Cybersong (24 page)

Commander Chakotay and I shared a plate of them just before we went on the away mission.”

“How many cookies did you eat, Ensign?” The Doctor inquired.

“I don’t remember. A bunch. I could take them back to the workstation with me. They’re convenient. I like food I can take and eat while I work, not messy things that have to be eaten in the dining room.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Neelix said thoughtfully. “I did think that those cookies were very popular.”

“May I get back to work, Doctor?” Mandel asked.

“Yes, you are entered in the log as fit for duty. You are free to leave.”

After Mandel and Kim and Neelix all left, The Doctor looked at Janeway.

“I don’t understand why everyone is so anxious to get out of here so quickly. You would think that ten more minutes to finish one more scan and assure the patient’s status wouldn’t be that much of a burden. But every single person I treat tries to skip that last scan or the final group of tests. They try to get back to work when they’re clearly unfit. Do you have any idea why reporting here for routine evaluation after an injury is the most ignored duty on this ship?”

From the way The Doctor was looking at her, Janeway wondered if she had skipped her last evaluation in her need to get back. But that was different. The situation was critical, and she was the captain. No one else in the crew had any excuses.

“Maybe they’re bored,” Kes volunteered. “Every patient in here always complains that they have nothing to do.”

The Doctor snorted. “They have something quite important to do.

They have to rest, follow the prescribed regimen, and get well, which is far too much responsibility to give most of them most of the time.

You know, Harry Kim should have stayed here another day.”

“But you certified him fit,” Kes pointed out.

“If I hadn’t, that wouldn’t have stopped him. It would only have meant another argument,” The Doctor complained.

“It’s nice to see everything getting back to normal around here,” Captain Janeway commented with a smile before she left.

The bridge of Voyager was precisely as it should be, Kathryn Janeway thought. Each of her senior officers was in place and power hummed from the warp core up through the ship. Due to the new replicator power, she even had a mug of steaming hot coffee in her hand. The smell alone was enough to fill her with a sense of well-being.

“I think we’ve had enough of this,” she said calmly as the large forward screen displayed the littered junk heap of alien hulks.

“Mr. Paris, take us out of here. Heading zero nine three point seven.”

“Yes, Captain,” Paris replied as he set in the new course. His face glowed with pleasure.

In the front screen the view shifted from the panorama of destruction to the emptiness of this region with only a few faint glittering stars.

“Warp three, on my mark,” Janeway said.

Paris acknowledged. The crew functioned like a perfectly tuned machine, everything fitting into place, every component at peak efficiency. Everyone ready, alert, but relaxed and confident in their work.

Kathryn Janeway knew that this was the best crew she had ever commanded—and the best she ever would. She knew with mathematical certainty that no captain in all of Starfleet had ever had better.

“Captain,” Tuvok interrupted her thoughts. “One of the shuttlecraft has just left the docking bay.”

“Do you know who it is?” Janeway demanded.

“Not immediately.”

“Patch me through to that shuttle,” Janeway ordered.

“I cannot, Captain. We are still deep in the tachyon field, and communications are unstable.”

“Try the tractor beam, Mr. Tuvok,” the captain said.

“Tractor beam engaged.” Then there was silence as the Vulcan paused.

“The field is interfering with the tractor beam as well.

I cannot get a lock on the shuttle.”

“Where is it headed, Commander?” the captain asked. Though she didn’t have to ask. She knew the answer already.

“The shuttle is headed straight back into the alien craft,” Tuvok said.

“At current course it will reach the large alien ship where the AI seems to have set up residence in twelve minutes, fourteen seconds.”

“Mr. Paris, bring us around and follow that shuttle.”

Paris acknowledged as the view in the forward screen changed again.

The wreckage they had watched for days reappeared with a single shuttle darting through the tachyon field toward the huge hulk that dominated the scene.

The captain’s commbadge sounded. “Janeway here,” she replied crisply.

“Captain, it’s Neelix. I have to talk to you, it’s very important.”

“Later Mr. Neelix.”

“It’s very important, Captain. Vital. You would be very angry if you were to find out later.”

