Strange New Worlds 2016

by Various

  “Space is a dangerous place. Without trust and unity, we could all die.

  “We needed a test of that trust. When faced with a danger to our commanding officer, would everyone come together or would we fall apart?

  “I thought it made sense at the time. Looking back . . . maybe it was just an excuse for an expression of violence. Not that I’ve ever needed an excuse before, but I suppose I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to let myself go either. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very satisfying opportunity.”

  The doors slid open and Janeway entered with Lieutenant Andrews at her side. The captain wore an armband with a personal force field generator; Andrews handed another to Tuvok.

  “In any case, once I’d set things in motion all I could do was sit and watch. I don’t know that I cared much about being caught, other than the prospect that it might interrupt the experiment. From what little I could observe it seemed the command crew had begun to build confidence in each other. The real question was how the lower decks would respond.”

  Chakotay sat in the conference room as Lieutenant Torres gave her progress report. Captain Janeway and Lieutenant Andrews sat beside him listening attentively.

  “We’ve confirmed that the explosion was Talaxian fireworks. It’s hard to say for certain that they came from Neelix’s ship, but it seems likely. I can’t find any indication they were replicated.” Torres rubbed her eyes, which were baggy after her sleepless night analyzing the data. “Whoever did this has been covering their tracks well,” she said, exasperated.

  “Who’s been in Neelix’s ship?” asked Chakotay. “Other than Neelix and Kes?”

  “Not that we’re ruling them out,” Andrews interjected.

  “No,” said Janeway, “but they’ve been cooperative, it seems unlikely, and I’m not convinced either of them have the engineering skill to pull this off. But we’ll keep the possibility in mind.”

  Torres slid a padd across the table. “Neelix has been very open in allowing our crew to access the Baxial, but it’s mainly been engineering staff checking for supplies and assisting him with any repairs in case he needs the ship in the future.”

  Janeway’s eyes scanned the list. “Ashmore, Ayala, Carey, Dalby, Hogan, Jonas, Seska, Suder, and Vorik.”

  “And myself. That’s everyone.”

  “That we know of,” added Chakotay. “That’s a good-sized list.”

  “I can’t help but note that most of the list is Maquis—former Maquis,” said Andrews, correcting himself immediately. He held his hand up in defense. “Not that I’m accusing anyone of anything.”

  “We have a lot of Maquis engineers, Lieutenant,” Torres said, seething. “I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that the Baxial doesn’t feel like Starfleet. Being surrounded by Starfleet personnel and Starfleet technology can be a strain when you feel like Starfleet abandoned your people.”

  “And that’s perfectly understandable,” Janeway said, taking control of the situation before it got out of hand. Andrews appeared to pick up on the warning in her gaze.

  “Of course,” he added diplomatically.

  Chakotay was ready to move on. “What else do you have, Lieutenant?”

  “The replicator programming was flawless. The attacker covered their tracks well. I can’t even say which terminal was used to make the change.”

  Andrews scratched his chin. “It had to be someone who knew the captain’s predilection for coffee.”

  “Black coffee,” Janeway emphasized with bitterness.

  “Not necessarily.” Torres tapped her padd, and a diagram of chemical reactions appeared on the conference lounge screen. “Neelix’s fireworks weren’t powerful enough to cause much damage. About the worst thing that they could have done was blind someone. But the creamer was a particularly dense blend the Klingons use in raktajino, augmented with a few other reactive chemicals. You could drink it in your coffee and not get much worse than a stomach ache, but combined with an ignition source, it made for a potentially powerful explosive.”

  Andrews chimed in. “It looks like Tuvok managed to contain most of the explosion with the fire-suppression field. That was quick thinking on his part. Most of the creamer mixture was contained outside the field. If he’d been a few seconds later you wouldn’t have a ready room anymore.”

  “And you wouldn’t have a captain anymore,” Janeway said darkly. “If that’s a dead end, what else do we have?”

  Torres adjusted her padd again. “The attacker tried to delete the records of the transport, but they forgot how many backup systems Voyager has. I managed to find an archive of the transport log.”

  “Does it identify the user?”

  “Yes,” Torres said cautiously, “but it’s not as helpful as you would hope.”

  “Out with it, Lieutenant.”

  “It says it’s me.”

  “You?” Chakotay said in confusion.

  “Let’s face it. Security isn’t great right now. We’ve had to create log-ins for everyone, and not all of our crew is used to that. Not to mention we’ve been shifting personnel between departments rapidly while we figure out what suits everyone. If I get a new staff member, I can’t wait on security to set up their access when there’s work to be done, so sometimes we share security codes.”

  Janeway’s expression was scolding. “I’m sure I don’t need to give you a speech as to why security on this ship is important.”

  “No, of course not. But we need to streamline some of these processes.”

  “A conversation for another time,” Chakotay said. “In the meantime, we need you to change your command codes immediately.”

  “Already done. I changed them as soon as I realized what had happened.”

  Janeway leaned back and rubbed her forehead. “So another dead end. What else do we have?”

