Again, we are in the bleak wilderness, beneath two moons. The drones are showing odd signs of individuality. One complains that retrieving parts from the fallen drone is a "desecration," a concern not normally expressed by atheistic Borg. Seven barks orders, reminds them that there are "no individuals here."

Back aboard Voyager, Seven is regenerating in her chamber. The three plotters reroute the ship's internal sensors, then make their move, approaching the sleeping Seven in an attempt to "insert the interlink module."

"If we fail," one says, "we'll never become individuals."

But Seven awakens and begins to fight them off. Tuvok and a security team enter, knocking the intruders out with phaser fire.

The stygian landscape. Seven and the other drones huddle around a campfire as their individual memories resurface. Seven paces agitatedly. "We must delete all irrelevant data," she insists. Others express highly reluctant agreement.

They tell Seven that they were her companions when they crashed on the planet 1865 Alpha -- the stygian landscape -- eight years earlier. They were eventually re-assimilated by the Borg, but later escaped.

Now they want Seven's help in breaking the remaining neural link. Completing each other's sentences, they tell of the agonies of constantly hearing each other's thoughts.

After some discussion, Seven decides to help them. She forms her own link to the trio, resulting in a new flood of memories for all involved. It turns out that it was Seven, back on that grim planet, who formed the abnormal link among the three, injecting them with nanoprobes to force them back into the Collective.

Unlike them, she had been terrified of regaining her individuality, especially after watching the fifth drone die. She had only her childhood memories to draw upon, whereas they had been assimilated as adults.

Awakening from this revelation, the three scream furiously at Seven, who's now in emotional distress. Their neural link breaking, the three fall unconscious. Seven is undamaged but filled with remorse for what she did eight years earlier.

A stark choice now emerges. The three long-suffering ex-drones can be revived as individuals, but would live for no more than a month. Or they can be returned to the Borg, to live out a full life span as drones.

The Doctor initially favors the latter solution, but Seven reminds him of his own somewhat drone-like origins as the emergency hologram, and he agrees that "survival is insufficient." The three are revived, and choose to live out their final weeks in various ways. Seven does some bonding with the young Voyager orphan Naomi Wildman.