Author's note:
Here we are, another chapter.
Reviews are gratefully appreciatesd. Katarina, one day I'll get the
Maquis/Maqui thing straight. JadziaKathryn, you ask to see Janeway
sleuthing, and so you have your wish. :) For now, let's meet the
bad guys...
Some of it had been simple. Marla Gilmore had created her enhanced warp device aboard a Nova-class science vessel; she would need another one to do what he wanted her to do. Fortunately, the Nova-class vessel was the workhorse of Starfleet's scientific division, and there were plenty of the small ships. Planning to bring her into custody had been simplicity itself, since Marla Gilmore had arrived back in the Alpha Quadrant and been delivered straight into captivity. Her removal from society had been quick, easy, and discreet.
Some of it had been more complex. Section 31's Psyops division had conducted discreet testing on the blonde engineer during her confinement, and they had determined that she would be unwilling to recreate the device under normal circumstances. That had required this deception operation. Grambyo had been damaged to resemble Equinox, and he had gotten three Psyops agents surgically altered and prepared to play the roles of Rudy Ransom, Max Burke, and Noah Lessing. The other crewmembers of Equinox could be and were played by holograms, but she would be in regular contact with those three.
So far, he was pleased with his results. Bringing Gilmore into his custody had gone smoothly. He'd been nervous when Benning had admitted that Janeway had seen the packaging. Not too nervous – after all, he had contacts in Starfleet that were bigger than Janeway would ever be, even though she was currently the Woman of the Hour. But, he'd been able to get Janeway and her crew sent on a smile-and-wave tour which would keep her busy until he was done.
There was one thing he had not yet done; he had not actually seen his prize up close yet. He hadn't been on Grambyo as it was slowly and methodically battered into Equinox. He had no particular reason why, other than the fact that he had not needed to be on the ship.
He found he was rather looking forward to it.
So earlier that evening, he informed his ersatz Captain Ransom that he would meet with him on his ersatz Equinox. Beaming over to the science vessel was quite safe; any ship approaching would be detected long before it detected them. The ship was quite authentic; his engineers had been meticulous. Debris crunched under his feet as he stepped from the transporter pad.
The agent who he had assigned to play Captain Ransom was waiting for him. He was very good. Kilbourne wouldn't have picked him if he hadn't been. He knew the agent's real name, but thought of him as Captain Ransom. Only Section personnel who needed to know his real name knew it.
"Sir," Ransom said gruffly. "Welcome aboard."
"Thank you," Kilbourne said mildly. In person, he was a mild, quiet man. Many would have thought him shy. Adopting a mild and quiet demeanor served to hide his true nature. "I trust Ms. Gilmore will not know of my presence?"
Ransom shook his head. "No, sir. Her quarters are airtight. Twenty minutes or so after she's gone to bed, we flood the room with anesthezine gas. There's a holoemitter in her closet, and the EMH takes over from there."
Kilbourne nodded. "And is he functioning properly?" He turned to head up to crew quarters. Ransom fell into step beside him.
"The doctor...is doing his job properly, yes," Ransom said slowly.
"Is there a problem?"
"Not operationally, sir. It's just that...he seems to enjoy it. It's a bit odd to see an EMH act like Dr. Jekyll."
Kilbourne chuckled. "Emergency Medical Holograms are programmed to react with simulated empathy," he explained. "It was necessary to reverse this aspect of his programming in order to have him do what we want him to do."
Ransom nodded. "I realize that," he said. "Still...it's odd to see a holographic sadist at work."
They took the graviton lift with no fear. The Grambyo was equipped with a duplicate of the auto-initiating security grid, and while the alien life forms that had attacked Equinox had attacked Grambyo with equal ferocity, so far all it had gotten them was a pile of corpses stacked up in the lab. Seven of Nine had engineered better than she knew.
Most of the staterooms were unoccupied, even for senior crew. Although Kilbourne had insisted on realism, it was a waste of power to assign quarters to holograms. He stopped at one and looked down at the door. A plaque hung askew on it.
GILMORE, M. CHIEF ENGINEER USS EQUINOX.
A soft cry came from the door. Kilbourne looked curiously at the door and tilted his head. Ransom smiled tightly.
"The doctor is in," he said quizzically.
The door opened silently without sounding a tone. It had been designed to do that, too. The crew of this ship needed to have access to their prisoner. The light was barely enough to see by, as it had always been dark on Equinox. Even so, once his eyes adjusted, Kilbourne could see very well.
Marla Gilmore lay on her bunk, wearing a tattered Starfleet-issue nightgown and wrapped in a torn blanket. She was unconscious. On her temples, two small devices blinked on and off. Her sleep was not restful; she tossed and turned and emitted low moans of terror.
The EMH crouched over her, watching her intently. When he saw the two men entering, he gave them a merry smile and adjusted the control he was holding.
"Good evening, gentlemen!"