  “What about checking the duty roster?” Andrews asked. “We can check who would’ve been in engineering when the records were deleted.”

  “I don’t think it will do you any good,” said Torres. “The station was in main engineering, and we had just finished a staff meeting. It could’ve been anyone.”

  “Back to square one,” said Janeway.

  “Not really,” said Chakotay. “We have a list of nine possible suspects. That’s a whole lot better than a hundred and fifty.”

  “Captain, would you like me to begin interviewing the suspects?” Andrews asked tentatively. “Or would you like me to wait for Lieutenant Tuvok to be released from sickbay?”

  “I don’t think we can afford to delay.”

  “I’ll begin arranging interviews.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Chakotay said, “I’d like to conduct the interviews personally. No disrespect to your investigation abilities, Lieutenant, but I’ve known many of these people for a long time. I might have an easier time getting them to open up.”

  Janeway nodded in assent. “Lieutenant, do you have any objection?”

  “No, Captain.”

  “Then go ahead and start the interviews. And we’ll be ready for Andrews or Tuvok to follow up if necessary. Do we have anything else?” Everyone was silent. “Dismissed.”

  “Crewman Suder,” Chakotay began, “I’m sure you know why I wanted to talk to you.”

  “I can’t say I do, Commander.”

  The two sat in Torres’s office, which Chakotay had commandeered for the interviews. Suder’s face was expressionless.

  “And I’m sure you’ve heard of the attack on myself and Captain Janeway.”

  “Attack?” Suder’s eyes narrowed. “I’m often not privy to the latest gossip. The captain is okay, I hope?”

  “She’s fine, but Lieutenant Tuvok has been injured.”

  “A shame.” Suder’s tone remained even, but his eyebrow furrowed. “About Mister Tuvok, that is. I have
nothing but the greatest respect for Vulcan serenity. It’s too bad that they don’t care to discuss it more often, at least if Lieutenant Vorik is any indication.” He paused, his attention drifting. “Although I do get the sense Lieutenant Vorik isn’t too fond of me. Perhaps it’s his discomfort with the Maquis.” His neck snapped as he turned his gaze back to Chakotay. “But I digress. How can I help you, Commander?”

  “We’re just looking for any clues we can follow to determine who might’ve initiated the attack. It required a feat of technical skill.”

  “And you think it was someone in engineering?” Carey asked in disbelief.

  “We have reason to believe it might have been, yes.”

  The Starfleet engineer looked down at the table as he thought. “We have good people here, but it’s a large crew. I don’t think anyone bears any animosity toward you or the captain.”

  “That’s a nice sentiment, Lieutenant, but I think we both know it’s not the whole truth.”

  Carey snorted. “What do you mean?”

  “More than anyone, you know we’ve had a lot of conflict. Torres practically broke your nose when we first joined the crew.”

  “Well, yes.” It hadn’t been long ago, but Carey seemed to have distanced himself from the event. “I mean, the lieutenant has a temper, but only if she thinks you’re trying to provoke her. I don’t have to tell you that, Commander. You’ve known her far longer than I have.”

  “What about Seska? She’s talked about mutiny before.”

  “Commander, is this about my part in obtaining the Sikarian transporter?” Carey shifted into a near panic. “Yes, I worked with Torres and Seska to get the transporter technology, but that doesn’t mean we have anything against the captain.”

  Chakotay hadn’t been hinting at the conspiracy, but it made sense that Carey was concerned, and there was no reason not to run with it. “Doesn’t it? You disobeyed orders. You worked together to circumvent her decision. It would seem you aren’t content with the way the chain of command is working around here.”

  Carey’s remorse was palpable. “Commander, I just want to get back home.”

  “And Captain Janeway keeps standing in the way of that. She stranded your crew and mine in the Delta Quadrant. She’s turned down shortcuts to get back home.”

  “Because she was doing the right thing!” Carey’s eyes were wide. “Yes, we disagreed about trading transporter technology, but I have nothing but respect for the captain!”

  Chakotay had him cornered.

  “So if not you, then who feels otherwise?”

  “Chakotay,” Seska replied, “a lot of us have mixed feelings about the captain. You know that.”

  “Enough to kill her?”

  “Apparently.” Seska shrugged. “I mean, it happened.”

  “You’re taking this awfully lightly.”

  “Chakotay, I’ve seen a lot of people die. We both have.” She reached out and grasped his hand. “It terrifies me that you almost got caught up in this. And you can’t be implying that I was part of some conspiracy against you and the captain.” She massaged his hand gently. “You know I would never do anything to hurt you.”

  Chakotay pulled his hand away. “And what if I was an innocent bystander?”

  Seska stood up and paced the office. “What do you want me to say, Chakotay? You know I have the skill to do something like this. You know I had the opportunity. And you know I’m not the biggest fan of the captain. I have a history of violence from both the Maquis and the Bajoran resistance.” She threw a hand up in the air. “If I was back home and the Cardassians caught me, I’d have been charged for far worse than this.”

