Star Trek Voyager: Unworthy Read online

  For the next few seconds, she rocked back and forth, holding on to Chakotay for dear life. Cambridge turned his tricorder on her and his fearful eyes met Chakotay’s.

  “Her heart rate has increased and her neurological activity is off the charts, particularly where her cortical node used to be.”

  “Seven,” Chakotay said insistently, “can you hear me?”

  She squeezed his hands in response, but made no move to terminate the communication.

  After a moment, she released him and turned to the darkness, searching the ground on hands and knees.

  As her arms buckled, Cambridge said, “We have to put a stop to this.”

  Seven lowered herself to the ground and raised a hand to slap at the back of her neck. Chakotay immediately intuited her purpose and quickly moved to activate the inhibitor.

  The tension slowly left Seven’s body and her breath came in gasps. On shaking hands she pulled herself toward the Neyser who stared at her with pain-filled eyes.

  “I understand,” Seven barely whispered.

  “What do you understand?” Cambridge asked impatiently.

  “She is dying.”

  “That much we knew,” Cambridge said. “There’s nothing we can do to help her now.”

  “The holes …” Seven began.

  Cambridge and Chakotay shared a confused glance.

  Seven pointed into the darkness she had explored only moments earlier. Chakotay illuminated the area and revealed what appeared to be eight freshly dug holes.

  “Are these graves?” Chakotay asked.

  “No,” Seven replied, her breath coming easier now. “They were secrets. They were hidden here for protection.”

  “That’s intriguing,” Cambridge noted.

  Finally Seven struggled to rise to her feet with Chakotay’s assistance.

  “Her people are coming. They can’t find us here. They’ll think we took them.”

  “Took what?” Chakotay asked.

  “We have to move!” Seven insisted as she lurched forward unsteadily.

  Chakotay and Cambridge moved to either side of her and clasping her under her shoulders began their ascent as rapidly as they could.

  As they neared the first level of the catacomb Chakotay activated his combadge. “Emergency transport. Three to beam up.”

  They materialized in the shuttle. “What happened?” Cambridge asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Chakotay answered.

  Breathless and frantic, Seven demanded, “We need to contact Voyager immediately. You must tell Captain Eden. The canister the Indign transported to Voyager … it wasn’t an offering. It was a weapon … the most destructive they possess. There were eight and now all are missing. They were weapons of last resort. You have to tell …” Seven said, her head lolling forward as she lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  B’Elanna stumbled through the darkness of the cabin toward the door. Tom had barely opened his eyes when the door to their cabin had chimed. B’Elanna had told him to go back to sleep while she went to see who thought it was necessary to disturb them.

  “Sorry to wake you,” Nancy offered.

  “It’s okay,” B’Elanna mumbled, rubbing some of the grogginess from her eyes. “Come in.”

  Once she had entered, Nancy moved immediately to the desk and computer panel stationed just to the right of the cabin door. She quickly uploaded the contents of a padd she had brought with her, and gestured for B’Elanna to take a look at it.

  Turning her attention to the screen, B’Elanna discovered a long string of encrypted programming code. “Okay, I’ll bite,” she said. “What have we got, Conlon?”

  “What you are looking at is the command code override that allowed our saboteur to insert the virus into the power distribution hub,” Nancy replied.

  “You had to rebuild these logs by hand, didn’t you,” B’Elanna observed, her estimation of Conlon’s abilities rising accordingly.

  “Yep,” Nancy said, stifling a yawn. “The code deleted itself as soon as the interface was terminated. I just had to look through about a billion places to find it.”

  “And it was encrypted when you found it?” B’Elanna asked.

  Nancy nodded. “That’s kind of what made it stand out. It also made it easier to find the other instance in which this override code was recently used.”

  “Let me guess,” B’Elanna said. “The same code was used to restore those old deflector protocols, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” Nancy replied. “And to bring the slipstream drive online during the general system power failure.”

  “Have you traced the user?” was B’Elanna’s next question.

  “I have,” Nancy said, “which is why I’m here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The encryption … you don’t happen to recognize it, do you?”

  B’Elanna felt a sudden chill. Dutifully she turned back to the screen and gave the code a closer look.

  Kahless, no, she suddenly thought as her heart began to pound.

  “It wasn’t even hard to break. It’s been stored in Federation databases for more than a decade,” Nancy mused.

  “It probably hasn’t been used much in that time,” B’Elanna conceded.

  “You’re right. The Maquis were pretty good at altering their encryptions as soon as they were intercepted.”

  I remember, B’Elanna thought sadly. Soon enough, however, that sadness was transmuted to anger.

  He wouldn’t, part of her heart insisted.

  But her head and the evidence before her told her unequivocally that Chakotay obviously had, most likely with Seven’s help.

  “I wanted to tell you before I told the captain,” Nancy said, her voice trembling with regret. “I know how much Chakotay means to you and Commander Paris.”

  B’Elanna wasn’t sure she could find it in herself to be grateful for Nancy’s obvious attempt at kindness.

