Star Trek Voyager: Unworthy Read online

  He allowed himself to hope that his best friend might be coming around until Harry looked up sharply and met his gaze with hard eyes.

  “Nancy,” Tom said as he moved toward the table, “it’s good to see you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she replied. “It’s very nice of you to invite me to dinner.”

  “Not at all,” Tom assured her. He actually liked Conlon and appreciated how she was warming to B’Elanna.

  “Harry,” he then said with a nod.

  “Tom.”

  B’Elanna’s eyes darted quickly between them before she said, a little too brightly, “Why don’t we all take our seats?”

  “Sounds good,” Nancy said, seemingly unaware of the tension around her. “I’m starved.”

  Harry took the seat opposite her in silence as B’Elanna retrieved four bowls of a hearty beef stew from the replicator, along with a loaf of warm bread.

  “So, Starfleet,” B’Elanna teased Harry, once everyone had begun to dig in, “what’s it like being chief of security now?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Do you ever miss your old job?” B’Elanna asked.

  “Didn’t you start at ops?” Nancy added, clearly sharing B’Elanna’s desire to draw Harry out a bit.

  Harry nodded, continuing to shovel stew too quickly into his mouth to speak.

  “Harry was the best ops officer I’ve ever seen,” Tom told Conlon. “If there was an anomalous reading or systems glitch, he’d track it down in a heartbeat. He was so by-the-book he used to have Chakotay and Captain Janeway looking up regulations nobody else ever bothered to memorize.”

  Harry dropped his spoon and stared at Tom.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

  “Nothing,” Tom said.

  “Nothing,” Harry repeated. “Maybe if you had bothered to actually learn those regulations you wouldn’t have ended up in prison.”

  Tom felt his face flush.

  “Harry,” B’Elanna chided him softly.

  Nancy turned to Tom, her eyes wide, then tossed a plaintive glance toward B’Elanna.

  “It was a long time ago,” B’Elanna assured her.

  “Thanks, Harry,” Tom said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I’d almost forgotten that there are people aboard this ship now who don’t know every detail of my sordid past.”

  “Oh, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, believe me,” Harry told Conlon.

  The sadness on Nancy’s face clearly expressed her heartfelt desire not to wade any further into these troubled waters.

  “I imagine if you go back far enough, we’ve all done things we wished we could change,” she suggested kindly.

  “Oh, you don’t have to go back too far with Tom,” Harry corrected her.

  Tom pushed his bowl away and rose from his seat. “I told you I was sorry, Harry. I really don’t know what else to say.”

  Harry stood to face him. “Of course you don’t.”

  “Sit down, both of you,” B’Elanna ordered.

  “Maybe I should …” Nancy began.

  “No, please stay,” B’Elanna cut her off. “We’ve all been through too much together to let anything, least of all a misunderstanding, come between our friendship.”

  When Harry reluctantly took his seat, B’Elanna placed her hand on his and said, “Harry, if you want to be angry at someone, it should be me. I didn’t give Tom a choice. I was too frightened of what might happen and I swore him to secrecy.”

  “I’m not angry at you, Maquis,” Harry said, softening a bit in his use of an old endearment between them. “I really am glad that you and Miral are okay. I just …”

  “What?” B’Elanna urged him gently.

  After a long pause, Harry said, “I just can’t pretend that everything is like it used to be. Too much has happened. I thought we were a family.”

  “We are,” B’Elanna assured him.

  “No,” Harry said, shaking his head. “And now I’m not sure if we ever were.”

  “Harry, don’t you think I wanted to tell you? Don’t you think that if my daughter’s life hadn’t been at stake you’d have been the first person I confided in?” Tom said.

  “You didn’t trust me,” Harry replied. “That’s the bottom line. Even after everything we’ve all been through together, you still didn’t trust me. The Warriors of Gre’thor could have captured me and tortured me and I would never have given them B’Elanna or Miral. I would have died for them. But you didn’t know that about me—which means that even after ten years, you really don’t know me at all.”

  Shaking his head sadly, he pulled his hand away from B’Elanna’s and said, “Thanks for dinner. Good night, Lieutenant,” he added with a nod at Conlon.

  “Harry, don’t go,” B’Elanna began, as Harry hurried toward the door.

  “Let him,” Tom said coldly. Once Harry was gone he turned to Conlon and said, “I’m really sorry you had to see that.”

  “It’s complicated,” she said. “I get that.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Ensign Meegan McDonnell sat unobtrusively in the main sickbay of the Galen, reviewing the ship’s inventory of stored medical supplies. They hadn’t been in space long enough for anything to have expired, but there was little else she was permitted to do when the Doctor wasn’t busy with a patient. When she was done with the hypos Meegan moved on to the diagnostic and surgical equipment. Routine, but it allowed her to direct most of her attention to the conversation going on between the Doctor and Lieutenant Barclay.

  “Just let it go,” Reg insisted.

  “I don’t believe you want me to do that, or you wouldn’t have brought it up,” the Doctor replied.

  “It’s a waste of your memory buffers.”

