Long flashes of yellow and blue raced beneath the crystal surface of the long pond that snaked through the glass walled office. Beyond the expansive windows the thundering rain continued to fall across misty hillsides that fell away into the crooked valley, its thrumming impacts on the glass humming through the room as Brynn stood over the fire place, stirring the dying coals. Rana explored barefoot, her hands running across the spines of triangular books on the tall shelves that lined the rear wall, the rough binding of the indecipherable titles rubbing against her skin. As a crack of lighting arced across the alien red sky, dark leathers and deep ebony woods were briefly illuminated, as were the stuffed heads of exotic creatures mounted high in the eaves.

“I’m not sure what you’re suggesting Brynn.” Rana mused, her hand alighting on a particularly bright cover, it’s spine notated in an unfamiliar handwritten scrawl. She lifted the small book from its haven amongst the other tomes and its triangular pages fell open in her hands. “You want me to run away with you?”

“I’m offering you a real family again.” The man was still focused on the dying fire, a long brass poker in his hand. 

“But the cost is my life with Starfleet?” She turned the book round in her hands as she prized open secret folds in the paper, the expertly written text curving and twisting in tight geometric arcs that met with other lines of text and fell into further concentric arcs. “What did you say this was?” She didn’t indicate the book, he knew what she was asking without her specifying. She could feel him hovering at the edge of her mind, wordlessly comprehending her train of thought. 

“Amarantian.” Brynn did not look up from the mantle piece where he lent his head against a raised arm. “A small planet, barely space-faring at the edge of the Delta Quadrant.” He poked a large clump of dying coals, stirring them into a red flurry. “They have a sensitivity to temporal continuity. The Collective found them useful in their experiments with time travel.”

“Experiments?” Several decades of Starfleet training stirred panic in her heart. “Multiple?”

“Mostly abandoned. The modification of timelines is…” Brynn paused, considering the most appropriate word “… unpredictable.” The man stoked at the dying fire and the last of the embers faded into grey. “One of many possible adaptations the Collective explored.”

“Liek the Battle of Sector 001?” Rana turned her mind back to the memory of the battle’s synopsis. Despite heavy handed redactions by Starfleet Security there was evidence to suggest that the Enterprise-E and crew had travelled back to First Contact day chasing a Borg threat. As she recollected the report she felt an unfamiliar memory creep from the corner of the her mind. “The Queen tried to stop first contact?” The glass wall of the office fell away to reveal a vast starscape, the familiar blue ball of planet Earth hanging bright in the sky as a Borg sphere was engulfed in tachyons and disappeared, pursued by the impressive form of Starfleet’s flagship. “This isn’t mine” she whispered as the book tumbled from her hand, falling to the stone floor of the office.

Suddenly at her side Brynn reached down to catch the book as they both watched the Borg Sphere wink out of existence. “You’re already reaching into the shared consciousness. This is good.”

“The queen was unsuccessful, Picard and his crew stopped her. And killed her.” A glimpse of a cybernetic head, it’s biological components stripped by chemicals flashed in the corner of her mind. Quickly replaced by a vision of an aged human woman, her white hair and smug smile filled Rana with unexpected anger. “But Janeway…”

“Unpredictable.” Brynn muttered, placing the golden book back into her hands. “Besides, the queen is the one who is many.” A second voice hummed beneath Brynn’s, cold and calculating. “She is the collective.”

The rain resumed as the walls of the office melted into the ground and Rana found herself standing amongst golden fields of tall flowering plants, the wet soil sliding between her toes as the smell of petrichor wafted into her nostrils. 

“You said you wanted to make me a queen.” Rana could feel the warm rain falling on her face. 

“Not like that. She was another adaptation, a calculated response to a specific problem.” He cupped her wet cheeks in his large hands as the rain continued to beat down on them both. “I would make you something better. A mother.” Rana reached out to him, her mind probing against his for the truth of his statement and a clearer understanding but a cold chill pushed against her concentration, forcing her to retreat. 