  Barclay knew it was too soon to expect a response from Doctor Zimmerman. Four hours earlier, he had reactivated the Doctor, informing him that the diagnostic—that he had not run—had revealed no new information but that he would continue to study the problem. He then spent the intervening hours in the holographic research lab examining Meegan’s files in minute detail.

  Everything he had found was in perfect order.

  Which was troubling because that meant it should have been impossible for the Indign consciousness to assume control of her body.

  Meegan didn’t have a body.

  Meegan was a hologram—the most advanced hologram ever to spring from the minds of Lewis Zimmerman and Reginald Endicott Barclay. The lieutenant no longer remembered whose idea it had been to construct her. He only knew that he and Zimmerman had come to the conclusion that the Doctor needed a companion.

  They knew neither of them would be able to provide long-term, emotional support for the Doctor. He needed a companion, one of his own kind. Zimmerman and Reg started designing one. Her personal holographic emitter— based on the Doctor’s—was embedded in the center of her matrix, not far from where her heart would have been. The emitter could operate independently. She could assume a solid or permeable form, and could also alter her appearance at will. Meegan had been created with interests and pursuits the Doctor shared, but not a complete working knowledge of those pursuits. For her to become sentient—like the Doctor—they believed she would need to grow as an individual.

  However, she was not programmed to fall in love with the Doctor. Meegan was designed to be the type of woman the Doctor would grow to respect and, it was hoped, she would also grow to respect and admire the Doctor. It was intended that their relationship would take years to evolve. That’s why Barclay had been so surprised to see them in a passionate embrace.

  The Doctor was not aware that Meegan was a hologram. A subroutine had been added to her systems that required her to speak to Reg or Zimmerman before telling anyone. Both felt that if either she—or the Doctor—were aw
are that she had been created for him, both would reject the notion out of hand. Reg had hoped that over time, nature would take its course. Then, he would counsel Meegan to tell the Doctor that she was not organic. It was hoped that by then, the Doctor would not see this as a hindrance.

  Barclay was the only member of the fleet who was aware that Meegan was a hologram. He had not, until this moment, confronted the possibility that he might actually need to tell someone.

  He proceeded to review the personal logs of the officers who had been present when Meegan had been used to speak for the Indign. Reg belived that the consciousness was a program. Only a program should have had the ability to assume control of her matrix and overwrite her subroutines. Why would the Indign create such a program? It was not necessary to facilitate their cooperative lives. It certainly had no practical application to their spacefaring vessels. The program would have been unique and extraordinary; why wasn’t it further integrated into Indign society?

  Barclay knew the time had come to contact Captain Glenn and Admiral Batiste and advise them of the situation, but he remained hesitant.

  Reg didn’t mind working on complicated problems. But he hated not being able to present the solutions to his superiors. Convinced that he could solve this on his own and preserve a future between the Doctor and Meegan, Reg summoned Meegan to his quarters. The moment she entered, he said simply, “Computer, freeze program Meegan McDonnell. Authorization Barclay, delta, four, seven.”

  Barclay was relieved that she froze instantly at his command. He had fretted for the last several hours that the alien incursion might have done some permanent damage to her matrix. Naturally, he did not doubt his ability to discover how she had been possessed, but he worried that if he did not do it quickly, he would be forced to reveal Meegan’s true nature.

  Turning to his workstation, Reg began a level-ten diagnostic of Meegan’s program, beginning with an analysis of her memory buffers. He ignored the physical readings she was designed to emit.

  Instantly, he realized that her memory files had been compromised. Though most of them were still intact, the vast majority of her extra memory space, designed for hundreds of years of experiences to be stored, had been filled almost to capacity by what appeared to be a large block of data.

  His initial attempts to access this data were fruitless. Intrigued, he began the painstaking process of purging the data.

  “Don’t worry, my dear,” Reg said softly. “I’ll get to the bottom of this in no time and have you back in …”

  Reg paused as a chill shot down his spine.

  Meegan had frozen in a neutral pose after greeting Reg cordially.

  Why is she smiling now? Reg silently began to fret as he slowly turned his face to look at her again.

  That was the last thought he was conscious of for some time.

  At Conlon’s request, Eden, Batiste, Paris, and Kim had convened in Voyager’s conference room. She had already advised the captain of the sensitive nature of her discovery.

  “Go ahead, Lieutenant,” Batiste ordered.

  “We have completed our repairs. The deflector dish has been fully restored and all other systems are functioning normally,” Conlon began.

  “Good work,” Eden was quick to interject.

  “Thank you, Captain.” Conlon took a deep breath before distributing a small stack of padds to each of the officers. “I believe I have also discovered the cause of the multiple system failures. It was centered in the power distribution hub. It was not, as I had hoped, random, or simply a new bug we didn’t discover during our shakedown.”

  “What was it?” Batiste asked.

  “If you’ll direct your attention to the program string I’ve provided, you’ll clearly see that the power distribution hub was intentionally damaged by an implanted virus designed to cause numerous simultaneous power disruptions without actually destroying anything. The programming code used was encrypted and was also designed to eliminate all traces of itself once it was initiated. It took a long time to find. By analyzing our backup logs line by line, I tracked it down. The encryption code is identical to that used to disrupt the deflector control and to activate the slipstream drive.”

