The cargo bay lights flickered. A low, rhythmic hum vibrated through the deck plating—deep, pulsing, resonant. The infant’s body convulsed again, its tiny frame arching against the restraints as if some unseen force was threading itself through muscle, through bone, through mind.

  B’Elanna could barely hear her own breath over the pounding in her ears. She had faced assimilation before, felt the cold grip of the Collective clawing at the edges of her mind. But this was different. The air itself felt charged, thrumming with a presence too vast, too ancient, too aware.

  The child’s body stilled.

  Then, it rose.

  The restraints snapped free as if they had never been there. The gaping incision on its torso knit itself closed in seconds, the fluid she had stolen already replenished. The green glow of its optical sensor darkened, then brightened—no longer the flicker of a waking drone, but something far more controlled.

  The whisper returned. Stronger. Clearer.

  “You will give.”

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  B’Elanna staggered back, gripping the scalpel as though it could protect her.

  She felt it before she saw it—the nanoprobes surging through her gloves, writhing across her skin like living filaments of cold fire. Her hands spasmed. The scalpel clattered to the deck. She could feel them moving inside her now, threading into her veins, rewriting her at the molecular level.

  She gasped. Clutched her arm. Forced herself to move.

  “Computer—emergency transport!” she barked through gritted teeth.

  Silence.

  The infant took a step forward, impossibly steady, impossibly composed. Not a child. Not a drone. Something else.

  A vector.

  B’Elanna’s vision swam as the infection spread. The whispers burrowed deeper, unraveling inside her skull like a song with no beginning, no end. Voices upon voices, an orchestra of stolen minds. But they were not Borg. Not entirely.

  This was something new.

  The infant watched her struggle, tilting its head, studying her as though she were the experiment now.

  It raised a hand.

  The spilled regenerative fluid trembled—then surged upward, defying gravity, coalescing into dark, liquid veins that slithered toward her.

  B’Elanna tried to scream.

  The fluid reached her boots, snaking up her legs, wrapping around her like vines. She felt them seeping into her skin, cold tendrils of something beyond the Borg, beyond assimilation.

  Beyond control.

  As darkness swarmed the edges of her vision, the whisper came one last time, soft as a caress.

  “You will be more.”

  And then—

  She was gone.