Chapter 1: Assimilation of Intimacy
The stale, recycled air of the cargo bay carried the tang of ozone and rust. Tom Paris ran a hand along the cold housing of a malfunctioning power conduit, the ghost of a captain’s voice from a flickering holosuite log echoing faintly in the vast, shadowy space.
“The alignment is still point-zero-three degrees off spec, Seven. You sure your calculations account for the subspace distortion from that nebula we passed?”
“My calculations are precise, Lieutenant.” Seven of Nine’s voice was as cool and clean as the metal implants that traced her jaw. She didn’t look up from the PADD in her hands, her blonde hair stark under the bay’s dim emergency lights. “The variance is in the manual calibration. Your technique is inefficient.”
Tom smirked, grabbing a spanner. “Inefficient’s got character. Besides, sometimes you gotta feel it.” He leaned into the conduit, muscles straining. A soft, high-pitched whine filled the air, and he felt a momentary, sharp prick at the base of his neck, like a hypo-spray from a med-kit set to its finest setting.
“What was that?” He straightened, rubbing the spot.
“An atmospheric discharge from the faulty emitter.” Seven replied smoothly, her blue eyes meeting his without a flicker. “It is harmless. Please continue.”
Tom shrugged, turning back to his work. But something shifted. The air seemed thicker. He became acutely aware of the soft hum of the ship’s systems, the scent of… something. Not ozone. Something clean, almost surgical, yet underneath it, a warmth. It was her. He’d never noticed how Seven smelled before. Like antigrav fluid and something else, something uniquely organic. Female.
He glanced at her. She was studying a schematic, the light from the PADD casting her sharp features in pale blue. The curve of her cervical implant drew his eye down to the column of her throat, to the tantalizing hint of collarbone above her biosuit. A sudden, unbidden thought flashed: what would that skin feel like under his lips? He shook his head, blinking hard. Where the hell did that come from? B’Elanna. Think about B’Elanna.
“Your respiratory rate has increased, Lieutenant. Are you experiencing discomfort?”
“No,” Tom said, too quickly. “Just… tight spot. Let’s wrap this up.”
He worked faster, his skin humming. Every move she made seemed amplified. The soft rustle of her suit. The precise click of her heels on the deck plating. When her hand brushed his to take the spanner, a jolt, electric and warm, shot up his arm. He pulled back as if burned.
“All yours,” he muttered, stepping away. He needed to get out of there.
The familiar warmth of his quarters, the soft light, the smell of B’Elanna’s shampoo—it was supposed to reset him. To erase the strange, hyper-aware static clinging to his nerves.
“You’re quiet,” B’Elanna said later, her back against his chest in their bed, his hand splayed on the smooth, warm skin of her stomach. She traced the ridges of his knuckles. “Bad day in the junk bay?”
“Just weird energy over there,” he murmured into her hair, inhaling its familiar Klingon spice and Earth blossom scent. He nuzzled her neck, focusing on the woman in his arms. His wife. His passionate, brilliant, hot-tempered wife.
He turned her to face him, kissing her deeply, pouring his confusion into a need for connection. She responded, a low growl in her throat as she pushed him onto his back and straddled him. Her eyes were dark, loving, fierce.
“Missed you,” she breathed, leaning down to capture his mouth again.
Tom’s hands slid up her thighs, gripping her hips as she settled onto him. The feeling was sublime, familiar, perfect. He thrust up to meet her, losing himself in the rhythm, in her gasps, in the sweat-slick slide of their bodies. This was right. This was home.
Then, a flicker at the edge of his perception.
B’Elanna’s face, framed by dark hair, seemed to shimmer. For a fraction of a second, the hair was shorter, blonder, swept back. The passionate brown eyes flickered to a cool, analytical blue. Tom’s breath hitched.
“You okay?” B’Elanna panted, slowing her movements.
“Don’t stop,” he pleaded, his voice rough. He shut his eyes tight.
But behind his eyelids, the image was stronger. It wasn’t a memory. It was a sensation. The clean, surgical scent flooded his senses, overlayering B’Elanna’s. The feel of the body above him changed—the weight distribution, the texture of the skin under his palms becoming impossibly smooth, unblemished save for the faint, raised lines of… implants.
He opened his eyes. B’Elanna was riding him, her head thrown back in pleasure. But his mind… his mind was fabricating a different woman. The sharp, elegant lines of Seven’s face. The cool, calculating gaze now clouded with a look of intense, focused curiosity. The sensation of her thighs around him, stronger, firmer.
A wave of guilt, hot and acid, washed through him, but it was drowned instantly by a cresting, impossible surge of raw, illicit pleasure. It wasn't B’Elanna he was picturing anymore; it was her. The imagined feel of her, the precise, clinical way he imagined she would move, analyzing every gasp, every thrust as data. The fantasy was shockingly vivid, degrading, and wildly exciting.
“Tom… gods…” B’Elanna cried out, her inner muscles clenching around him as she peaked.
The sound of her voice, his wife’s voice, should have anchored him. Instead, it shattered the last pretense. In that moment, with B’Elanna spasming around him, all he saw was Seven of Nine’s lips parting in a silent, measured gasp of surprise. The phantom scent of her filled his nose. The imagined, cool grip of her hand was on his jaw.
His orgasm ripped through him like a phaser blast, violent and deep, tearing a guttural, ragged shout from his throat that was more anguish than ecstasy. It went on and on, waves of pleasure so intense they bordered on pain, totally disproportionate to the act, fueled by a secret, shameful synapse he didn't understand.
He collapsed, spent, his heart hammering against his ribs. B’Elanna nestled into his shoulder, placing a soft kiss there, murmuring something sleepy and satisfied.
Tom stared at the ceiling, the afterglow curdling into a cold, hard knot of dread in his gut. The ghost of that sterile, warm scent still seemed to linger in the air. It hadn't been a daydream. It had been an invasion. And as his breathing slowed, a single, terrifying thought crystallized in the silence: What did she do to me in that cargo bay?