Star Trek Voyager: Unworthy Page 15

  “It was actually able to survive while attached to the hull?” the woman asked. Chakotay looked up to see B’Elanna and with obvious relief said, “It was. Ensign Gwyn, have you met B’Elanna Torres?”

  She turned sharply, studying B’Elanna intently in a way that seemed offensive until Gwyn’s face relaxed and she smiled. “You’re Commander Paris’s wife, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” B’Elanna replied cordially.

  Gwyn shot a hungry glance back at Chakotay, then rose, taking her half-eaten salad with her. “Thanks for lunch, Chakotay,” she said enthusiastically. “I’d love to hear more about the Hirogen and Species 8472 and anything else you can tell me about the Delta quadrant whenever you have a chance.”

  “I look forward to it, Ensign,” Chakotay said congenially, but B’Elanna could tell he was anxious to end the conversation.

  “B’Elanna,” Gwyn finished with a curt nod as she left, recycling what remained of her lunch.

  B’Elanna studied her perky, bouncy walk and took the seat opposite Chakotay. With a wicked smile she asked, “What was that all about?”

  Chakotay shrugged. “I don’t know. I stopped by to grab a plate of steamed vegetables and an apple and before I knew it she was …”

  “… flirting shamelessly with you?” B’Elanna finished for him.

  Chakotay’s tattooed brow wrinkled. After a moment he said, “I guess.”

  “Chakotay!” B’Elanna said in mock indignation.

  “Stand down Red Alert,” he chided her. “She’s half my age and I don’t think I was ever that young.”

  “You were,” B’Elanna teased. “I remember.” Then, batting her eyes in pronounced mockery, she said, “Oh, Chakotay, tell me more about the Hirogen.”

  He chuckled good-naturedly, shaking his head. “Those are problems I hope I never have again.”

  “And don’t you forget it,” B’Elanna insisted. “I’ll be keeping an eye on her, just the same.”

  “Not on my account.”

  “No, but for the sake of every other man on this ship.”

  Concern flashed briefly in Chakotay’s eyes. “Are you and Tom off to a rocky start?”

  “Oh, no,” B’Elanna assured him. “Tom, I’m not worried about. She’s another story. She actually reminds me a little of …”

  “Seska,” they finished in unison.

  Chakotay nodded. “I caught that vibe, too.”

  “It’s interesting,” B’Elanna said, sipping a spoonful of her soup. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

  “True.”

  “Speaking of which …” B’Elanna slid a padd across the table to Chakotay.

  “What’s this?”

  “Read it.”

  Chakotay finally said, “These are deflector control protocols.”

  “Yes, they are,” B’Elanna replied tensely.

  “So, why am I looking at them?”

  “Because they shouldn’t be there.”

  “I’m sorry, B’Elanna, I’m not following.”

  “During Voyager’s re-fit—when we returned from the Delta quadrant—all our protocols should have been downloaded and added to the permanent logs, then removed from the active control systems.”

  “Right.”

  “Did you restore any of those protocols?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Did you need to emit a Dekyon beam, or project any nonexistent starships into space, or maybe open any rifts into fluidic space?”

  “No,” Chakotay said, clearly growing more puzzled by her questions.

  “Of course you didn’t,” B’Elanna assured him. “And even if you had, those protocols would have been purged again with the redesign Starfleet did to get the ship ready for this mission.”

  “What’s your point, B’Elanna?”

  “These protocols shouldn’t be here. They’re compromising deflector control, which endangers the entire fleet during slipstream flight. What’s more, I don’t think this was an oversight. I think they were intentionally restored.”

  Chakotay sat back and studied B’Elanna appraisingly. “By whom?” he asked warily.

  “I don’t know,” she replied with a shrug.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Nancy Conlon sent it to me. She didn’t know what she was looking at—only that there was an interface bug.”

  “And you have no idea who put it in the system?”

