Strange New Worlds 2016 (33 page)

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.

“
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.”