  “Reg, I consider you to be a friend. Nothing that affects you is a waste.”

  Barclay appeared to be genuinely moved by this remark. Meegan certainly would have been in his place.

  Placing a hand on Reg’s shoulder, the Doctor continued, “If your feelings are genuine, and I have no reason to doubt that they are, you should do something about them. Three years may seem like a long time, but believe you me, it will fly by in the Delta quadrant.”

  “She would never think of me that way. And why should she? She’s beautiful. She’s accomplished. She’s not at all the type of woman I do well with, unless they’re trying to steal Federation secrets from me.”

  “Commander Glenn is beautiful and accomplished,” the Doctor agreed. “But she is also a human being. She has her own set of strengths and weaknesses, her own doubts and insecurities. No one sees themselves the way others do, Reg. You just need to gather your courage, and ask her to join you for a recreational activity. Choose something that will permit both of you the time to talk and get to know each other. The rest will come naturally.”

  Reg’s shoulders lifted as he inhaled and began to imagine the scenario the Doctor had just described. Soon enough, however, he crumpled.

  “What if she says no?”

  “She won’t.”

  “She could.”

  “She won’t.”

  “She will,” Reg finally decided. “And then I’ll have to spend the next three years avoiding her, which on a ship this size won’t be easy. We’ll constantly be running into each other in the halls—”

  “Reg,” the Doctor interrupted, ending one of Barclay’s meandering, stream-of-consciousness rambles before he could really get going. “You are a Starfleet officer held in high regard by your peers. You served aboard the Federation flagship, you were personally responsible for establishing communications between Voyager and the Alpha quadrant, and you are one of the most respected designers and developers of holographic technology currently alive. You are fascinating, and I’m sure that in time, she will come to see that. But only if you give her the chance . If you decide now that it will never work, it won’t. Decide that it will, and it might.”

  “Won’t I can live with. I’m not sure about might,” Reg said,
sighing.

  The Doctor shook his head in frustration, grabbed a padd and downloaded selected files from his personal database onto it before presenting it to Barclay.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Social lesson number four—Collegial Conversation. I created it for Seven of Nine, but I think it would serve you well to practice a little. You know, get your confidence up.”

  Reg dutifully read from the padd.

  “Good morning, insert name of officer here. How are you today?”

  “I’m very well,” the Doctor replied by rote. “How are you?”

  “I am excellent. I have been working on, insert name of current project here, and, oh, I don’t know.”

  Meegan jumped up from her stool and crossed to join them.

  “I’ll help you practice if you like,” she offered.

  “Oh, that’s not necessary, Ensign McDonnell,” Reg began.

  “That’s a wonderful suggestion,” the Doctor said buoyantly. “We’ll demonstrate.” Turning to Meegan, he said, “Good morning, Ensign McDonnell. How are you today?”

  “I am excellent,” she responded with sincere enthusiasm. “I’ve just finished going over our inventory and replenished our stocks where required. How is your study of the Caeliar catoms coming along?”

  “Incredibly challenging,” the Doctor said, “but I’m confident that in time, I’ll begin to make sense of them.”

  “I’m certain you will. You are an extraordinary researcher and physician. If there is anything I can do to help, I’d be more than happy to assist you.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Meegan.”

  “Not at all. I noticed that you’ve been learning a new opera. How’s it coming?”

  “Very well. Mozart is difficult, but that’s what I like about it.”

  “I’d love to hear you practice some time.”

  Barclay had been following along in the Doctor’s script from the start but soon realized that he wasn’t really witnessing an instruction meant only for his benefit. With a faint smile it dawned on him that Meegan’s interest in the Doctor was more than professional. Her eyes never left his, and her slightly flushed cheeks were a definite sign of attraction. He assumed he looked much the same way any time he was in the presence of Commander Glenn.

  As soon as Seven entered the sickbay she noted that the effervescent cheer with which the Doctor greeted her was diametrically opposed to the reception she received from his assistant, Meegan.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Seven asked simply.

  Meegan’s petulant grimace was only intensified when the Doctor replied, “Of course not. I’ve been expecting you.”

  Seven decided to dismiss Meegan’s less than professional demeanor as evidence of both her youth and inexperience. Surely anyone with an ounce of maturity would realize that Seven’s friendship with the Doctor was purely platonic and would provide no barrier to anyone else with Meegan’s obvious intentions. In time, perhaps, she would take Meegan aside and assure her that her obvious jealousy was neither warranted nor necessary.

  “Hello, Seven,” Barclay greeted her warmly. She felt the corners of her mouth tip upward automatically as she returned the salutation. Reg was as sweet and genuine a person as she had encountered in the Alpha quadrant.

  “Have the Galen’s unique systems performed up to your expectations so far?” she asked, well aware that he was intensely shy.

  “Oh, yes,” Reg said, his head bobbing up and down with obvious enthusiasm. “All our preliminary tests of the emergency medical and security holograms have been unqualified successes. All that remains is to test the command holograms, though Commander Glenn has been reluctant to authorize those diagnostics.”

