Cybersong (4 page)

Then Kes and The Doctor both smiled together. Kes knew they were thinking the same thing. If she took over the holodeck for her therapy, it would cut down on ski injuries for the day.

***

He was sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge. Chakotay knew that. And he was concentrating firmly on the problem at hand. Still, his thoughts kept wandering in a way he had trained against for years, ever since he had been a youngster.

Maybe it was just indigestion, he thought. He had sampled several of Neelix’s cookies after dinner. In truth, dinner had been too unpalatable to eat, but he had still been hungry. The cookies hadn’t been bad, which had been a surprise. They were probably the first thing Neelix had ever created that Chakotay could actually say that he liked. And he had eaten a good number of them.

And now he felt—unquiet. As if everything were slightly askew.

Like the forest before a great storm when the birds became still.

There was nothing here he could identify as wrong, but it didn’t really seem right, either.

There was something else, the taste of loneliness, the fear and the isolation he hadn’t experienced until he had gone to Starfleet Academy.

During all the time he had had to be alone during his training before he left for the Academy, there was always a feeling of connection. He had been part of the world, of the many animal spirits that walked and flew and crawled around him. There were the tree spirits and the great mountains.

When he had gone to the Academy, he had left all of that behind and he had been miserable. The academic program had taken up every moment of his waking life and then some.

He thought he had been disciplined when he arrived at the Academy, but he had learned differently. There he found a new kind of discipline of spirit, an ability to do more, work harder, and stay up longer than he had ever imagined existed.

But the loneliness and being cut off from the spirit world had been terrible. He had felt as if there were an invisible barrier between him and all the other cadets, that he couldn’t touch their souls.

There were no animals, nothing from the natural world he loved, in the Academy. And so he had been terribly, wrenchingly lonely.

But this wasn’t the place to be remembering those things, he realized with a wrench. That was long past, and now he had duties and responsibilities … And his carefully disciplined mind was drifting off as if he were drugged.

Chakotay gripped the arms of the captain’s chair and shook himself slightly. He tried to concentrate on the familiar sights and noises of the bridge, the endless starfield on the screen, the soft padding of crew members’ feet as they walked behind him doing their work, the comforting beeps of the consoles. Yet Chakotay still felt disconnected from the rest of the crew on the bridge, even those in the meeting with the captain. Some of them were people he had served with for years, people he considered close friends.

From here he could see Paris bent over the helm, and Ensign Mkubata at the nav where often Harry Kim was assigned. Kim was in conference with the captain now, adding his expertise where it would be most useful.

Chakotay remembered the last game of pool he had played with Harry in Paris’s recreation of a French bar on the holodeck. He could even smell the brandy if he thought about it, feel the smooth wood of the cue in his hand.

It did no good. The loneliness was there, assaulting him.

He tried to unravel it, and somehow fact stood against the unflagging misery that had caught him. He had not been lonely at the Academy, he remembered with a start. There had been the entire lacrosse team and his roomates, Gregor Marchenko and Tony Long. But Gregor had been killed in the rescue mission to the Andorian colonies … and with that thought, the loneliness hit harder than ever. hakotay made a decision. He was going to ignore it. He was going to work. He had done this before.

Only he had never felt so lonely before. Never.

“Sabotage?” B’Elanna Torres asked, immediately looking to the sides as if to check an enemy approach. All she could see were the few officers in the captain’s ready room. Harry Kim was on her left, studying the graphic display in the monitor over her shoulder and comparing it to his own.

“The log clearly shows that the correct instructions were read into the system,” Tuvok said. “This is not an instance of anyone on the bridge or down in Engineering making a mistake.” Or the kind of strange intrusion they had encountered before, when an alien creature had taken over Tuvok himself. Everyone delicately refrained from reminding him.

“If the log is correct, there is a massive malfunction in the computer system,” the Vulcan continued.

“I started a level three diagnostic,” Torres interjected. “It takes a couple of hours to run, but at least we’ll know if the system’s at fault.”