  “It was the work of one person,” Batiste said.

  “Yes, Admiral,” the chief engineer admitted, dejectedly.

  “And can you identify that person?” Eden asked.

  “It was Chakotay,” Conlon said, though it obviously pained her.

  “I don’t believe it,” Paris asserted.

  “I didn’t want to either,” Conlon replied, turning to him with a sympathetic glance. “But access to the central power distribution hub is command clearance only. Chakotay’s codes were eliminated the minute his command was transferred to Captain Eden. At some point, shortly after he boarded, his command codes were reactivated, briefly. Just long enough to allow him to access the systems he needed to. Further, I have confirmed that the encryption protocol was Maquis in origin.”

  Eden bowed her head and briefly read through the report. It was nothing more than a tactic to buy her the time she needed to compose herself. She had allowed Chakotay to join her ship based on Seven’s request and her trust in anyone who had ever worn a Starfleet uniform. Eden struggled to grasp Chakotay’s possible motives.

  He wants his command back, her heart warned. And he’ll do anything to get it, short of destroying the ship. A series of malfunctions, followed by an incursion into fluidic space … Command will have me back in the Alpha quadrant quicker than you can say quantum slipstream drive. Batiste had accused her more than once of being naïve. She hated that he had been proved right.

  To his credit, when Eden looked up to meet the admiral’s eyes she saw only sadness. They had all been deceived.

  Everyone wore the same despondent expressions, with the exception of Commander Paris.

  His face reddening and his eyes blazing he said, “I don’t believe it.”

  “No, you just don’t want to believe it,” Kim chided him softly.

  “No,” Paris insisted. “I don’t believe it. ”

  “Based upon this report, can either of you think of another likely suspect?” Eden asked softly.

  “No,” Kim said, and Paris did not correct him.

  “There’s no evidence that any of the new crewmen has ties to any individuals who might wish to confront Species 8472,” Kim continued.

  “And none of those who was aboard during Voyager’s original seven-year journey have either motive or access. If we broaden our scope to consider anyone who simply might want to damage the ship or shorten our current mission, the list gets too long to be useful.”

  “What do you mean?” Batiste demanded.

  “We’re all Starfleet officers. We go where Command sends us. But a lot of us devoted years to trying to return to the Alpha quadrant and perhaps some were not thrilled about returning to the Delta quadrant,” Kim replied evenly.

  “Every officer assigned to this mission was advised that it was a deep-space, long-term assignment and all willingly accepted those terms.”

  “With due respect, sir, deep space is one thing,” Kim countered. “The Delta quadrant is something entirely different.” He paused before adding, “The vast majority of the fleet’s current staff, apart from senior officers and engineering specialists, had only days to wrap their brains around our new assignment. I’m sure it took many of them by surprise.”

  “Does that include you, Lieutenant Kim?” Batiste asked pointedly.

  “Yes, sir,” Kim admitted without reservation. “But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t ready to accept Command’s decision. I believe this mission is necessary and am happy to do my part. But I can’t speak for everyone.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Paris said angrily. “No one who served under Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay would endanger this ship. We’re more than comrades in arms. We’re a family. We risked our lives for one another day in and day out for seven years and that doesn’t change just because we
might have reservations about our new assignment. If anything, we’re all more determined than ever to prove our worth to Command, who frankly didn’t seem to have much use for us in the Alpha quadrant.”

  “Tom, facts are facts,” Eden said flatly. “For what it’s worth, I, too, find it very hard to believe that anyone, least of all Chakotay, would do this. I agree with your characterization of your old crew. But we can’t simply ignore the evidence.”

  “Will Chakotay get a chance to defend himself against these accusations?” Paris demanded.

  “Chakotay will be confined to the brig until a hearing can be scheduled,” Batiste said in a tone that brooked no argument. “He will be assigned counsel and will have every opportunity to make a case for his innocence.” Turning to Eden he said, “Where is Chakotay now?”

  “He, Seven, and Counselor Cambridge were dispatched to the fourth planet of the Indign system to investigate a potential communication Seven believed she had received.”

  “May I say one more thing?” Paris asked.

  “Of course,” Eden replied.

  “Apart from the fact that Chakotay just wouldn’t do this, I think you also have to consider the reality that I’m not sure he could .”

  “Commander?” Conlon asked.

  “This is high-level programming. Seven of Nine, B’Elanna, Vorik, even you, Lieutenant,” Paris went on, with a nod to Conlon, “have the appropriate skill-set. But this just strikes me as too subtle an attack for Chakotay. Which is not to suggest,” he added hastily, “that I’m accusing anyone else I just named. If Chakotay were trying to sabotage us, this isn’t how he’d do it.”

  Eden surprised herself by agreeing with her first officer. Chakotay was certainly capable of subterfuge, but she wasn’t sure that he was capable of such a technologically advanced attack.

  “A point I’m certain you’ll have the opportunity to make once his hearing is convened,” Batiste replied briskly, his right eyebrow twitching with annoyance. “However, bearing that in mind, Captain Eden, I would also suggest that Seven be detained as well.”