tried to foment and which must surely come.
She was more than ready to join it when it occurred.

But nothing like that happened.  By degrees the Maquis were
assimilating, becoming indistinguishable from the Voyager crew. Wing
didn't like it, but she could see the logic of it. There were barely
enough of them, Maquis and Starfleet together, to keep Voyager
running.  Wing, a weapon's specialist in the Maquis, was now an
engineering technician, and she was crosstraining as a structural
support tech.  There were enough unfilled jobs to keep almost everyone
busy doing extra work, and Wing always pitched in willingly enough
because it was something to fill the hours.  When she wasn't working,
she stayed in her quarters, feeling depressed and sorry for herself.
She spent a great deal of time fantasizing about ways to get back at
Chakotay, who she now hated.  Sometimes her violent fantasies included
B'Elanna as well.  How could she laugh and joke with Captain Pig, the
woman who had hunted them down and was responsible for stranding them
here?  How could B'Elanna work for her so willingly?  Wing hated the
captain for being a running dog for the Federation politicians who
betrayed them, but it wasn't a personal hatred like with Chakotay and
B'Elanna.  Still it was strong enough that she asked to be permanently
assigned to gamma shift so she would see as little of the unholy
trinity as possible.

That was how the years had passed for her since they had been
stranded.  She missed her brother, but she did not go out of her way
to make friends.  She was xenophobic enough that she would have
ignored the new species they'd discovered had it not been for their
overtures of kindness.  The Talaxian reminded her of her little
brother's pony, but at New Years he made rice with pork, and she'd
nearly cried with happiness.  The woman Kes had raised peppers for
her, eventually showing her how to set up a tiny hydroponic garden in
her quarters.  Wing was grateful for the consideration and regretted
the fact that Kes was gone because now she would never be able to pay
her back for her generous gesture.  Still, the woman who had come to
replace her was interesting in lurid sort of way.  She, too, had been
stripped of her family connections, and was all alone here.  Wing
could recognize the shock and disorientation in her eyes though she
didn't think anyone else saw it.  Sometimes Wing caught her roaming
engineering at odd hours and so had a chance to observe her.  She was
exotic to Wing, the way all fair- skinned humans were, with pale,
reddish hair and light eyes that were tilted at a strange angle.  She
had broad shoulders and breasts that looked cumbersome, and she asked
questions of Wing that a prudent person would not have answered.

"Are you always this sociable," Wing teased her mildly.  "I mean, if
you're going to pump me for information on how to sabotage Voyager's
weapons systems you could at least ask my name first."

"I have given you no reason to believe my inquiries will lead to
sabotage," the woman said.

Wing simply looked at her.  It was obvious that she had not had much
practice lying.  Nor did she have anything in the way of biofeedback
training.  Not only did her light skin turn bright red, but she
commented on the fact, telling Wing that she sensed heat in her
extremities.  "Are you causing this phenomenon?" She demanded.

Wing smiled.  "They tell me your name is Seven."

"Seven is my designation."

"Your name," Wing corrected.

"My.  Name."  Seven looked distracted for a moment.  Wing could almost
hear her calling herself Seven of Nine, then carefully modifying that
to present the name she'd been given in this new milieu.  Wing felt
curdling resentment on behalf of Seven's obvious estrangement.  She
and Chakotay had discussed this once, long ago.  He, too, had
ancestors named Ed, Bill and Mary, and he, too, had been taught as a
child that reclaiming naming conventions from his culture of origin
was a good and necessary part of his history. Like Wing, he wore his
name as an integral part of his identity. Her aunt, an Earth human
who'd come from the nation-state of Malaysia was called Pradawi, which
simply meant first girl.  To Wing, naming children by birth order was
not unusual, and for a moment her bitter homesickness asserted itself,
causing her to lash out.

"You should have let them name you Kizzy.  Or Queenie.  Or better yet,
you should have asked them to give you a good Christian name."

"Why would I wish to do such a thing?"

"So they'll know they've tamed you."  Wing heard herself get vicious
but didn't stop.  "Tell me.  What's it like to be alone among
strangers now?  Do you miss your home?  Do you miss all the other Borg
talking to you, letting you feel like you know who you are and where
you belong?"