"She's not going to wake up, is she?" Kilbourne always got to the point when there was one to get to.
"Not at all. Ms. Gilmore is currently under chemical restraint. You could shoot her with a phaser and she wouldn't wake up." The EMH's eyes gleamed, as if the idea appealed to him. "Conversational speech won't do a thing."
Marla flinched under him and squirmed. Kilbourne watched her without emotion. "What is that on her head?" he asked with interest.
"This wonderful toy? It's derived from Romulan mind probes. It's essentially a nightmare generator." The doctor gleefully punched a few buttons on the control and watched the blonde woman under him tense and emit a shriek. He seemed inordinately pleased by the result. "Rather like a holodeck in effect, except it occurs in dreams. Since I have little medical duties these days, I've been refining the Janeway torpedo attack scenario and making her go through it again...and again...and again." The hologram chuckled merrily.
Ransom gave Kilbourne a look that made it clear his opinion of the doctor's medical skills.
"It seems to be quite fun for you," Kilbourne said calmly.
"It is. Watch her brainwaves spike as the torpedo goes off! The fear index is simply wonderful. I've overlaid Janeway's voice condemning her as it goes off. That's very difficult to time correctly." The EMH preened, his features betraying the best damn simulation of smugness Kilbourne had ever seen.
Kilbourne turned to Ransom. "Other than amusing the EMH at Ms. Gilmore's expense, what purpose is this serving?"
The EMH broke in. "Well, she'll wake up exhausted and traumatized in the morning. And of course she'll--,"
Kilbourne sighed. "Computer, mute EMH audio output," he said in that same mild, unaffected tone of voice. The EMH spoke for a moment more, then frowned in irritation.
"Please, doctor, go on with your work," Kilbourne invited. "Captain?"
Ransom sighed. "Some things are going well," he said. "Gilmore seems to be accepting this as reality. That's not surprising; she's been under heavy medication since she got here. She doesn't seem to be looking for any reason to deny that this is Equinox or that she's in the Delta Quadrant. She's not fighting the simulation that way."
Kilbourne nodded. "Go on," he invited.
"She is trying to fight it another way. She's trying to hold onto the moral outlook she adopted on Voyager."
"That's not very good news," Kilbourne observed. "The biological agent this ship is going to carry is undergoing tests not far from here."
Ransom raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yes. Two Romulans and a Vulcan. Infection occurred elsewhere, but according to the bioweapons division, symptoms will set in while they are at Deep Space Nine. We'll be able to observe them there. We need this drive operational soon."
Ransom sighed. "We're doing what we can, sir."
Kilbourne pursed his lips. "I realize that. Continue the briefing."
Ransom stopped for a moment to gather his thoughts. His craggy features twisted as he pondered.
"I've worked in Psyops for many years," he began. "I've studied how people react in disasters. Equinox is one. Tarsus IV, with Kodos the Executioner, there's another. He said it best himself: survival depends on extreme measures. Their Starfleet psych evals before they left indicate they were fully normal people. On Equinox, they were pushed beyond their limits. We like to think that people will stand up for principle, but we're largely fooling ourselves. Most people in that position will choose survival over principles."
Kilbourne nodded. It made perfect sense to him. The Federation could not survive if it always clung to principle. The bad guys didn't always cling to it, so why should they?
"From our point of view, Voyager was the worst place she could have ended up. At first, Janeway was tough on all of them. They were closely monitored. Seems Janeway does have a weak spot for rehabilitating problem children. She eased off Gilmore and Lessing once they showed remorse and a desire to rehabilitate." Ransom chuckled. "That's not unusual, either. Sure, she was mad at them, but she got over it. The point is, on Voyager they had enough to eat, adequate defense...all the things that had pushed them to their limits on Equinox were gone. They were made to feel guilty and despised. They could've developed a persecution complex. It seems Gilmore didn't, though. She's still clinging to her Voyager morals – trying to rehabilitate herself, trying to improve, trying to show that she can be worthy."
"That's not useful," Kilbourne said. "We need her to build the damn mutagenic drive."
Ransom nodded. "She will," he said. "She broke once before. She'll do it again. It's just a matter of time. We can break her will by speeding things along. Emotional pressure. Psychological tactics. Eventually, she will revert to her Equinox morality – survival over everything. We can continue with the drugs. We can cut her rations – that'll do more than you think. Once the blood sugar levels drop, people become much more pliable. The human brain runs on glucose. Take it away and she'll break that much faster."
The doctor snapped his fingers, having re-initialized himself so he could speak again.
"Insulin injections!" he said suddenly. "I should have thought of it earlier. We can send her blood sugar crashing." He emitted a disturbing cackle.
