Previously on Star Trek: Picard...
The tunnels. You said don't go.
- Maman! - A thousand ways to die down there.
It was hours before I found you.
Your mother suffered.
She needed help, but she wouldn't accept it.
You have to get me out. Please, Jean-Luc.
All of that was part of Q's plan? That you experience those memories?
You know there's more to that story?
Whatever it is, it is irrelevant with what we are trying to fix.
- We fix time. Does it bring Elnor back? - I don't know.
- If you want to talk-- - What I want
is to try to figure out how to fix the timeline
and not talk about how it felt to watch him die.
I wanna show you something.
Welcome to La Sirena.
I would like to have more in my memory bank
than all the times I saved your ass.
Before you fly away.
What's wrong?
Error. Transporter off-line.
Rios to Raffi. We got big problems.
No! No!
You're currently at a fork in the proverbial road.
Two futures.
One leads to you bringing humanity back from the edge of extinction.
Or you die alone.
Renée Picard either boards a spaceship
and makes a discovery that renders your work obsolete or doesn't.
There's a man who will stand in your way as he now stands in mine.
Picard?
I can get you face-to-face with him in a matter of minutes.
I can also provide you with appropriate means to dispose of him.
We know where she's heading.
There's only one reason Jurati would want to take over the transporter.
The Queen is coming for La Sirena.
She wants a 400-year jump-start on assimilating the galaxy.
Once I have the ship, you can have your legacy.
We have to defend that ship if we are to make our way home.
So if she's coming for the ship, she's not coming alone.
Don't worry. It only stings for a moment.
They're activating the transport remotely. I can't stop it.
They're here.
- Who's here? - We have to get off this ship.
Go, go, go, go. Go, go, go! Go!
I'm sorry I ever brought you into this. I need to get you to safety.
Weapons.
Move, move, move, move!
Well, we've looked better.
I'm starting to feel more like myself.
If the Queen means to take over the ship, we have to defend it no matter the cost.
- Defend it with what? - Oh.
- That's all you brought? - Lucky we even had time to get these.
All right, we recon, fortify our position, we set traps with whatever's available.
Okay, but how much time do we even have?
None.
- Go hide back there. - Come on.
- Is she coming? - She's already on the ship.
And there's more, lots more.
- Take cover! Go! - Go!
She means to pin us down while she takes the ship.
I won't let you take this ship.
There you are.
I could still sense you in there, still feel you chattering about.
Do you know what it feels like to put my hands on my friend's throat
and not be able to do a goddamn thing about it?
A bit like hanging limbless? Powerless?
I've been poking around in that trash dump of a mind.
Wow, by the way.
'Cause I had to know why.
Millions of species, planets.
And still, you always needed more.
Perfection takes time, dear.
This was never about perfection, or evolution or any of that bullshit.
It was never enough because you're just like me...
lonely.
To share your own crude colloquialism, bullshit.
Then why haven't you killed me?
Stop. Stop.
You take this ship, you let Soong win,
in 400 years the Confederation wipes out your entire Collective.
So myopically linear.
You see the branch, but not the tree.
We know of the Confederation's threat now, and we will prepare.
Time is on our side.
Error. Key code required for access.
Whoops. You know that, uh, signal you used to puppet around your Borg?
Well, I used it to slap a fractal lock on the ship's systems.
Welcome to the world's biggest paperweight.
I'll scrape that key out of your mind, woman.
Except I'm not an idiot and I didn't memorize the code.
I couldn't stop you, but I could stall you.
Turns out this ship can make a hologram from anyone who's ever been on board.
Including an Emergency Combat Hologram.
How may I be of service?
I encoded the digital key in the safest place I could find. Him.
Hiya, Elnor. Let's play keep away.
With pleasure.
- She brought an army. - No. She made one.
Those aren't people out there, they're Borg.
Cover your eyes!
- Mother? - Yes?
Can we play a game?
What sort of game?
Play anything you want, just don't break anything.
Maurice, must you be such a curmudgeon?
It's a lovely day.
Wars have been fought on lovely days.
Industry and discovery don't reserve themselves for a slight chance of rain,
so I've been told.
Curmudgeon.
This is your work, is it? This is what you're teaching him.
- How to make fun of dad. - It's common knowledge.
- Is it? - Mm-hmm.
He's a smart young man, thoroughly bored, far too much time on his hands.
And how are you these days, my darling?
I notice lately that you've been somewhat more present.
Maurice.
We haven't had an incident for some time now.
That's good, that's very good.
Maybe times are changing for the better.
Maman, what game shall we play?
How about hide-and-seek?
You stand here, like so.
Cover your eyes and count to five, then come find me.
One. Two...
Come on!
I count nine.
Eight now. But there's more coming.
Going inside. On three.
One, two, three.
Go. Go, go, go, go, go!