  “There are only three people who could have done it, Chakotay,” B’Elanna said with muted intensity, “me, Vorik, and Seven. Vorik was just as surprised as I was to discover that they had been restored.”

  “And Seven had no access during the last re-fit,” Chakotay said a little too defensively. “Since we arrived, her only concern has been finding the Caeliar.”

  B’Elanna’s eyes narrowed as she considered his assumption.

  “Then who?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. You should suggest that Lieutenant Conlon take it up with the captain.”

  “You could do that,” B’Elanna suggested.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “She doesn’t trust me,” Chakotay replied flatly.

  B’Elanna started to shake her head, but Chakotay raised a hand to forestall further objection.

  “For all she knows I came here under the pretense of helping Seven, but actually determined to somehow get my command back.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “You know that because you know me,” he replied. “Captain Eden and I met only a handful of times before this mission. She watches me like a pet that isn’t quite housebroken, wondering which moment I might choose to soil the carpet. If I go to her with something like this, she’ll never believe my intentions are pure. Besides, Conlon found it, so Conlon should report it. That’s the chain of command.”

  B’Elanna pushed the bowl away.

  “Do you think Captain Eden feels the same way about me?”

  “I doubt it. But I’m surprised Conlon doesn’t.”

  “She did,” B’Elanna replied, “until I set her straight.”

  “Then you’ve made more progress than I have.”

  B’Elanna nodded and rose. “I have to get back to the Galen to pick up Miral. The Doctor insisted on a full-body scan, but I think he just wanted to spend time with her. His new favorite thing is to tell her stories about me and Tom before she was born. He gets so involved, Miral just loves it. It’s kind of cute.”

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “Not at all.”

  As they headed for the recycler, B’Elanna asked, “Have you met his new assistant?”

  “Meegan?”

  “Yeah. What’s her story?”

  “I don’t know, but if Ensign Gwyn ever decided to set her sights on a certain hologram, I have a feeling Meegan would object quite strenuously,” he replied with a smile.

  “Does the Doctor know that?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Geez,” B’Elanna said with a sigh, “I don’t remember Voyager ever sounding so much like a bad Klingon romance novel.”

  “That’s because the last time you were here, you had more important things to pay attention to.”

  “I guess you’re right.” After a moment, she added, “And I’m pretty sure Nancy has a little crush on Harry, which I have every intention of nurturing.”

  “B’Elanna, let it be,” Chakotay pleaded.

  “Why?”

  “You are many things, my dear, but matchmaker is never going to be one of them.”

  Eden settled on one side of the conference room table as Paris, Kim, Patel, Cambridge, Seven, and Doctor Sharak were just arriving. Commander Glenn and the Doctor had already reported from the Galen and were chatting quietly . Conlon hurried in and took a seat next to them just as Captain Itak, Lieutenant Vorik, and Admiral Batiste entered. Batiste assumed the table’s head opposite Eden, and his presence brought the room to abrupt silence.


  Captain Itak took the lead in explaining their discovery of the Indign offering. Paris provided a briefing on his team’s attempt to communicate with the inhabitants of the third planet. Patel reported on the new data they had acquired about the aliens.

  Once these reports were complete, Eden asked, “Are we certain that the Indign vessel Hawking discovered can also be traced to this system?”

  Captain Itak replied, “Slight variances in the ship’s composition and size are attributable to its age—relative to the first cube Voyager encountered—but it undoubtedly was constructed by the same hands. Its power systems, though offline, were an exact match, as were its minimal shields and armaments.”

  “The inhabitants of this system are most definitely the Indign,” Batiste said briskly, cutting to the chase. He then turned to Seven and asked, “Were the Borg aware of the Indign as we now know them, separate from the four species cataloged individually?”

