A cold and snowy winter had always been Arys’ favourite time of the year. Outside of the window, tall pine trees rose out of the earth to brush the sky, their branches heavy with the silvery-white crystals that had settled over the landscape like a comforting blanket, allowing it to sink into a peaceful slumber until this season was over. 

Inside, the air carried a faint melody with it, rising and falling like distant waves, soothing and mysterious like an ancient lullaby. From a mug standing on a small table beside her, wisps of cinnamon-scented steam curled up and mingled with the scent emanating from the lit fireplace, whose softly dancing flames warmed the room, and cast a soft glow across honey-coloured walls and hardwood floors. 

Arys sank into her wingback chair, feeling the supple fabric against her skin, and enjoying the cozy, enclosed feel while her fingers brushed over the book she had chosen as her companion for the night, and every night before and after this one. 

She gently traced the worn and familiar cover, perhaps unsuited for such modern times, but chosen for a reason. It housed her own writings, of what was, and what could have been, intertwining in a fairytale meant for only for her eyes, waiting to be read and re-read over and over again. 

There was comfort in anticipating what came next. In knowing it was safe and good. And as she read, time lost its meaning.

Arys frowned. Over the sound of the crackling fireplace and the slow turning of pages was … something, growing in intensity like a whisper pulled into a scream. She clutched the chair’s fabric as if she could anchor herself there, hold on, stay in this place just a little bit longer, resist the force that tried to rip her out of her sanctuary. To keep her chosen reality from unraveling. 

But it didn’t work. It never worked.

“Move!”, the gruff voice that eventually forced Arys back into reality shouted, and back on the cold floor of her cell, she wrapped the loose fitting jacket tightly around her, as if it could offer some sort of protection. It had been dark for too long – hours, or days, she couldn’t say – but that darkness had been almost kind in comparison to the dim light that now filled every inch of her prison, making her unable to hide. 

She still shrunk back into a corner, only to be pulled to her feet by the man who had come to take her. His fingers pressed painfully into her arm, then released enough not to hurt her, as if he just remembered that those were considered assets. But he didn’t let go enough to allow her an escape. As if there was a way for her to get out of here. Arys had tried. Several times. And every time, her captors had lost a little more of their already fragile patience with her refusal to comply. Eventually, they had found ways to make sure that she did. 

Not daring to look at the man, Arys kept her gaze fixed on the floor as he lead the way out of the cell, and through a narrow corridor. Through closed doors, she could hear the pleading cries of other prisoners, begging for mercy, asking to be rescued. Newcomers, clearly. Those here long enough had long stopped pleading to be set free. 

A short few moments later, the corridor made way to a large room with harsh, sterile lighting, and under the watchful eye of several guards standing near the entrance, just in case a patient turned out to be more resistant than anticipated. There was another man there. The Head of the Snake, the leader of this operation. Well-dressed and soft-spoken. Not cruelly delighting in pain like some of his crew, but business-oriented and cold. 

Arys’ team was waiting for her. Men and women whose faces had seemed to blur whenever Arys had tried to take a closer look at them, and who she didn’t know beyond the surgical suite despite having been working with them for weeks now. In the beginning, she had wondered if they were here voluntarily, or if they too were prisoners, forced into a gruesome perversion of their chosen profession. If they were returned to their cells, or if they had personal quarters. What they told themselves to justify what they did.

But over the weeks, the initial curiosity had dissipated. 

Instead, she had started to give them the names and faces of people she had previously worked with. Wyn Foster, Ivin Zumagi, Sheila Bailey. Friends, colleagues, competition. 

Now free of her guard’s vice-like grip, she took a step forward, looking at the woman on the operating table, though making sure not to look too closely. Never too closely.

Instead, she focussed on the medically relevant things – vital signs, location of implants, injuries sustained during the capture. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder who she had been before being added to the Collective, and who she had become after being freed. 

“Get started.”, someone barked, and Arys brushed a tired curl out of her face before reached for her equipment. 

Her mind was numb, fleeing reality once more, imagining herself in sickbay, with an injured crew member in her care, and telling itself that this time, the outcome would be positive. Her hands were trained to perform the procedure with flawless accuracy. She had plenty of practice, and she had busied herself with perfecting her method. 

The superficial implants were easy to deal with, and from what she had learned, most of the affected had them removed, as if that could silence the memory of what had happened to them. 

Back in her old life, after a stressful surgery, one of her assistants would have a hot cup of Gelat waiting for her. And Lukin would have dinner cooked. 

She moved on to the ocular implant. Her scalpel traced the edge of the eye socket, and she made precise, practiced cuts to separate the circuitry from the optic nerve. The process was excruciatingly slow; slower than it had to be, as she carefully detached the mechanical parts, which were promptly collected to be sanitised and handed over.

She had complained about all the administrative work, and about not being to follow her surgical passions any longer. Now, what wouldn’t she give for a boring desk job.

From the neck down, she worked through embedded devices that regulated the respiratory and circulatory systems. She exposed the rib cage, her hands slipping beneath to detach bioengineered ribs, carefully pulling them free, sealing the wound each extraction left behind.  

One by one, she disconnected these conduits, monitoring vital signs. 

“Enough”, she said, unused to the sound of her own voice. She usually didn’t speak. The people around her paused their work in hesitation. 

“There are implants left.”, said the Head of the Snake. One of the guards stepped closer. 

“I know, but we retrieved most of them. We can stop now, and-… “

“All of them. Or do you want to return to your cell and have the others continue the procedure?”, the Head asked calmly. Arys knew what he implied. This would continue until every last implant was retrieved, whether she complied or not. 

Arys closed her eyes, surprised at the tears that threatened to spill over. This was how they had gotten her to agree to doing the extractions in the first place. When she had been brought here, of course she had refused. And when physical violence hadn’t yielded the expected results, they had turned to other methods.

They had made her watch inexperienced staff hacking away at a fully conscious patient. Again and again. 

Until they had told her that if she did what they had bought her for, she could at the elect to have her patient sedated.

She nodded slowly, and started with an incision just below the temple, carefully peeling back layers of flesh and muscle to reach the cranial implants where she carefully extracted each microchip lodged in delicate neural tissue, her hand steady as she removed every piece of foreign machinery that had fused with the body. She could do this. She had the surgical skill, the training, and the practise for it. 

Finally, she reached the spinal implants. Arys’s hands shook as she exposed the spinal column, where Borg mechanisms had fused with nerves and vertebrae. One by one, she disconnected these conduits, but even with her precision, nerve fibres tore as the pieces of machinery resisted removal, clinging to their host with metallic stubbornness.

But the patient was alive. A fragile husk remained, breathing shallowly, barely clinging to life – but alive.

“It’s done.”, she whispered eventually, and the doctors stepped back. She forced herself to look up and face the Head of the Snake. “She can recover. There is no need to-…”

There was the slightest shake of his head, and the Orion guard sneered. He raised his disruptor, fired, and the patients vital signs vanished in an instant.

 Arys was left in the silence, blood on her hands, with the remnants of her perfected method that now seemed like a naive dream of the idealistic Starfleet Officer she had once been.

“Bring her to her cell to rest. We have more.”

Arys didn’t resist, following along obediently as she was led out of the surgical suite, humming the old seaman’s shanty her grandfather had taught her. For all those lost at sea.