Tallinn, beam Rios, Teresa and the boy to safety.
- What about us? - We've got to save the ship.
A Borg with advanced technology in this century,
can you imagine the damage she would inflict?
I'll get them to safety, but I'm coming right back.
Tallinn, please, now.
Now turn it off.
Go, go, go.
Lay him down, put a blanket on him. He's in shock. I'll be back.
- You can't go back. - I can't not.
Okay. Go, come on.
No. No, no, no, no. Damn you, Picard.
They've locked me out.
I can't help them.
He's wounded.
He'd only get himself killed trying to help us.
Listen, we can't push forward.
We go around.
Tallinn, lay down suppressing fire. We retreat through the château then split up.
Split up?
We have twice as many chances to get to the ship if we divide and conquer.
We flank 'em in the field and then take the damn ship.
Do it.
Picard!
Wait.
Fire and you'll receive far worse in kind.
Or you can hear my offer.
I'm not--
Well, I wasn't a violent man, Picard. This is all very new to me.
Or the promise of a legacy reveals the rot that is hidden underneath it.
I know a future worth fighting for.
So do I.
Look. You're outnumbered, and my new friends back there,
I-- Well, I've heard you're familiar with them.
So, I guess you help her take the ship,
and she destroys the Europa Mission from orbit tomorrow,
and you have a future.
So, why this parley?
The enemy of every experiment is the rogue variable, the unknown.
That is what you are to me.
So, do us both a favor.
Stand down, surrender.
I take the path of least resistance to the future,
and you and your friends can still have one.
What if we refuse?
Then we take a far muddier path,
and you will die running.
Maman, where are you?
It's just a game, hide-and-seek. Find me.
Maman!
Hide-and-seek, indeed.
You'll have to find us first.
So be it.
Fire!
We need to get to the ship.
- We gotta get out of here. - Okay.
Soong, no doubt, has got this place surrounded by now.
So what do you suggest?
Can't go in, can't go out.
But we can go down.
There are a series of tunnels underneath this house.
But where was the entrance?
Think faster or the memory will escape through the hole in your head.
Maman, where are you?
Mother?
Mother, I know it's you. I know--
Oh!
My boy!
Maman?
Yes.
Yes, I know.
Why don't we continue somewhere less bright?
Somewhere your cleverness has fewer senses to draw from.
We have to go.
It's just a game, hide-and-seek, down below.
But, Maman, Papa's forbidden me from going down there.
We'll go. Everything will be better.
I won't be sad.
You want to be with me?
Then let's go, hurry.
It's dangerous.
You're my light, Jean-Luc.
The light that always draws me out.
Guide your own way. Find me.
Picard!
In here, quick. Now!
Picard!
Mother?
Mother, where are you?
This isn't fun anymore.
Maman?
I've seen this place. In your mind.
What happened here?
During the Second World War,
the French Resistance converted this place as a storage for munitions
and a way of communicating with the front.
And then they locked it all away when the Nazis invaded.
That's not what I meant.
In your memory, this place felt unusually dark.
What happened?
I followed my mother down here,
playing hide-and-seek, and...
I lost her.
Or rather, she lost herself.
Well, this is a very dangerous playground.
Oh.
My father used to say, "There are a thousand ways to die."
...thousand ways to die.
Yvette? Jean-Luc?
Jean-Luc!
These tunnels should lead to a hatch on the other side of the vineyard.
From there, we can take back the ship. Let's go.
Come on, time to arm up, we still got a job to do.
Listen to you. You sound like a captain.
You know, you should have joined Starfleet.
I tried. After Voyager.
Starfleet shut me down, because--
You were Borg?
Janeway went to bat for me, threatened to resign.
But I gave it up, went full Ranger.
They're in.
We have a dozen Borg between us and the ship.
Fifty-yard sprint across open terrain,
and all we have is a knife and a corkscrew.
And an ice pick.
You really would make a great captain.
- When we get out of this-- - We're not getting out of this.
Nope, probably not.
You can't hide forever, you know.
Hello.
How is he?
Fast asleep.
Half of him is terrified and the other half thinks
that was the coolest thing he's ever seen.
Reminds me of myself.
God forbid. What are you doing?
If I can rewire the subroutines,
then maybe I can regain command access to this panel.
- I would like to rewire your brain. - Teresa, I have to get back.
And you'll get your friends killed because you're too injured to help.
Just because we anesthetized your wound, doesn't mean your arm is fine.
Now, sit down.
Which of these thingies will help me extract a bullet?
That one. The tricorder there.
Really? An entire ER fits in your pocket?
Pretty cool, huh?
You have no idea what this is like for me, do you?
A miracle cure, surrounded by miracles.
Knowing win or lose, I'll have to let them go.
Show me your arm.
So where are you, Picard?
