Strange New Worlds 2016

by Various

  “You have to understand that even back then I had a great deal of respect for all of you.” His eyes looked off to some imaginary space to his right as he thought. “The way Captain Janeway had managed to get former enemies to work together almost from the moment we met. How Chakotay tried to nurture me from the time I joined the Maquis. Your logic and determination even back from before I knew you were Starfleet. I had a deep respect for each one of you.”

  Tuvok had his qualms about the message he was receiving, but he wasn’t planning to be the only one to see it. He adjusted his tricorder to record the message lest Suder had programmed it to delete itself.

  He weighed the risk of Lon Suder having set another trap as part of this “good-bye.” It seemed unlikely based on their work for the last several months.

  “Tuvok to Captain Janeway,” he half whispered as the message continued playing. “You may wish to come to Mister Suder’s quarters.”

  “What is it, Tuvok?” the captain asked, not matching Tuvok’s volume.

  “He has left a message you may wish to see. Also, please bring a pair of personal force field generators as a precaution.” Even though a booby trap seemed unlikely, he didn’t wish to be unprepared for the possibility.

  “Understood.”

  In the meantime, Suder’s confession continued in the background.

  “Tuvok, I’ve always been a violent man. I knew I needed help. When I read about the Tantalus colony, I nearly checked myself in, but I was afraid they’d just have me committed permanently. I wasn’t going to risk being locked up forever in some place like Elba II. I knew I could be useful.

  “As loathe as they are to admit it, Starfleet has a use for violent people. Violence is a tool. It can be, anyway. It can serve a purpose.” While Tuvok found Suder’s assessment distasteful, as a security officer it was impossible to disregard it entirely.

  “But I wasn’t going to pass the psych screenings. I’d have to find my purpose elsewhere. That’s why I joined the Maquis. They needed someone who was willing to kill. Someone who didn’t have anything holding them back. I could help save people.

  “But my purpose didn’t end when I reached Voyager. Not in my eyes anyway. I knew that I needed an outlet, and Voyager . . . Voyager needed a trial by fire.”

  Commander Chakotay stood outside of the captain’s ready room. A chime alerted her to his presence.

  “Come in.”

  Chakotay entered to see Captain Janeway standing near her desk as a team of security officers surveyed the damage, running tricorders over purplish residue and scattered coffee creamer. He joined the captain at the other end of the room. “The Doctor just provided me an update on Tuvok. He’s confirmed that there’s no permanent damage, but he’s not allowing him to leave sickbay for at least three days.”

  “I’ll stand by that.” The captain looked Chakotay in the eye. “Tuvok’s going to want to push himself. Don’t let him. Captain’s orders.”

  “Understood. But this is a bad time to be without our best investigator.” He winced at his own faux pas. “No offense to the rest of our security staff.”

  Lieutenant Andrews made a curt nod and turned his attention to the command officers from where he knelt on the floor with a tricorder. “None taken, Commander. Lieutenant Tuvok has more experience in forensics than the rest of us combined.” With a few gestures he signaled to the other security officers that they were dismissed. “We have detailed scans of the room. We’re going to run an analysis, but I don’t know that there’s much to find. The device you described doesn’t match anything we’d normally have on Voyager, but I can’t imagine it was transported to the ship while we were at warp.”

  “Neither can I,” the captain agreed. “And it was definitely a Starfleet transporter. No, this was targeted. This was personal.” She leaned against the desk. “Using coffee creamer to augment an explosive device is adding insult to injury.”

  Andrews seemed confused. Chakotay clarified, “If there’s one thing you need to know about your captain, Lieutenant, it’s that she always takes her coffee black.”

  “Trying to kill me is one thing. Filling my ready room with creamer . . . that’s personal.”

  Chakotay raised an eyebrow at the dark humor of the comment. Andrews shifted uncomfortably, apparently uncertain as to how to respond to the grim thought. “How would you like us to proceed, Captain?”