The Talaxian could be annoying, Janeway thought. And then she reconsidered. He didn’t know the situation, and he was very focused on his own areas of interest. Where, she had to admit, he was quite competent.

“Go ahead, Mr. Neelix. What is it?”

“It’s the flour. The tainted flour that I was supposed to throw out.

As soon as I left sickbay, I brought it from the locker to the shuttlebay so I could dump it. Well, I went back with some of the other spoiled food and it’s gone. It’s all gone.”

He was practically wailing.

“That is to be expected, Mr. Neelix,” Tuvok cut in. “Someone took a shuttle. When the airlock opened for the craft to launch, the bags of flour would have been evacuated by the vacuum. There is nothing to be alarmed about.”

“But I didn’t just leave them there,” Neelix protested, his distress clear even over the comm link. “I had them neatly stowed in a magnetic containment field.”

“I’m sorry, Neelix, but we have a situation here. If the flour isn’t on the ship, then you’ve done your job.” The captain touched her badge to close the link.

Tuvok lifted an eyebrow at Janeway. “Do you think whoever is in the shuttle stole the flour?” the captain demanded. “And if so, why.”

“Provisions,” the Vulcan said. “If whoever took that shuttle did not intend to return to Voyager, then food would be a logical item to take.”

“But flour?” Janeway thought aloud.

“Captain, I have a report here that one of the replicators is missing.”

This time the voice from the comm was the chief engineer, and she sounded puzzled.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Torres,” the captain said. Then she turned to Tuvok. “If this person took a replicator, why the flour? This makes no sense at all.”

“Where was the replicator taken from, Lieutenant?” Tuvok asked.

“Personal quarters on Deck Six,” Torres replied. “I’m reading a location on the power grid now.”

“Relay it up here as well,” Tuvok said. “Captain, I have a theory about what is going on here. If I may?”

Janeway thought for a moment about going to the ready room, but she didn’t want to take the time. In front of them, the shuttle was pushing its engines hard, making haste to the junkyard.

Voyager was closing the distance, but they would not catch the errant craft before the runner reached the goal.

“I suspect that we will find the replicator was disconnected from Ensign Daphne Mandel’s quarters,” the Vulcan said. “She is returning to the AI with the means to remain with it indefinitely. I believe she intends to disappear, to desert.”

“And the flour?” the captain asked.

“She is aware of the mold contamination and its ability to enhance empathic responses. Since she is not an empath, she would require some assistance to maintain communication with the AI.”

“But what about just using the speakers?” Tom Paris asked. “It worked fine the last time.”

The Vulcan considered the question. “When the AI broke the telepathic link, Ms. Mandel became unconscious. The link there was most likely very strong. It is well known that certain types of telepathic and empathic experiences can be addictive. This is entirely conjecture at this point, but I have deduced that this is the case for Ensign Mandel.

She is not a highly social personality, and has an extremely limited set of interests. She and an AI would have a great deal in common.”

The captain stared at the screen. She was certain that Tuvok’s deductions were correct. They felt right. It was the only explanation that made sense.

She thought about her options. The obvious one was to let Mandel go.

There was no reason to keep someone truly against their will.

Starfleet was not a prison and Voyager was not a penal ship.

“I have just received confirmation,” Tuvok informed them. “The replicator was indeed taken from Ensign Mandel’s quarters. I think that clarifies everything.”

But that did not clarify everything, Kathryn Janeway thought.

Ensign Daphne Mandel was a member of her crew. Starfleet did not take desertion lightly. And neither did Captain Kathryn Janeway.

There had to be another option. There had to be a way to win, for Voyager and for Daphne Mandel and maybe even for that poor twisted artificial life that was so malignant in its need.

She made her decision and stood. “Mr. Paris, you’re with me.

Mr. Chakotay, you have the bridge.” With that, she left the bridge, Tom Paris following behind.

***

“Take her in as fast as you can,” the captain told Paris when they were strapped into the shuttlecraft. “I want to be on Mandel’s tail.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Paris said. And then he set out to show Janeway just how close he could come. Mandel was a good way ahead of them. Paris poured on the speed, pushing the small shuttle to the very edge of its envelope.