  Seven cocked her head slightly to the right, clearly searching her memory. “On sixteen different occasions, prior to my departure from the Collective, Indign vessels were assimilated. The Borg had already scanned this system, however, and found nothing worth assimilating. Because the vessels identified as Indign offerings contained hundreds of different life-forms, most of which had already been identified by the Borg, no connection was ever made between them and the cooperative species we observed on the third planet.”

  “The Borg weren’t even curious to know who was leaving these gift-wrapped offerings?” Batiste demanded.

  “The Borg reserved curiosity for mysteries that might have added to the Collective. The Indign ships were used as raw materials,” Seven replied coldly.

  “I think the point worth noting is, despite the fact that the Borg couldn’t have cared less about the Indign, the Indign did not feel the same,” Eden interjected.

  “You think the Indign left those people out there just for the Borg?” Paris asked.

  “This system lies just at the edge of what was once Borg space, a mere stone’s throw from one of their transwarp hubs,” Eden replied. “The offering vessel was discovered at a terminus of several collapsed transwarp conduits. Who else would it have been for?”

  “The captain might be correct,” Patel said, nodding. “In many ways, the organization of the Indign mimics that of the Borg Collective. Six disparate species work together essentially as one individual.”

  “Not to mention the architecture on the planet, and the design of their ships,” Paris added. “You’ve never seen so many cubes and spheres.”

  “Are you saying that the Indign idolized the Borg?” Kim asked.

  “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” the Doctor observed.

  “What sentient species could ever idolize anything as destructive as the Borg?” Batiste asked. “They were monsters.”

  “Perhaps idolized isn’t the right word,” Cambridge noted.

  “Feared,” Doctor Sharak observed.

  “Exactly,” Cambridge said. “Think about it. Your civilization exists right next door to the most powerful force imaginable. There is no reasoning, no negotiation, and no conquering that force. Perhaps by emulating the Borg, they were attempting to accommodate them. Perhaps the Indign believed that these offerings were all that stood between themselves and assimilation.”

  “Then they didn’t understand the Borg,” Seven noted.

  “What if they understood them better than you think?” Eden said a little sadly.

  “Captain?”

  “To many less advanced species, dominant ones can appear almost god-like. But the Borg wanted nothing to do with the Indign. What if they were trying to make themselves worthy of the Borg?”

  “If, as Seven indicated, at least four of the six Indign species once existed separately, it would have taken thousands of years for them to learn to exist as they do now, in their collective state,” Patel chimed in.

  “You don’t think this behavior evolved naturally?” Captain Itak inquired.

  “Yes and no,” Patel replied. “There is more to it than simple agreement between the various species. There are evolutionary links between them. Our universal translators can’t parse the Greech language, but somehow the Neyser and Irsk/Dulaph understand them perfectly. Nothing in my readings suggests that the Greech are telepathic, though the Neyser do show faint psionic abilities, but it seems clear that one or more of the other species is necessary for them to communicate with one another.”

  Doctor Sharak went on, “The Greech do, however, secrete a substance that is absorbed into the Neyser bloodstream through the pores on their arms. That substance nourishes the Neyser and might have enabled them to survive in the past without the various food sources the third planet now produces. The small, moth-like creature we observed appears to release a substance, perhaps as waste, which the Neyser regularly inhale and that is absorbed in the lungs but seems to stimulate certain segments of their brains. Additionally, it does not venture beyond the boundaries of the gaseous life-form. Although its DNA profile indicates it is indigenous to the third world, I believe it has been genetically modified to function only in concert with its noncorporeal counterpart.”

  “And it seems that the Dulaph are able to contribute largely through the aid of the Irsk, which allows it to change shape as required,” Patel added. “The genetic modifications we see in the winged alien are also present in the Dulaph. Whether these two were coerced into joining the others, or did so willingly, we cannot say.”

  “Still, it would be inappropriate to call any discrete group of these six species a collective,” Seven insisted. “The Borg were more than a cooperative species. Their thoughts were one, directed only by the Queen. There is nothing in the Indign that suggests this level of joining.”