  “Continue with your analysis. Work with Lieutenant Torres to see if you can track down whoever reprogrammed the replicator and trace that transporter. And figure out what that thing was.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  “Keep this as quiet as you can. No sense panicking the crew. I’ll work with Commander Chakotay to analyze the psych profiles we have on file so we can discreetly begin arranging interviews. Dismissed.” She inclined her head curtly.

  Chakotay was surprised that Janeway was taking such direct charge of the investigation. Was the personal nature of the attack influencing her behavior?

  Andrews strode out the door to the bridge, leaving Chakotay and Janeway alone. Janeway slumped into her chair and massaged her temple. Chakotay sat by the viewport and squeezed his hands as he waited for her to say the first word.

  “This is just unbelievable.”

  Chakotay nodded in assent. “This is hardly the first time someone’s tried to take our lives, but I’m used to it coming from an external enemy.” He heaved a sigh as he considered how to best follow through on the plan the captain had suggested. “We’re going to be limited in what psych profiles we have available, and it’ll be difficult to run new profiles without spreading rumors.”

  “You’re right.” She sighed. “To make it worse, we don’t even have the profiles we’re going to really need.”

  Chakotay had a bad feeling he knew what she meant. He elected to play dumb and give her the benefit of the doubt. “I’m sorry? I don’t follow.”

  “Come now, Chakotay. I’m sure you’ve come to the same conclusion I have.” She leaned forward. “I can’t see Neelix or Kes being behind this. That really only leaves the Maquis. Probably one of the members that came from the colonies rather than Starfleet.”

  Chakotay’s head tilted. He gnawed his lower lip as he tried to find a diplomatic response, but his protectiveness of his people was starting to win out. “I fail to see how you came to that conclusion.”

  “You remember how rigorously the Academy screens applicants. We’ve both been through the barrage of psych tests that filters out people with troubling tendencies. The odds of such a violent unprovoked attack from one of our crew is minimal.”

  “You’re talking about the same Academy that produced Garth of Izar, right?”

  Janeway’s expression hardened. “Which resulted in tighter application screening.”

  “As I recall, the conspirators that assassinated Chancellor Gorkon made it through those changes. And I’m sure you’ve met a few individuals out of the Academy who seemed a bit tightly wound. I remember Boothby telling me about a Klingon and a Brikar who were literally at each other’s throats.”

  “Okay, Starfleet personnel aren’t infallible. But I can’t imagine a Starfleet crew turning against its captain.”

  “Tell that to Admiral Pressman. The way he tells it, he got into a firefight and barely escaped when his crew mutinied.”

  “You may have missed some details that have recently come out about that incident, Commander. Suffice it to say that there were . . . unusual circumstances.”

  Chakotay saw that his captain was losing her patience, but it was impossible for him to rebottle the frustration that was finally spilling out. “And this isn’t unusual? We’re stranded seventy thousand light-years away because we decided that helping the Ocampa was the right thing to do. I was right with you, but let’s not pretend everyone felt the same way.”

 
; Janeway stood, her hands subtly shaking as her nails dug into her palms. “True. But my people are Starfleet officers who know how to take orders. I will grant you that it is not absolutely impossible that they could have done this, but it’s unlikely enough that we can’t waste limited resources pursuing what is almost certainly a dead end.” She halted and turned to her first officer. “This was an act of terror. We have known terrorists on the crew. Let’s focus there.”

  Chakotay was taken aback. He slowly stood to face his captain eye-to-eye. “Is that what you think of the Maquis?”

  “It’s not about what I think. It’s not a matter of debate.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  Chakotay turned to face the viewport as he strained to maintain his composure. “Do you really want to go down this road, Captain?”

  “Oh, I don’t think there’s any avoiding it. We had to talk about it sometime.”

  “The Maquis are not terrorists.”

  Janeway was incredulous. “You could have fooled me. What do you call the attacks on the Bok’nor, the Vetar, and any number of other Cardassian vessels?”

