The incision was precise. No deeper than necessary. The infant didn’t stir. Not yet.

  B’Elanna worked quickly, siphoning the thick, iridescent fluid from the child’s vascular system into the sterile containment canisters she had brought. The nanoprobe-rich serum pulsed sluggishly, heavier than human blood, metallic and alien. It clung to the instruments, to her gloves, to her conscience.

  She told herself it wasn’t alive. Not in the way that mattered. Not in the way that should stop her.

  The first container filled. She sealed it and moved to the second. A fresh dose of regenerative fluid, repurposed, redistributed, could keep the power cells online for days, maybe weeks. She could rehydrate the bio-neural gel packs. She could keep Voyager breathing.

  The ship would survive. The crew would live.

  She reached for the third canister when the infant twitched.

  Her fingers hesitated. A muscle reflex, she thought. A mechanical response to stimulus. But then the child's body jerked again, its tiny fingers curling, then flexing. The dull mechanical whir of its implants came to life, sluggish but present.

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  B’Elanna froze.

  The Borg infant’s optical sensor flickered online. Dull green light met her gaze, unfocused, distant, and then—understanding. Not the vacant automation of a drone. Something deeper. Something aware.

  Its lips parted. A sound, not quite a cry, barely a whisper. Its small body convulsed against the restraints. The incision gaped open, leaking more than fluid now. The canister in B’Elanna’s grip trembled.

  A hand landed on her wrist.

  She hadn’t seen it move.

  Tiny, pale fingers wrapped around her gloved hand. Weak, but insistent. The child's lips formed words, or the ghost of them. A signal not yet fully transmitted.

  “We… are… one.”

  The whisper slithered through the cargo bay’s silence, but the voice was not small. Not singular. Not the voice of an infant. It carried layers, echoes, voices stacked on voices, a chorus of the Collective—but not the Collective. Not as she had known it.

  This voice was something else.

  B’Elanna yanked her arm back, ripping free of the infant’s grip. The containment canister slipped from her grasp and shattered against the deck. The regenerative fluid spilled out, slithering in unnatural rivulets across the metal plating. She barely noticed.

  She was staring into the child’s eyes. Watching them shift, ripple, deepen.

  The whisper came again, lower, richer, less mechanical.

  “You have taken.”

  B’Elanna scrambled backward, knocking over a tray of surgical instruments. She clutched the discarded scalpel, heart hammering against her ribs.

  The child tilted its head.

  The whisper became a thousand.

  “Now, you will give.”