  “Perhaps cooperative is a better word,” Eden offered. “Whether by need or by choice, these species have developed relationships that allow them to function as one. It’s actually quite a unique and miraculous thing. They might have been inspired by their admiration for the Borg, or simply hoped that there would be strength in their numbers if they hoped to resist them. Either way, it seems certain that the Borg had a hand in influencing the development of the Indign, whether they intended to or not,” Eden concluded.

  After a brief pause as everyone considered her reasoning, Paris asked softly, “You really think anyone out there would have ever wanted to be assimilated?”

  Cambridge quickly replied, “Don’t judge them too harshly. It must have been clear to any resident of this part of space that the Borg were the master race.” With a quick glance to Seven, he added, “Who wouldn’t want to be part of perfection?”

  “The Borg were far from perfect,” Batiste said abruptly and Eden noted Seven’s cheeks redden slightly, though she remained silent.

  “By our standards, certainly,” Commander Glenn piped up for the first time since the meeting had begun. “But we live as individuals. We value our autonomy. It’s possible that the Indign didn’t have that luxury. I find it hard to believe that if they could have survived as separate individuals, they wouldn’t have made that choice. The biological synthesis we’ve detected might have been discovered quite by accident, but if there was a pre-existing cultural bias in all of these creatures that placed a higher value on collective organization, given the success of the Borg as a species, they might have naturally gravitated toward one another.”

  “Their individuality became irrelevant,” Harry said somberly.

  “All good theories,” Eden said appreciatively, searching the faces of all assembled, “but I still want to know why they won’t communicate with us. Their ship fired on ours. We unintentionally destroyed their ship. You’d think they’d at least want an explanation.”

  “They do possess scanning technology,” Vorik said. “It is possible that they have decided, based on our previous encounter, that we possess more advanced offensive capabilities and are simply unwilling to risk the loss of more vessels in a fight they could not
hope to win.”

  “Or possibly, they are simply imitating the Borg,” Cambridge suggested.

  “We’ve indicated repeatedly in our hails that we are not a threat, we come in peace, and we want to establish communication with them,” Paris said. “Maybe this is their way of saying no. ”

  As Eden considered the possibility, Ensign Lasren’s voice came over the comm. “Captain, we are receiving an incoming transmission from the third planet.”

  “Put it through to the conference room.”

  “It’s not an audio message, Captain. It’s a set of transport coordinates.”

  “Coordinates?” Batiste asked.

  “Six life-forms are at the coordinates. I believe they intend for us to transport them aboard Voyager.”

  “Any sign of weapons?” Eden asked.

  “No, Captain.”

  “Stand by to transport them aboard.”

  “Captain?” Batiste asked.

  “Weren’t you the one who said we needed to do a better job establishing diplomatic relations with the species we encountered in the Delta quadrant?” Eden said evenly.

  Batiste could clearly see that she wasn’t going to let this go, and he wasn’t going to challenge her openly in front of the crew. He had promised Eden that she would have his full support, and it was gratifying to see that he planned to live up to his word.

  “Batiste to the bridge.”

  “Go ahead, sir.”

  “Drop shields and transport our guests aboard.” Turning to Eden, he said, “Assemble your team to meet them.”

  “Would you care to join us, Admiral?”

  He surprised her by replying, “I’ll await your report in my office, Captain.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Indign who appeared on the transporter platform was virtually indistinguishable from the ones they’d seen on the third planet. Kim didn’t know what he was expecting—perhaps some insignia or more formal dress that might indicate a higher ranking. The simple ecru tunic and light brown pants, accompanied by rough, worn boots, suggested that this cooperative could have just dropped their work in the fields before transporting aboard.

  The Greech coiled about the Neyser’s right arm emitted a characteristic ear-shredding shriek as soon as the transporter effect faded. Captain Eden didn’t flinch, but the same could not be said for Ensign Donner at transporter controls.