  “Perhaps the events of the past few days have forced her to adopt a more conservative posture. I would assume that once we conclude matters in this system, she will be more receptive to your requests.”

  “That’s my thought as well, Seven,” Barclay replied, “although I did wonder if perhaps she might be a little threatened by the idea of the ECHs.”

  “I doubt Commander Glenn would have been selected to lead the Galen should that be the case,” Seven assured him. “But you should not hesitate to voice your concerns. She may not be aware of her own biases, should they exist.”

  “I quite agree,” the Doctor added, with a meaningful nod at Reg.

  “I don’t want to intrude,” Barclay said, suddenly more ill at ease. “Good to see you again, Seven.”

  “And you, Lieutenant.”

  Seven then allowed the Doctor to direct her to a private examination room, a thoughtful addition, in Seven’s view, to the design of the sickbay. She had grown accustomed aboard Voyager to limited privacy during medical procedures, but now more than ever, appreciated this unique attribute in the design of the Galen.

  “And how is your inhibitor functioning?” the Doctor asked as he began to scan her with his medical tricorder.

  “It appears to be working properly. As long as it is engaged, I am not aware of the voice at all. It has been refreshing to work without its constant interference.”

  “Counselor Cambridge has advised me that he has begun testing your ability to control the voice without the inhibitor.”

  “So far, my efforts in that regard have been less than satisfactory,” Seven replied honestly.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” the Doctor encouraged her. “This is uncharted territory. I think you’re bearing up extremely well.”

  “Have you made any progress in your analysis of the catoms?” Seven asked.

  The Doctor sighed. “Some, though my efforts in that regard have been less than stellar. I’ve analyzed the molecules using every diagnostic at our disposal, but I still understand almost nothing about how they do what they do. Clearly they are effective. If they weren’t you’d have died.”

  This was news to Seven, though once she had considered it, she realized it made sense.

  “Borg implants contained self-regenerating power sources.”

  “Yes,” the Doctor said with a nod, “and I expected to find something similar in the catoms. But it appears that they rely entirely on external power sources.”

  “For the Caeliar living in one of their cities, that power source was their omega molecule generators.”

  “Your biological processes now seem to be powering yours,” the Doctor added.

  “Then it is likely that the catoms that replaced my implants would be more limited in their scope and potential uses than those used by the Caeliar,” Seven reasoned.

  “Agreed,” the Doctor said. “They are integrated into your body seamlessly, more so than your Borg implants. This integration suggests to me that in time, you should be able to control them.”

  “That does not necessarily follow,” Seven argued. “I realize that you and Counselor Cambridge are both intrigued by this possibility, but it is equally likely that the catoms were placed in my body with severely limited programming. Their only purpose might be to sustain the systems that once required nanoprobes. There might be no neural connection, apart from the catoms that replaced my cortical node, or that connection might be one-way.”

  “You think they placed that voice in your head and denied you the ability to answer it?”

  “It is possible.”

  “It’s also barbaric, and not at all consistent with what little else we know of the Caeliar. I don’t believe they intended the voice to torment you.”

  “Then they failed.”

  “Or perhaps, we just haven’t figured out how to make appropriate use of the gift they have given you.”

  Seven bristled at the thought of the transformation as a gift. However, it was possible that the Caeliar had unintentionally created her current dilemma.

  “I need to disengage the inhibitor to run a diagnostic on it and to download the data it has collected about your neural processes,” the Doctor said. “Would you like me to sedate you while I do so?”

  “I
survived for months with the voice,” Seven replied. “Although I would not consider myself able to perform my duties without the inhibitor at this time, I believe I possess sufficient control to manage for a few minutes while you perform your tests.”

  “Very good,” the Doctor said, and smiled. “Are you ready?”

  Seven acquiesced with a nod.

  The Doctor gently removed the inhibitor and Seven forced herself to take deep, regular breaths as she awaited the resurgence of the unwelcome presence in her mind.

  You are Annika Hansen.

  Seven ignored the voice and attempted to focus her thoughts on the most recent scans she had completed of the Indign system. Unfortunately, this led her to thoughts of the reverence the Indign seemed to have for the Borg too quickly. The notion that she and the Indign might share anything in common was decidedly troubling.

  You are Annika Hansen.

  Seven stole a glance at the Doctor, who hummed softly to himself as he performed the diagnostic. Her heartbeat began to accelerate as she attempted to calculate the length of time it would take for him to complete his work.

  You are Annika Hansen.

  I am Seven of Nine. I am a unique individual. Your interference is neither helpful nor appropriate. I am Seven of Nine.

  Hello, Seven of Nine.

  Seven’s eyes widened instantly at this abrupt change to the voice’s routine. Her breath came in quick, short spasms as she waited to see if it would return to normal, or if, somehow, she might have just discovered some of the control she had been seeking.

  Seven of Nine?

  “I am here,” she said aloud.

  Seven of Nine, help me.

  “Where are you?”

  “Seven?” the Doctor said, puzzled.

  “Something has changed,” she advised him.

  He quickly returned to her side and began to scan her. “Your heart rate and respiration have increased,” he noted. “What’s wrong?”