  She returned to the table and grasped his hand again. “But I won’t lie to you, Chakotay. I had nothing to do with this. I’m not a Klingon. I’m not going to try to kill my captain, no matter how much she gets on my nerves.”

  “Then who?”

  “Logically, no one.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Vorik reiterated, “Logically, no one would have assaulted Captain Janeway. The inevitable fallout of such an assault among the crew far outweighs any possible benefit. The first question in any crime is this: Who takes benefit? No one that I am aware of. Certainly none of the staff that I am serving with.”

  Chakotay’s mouth hung open until he could bring himself to speak again. “So your Vulcan logic tells us that this didn’t happen? I think I can identify a few flaws with that.”

  “ ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ If you view the logs, you will find a series of recent technical malfunctions. Minor replicator issues. So minor that people have simply dismissed them and continued on with their lives.”

  That much was possible. Replicator issues were hardly unknown, so usually one just accepted them unless the problem was major or frequent. “And why hasn’t Lieutenant Torres pointed this out in our investigations?”

  “The nature of the malfunctions has been so minor that the problems were attended to by other staff as the issues arose. Only someone attuned to hearing everything around them would have noticed the pattern of complaints mentioned among the engineering crew.” Vorik inclined his head to one side as if to draw attention to his pointed ears.

  “Your Vulcan logic is still flawed. Setting aside your dubious definitions of ‘inevitable’ and ‘impossible,’ your theory still doesn’t account for the actual explosive.”

  “The ‘explosives’ were fireworks. I would hypothesize that the fireworks were part of an ill-conceived prank. One that, in this case, had particularly poor timing.”

  “And the cover-up? The deleted files?”

  Vorik seemed to lose some of his confidence, but he continued, “I would posit that the type of person to attempt such a prank would also be the type to panic were such a prank mistaken for an assassination attempt.”

  “Mister Vorik’s confidence in his crewmates is admirable,” said Tuvok as he listened from his sickbay biobed. The burns that had previously covered his face and hands had already been completely healed. “But I fear his confidence in his own cleverness is distorting his logic. A frequent problem with young Vulcans.”

  Janeway, Chakotay, Andrews, and Torres all stood around the biobed as the Doctor reviewed his most recent scans of Tuvok. Andrews was pacing nervously, his discomposure evident.

  “I wish everyone could share his confidence,” started Andrews. “We’ve been hearing a lot of nervous talk from the crew. The Starfleet crew is worried this could be the start of a Maquis uprising. Suspicious Maquis are thinking this was an attack on Chakotay. Everyone’s keeping their cool so far, but I don’t know how long this will last.”

  “Unfortunately, Ensign Vorik’s prediction that a conflict was ‘inevitable’ may yet prove true. If the crew believes there is someone among us who tried to kill our captain, it may, at best, undo much of the progress we have made in building trust between our diverse crews.”

  Torres had her doubts. “It seems like my department’s been drawing together more than ever.”

  “Perhaps,” said the head security officer, “but that confidence will ebb away with time. The rest of the crew will see a group of Maquis and a recent collaborator in a conspiracy.” He sighed. “And an overconfident young Vulcan protecting his crewmates.”

  Janeway crossed her arms. “All the more reason to determine who did this.”

  “Unfortunately, based on the reports I have been receiving, we seem to have nothing but dead ends. Our analysis of the crime scene has shown nothing. The interviews were ambiguous, but we must assume they have put the perpetrator on guard. The computer records have proven unrevealing.”

  “So now what do we do?” asked Chakotay.

  “I will continue to analyze my team’s findings and pursue any furthe
r leads, but it is possible that we may not find an answer to this.”

  “That’s not acceptable,” Chakotay stated.

  “Acceptable or not, we cannot produce evidence that does not exist.”

  Torres shook her head in disbelief. “So we leave a possible attempted murderer on our staff and wait for the crew to explode?”

  “At the very least, we need to put both the killer and the crew at ease. We will continue to keep security on high alert in case of further attempts. Lieutenant Torres, would it be possible to create an additional backup log of all transporter and replicator activity?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I can hook in a log at my private terminal for any activations or remote work, but not any work done directly at the replicator terminals.” Torres tapped a nearby console as she continued analyzing the problem, earning a perturbed look from the Doctor. “Although I can manually include any assigned crew work.”

  “That will have to suffice. In the meantime, I suggest that we offer up Lieutenant Vorik’s story as the truth, more or less.”

  Janeway’s right eyebrow arched. “A cover-up?”

  “Unfortunately, I believe this to be the only way to draw out the attacker. And, perhaps, this will prevent crew tensions from escalating further.”

  Janeway gritted her teeth. “Do we have any better ideas?”

  Andrews looked down. Chakotay reluctantly shook his head. Torres crossed her arms and frowned.

  “Fine. Tuvok, Andrews, notify security to keep on alert, but don’t draw any unnecessary attention. Torres, please discreetly mention to Neelix at your next meal that the ‘malfunctions’ were the result of . . . let’s just say an anomaly.”

  Torres rolled her eyes. “Heaven knows we run into enough of them.”