Chapter Three
"What do you mean, escaped prisoner?" Captain Janeway asked. She gestured at Lisse and said, "We discovered her ship floating around space. If we hadn't rescued her when we did, she would have been dead."
"It would have been better if she had. That was what was intended for her. However, she confiscated that small craft and escaped." The man said, shaking a lock of brown hair out of his eyes. A small part of the Captain's mind noted that his eyes were a strange, glittering shade of gold.
"You were going to kill her?" Tom gasped.
"She was convicted of treason against the colony and conspiracy to desert. Her fellow conspirators are being held in custody awaiting penalty."
Janeway turned and gave a long look to the obviously frightened teenager, who was clutching Harry's arm for protection and looked on the verge of tears. She slowly shook her head in denial, red eyes huge and glittering.
"You can't let them take me back," she cried, "They're going to kill me! I was just curious! I didn't know I wasn't s'posed to – to – " At this admission she finally broke down, sinking to her knees on the deck and burying her face in her hands.
"You will return her." The Horizon's Captain wrenched the crew's attention from the sobbing girl and back to his face on the screen.
"I'm afraid I can't let you have her back until I get all the details of this offense," Janeway said. "She seems to be just a frightened girl, not a conspirator."
"Appearances can be deceiving, Captain." The man rumbled. "I demand her return immediately, or we will open fire."
"Cut the circuit," Janeway instructed. The man's strange, pale face blinked from her screen and she turned to Tom. "Lieutenant Paris, how fast do you think that ship can go?"
"With that size, it's hard to tell, ma'am." He replied. "But we would definitely be a good deal faster."
Janeway gave a sharp nod. "Take us to maximum warp. Don't worry, Lisse. You're not going home just yet."
~
"So why did they convict you of treason?" Commander Chakotay asked, elbows planted on the table. A small data pad sat before him, recording the conversation. Around him sat the Captain, Tom, the Doctor, and Seven of Nine. At the end of the table was Lisse, looking very small and still retaining traces of fear.
"I wanted to know why we hadn't settled on any of the worlds we had found so far. So I went on the computer and looked for the private files." Lisse sniffed and tried to rub the residual tears from her eyes. "It wasn't that hard to get past. All it wanted was a simple password, and I just typed in the most logical thing for them to have used for a password. It worked."
"Wait a minute, what password would this be?" Tom jumped in.
"Unsuitable." Lisse said in a small voice. "That's what they tell us every time we discover a planet that looks as if it might harbor the right conditions for us."
"Unsuitable, eh?" Chakotay rubbed his chin thoughtfully, dark eyes intense.
"Doctor, maybe you could explain the strange eye color while Commander Chakotay tries to sort things out in his mind," Janeway instructed, turning her chair to face the emergency medical hologram.
"I've run diagnostic scans on Lisse," he said, pushing her chair back and beginning to pace the room. "There is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about her eyes. Aside from the fact that they're coded for a different color – in her case, red – it would appear to any observer that this type of eye color is natural. She is completely human in any and all respects but one."
"But one?" Seven asked, cocking her head and regarding the strange teenager with speculating blue eyes. "What would this be?"
"It's good you asked, Seven. Lisse here seems to contain a very high – almost dangerously so – number of Borg nanoprobes within her system. Yet, eluding all reason, she bears no evidence of previous assimilation, or physical implants such as your own." The Doctor said, shaking his head and gesturing at Seven's hand and eyebrow.
"How can this be possible?" Tom asked. "I mean, Harry told me she'd never even heard of the Borg!"
"Is this true?" Chakotay ceased his contemplation and turned to Lisse, who gave a small nod.
"This is getting even more interesting by the minute." Janeway said, rubbing her forehead with one hand. "Is there anything else, Doctor?"
"Simply that the nanoprobes are all completely dormant. And, I would daresay, that this occurrence is probably the norm aboard her ship."
"I wouldn't be surprised." Janeway murmured, almost to herself. "Alright, people. This meeting is adjourned. I want to see every one of you tomorrow morning at oh-eight-hundred hours sharp. Dismissed." A quick nod of her head gave her officers leave, and the meeting room dispersed quickly.
~
"They believe me." Lisse said out loud, tears of relief streaming down her face as she regarded her reflection in the bathroom mirror. The face looking back at her grinned through the streak running down her cheeks as true relaxation consumed her. "They believe me."
The face in the mirror seemed to speak back to her. "But how long until they begin to shun you, like last time? How long till the rest of them find your eyes too unnatural? Your questions to incessant? Your actions too inexplicable?"
"They're not like the others!" Lisse cried in response, and though her own face was strained tired from stress and too many tears, the one in the mirror looked back in scorn and sneered.
"They are all alike! Nobody understands you. Nobody understands us! Even your own father would shut this part of himself away and command his whole people to do the same. He would sentence his daughters to death to repress his true nature!" The face in the mirror screamed, red eyes glittering in fervor as the true Lisse began to sob again.
"You can't blame him! He's not himself!" She cried, and her double laughed.
"Believe what you want, you gullible girl. You are a part of me as I am of you, and we both know he would wipe our race from the face of the universe if he could find the chance." The mirror girl laughed again, and her laugh was filled with derision. "We will not perish. I will make sure of it."
Lisse looked in her mirror in dawning horror. "You wouldn't," she breathed, and began to back away from the glass in fear. "You couldn't!"
"I can and will, sister! You can help me, or you can fight me, but the only problem is that you fight fair…" Red eyes narrowed on both faces as Lisse's reflection began to swim back to normal, "And I fight very, very dirty."
~
A/N: :::does a dance::: This is going along quite nicely! I just booted up my computer and started writing, and out comes this brilliant plot advancement! *cackles madly* Insanity will take its toll! Please have exact change!