  “Self-defense. The Bok’nor was running weapons—”

  “Possibly running weapons.”

  “The Vetar was retaliation. Gul Evek was taking the lead in attacking Federation colonists.”

  “Former Federation colonists.”

  “And whose decision was that?”

  “It was their decision. They decided to stay in a probable war zone.”

  “They decided to stay in their homes. The Cardassians attacked first.”

  Chakotay was struggling to avoid this debate turning into a shouting match. He took a deep breath and seated himself by the viewport once more. “Just how much time have you spent talking to your Maquis crew? How much do you really know about them?”

  “Enough.”

  “Are you so sure?” Chakotay collected his thoughts. “We were talking about Crewman Dalby. Do you know why he joined the Maquis?”

  “I can’t say I know him very well.”

  “The woman he loved was assaulted by the Cardassians.” He waited a moment for this to sink in. “It was completely unprovoked. They raped her. Smashed her skull and left her for dead.”

  It was Janeway’s turn to catch her breath. “I . . . I didn’t know.”

  “Or Tabor. He doesn’t talk much about why he joined, but apparently his family was taken by the Cardassians and killed in some sort of barbaric medical experiments.”

  Chakotay felt a sad relief as he watched Janeway’s discomfort as she tried to digest what she was hearing. Chakotay had been a captain leading a crew who had faced difficulties that the carefully screened crew of Voyager might never have imagined. She took a moment before her deliberate response. “I’m not saying I’m completely unsympathetic to the plight of the Maquis. I can’t blame you for having felt the same way.”

  “It’s much more than sympathy, Captain.” He drew a deep breath. “Did you know my father was killed by the Cardassians?”

  Janeway’s mouth gaped open. She had glanced over Chakotay’s file long ago when she had first prepared to pursue his Maquis cell, but it had been surprisingly short on details as to why he had defected. “I’m sorry, Chakotay. I never knew.”

  “There’s much about us you don’t know. Most of us don’t take violence lightly. No more than a Starfleet security officer is quick to fire a phaser because he can.”

  Janeway processed this. “I see what you’re saying, but what you’re describing, as tragic as it is, is a crew motivated by personal vendettas to take up violence.”

  “Captain, being in the Maquis wasn’t ever about revenge. Not for most of us, anyway. It’s about making sure that this doesn’t happen to anyone else.” Chakotay shook his head. “I won’t claim there aren’t members or even cells in the Maquis that are quick to adopt terrorist tactics, but that doesn’t describe most of us. We weren’t terrorists any more than the French Maquis during World War II.” He looked her in the eye. “History hasn’t called them terrorists, and I don’t think it will view us that way either.”

  Janeway nodded, evaluating what she was hearing. “Okay, but you’re asking me to trust that people with a history of violence and rebellion against Starfleet aren’t the people we’re looking for. I wish I could, but when we’re short on options that’s a dangerous thing to do.”

  “All I’m asking for is equal treatment.” Chakotay spoke carefully and calmly. “I know it’s a leap of faith to even do that much, but we can’t afford to lose trust right now.” He glanced around the damaged room. “You’re right about this much: What we just lived through was an act of terror. Whoever did this wasn’t just targeting you. They were targeting the unity of this crew.” He looked his captain directly in the eye. “My people are trustworthy, Captain. My cell couldn’t have operated without that trust. They followed me because I earned their trust, and they’ve earned mine.”

  Janeway sighed. “Okay, fine. You’ve made your point, Commander,” she conceded. “And if anything is going to get us through this, it’s trust. We may have had our differences in the past, but we’re together now.” Chakotay was gratified by the response and relieved as her tone shifted to renewed determination. “Okay, we investigate this from all angles. Our best forensics expert is in sickbay. We can’t panic the crew, and we can’t go around making accusations. Our best bet is to keep this quiet.”

  The door to the ready room chimed.

  “Come in.”

