Two
"LA Coast guard recover body of young actress missing for 6 days"
In a large and empty astrometrics lab, beneath a dimly-lit and star-strewn display screen and amongst the hum of hidden starship engines and crew footsteps and operations, Seven of Nine and Harry Kim stood in solemn silence, each examining the files of an individual terminal display.
Blue warp nacelles glowed in the vast blackness of a universe so humongous that the significance of the fate and legacy of a young mother centuries ago could understandably be dismissed as insignificant.
Coolness, revulsion, fury and pity. Emotion ran like ice through the veins of the two crewmen to which tolerance and empathy were the common orders of each day.
"Homosexual pervert drowned in her own sins"
Harry's heart beat rapidly as he read the article from an Earth baptist magazine dated August 7th 1998.
In it the "copies" of himself and his closest crewmen, Tom and B'Elanna (Robert McNeill and Roxann Dawson respectively) were mentioned in the hateful take of the story of his captain's counterpart Kate Mulgrew, and her lost lover, the brave and talented Jeri Ryan. Seven of Nine. A woman whose life had ended in the most terrible of circumstances.
"Memorial to drowned actress vandalised and set on fire by religious group"
"Body of actress Jeri Ryan to be buried in secret location"
"Kate Mulgrew leaves cast of Star Trek Voyager"
"Paramount Pictures ceases filming of first female-led Star Trek series"
"Citizens protest 'Intrusive media'"
"Mother of dead actress speaks out against 'Male dominance' and 'homophobic hate''"
"Widower Jack Ryan declines comment on estranged wife's suicide by drowning"
"Widower Jack Ryan in custody battle for son with estranged wife's parents"
"Jack Ryan accused of extramarital affair with wife of Jeri Ryan's informer friend"
"Jack Ryan in year long affair with wife of Jeri Ryan's private-beach owning friend"
"Jeri Ryan and Kate Mulgrew relationship disclosure was act of revenge by an aggrieved friend, says lawyers"
"Jeri Ryan victim of revenge attack"
"Jack Ryan loses custody battle with estranged wife's parents"
"Four-year-old Alex Ryan released to the custody of maternal grandparents"
Turning her face from her terminal, Seven's right hand deactivated her terminal screen with mechanic detachedness.
Every crew member on the ship had access to these files hidden deep but no longer forgotten within the Starfleet database.
In between carrying out his shift assignment in astrometrics, and after anxiously requesting Seven's permission to become involved in research for the truth, Kim had began by wading through hundreds of articles relating to the immediate aftermath of actress Jeri Ryan's death.
Seven had dug deeper.
She discovered that the confidential notes taken by Jeri Ryan's therapist on her famous young client had been photocopied and stolen from the police data bank to which her therapist had been forced to surrender them, and within a week partial or full confidential replicas had made their ways into various publications and broadcasters intrays.
Jeri Ryan's intimate words and admissions, and her therapists' responses and diagnoses were quickly the subject of non-expert and often cruel and degrading, public analysis.
Eventually the photocopies were uploaded onto the world wide web but were soon buried in entertainment history as more and more celebrities were made and were broken by the ever evolving and mutating tabloid media.
The reports and images of actress Kate Mulgrew's distress, heartbreak and anger were as unsympathetic and alive with malice as had been reaction to Jeri's shock suicide.
Seven stood in stillness and tried to steady the beating of her angry heart.
There had been so many images of them both.
Images of Jeri, who was her. But who wasn't.
Images obtained by burglars who raided the home of Jeri's parents and obtained photographs of Jeri Lynn Zimmerman in her childhood. Images shared by her childhood friends of her in her youth. And images of her at the start of her acting career, and at the end.
For Seven, viewing these photos and articles was like gazing into a wormhole into the pit of humanity.
A place where Kathryn and herself lived as fresh meat for parasites to feast. And in which Jeri Ryan had been subject to the most heinous of unenlightened intolerance.
Her ears registered the light tapping of Harry's finger pads against his terminal screen.
He was still stuck in the wormhole.
Seven's enhanced hearing listened to his short breaths and thunderous heartbeat.
"Ensign"
Kim's focus broke and he turned immediately to Seven. Ahorrence and anger could be read clearly on each face.
But there was also absolute bafflement.
Seven's heart clenched for the woman who still lay asleep in sick bay.
It was the Captain but it was also a woman in mourning.
"...We should return to our duties," Seven began stiffly, reluctant to do any such thing but aware there were now many minds working on the situation.
"We can discuss the things we have learnt here with Lieutenants Paris and Torres over dinner..."
Kim looked anxious, eager also to continue but aware that these were deeply personal tidings especially for Seven and the Captain.
"... Hopefully we will be joined by Mr Tuvok or by Chakotay..."
She was pale and for a moment she glanced in the direction of the sickbay above her on deck five.
In her heart she hoped that the Doctor would still find answers.
Kim motioned uncertainly before returning quickly to the operation screens on his terminal.
Seven's distant focus soon coming to rest on the interstellar display screen, the former Borg with the collect intelligence of thousands of species and millions of individuals was forced to acknowledge to herself that, most disturbingly, she herself had no answers.
Ironically, Harry Kim had once speculated to her that with her history she must be the most intelligent human in existence.
But her intelligence seemed to mean nothing at this moment.
Raising her chin she closed her eyes and pictured the ashened planet described by the human woman "Kate Mulgrew" in sick bay to the doctor.
Could it have symbolised the end of time? Death, destruction or perhaps the dawn of a new age of man?
Was it simply a manifestation of the emotions surrounding her partner's devastating death?
Was she herself trying to interpret dreams or was this a genuine memory or vision of Mulgrew's?
And was Kathryn lost forever in the apparent fusing of two individuals' consciousness?
Lowering her head to continue her work, Seven cautioned that she would have to be patient and methodical.
She could not be emotional.
Kate had lost Jeri. But Seven would not, could not, lose Kathryn.
Her lip trembled and she fought against her fear.
At least the child was saved, she reasoned.
Alex Ryan had grew up to become a prominent LGBTQ+ ally and activist.
His mother would have been proud, Seven ventured, tears burning in her eyes.