"I cannot feel them now."  Seven looked grief-stricken.  It was a
curiously pure expression.  Nothing of artifice or anger showed in the
sudden misery which suffused her features.  There was surprise though,
as if the fact of her aloneness had not quite sunk in.

Wing stopped being unfair.  "Never mind.  Seriously though.  The only
reason anybody would ask those questions about weapons conduits is if
they were looking for a way to disable them.  And it's not my job to
tell you how our systems work."

Seven turned away.

"But I will if you really want to know."  Wing was curious enough
about Seven to want keep her around a little bit longer.  "I'm on
break in about an hour.  If you come back I'll explain them to you,
but I'll have to tell the watch commander what we discussed."

"This is acceptable."  Seven walked away, but in exactly one hour she
was back.  Wing turned her console to standby and went to the tiny
messroom off engineering.  She ordered a meal and sat down while Seven
watched her.

"Sorry."  No matter how sourly unhappy she was, she wouldn't eat
without offering to share her food.  "Would you care for some?"

"I am regenerated from my storage alcove."

"Suit yourself."  Wing picked up her chopsticks and tucked in.  Noodle
salad with shrimp, of course.  Her favorite.  And parsley grown in her
little hydroponic garden.

Seven watched her.  "This is the way humans acquire energy," she
asserted.

"Eating," Wing offered helpfully.

"Inefficient," Seven judged.

"Try it."  Wing would not have insisted but she felt uncomfortable
eating while Seven watched.  She got up and ordered another bowl of
salad and some chopsticks and laid them in front of Seven.  It was a
dismally unsuccessful endeavor.  Seven could not use the chopsticks.
Seven had to pick apart every component of the salad and ask what it
was before she put it in her mouth.  Seven spilled food on her
clothes.  Later, they would try again and Wing would learn to leave
out the peppers, but this first time they gave up before Seven made
too big a mess.

"Try this," Wing offered.  She set a bowl of vanilla pudding in front
of Seven and showed her how to use the spoon.  Seven got the pudding
up to her mouth, swallowed, then looked up in surprise.

"I know this substance."

"Everyone does."

Seven ate some more.

Seven smiled.

Again Wing was struck by the innocence of her expression.  She was
sure Seven had never smiled before in her life, but her face reflected
a child's pure enjoyment.  It was gone a moment later, but the
impression of unmolded innocence remained.

Wing got an idea.

When they were finished eating she regaled Seven with the Maquis
recruiting speech.  It fit Seven's situation with very few
modifications.  Seven knew all about forcible relocation, about having
to be subject to rules that didn't fit her culture or expectations,
about longing for home yet being unable to return.  "And I know you're
looking for a way out or you wouldn't be asking me how to fry the
weapons conduits."

"Which I notice you have not told me about."

"What's your hurry?"  Wing pushed herself away from the table, stood
up and walked away.  "And by the way," she paused in the doorway.
"I'm sure you can think of several tactical disadvantages to repeating
this conversation."

---

Late that morning, lying in bed, Wing asked herself why she'd been
such a fool.  As far as mutineers went, she and Seven could hardly
become a force to be reckoned with.  She wasn't even sure she liked
Seven, and she certainly didn't trust her, so why try to seduce her
into resistance?  The answer was ugly, but it made Wing feel good.
She wanted to know there was at least one other person who thought
like she did.  She would, if she could, make sure Janeway didn't
acquire another willing minion.  She wanted to turn Seven into someone
who, if not actively critical of the Captain, would, at least, resist
fawning over her.  Someone who wouldn't turn into another Chakotay.

'Your hate makes you stupid,' she told herself.  She could end up in
the brig.

But then she thought, 'Not if I play my cards right.'  She'd heard of
several people in Starfleet who used their insider positions to gain
advantages for the Maquis.  Saboteurs, spies, informants, they played
a double game, stealing information and resources to help the cause
they really believed in.  And she'd sworn no oath to these people.
She owed them nothing.  She would foster Seven's alienation and so
foment her own.

---

The next morning, Wing invited Seven back to her quarters when her
shift was over.  Having decided that she would supplant whatever
brainwashing Pig Janeway would offer, she set about methodically
showing Seven how to hate her enemies.