Ahead of him, Mandel tried to speed up. But she wasn’t the flier Tom Paris was, and she couldn’t push the shuttle any harder. A grim smile spread over Paris’s face as he bore down on her, eking every nanosecond out of the engines that had never been built to take this stress.

Slowly, inexorably, the gap between them closed. Paris’s hands caressed the controls.

“There’s only one place she can go,” he whispered, more to himself than to Janeway. “Gotta be the Drive sector.”

They were closing, but Mandel had started out with a good lead.

“I can’t make it, Captain,” Paris admitted. “I can come close, but I won’t be able to cut her off.”

“I don’t need you to cut her off,” Janeway told him. “I just need to be able to talk to her.”

Janeway tried to open the frequencies herself, but only static replied.

She thought it possible that Mandel refused to open communications.

Or perhaps the programmer didn’t know how.

And she was getting very close to her goal. The shuttle started a long loop to the crack in the alien ship too early, Janeway thought.

“She can’t fly,” Tom Paris stated flatly. “I’m going to ease off a little, Captain. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, and if I push her, we might end up with more trouble. I don’t know if she’s ever qualified in a shuttle, let alone tried to fly one through a crack like that and land on an alien deck.”

“Good point, Mr. Paris,” Janeway concurred. “Ease off but keep her in sight.”

Then the shuttle lurched raggedly to starboard.

“No,” Paris whispered. “Nice and slow. Take your time.”

Janeway immediately had the communications board run through the frequencies again, hoping that Mandel would be able to hear them.

If it came down to it, Paris could talk her down, and it looked like he might have to.

In the few seconds since she jagged out of the loop, Mandel had come to a near complete standstill. Now her shuttle swerved and jittered too far port for the crack. If she didn’t reverse, she was going to smash against the hull.

Frustrated, Tom Paris touched his comm badge. “Daphne, kill the engines NOW,” he bellowed.

Through the small window Janeway could see the shuttle come to rest.

“Now listen to me,” Tom Paris said carefully. “You’re going to open up the comm channel first. That’s the small left-hand board on the copilot’s station. Okay? Do it.”

Suddenly the frequencies opened, and they were in contact.

“Good,” Paris told her.

“I won’t come back,” Mandel said. She sounded unshakable.

“You’re not going much of anywhere, the way you fly,” Paris said.

Janeway studied the transporter station. “There’s still too much interference,” she said. “I can’t risk a transport without a better lock.”

“He’s protecting me,” Ensign Mandel said as if her assertation were utterly rational. “He’s going to bring me home.”

“Unless he can take immediate control of your navigation system, you’re not going anywhere,” Paris told her. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Now I’m going to talk you in because I don’t know what else to do with you. Unless your AI can take over your helm, which wouldn’t surprise me. But I don’t know if it knows much about landing inside an abandoned hulk either.”

There was no reply for a few moments. “He says he can do it,” Mandel said. “He says he could, but that I don’t have the equipment open to his broadcast. I don’t understand.”

“It means that you’re going to have to land it,” Janeway said.

“Mr. Paris is going to talk you through the procedures. Do exactly what he says.”

“How do I know this isn’t a trick?” Mandel asked.

“You don’t,” Janeway said immediately. “But you also can’t sit in that shuttle forever. You have to land somewhere.”

“That’s true,” Daphne said, her voice for the first time betraying some uncertainty. “What do I do?”

“Set your power on the first blue setting,” Paris said. “And then set your course computer to seven three one mark two bearing five nine one.

Got that?”

“Yes,” Mandel said, sounding a little more confident again.

“I’m going to be right behind you,” Paris said. “When we get inside the hulk, you don’t have to land. Inside there isn’t any tachyon field, and I’ll come over and land it for you.”

“And what about your craft?” Daphne Mandel asked.

“The captain is a competent pilot,” Tom Paris said. “Or you could beam over to us.”

“And you’ll take me back to Voyager and I’ll be in the brig for seventy years,” Mandel said. “Great. I don’t think so. I’d rather die.”