  Neelix and Kes entered the room. Neelix nervously wrung his hands together, while Kes’s face revealed her dismay. Kes spoke first: “We heard what happened, and we just want you to know that we’re happy to do anything we can to help.”

  Janeway rubbed her palm over her forehead before looking back up. “Thank you for your offer. We’ll keep you two in mind if there’s anything we need.”

  Neelix’s head cocked. “Huh.”

  Chakotay waited a moment before asking, “What is it, Neelix?”

  “This . . . this residue . . . May I?”

  Janeway gestured toward the purplish dust. “By all means.”

  Neelix knelt down over one of the stronger concentrations. He stayed low as he circled it. Finally, he stopped, rubbed a purple spot with his finger, and tentatively licked the residue.

  Kes knelt beside him. “Neelix?”

  “Captain, have you been setting off fireworks in your ready room?”

  “I haven’t,” she said, standing and striding over to where Neelix knelt, “but I take it someone has.”

  “This residue is just like the Talaxian sparklers I grew up with. I even keep a few on my ship for special occasions.”

  Chakotay suspected this had less to do with “special occasions” than with Neelix’s inability to throw anything out in his pre-Voyager life, but that didn’t matter now. “Can you determine if any of your supply is missing?” he asked.

  Neelix’s face scrunched up. “I can’t say I know for sure how many I had with me. It may be hard to say if one has gone missing. But I can try.”

  Janeway nodded gratefully. “Understood. Anything you can do is much appreciated.”

  “Of course, Captain. Anything we can do to help.”

  “Keeping this whole thing relatively quiet would go a long way,” Chakotay interjected, “although I suspect it’s a little late for that.”

  “Of course.”

  “And please ask Lieutenant Andrews to join you so he can run some scans. Any data we can get on the explosives might be helpful.”

  Neelix nodded. “And I’m sure working with security will reassure them that the Talaxian explosives weren’t set off by your only Talaxian. Understood, Commander.”

  “Thank you,” Janeway said with a sincere smile.
“Both of you. I’ll let you know if there’s anything else you can do. Dismissed.”

  Kes and Neelix rushed out purposefully.

  Janeway turned toward her first officer. “Trust.”

  Chakotay nodded in assent. “Imagine if Neelix and Kes hadn’t felt we trusted them. They might’ve cowered away, afraid that we would view them as the first suspects.”

  “And the former Maquis on this ship should feel that they trust us the same way.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve been talking the talk about uniting this ship. Now I need to walk the walk.” Chakotay felt she was being a little hard on herself, but he let her continue uninterrupted. “I’m sorry, Chakotay. Arguing over terminology and history isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

  “You’re right, but neither is dismissing the past or hiding our concerns. This may not have been the most pleasant conversation for either of us, but I’m glad we had it, and I’m glad I can be straightforward with you. We need to be completely together on this.”

  “Trust begins at the top.” Janeway nodded to herself as she thought. “But now what do we do? We have to start the investigation somewhere.”

  “Assuming Neelix is right, we figure out who has the technical skill and access to break into his ship, reprogram the replicators, and pull off a site-to-site transport. We start with the engineers.”

  “Former Maquis make up a pretty good chunk of our engineering staff, including our department head. It might still feel like we’re targeting them.”

  Chakotay was relieved she had taken his words to heart so quickly. “I don’t think we need to overcorrect here. If anyone starts talking, I’ll deal with it.”

  Janeway smiled appreciatively. “I’m glad to have you with us, Chakotay. I don’t know how I would’ve integrated these crews without you by my side.”

  “It’s a privilege serving with you, Captain. Now let’s catch whoever did this before they make another attempt.”

  Suder’s face scrunched, apparently considering what he would say next.

  “I’m sure you saw what I saw. The differences between the Maquis crew and Starfleet had been bubbling for months. There had been talk of mutiny. It terrified me to consider what might happen if a real crisis came. Would the Maquis follow orders? Would Starfleet trust the Maquis to do their jobs? Could everyone work together? If they second-guessed at the wrong time, it could mean a disaster.