“Two point five nine hours, to be exact,” Tuvok corrected her.

“If there is no computer malfunction, then either connections have been deliberately cut or the log has been tampered with.

These are the only logical explanations for the data.”

“Could it be related to the tachyon field?” Harry Kim asked innocently. “At this level could it be creating interference in our internal systems?”

“It shouldn’t be,” B’Elanna Torres replied, her voice less firm than usual. “But it makes more sense than sabotage.”

“Getting to the bottom of this is our second priority,” the captain stated, interrupting the brainstorming she usually encouraged among her staff. “The first thing we have to do is stop this ship from getting any closer to whatever is causing this. Which means bypassing the computer and doing a manual shutoff. I know there are protocols for this …”

“I’ve already tried to access them,” Torres interrupted flatly.

“They’re unavailable.”

“Unavailable?” the captain asked, tilting her head slightly as she often did when she found something utterly absurd.

“That’s the answer I got. Unavailable. That I didn’t have the proper authorization,” the engineer explained.

The captain didn’t waste a minute; she requested that the computer access the shutoff protocols.

And she got the same reply. “Those instructions are unavailable without proper authorization,” the computer said.

Janeway’s eyes burned with fury. “This is Captain Kathryn Janeway, and I am in command of the Starship Voyager. I have complete authorization to require any file aboard this vessel.”

“Authorization denied,” the computer replied.

Janeway met Tuvok’s eyes across the table. “Sabotage,” the Vulcan said. Then he turned his steady gaze onto the half-Klingon chief engineer. “We need to investigate immediately.”

“We need to cut the power immediately,” the captain countered him.

“That comes first. Once we’re not running at warp speed into who-knows-where, we can investigate.” She turned her attention to the engineer.

“All right, we’ll need to go to manual override,” the captain said.

“What’s the best way to do that?”

Torres’s whole body strained with concentration. She stood and leaned on her arms, her elbows stiff and her palms flat on the table. “The only way to do that quickly and effectively is to physically go in and cut the control interfaces at the central box. But that will entirely disable navigation. It’ll take several hours to repair once we have this all cleared up.”

Janeway nodded. “Can you cut the warp drive without affecting impulse power?”

This time Torres nodded vigorously. “That’s easy. The control routings are shunted in completely separate sequences. I’ll get right on it.”

“Good,” the captain said, and rose.

The rest of the staff rose with her, and Torres didn’t wait for anyone before she tore out to the turbolift. As the other officers left the ready room, Tuvok lingered behind. The captain knew he wanted to talk to her privately. And she appreciated his discretion almost as much as she valued his intelligence.

As usual, he waited until they were entirely alone before he spoke.

“Captain, have you considered that B’Elanna Torres might be the saboteur? She has the expertise and the access. Of any member of this crew, she is the most capable.”

Captain Janeway raised her hand as if to wave the suggestion away.

“What would she get out of it, Mr. Tuvok?” she asked rhetorically.

“She doesn’t have any more connection with whatever is in that tachyon field than we do. She has no motive.”

Janeway sat back in her chair, her hands steepled in front of her as she considered what her security officer had just told her.

“You really think B’Elanna is doing this to us?” the captain asked, perplexed.

“I have no opinions at this time,” the Vulcan answered. “I merely point out that she has the ability and the access. She could have done it. There are several others who have similar training, though not her particular talent for machinery. And it has happened before.”

Yes, there had been earlier sabotage aboard Voyager. That had been very difficult for Janeway. As much as the crew had to trust her, she had to trust them as well.

She certainly knew she could trust B’Elanna’s competence as an engineer. But it wasn’t just competence. It was inspiration.

Janeway knew she was fortunate to have found a chief engineer who could combine creativity and passion with warp cores and impulse engines.

Still, B’Elanna was young and half Klingon. She was impulsive in the extreme and often needed to be reined in. Janeway trusted Torres’s intentions, but she wasn’t quite as sure of the younger woman’s judgment in nonmechanical matters.