In her cabin, she showed Seven pictures of her brothers and sisters,
her parents, the farm.  She asked Seven what she did now that she
could no longer receive instructions from her people.  She gave Seven
more pudding.

They never did get around to talking about sabotaging the weapons
conduits.  Sometime late that morning, Seven confessed that she didn't
understand why she felt so empty here aboard Voyager.  Wing looked
down at the pudding bowl that Seven had practically licked clean.  A
chill ran over her as she realized what Seven meant.

"I know exactly what you're talking about, Seven," she answered, "and
I think I know what to do about it."

She took Seven by the hand and led her back to the sleeping
compartment.  Then she pulled Seven down to the bed.  "Let me show you
how to make that feeling go away," she said.

---

As she prepared for sleep early that afternoon, Wing thought she
should feel victory, triumph, or at least mastery.  Instead she felt
confused.  She could not have asked for a more perfect seduction.
Seven had been putty in her hands.  Her lips tasted of vanilla.  Her
hands had imitated the movements of Wing's hands; soft here, strong
there, exciting, crazy and wild.  Later, when they'd stepped out of
the shower, they'd looked at one another in the mirror.

"You are correct, Wing."  Seven's voice was harsh even though her eyes
were soft.  "This..." she touched Wing's shoulder, "makes the
emptiness stop."

Wing stared at their reflections.  They were both small, shorthaired
and wiry, and they both had faces that didn't usually wear soft
expressions, yet the mirror showed tenderness now, and affection.  It
was happening too easily, and Wing suddenly felt apprehensive and
uncertain.  Nonetheless she smiled at Seven.  "I told you it would."

---

Early the next morning, Seven came into engineering again.  Wing was
surprised at how shy she sounded as she asked Seven how she was
feeling.

"Empty," Seven answered.

Wing was a little put off by the cryptic reply until she realized what
Seven was saying.  She smiled.

Slowly, cautiously, Seven smiled back.

Wing and Seven established a routine.  At 3:30 in the morning Seven
would come to the empty engineering section where Wing worked.  Wing
would take her meal break and they would sit together as Wing ate and
Seven sampled the textures and sensations of the variety of organic
nutrients Wing ingested.

Then Seven left and Wing went back to work.  When Wing's shift ended,
she went to her quarters and headed straight back to her bed.  Seven's
body was a compact lump under the blankets, and Wing would simply
watch her for a moment or two before going off to take her shower.

Seven turned over when Wing called her name, then she would sit up and
watch as Wing approached.  Wing always waited for the smile to form,
for the eyes to light up.  Only then would she crawl across the bed,
take Seven in her arms and fight loneliness for a few hours until it
was time for Seven to leave.

'I'm crazy,' she told herself.  'This can't be happening.  I can't
become attached to this Borg, this half-human, half-machine thing.'

Namecalling availed her nothing.  Her original goal, to pull Seven
into the same miasma of anger and mistrust that she felt, had been
modified almost immediately.  Until she'd met Seven, she'd wanted
nothing except to skulk in her little corner of the ship and stew
about unfair lives and faithless commanders.  Now, naturally as
breathing, she'd taken Seven under her wing to teach her about the
appropriate outlook on life for a person under siege.  Wing listened
to herself sometimes and thought she must be the most pathetic person
that ever lived.  Or the most naive.  Seven the Borg was terrifying.
Seven the deborgified human was naive and fragile, for all her
knowledge.  She needed to hear what Wing had to say, even if Wing was
only talking because she was happy to finally have someone around to
listen.  Wing knew Seven was only there because she had no other
community, but as far as she was concerned, Seven was better than
nothing.

So she told Seven about Chakotay, how he'd become Janeway's pet
Maquis.  She warned Seven about falling into the same trap of needing
Janeway's approval so badly that she would abandon her very soul in
exchange for it.  "You are her experiment," she told Seven.  "Her
talisman for victory over your people.  Like a voodoo doll.  Do you
know that term?  As long as she can exert control over you it's like a
sympathetic mastery over the Borg at large.  For humans, symbols are
very potent."  She squirmed uncomfortably, her thoughts never very far
away from the topic of Federation oppression.  "That's why it hurt so
much to see Chakotay turn complacent like he did.  When I see him go
smiling up to her like a house slave it's such an overt symbol of his
subjugation that it makes all the other Maquis feel ashamed that we
trusted him."