He grabbed her hand and they began to run through the fields. The slap of her feet against the muddy ground fell into a comfortable rhythm with the ostinato of raindrops that beat against ground as her sharp breaths reeled in a stocatto counterpoint. As she caught the tips of the tall stems with her free hand, the willowy lengths bending and twisting beneath the impact, she felt a rush of jubilation. Brynn turned back to her, a joyful grin spreading across his face as he pulled in sharp breaths and tugged her faster through the fields. As the seemingly endless stalks continued far into the horizon her guide pulled her further into the golden forest, twisting and turning until the yellow stalks morphed into long green rope-like vines, tiny red blossoms sprouting on them as the treetops spidered across the cloudy sky, offering a reprieve from the heavenly deluge. Rana took several deep breaths as Brynn released her hand and they came to a stop amongst a small clearing in the forest of hanging vines, drifting slowly in the warm breeze. She reached up to her forehead, intending to push the wet fringe away but found her hair was dry to the touch. Through the broken boughs above her she could see the clouds had cleared to reveal thousands of blinking diamonds.

“I still don’t understand what you want from me.” she sighed, examining a red bloom on a sturdy nearby vine. 

“The beacon reached out to your telepathic abilities Rana. You possess impeccable mental order, you could provide the structure the Unimatrix desperately needs.” As they stood in the clearing she watched as an acidic yellow blight began to move through the vines, causing them to wither in the pale moonlight as the flowers curled and fell from the vine. Before the last petal reach the dry and dusty ground the next vine began to dry and turn sickly yellow. “The Unimatrix is failing, and the memories with it. We need someone to hold the matrix together, an organic mind to nurture a new collective.” He reached up to brush a fallen hair from her face. 

Grasping his hand before it reached the errant lock she felt a familiar chill reach up her spine, dragging with it an acidic bile that threatened to rush into her mouth. “A collective? The drones you showed me earlier?”

“Of free people Rana! A new family to inherit these memories before they disappear completely.” Brynn took a step back as the vines continued to wither around them. “They would inherit a million voices.” The yellow vines turning black as the hull of the Sphere came into existence, bringing the pair back to the bay of drones, their unconscious faces waiting expectantly.

“The others agree?” Rana reached out with her mind, pushing against the chilly wall of Brynn’s mind.

“They are content to let the Unimatrix die.” Rana heard the faint voices of a cacophony of voices from beyond the bulkheads. They shouted about free-will, cawing at the violation of the hive mind that stole their identities and supressed their voice beneath the deluge. They squawked about relics of the past and a desire to pass on, to take their painful memories with them into an unknown beyond. They whispered in fear of a renewed collective that spread like a fungus, its spores carried upon solar winds. Then a single voice, Brynn, vowing to find a way to survive.

“It’s not me that you want is it? It’s my neural infrastructure.” 

“A willing, conscious mind would make things a great deal easier.” Brynn confessed. “But I am not above taking you by force for the greater good of the Unimatrix. You will be convinced. Eventually.” His gentle demeanour was lost, stolen by the chill wind that now whipped between the bulkheads. 

“I am still aboard Daedalus.” Rana eyed the man, she had faith that Tanek would not let her body be taken from the ship. 

“Not any longer.” Brynn motioned behind him, to a table bathed in green light, a wide array of machines and tools hung menacingly above the form of a dark haired woman. Rana’s breath caught in her throat as she saw her body inhale as her mind did. 

Brynn tilted his head to the side like a bird and Rana briefly glimpsed another being who had had the same affectation, decades ago and lightyears away. She followed his eyeline to see a the bulkhead fade into a mist, revealing her crewmates working in a nearby bay, surrounding a tall pulsing green beacon suspended by thick webs of cable to the walls and ceiling. “The choice is taken out of our hands. They seek to destroy the beacon. They seek to destroy the Unimatrix.”

Rana heard a deep hum begin to resonate throughout the vessel, vibrating the deck plates beneath her feet and shaking the walls. As energy began to rush through the conduits, the dampening field dissipated as the transwarp coil once again felt the kiss of galaxy bending power begin to whirl through its metallic veins. As subspace began to fold around the vessel Rana heard a whisper, barely audible on the edge of hearing. The voice of Aramook touched Rana’s ears before she was stolen away into the stars.  “Brynn has lied to us.”