Search for other entrances.
Jean-Luc?
Maman?
Are you in here?
You won...
and I'm lost.
Let's go back up, okay?
Have tea, eat supper,
and tonight, you can teach me more constellations.
Stars...
...yes, yes.
Did you know that space is so vast, so infinite,
it takes billions of years for that tiny pinprick of light
to make that lonely journey from its star to our eyes?
The brilliance you see in the night sky, Jean-Luc, that exquisite light,
it's just an echo, really, of a star that has long since faded.
Like me.
When you remember me, Jean-Luc, promise...
promise me you will ignore the coldness of a dying star,
and remember instead her light
and the infinite love she so very much had for you.
Yvette? Yvette?
Jean-Luc? Where are you?
Remarkable. I only saw this once, and that was through the eyes of a child.
And it's how you remember it?
Come on, we have to go. It's just you and me!
Maman!
More or less.
Jean-Luc. Thank God, there you are.
What became of your mother?
I found her, but my father took her and locked her in that room.
Please.
Let me out, Jean-Luc. Please.
Only you can save me.
Let me out. Jean-Luc!
So I opened the door.
- What was that? - They found us!
There! That door!
It's locked!
Yes!
Get away!
Told you you couldn't hide forever.
Who said I was hiding?
Raffi?
Elnor?
I'm not Elnor.
At least, not exactly.
But real enough to say how good it is to see you.
I've missed you, Raffi.
We don't have much time.
Maybe if I can access the ship's systems...
Seven, the systems are locked, for which I'm the key.
Jurati concealed the coding engram within me to secure it.
She's still in there fighting the Queen.
- Elnor, can you give me access? - Hey, hang on, hang on.
If we unlock the ship's main systems, she can access them.
We'll be giving the Queen exactly what she wants.
And if we don't, we have no way to defend against her.
Just trust me. I have an idea.
- Ship's system unlocked. - All right.
We need to open a hatch and clear a pathway to the transporter. Stand by.
E-E-Elnor, wait. L-Listen to me.
Look, I-- I know you're not really him. I know that.
I didn't keep you with me
because I was afraid of you being by yourself...
I kept you back because I was frightened of me being alone.
Raffi,
I share the recollection of Elnor's final breath,
enough to know that his last thoughts of you were not of blame,
but of love.
All right, the way's clear. Let's go.
Which way?
The left goes deeper into the château, the right goes to the fields.
Come on.
Oh!
- No. This way! - What?
Come on.
Accessing transporters.
Uh, whatever you're doing, do it faster.
I'll hold them off as long as possible.
Seven...
Well, we seem to be regaining the advantage.
Are we nearly out?
There's an exit in the solarium. Come on!
Your plan was successful. I detect only one Borg still onboard.
- Seven. - I see her.
Transporting her to the brig.
She has a transport inhibitor.
Three against one hardly seems fair.
Jurati, please don't make us do this.
I know you're in there. I know you can fight!
We've got you dead to rights.
Do you?
Seven! No!
Computer, transfer primary controls to me.
Computer, set course for the Delta Quadrant.
We have 400 additional years to expand the Collective.
She's gonna die if I can't stop the bleeding!
Don't do this.
I have absorbed millions of languages,
and there are a few common words among them.
"Love", certainly.
"Hope" and "fear",
and one more common still...
"futility."
Species thrive without love.
Kingdoms conquer without fear.
But it is the imperfect nature of all organic things
to fight an unwinnable battle against an undefeatable foe...
...death.
Now we can get to the ship.
I'm no stranger to lost lab rats.
To catch one, you don't follow it through the maze.
You force it to the surface.
Why am I crying?
Those aren't your tears.
They're mine.
Those same chemicals you used to take control,
dopamine, and adrenaline,
aren't just produced by a few drinks and a torch song.
Sadness, loss, despair.
Basically, what happens when you hurt my friends,
that cooks the same neural soup,
only this time, it allowed me to wrestle some control back.
Impossible.
You might be well on your way if you had just shown a little mercy.
Soong, you don't understand the future you're about to create.
Thriving, prosperous.
I'm told we're beloved across the galaxy.
Feared.
What is this?
The history of the Borg.
Well, the only history that matters. The ending.
How it always ends for you.
A lone Borg slayer, a united Federation, they come for you.
For your top-shelf, overreaching, Icarus-worthy arrogance.
If prattling on is your choice of weapon, I can wait.
- You can't be sad forever. - Do the math.
In this or any other universe, you always lose.
That's why you fight so hard.
You live with the death knell of your species across infinite timelines.
You fear loss, just like we do.
You long for what we all long for.
Connection.
Longevity. Discovery.
Only you offer it without choice.
I'm saying, what if we ask for it?
You and I?
Finally, the semblance of a point.
The galaxy is filled with lives that need saving.
