Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

was still a Starfleet officer first and a member of an adopted family second.
    “My sense of logic isn't impaired yet,” he said. He seemed never to have considered his own well-being in balance with the lives of innocent possible Borg victims—and he was right not to. “If we succeed, billions of lives will be saved.”
    Janeway dismissed the ship, the crew, the universe, for just a moment. “What about your life?”
    Sanguine, Tuvok had accepted the noblest route. “To quote Ambassador Spock . . . ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.’ ”
    There was a great lesson here, one Janeway had almost allowed to slip away. Yes, the Alpha Quadrant sooner than later held many temptations, but they weren't just children lost in the woods with no one to worry about other than themselves. She was suddenly ashamed of Admiral Janeway and disappointed that the crew had met the woman she might become.
    The woman she might
have
become. She could change things now. If Admiral Janeway stayed on
Voyager
for the rest of her life, she and the captain would be separate people, and the captain was not obligated to turn into this other woman.
    And I won't. I won't become her. I don't admire her. She has special knowledge, but she's forgotten why intelligent beings seek knowledge and reach out with it.
    She looked at Tuvok, and vowed that he would be her example, the sentinel for
Voyager'
s unwritten future.
    * * *
    “I appreciate your candor, Admiral, but Captain Janeway is my commanding officer. I won't disobey her.”
    Seven of Nine accepted the admiral's disturbing news with almost as much distaste as the admiral's bitter suggestion. Betray the captain?
    “I'm not asking you to,” the admiral said, pursuing Seven back to the freestanding console. “I simply want you to tell her that in your opinion, destroying the hub is too risky, the cost is too high—”
    “I can't do that.”
    The admiral held out a hand. “Even if it means avoiding the consequences I mentioned?”
    Seven quelled a particularly human sense of vulnerability. “Now that I know about those consequences, they're no longer a certainty. But even if they were, my death would be a small price to pay for the destruction of the transwarp network.”
    The admiral watched her work, watched her try to lock herself into the course of action the captain wanted, a course that would sacrifice her chance for a long life with Chakotay—such a strange and wondrous possibility! Seven was not as practiced at logic under conflict as Mr. Tuvok, but she tried.
    “I've known you for a long time, Seven,” the admiral attempted. “Longer than you've known yourself. You're thinking that collapsing the network would be an opportunity to atone for atrocities you participated in while you were a drone.”
    Seven's shoulders tightened. Her nerves seemed to be suddenly burning from the inside out. These had been atrocious indeed, the things she had been forced to do, the crimes against life, against freedom and choice, love and diversity of pursuit. The thoughts of atonement had always been private, small thoughts lost within her search for individuality, but they were there and she had entertained them.
    Wasn't it called revenge?
    Perhaps it was more complicated than simple revenge. She owed something to the galaxy.
    “It's time to let go of the past,” the admiral pressed on, “and start thinking about your future!”
    “My future,” Seven forced out, “is insignificant compared to the lives of the people we'd be saving.”
    “You're being selfish.”
    “Selfish? I'm talking about helping others—”
    “Strangers. In a hypothetical scenario. I'm talking about real life! Your colleagues . . . your friends . . . the people who love you! Imagine the impact your death would have on them!”
    Seven paused and gazed into the eyes of this person, this
stranger.
If these choices and decisions were part of being human, then she had reached a new level.
    “Excuse me, Admiral,” she said bluntly. “I have work to complete.”
    She remained otherwise very still. She stood her philosophical ground, waited for the admiral to digest the expression in her eyes and to leave the lab. Once alone, Seven turned back to the purpose she would not abandon for her own edification, and to the populations unnamed who needed her to be bigger than herself.
    And she was proud. Frightened, proud. A strong and useful combination.
    * * *
    Everybody rallied to the captain's