[Mariner wishes she was having a nightmare. She wishes that she would just wake up in her bunk and then roll out to the sonic showers to wash the bad dream off of her.

The odd mildewy stench of the Borg and the rankness of the blood and effluvia and everything else splattered all over her means it's real. The heart-in-her-throat fear means it's real. The anger at herself for not being quick enough means it's real.]

Hey, hey, hey hey hey hey hey, c'mon, stay with me, Boimler. We got this. We got this.

[She fights the urge to rip that new implant directly out of his face, and only manages because she knows it won't help. She can fight drones or a cube or the Borg Queen herself but she can't fight the nanites, the essential building block, she can't go in there with her phaser and bat'leth and break everything that's turning her friend into something he's not.]

We can fix this. We can fix this. Just hang on.