One of them is lying at your feet right now.
We have to create our own destiny.
Captains of ships and captains of industry.
To men like us, love and fear,
the same thing.
A means to an end.
You'd have a cohort pulled from the dying,
recruit from derelict ships, flotsam of space?
You'd have us collect scraps?
And offer second chances.
What if we take this ship and build a better Borg?
A real Collective, based not on assimilation, but salvation.
Think about it.
A Borg Collective that embraces the uniqueness of its members.
You ask us to embrace weakness.
I'm positing that what you've written off as weakness is actually strength.
Cooperation.
Your proposal is absurd.
But not entirely un-intriguing.
Imagine members who would fight harder for what they chose.
Who would lose no battles because they made no enemies,
who would not be discarded and replaced.
Attachments could grow and deepen.
Like Seven.
Didn't you love her once too?
And wasn't she...
the best of what we could be?
Somebody who used her Borg half to serve the best of her humanity.
Let's build a universe of Sevens.
Let's start with this one.
It's a shame, really.
In another future, I imagine we might have become friends.
Goodbye, Picard.
System rebooting.
I think I've got it.
- Ten percent. - What if I don't want you to get it?
- What if I don't want you to go? - Twenty percent.
What if I wanna see your face again or something crazy like that?
- Teresa, I don't belong here. - Why?
The future has enough heroes already.
- Don't you think? - Forty percent.
Believe me, I've thought about it. I really have.
But this isn't my timeline.
- The future's yours. It's his. - Sixty percent.
I'm just trying to protect it.
What if your future is here and it was always supposed to be?
Eighty percent.
Ninety-five percent.
Teresa, I--
No, please. Please don't. Don't do this.
Please don't.
No, you're killing her!
I bet you don't have to be from the future to fire this thing.
No.
But you do need to have the right DNA to unlock it.
If you hold it too long, and, well...
boom.
She'll live.
But there was a cost in saving her.
Jurati?
Is that you?
Yes.
No.
I think we are becoming something new.
Something better.
Seven.
I have to get to the ship.
You're welcome, by the way.
Let me out, Jean-Luc.
Please.
So I opened the door.
I'm having the strangest memory.
Follow it.
See where it leads.
There are moments in time we wish we could travel back to.
Memories, pieces of life better lived in reverse.
In those moments, tragic endings might rewind into joyful beginnings.
Moments of loss into those of gains.
And I remember now.
In a cloudy moment of extreme melancholy,
my mother hung herself, here, in this place.
And for all I've lived, all I've seen and done,
I suppose this is the moment I've kept myself from remembering.
This moment I am so powerless to reverse.
My mother was ill, I'm told.
But I only ever thought she was inspired.
That night, my father had locked her into her room for her own safety.
Perhaps for mine as well.
But she begged me to help her.
Told me how much she needed me.
How much she needed my help.
And this is the part I've spent my whole life trying not to remember.
I thought I was saving her.
So after he fell asleep...
I let her out, you see.
If only I had left that door closed, she might have become an old woman.
I used to imagine seeing her, older...
offering me a cup of tea.
And asking for a chat.
This skeleton key migrated all over the house.
I wish, that day, it hadn't ended up in my hand.
I loved her.
Desperately.
Love can be a source of great grief...
and immense pain.
Of tremendous guilt.
A reason to run from ourselves, or away from each other.
Love can be a curse.
But always and completely...
it's a gift.
I've been this. I've been...
Seven much longer than I was ever Annika.
It was just nice to...
be ordinary.
Well, that's impossible.
Because no matter how you come, Borg or human...
you are the most extraordinary person I know.
You know, all your life, you've been running from these, from this.
And I can't help but wonder how much more you'd be capable of,
how much more you could be...
if you just stopped.
It's time to go.
We can't let her do this. Whatever she promised, we can--
Whoever you are now,
half of you is our friend.
Maybe in time, all of you could be.
In time, perhaps.
But now, a deal must be honored.
A ship for a life is more than a fair exchange.
And please inform your admiral,
the future will have no need for a Borg slayer.
At least, not from us.
And tell him this.
The Mission must not be postponed.
To succeed, there must be two Renées,
one who lives, and another who dies.
- She took my ship. - My ship.
She gave it to the Queen-- Jurati, in exchange for Seven's life.
Seven. Are you all right?
I'm myself.
Well, we've lost a friend.
But we've regained ourselves.
And we will need all ourselves if we are to succeed.
Soong is still in the wind.
And he's definitely not the quitting type.
Your ship may have slipped through his fingers,
but he'll find other means to stop the Europa Mission.
- And Renée. - Or worse.
Picard, before Agnes left, she had a message for you.
"In order to succeed, there must be two Renées,
one who lives and another who dies."
I refuse to accept an outcome that has not yet occurred.
Come! We have work to do.