“I don’t know that B’Elanna Torres could, let alone would, practice deception,” Janeway said after some consideration.

“As I said, Captain, she is the obvious choice. She has the ability and the access. And if she is not our saboteur, then whoever is doing this has skills that we do not acknowledge and wants to make it look like someone else.” Tuvok stopped for a moment to consider.

“Therefore, if we behave as if we believe it is Torres, we will either catch her or we will throw whoever is doing this off guard, which will be necessary to catch the perpetrator.”

The captain thought about that. “It is logical,” she began, “but we can’t do it. I want you to investigate, but quietly. I don’t want anyone to know there is even suspicion of foul play.”

“As you like, Captain,” Tuvok assented. “But would you explain your reasoning to me?”

“It’s very simple, Mr. Tuvok. People who think they’re under suspicion are not going to give their very best efforts. And to get out of this we’re going to need the best from everyone.”

***

Chakotay was pleased when the captain returned to the bridge.

Usually he enjoyed the time he spent in command, reminding him of the days when he commanded his own ship. This time he had not.

He had managed some control over his thoughts so that he could function, but the emotional turmoil still raged inside him. He needed to be alone, somewhere where he could have the silence to seek guidance. The bridge was not the place at all.

But he was not left to silence. “Chakotay, would you go down to Engineering and help Ms. Torres with the warp coil connection?” the captain asked. It was not a request, it was an order, and Chakotay knew it. But he was surprised when Tuvok came over to him as he was about to call the turbolift.

“The captain wants you down there to watch what is going on.

There is some suspicion of sabotage,” the security officer told him.

“If you could check as the work is in progress perhaps you will find evidence that something is amiss.”

“Wait a minute,” Chakotay said, trying to keep his voice as hushed as the Vulcan’s. “Are you saying that you suspect my people? You served with them, you know who they are. And none of them has betrayed this ship, and none of them will.”

Tuvok looked at him quizzically. “I did not specify who we think may be responsible. At this point we have no evidence. We do not even know that it is sabotage, only that the conditions we have observed could have been created by someone with enough knowledge and access to the engines. It is merely reasonable to investigate.”

Chakotay got into the turbolift without further conversation. He would not dignify what he thought was yet another slur on the Maquis officers who had been integrated into Voyager’s crew.

When he arrived he found Engineering in a state of controlled frenzy.

Teams were stationed at each of the computer control boards, one member underneath and others holding tools and doing diagnostics. Open toolboxes lay gutted on the deck as crew members in gold uniforms rooted through the piles of contraptions that Chakotay could not begin to name. Once in a while one person would hand another some device or change a setting and try again. B’Elanna Torres was nowhere to be seen.

He heard her before he saw her, demanding the smaller laser torch from a teammate he identified as Lieutenant Carey. He was gratified and surprised that she would choose her old rival as her workmate.

“There aren’t any smaller sizes,” Carey said.

“What do you want me to do, go to sickbay and get a laser scalpel?”

B’Elanna emerged from under a workstation, a grim smile on her face.

“Good idea,” she said. “Maybe a bunch of them so everyone can have one. These interfaces are tiny, and I don’t want to have to cut any more than we need to.” She turned her attention to the entire Engineering staff. “Everybody, remember, everything we cut today we’re going to have to rebuild. So be selective. Work fast and work accurate, but don’t overdo it.

We’re going to have to stretch supplies and replicator power enough as it is to get this system back on-line.”

“Did you really mean that about the scalpels?” Carey asked.

B’Elanna seemed confused. “Of course. It was a brilliant idea.”

It. Carey shook his head. “I’d hate to face down the doc for those,” he said.

“I’ll go,” Chakotay volunteered.

That was when Torres, Carey, and the rest of Engineering realized that the exec was on deck.

“But, Commander, isn’t that a waste of your time?” Torres asked.