She turned back to Seven.  "Don't let that happen to you, understand?"

"What must I do to prevent it?"

Wing hugged her.  "Maintain your sense of who you are.  Never give up
your identity, even though most people hate Borg."

"They fear us."

Wing nodded.  "With good reason," she added honestly.  "You are used
to being part of a collective, but what feels safe and familiar to you
terrifies the rest of us."

Seven pointed out that if the Maquis and the Federation were
assimilated, their quarrel would not exist.  "So your diversity can be
a vulnerability even though you claim it as an asset."

Wing rolled over to look Seven in the eye.  "Promise me this.  If your
people ever come to assimilate us, kill me."

"I do not wish to kill you."

"And I do not wish to live as a Borg."

Seven considered.  "If we... if the Borg ever take Voyager they will
come for me first.  I will be unable to circumvent the will of the
collective because it will be my will as well."

Wing nodded.  She tried to shrug off her fear, but the expression on
her face was telling.

Seven was silent so long that Wing began to fall asleep. When she
spoke again Wing had no idea what she was talking about. "The Cawd
implanted a device in their brains that killed them whenever we tried
to replace it with Borg implants."

"What?"

"They did not wish to be assimilated.  They offered alliance.  When we
refused, they implanted biochips into their corpus callosa.  They
activated when we attempted to remove them, stopping all electric
activity in the brain and internal organs, killing the host."

Wing was almost asleep when the point of that story woke her and she
sat straight up.  "Will you build me one?"

Seven did not answer.

Wing nudged her.  "Seven, my mother and father made me promise to
bring my brother back safely.  Now I can't even bring his body back
for burial.  If you do this for me it may mean that neither of their
children get home.  That's not something I take lightly.  I wouldn't
ask if it weren't very important to me."

"I will do as you request." Seven's voice was Borg harsh, a tone Wing
hadn't heard in several weeks.

"Thank you.  Seven, thank you very much."

---

More time passed and Wing's fears grew.  She'd had lovers here and
there when she'd been an active seditionist, but those relationships
had always been short-term--casual because they had to be.  This thing
with Seven was growing out of hand, and she would have desperately
liked some way to stop it.  Having a lover made her happy, and being
happy made her less and less able to hold a grudge against Chakotay,
or Janeway, or B'Elanna, or Voyager itself.  And if she didn't hate
them, then what was she?  How else had she defined herself these past
three years except as the sum of her resentments?  Sometimes she felt
frozen by her conflicting desires.  If she stopped being nice to
Seven, Seven would leave.  Which she wanted, but not really.

Wing tried to ignore her growing confusion.  The relationship was only
a few weeks old.  There was nothing to be afraid of. Or so she told
herself. Besides, Seven was learning to talk about herself and her
experiences, and Wing felt she should encourage her to open up even
though this, too, added to her frustration.

Seven told her that many people avoided her, and Wing grew angry on
her behalf.  When people made unpleasant remarks Seven ignored them,
but she came to Wing for explanations, especially when it came to
vulgar slang.  They discussed the fact that people felt discomfort in
her presence, and Wing couldn't help but try to console her by saying
that the Maquis and Starfleet people had experienced a similar tension
at first though now they mostly tolerated one another.

Seven told her that many people, even some of the same ones who were
rude to her, offered sexual liaisons.  Wing grew jealous, then more
desperate.  She didn't want this degree of intimacy.  Didn't need it,
because if truth be told, she'd accomplished her original goal and
then some.  It was time to back away, if only she could.

Seven now showed a distinct aversion to Janeway's attempts to
personally incorporate her more fully into the Voyager family.

She told Wing that Janeway had invited her to dinner in order to help
her learn about custom and appropriate behavior among humans.  "She
was surprised when I knew how to dine without making mistakes." She
turned to Wing, watching her silently for a moment, then added, "You
were right.  I believe she thinks of me as an exotic addition to her
collection of humans."

"That doesn't matter," Wing countered.  "As long as you don't see
yourself that way."

Seven had tried to describe the way Janeway's eyes had hardened above
her cup of coffee as she'd asked Seven who had shown her these things.

She tried to describe her resentment at Janeway's intrusive questions,
and the impulse to secrecy that made her answer indirectly.  She'd
pointed out the wealth of available data on human customs and habits
instead of responding truthfully that Wing had shown her what to do.

Wing listened and smiled.

Later, Seven told her that after she'd left Wing's quarters yesterday
she'd gone to an appointment with the doctor so that he could
disconnect more implants from her internal organs.  He had not
commented on her swollen, distended labia, nor had he observed that
the blood that had recently been pooled in her groin was now
dispersing itself evenly through her extremities.

Wing smiled again.  It was a joke, Seven-style, and it was actually
relatively amusing.

She pulled Seven close in a spontaneous gesture of affection.
"Sometimes I wish we could stay this way," she sighed happily.

Seven pulled away.  "You do?  I had anticipated no more than a
short-term liaison.  Perhaps I will reconsider this relationship in
terms of your desires."

"What-what-what do you mean?"  Wing stammered.  She wondered whether
she'd given herself away somehow, surprised by the notion that Seven
might have come to this conclusion on her own.

"I do not wish to damage your emotions," Seven retreated behind her
Borg-voice again, "but I have considered that this relationship will
eventually outlive its usefulness."

Wing did not answer.  Seven continued carefully, watching Wing's
expression.  "I have learned much from you, but you do not have
sufficient position or status.  Nor are you likely to acquire it in
the near future.  If my understanding of human behavior is correct, it
is preferable to mate with a person of high stature."

Wing was taken aback.  "B'Elanna?" She guessed.

"Janeway," Seven corrected.

"Do you love her?" Wing had to ask.  She was only slightly relieved
when Seven shook her head.

"I do not.  However, I have studied human hierarchical systems.  I
believe the rank and status conferred on the partner of the ship's
captain may at some point be useful."
"Janeway would probably be very careful about something like that."
Wing pointed out.

"She will try, but my research suggests that it is highly likely that
she will be unsuccessful in preventing it."

"You want to run Voyager,"  Wing realized.  Even through her relief,
disappointment and just plain astonishment, she was delighted at the
audacity of Seven's ambition.

"I do."

"Well, if you run us back to the Borg, just remember what I said about
wanting to be dead first."

Seven's expression softened.  "I do remember, Wing.  I brought you
this."  She reached over the to the nightstand and handed Wing a small
gray disk, no bigger than a pill.  "Eat this.  The biochip inside it
will lodge in your brain.  If it ever encounters Borg technology it
will instantly kill you.  Is this what you wanted?"

Wing took the gift, and swallowed it gratefully.

"You are my friend."  Seven had a way of asking questions that made
them sound like statements of fact.

"Yes," Wing answered.

"You have considered the tactical disadvantages of repeating this
conversation and will not discuss what I have told you with anyone
else."  This time she sounded somewhat threatening, and Wing nodded
again out of self-preservation.

"You will continue our friendship?  Perhaps even expand it at a future
date?"

"Yes." Wing agreed.

"I wish to leave, now," Seven said.

Wing let her go, then stood in the middle of the floor for a long
time, wondering just what she'd unleashed on her unsuspecting
crewmates.  She already missed Seven, noticing distantly that her
absence created a strange, anticipatory longing.  It wasn't that she
wanted Seven back... or, it wasn't only that.  It wasn't
rivalry--Seven didn't have a prayer with Janeway, something she would
eventually learn for herself.  It was more that something about
Seven's charmingly misapplied ambition awakened the same thing in her,
reminding her of what she'd been, and what she could be again.

'And I'm safe,' Wing exulted.  'She saw to it that I'm protected from
the one thing I was most afraid of.'

Hope poured through Wing like a drug.  Who would be fool enough not to
exploit an advantage like this one?  Primed to hostility courtesy of
Wing's secret indoctrination, unwilling to completely let Wing go, and
too much Borg to give up dreams of conquest and assimilation, Seven
might well prove to be the catalyst for a future that was very
different from these last three lonely years.  An ambitious
revolutionary could use a friend like Seven, and hadn't Wing just
demonstrated that she knew how to exploit circumstance?  Perhaps she
could do it again.

All she had to do was wait.

--

The End