"Thank you, doctor," Kilbourne said dismissively. He reached over and absently smoothed a sweaty lock of Marla Gilmore's hair away from her face. She twisted under him and moaned, troubled by the images the doctor was gleefully downloading into her mind. It was too bad, he thought absently. Once she built the thing, she wouldn't have to suffer anymore. If it was possible, he would see if Section 31 could relocate her somewhere where she'd be useful. And whoever had come up with the patches to make the EMH into an interrogation tool had done a disturbingly good job.
All the same, he had a job to do, and he would do it. He glanced at Ransom with cool eyes.
"Do whatever you need to do," he said. "I want that drive. Consider yourself authorized to do whatever you have to to get it. Try and keep her functional; we may need her to troubleshoot it for us. But get it built."
The door chime sounded where she was working. She turned her head.
"Come," she called.
Chakotay entered the readyroom and looked curiously at his captain. She sat behind her desk, coffee cup in hand, studying her monitor screen.
"I thought you had Tuvok heading up the investigation," he said.
Kathryn Janeway nodded. "I did," she said absently. "I'm just trying to...help him out. Run a few things down."
Chakotay shrugged. "You're the captain," he said. "You do know you have a conference on Vulcan in an hour."
Janeway turned back to the screen. "I'll go. I'm trying to figure out anything I can. I don't particularly feel like describing what sorts of small amphibians we saw in the Delta Quadrant, or extrapolating data on how many races developed warp drive."
"So what are you doing?" His voice was low and concerned.
"Well," she began. "If you were going to try and make Marla Gilmore build her warp device again, what would you do? And why would you want it?"
Chakotay grinned. "Assuming I was that amoral, I imagine I'd try to get her a ship to build it with," he said. "Obviously."
Janeway smiled like a cat. "That's what I'm thinking," she said. "Now, if whoever did this can steal from Voyager and arrange a kidnapping within sight of Starfleet headquarters, they could probably get their hands on a Nova-class ship, don't you think?"
"I suppose," Chakotay said. "But they made a lot of those little ships. They're the workhorse of the science fleet. You could be there a while."
Janeway nodded.
"I'll keep at it," she said. "I'm looking for ships that would be on longer-term deep-space missions. Ones that wouldn't be missed for a while. It's slow going."
He nodded. "I wanted to make sure you knew. Noah Lessing is on board."
Kathryn Janeway's face pulled into a pained grin. "I know," she admitted. "He boarded the ship just before the nightwatch crew got off. They informed me at shift change. I'm not sure my presence would to a good working atmosphere."
Chakotay nodded. "You think he hates your guts." His voice was surprisingly flat.
Janeway sighed. "He has a right," she admitted. Her voice dropped down a bit. She'd always been so good about keeping her shields up, being the unflappable captain for her crew's sake. "I did things to him I'm not proud of. A lot of things I did then, I'm not proud of."
"We all make mistakes, Kathryn," he reproached her gently. "It's what you do with it that counts. You're the captain. Go down, say hello, and let Paris and the doctor continue questioning him."
She thought for a moment. She was being silly. This was her ship. She'd done worse. All the same, there was a part of her that did not want to see Noah Lessing. She didn't want to know what images of her were behind those cool brown eyes. Marla Gilmore's logs had already reminded her that not everyone esteemed her so purely.
The logs were part of it. At first, she'd thought Marla Gilmore to be amoral and untrustworthy; the logs told a different story. A story of a young, frightened woman who had been put through hell along with the rest of her crew and had desperately trusted in the only authority figure she had.
She had her own sins to account for during the Equinox affair.
Ransom had been right on one thing. It was easy to cling to principle sometimes. It was easy to say that she was doing this because no one deserved to be kidnapped and hustled away. It was easy to paint oneself as the great warrior for truth and justice.
And that was part of her drive. But other, less cut and dry issues were there, too. Had whoever done this looked at her record and decided she wouldn't care too much if an Equinox crewman disappeared? Was that a reasonable conclusion to draw, based on her own records? Her reticence to visit Noah Lessing seemed to spring from the same source.
All right. I'll redeem myself.
"You're right," she said. "You're with me, Chakotay. He may...feel more comfortable with you there."
He nodded wordlessly.
She rose and took a moment to arrange herself. Every inch a Starfleet captain. The walk down to Sickbay seemed to take forever, and yet it went much too quickly for her taste. Her stomach knotted as she turned to enter the doctor's realm.
Noah Lessing sat on a biobed, allowing the doctor to hold a scanner close to his head. He was chatting pleasantly, if a bit tightly, with Tom Paris. When she entered, it seemed the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. Those pale brown eyes laid on hers.
No emotion escaped it. Just as when he'd been locked in her cargo bay and she'd threatened to drop the shields. Just as when she had dropped the shields. She would have killed him.
Was there forgiveness in those eyes? Compassion? Cold hatred? She couldn't tell, and it unnerved her.
"Captain Janeway," was all he said. His voice betrayed nothing more than those dark features.
"Mr. Lessing," she said, and essayed a smile. Should she offer to shake hands? It didn't seem like a good idea. "Welcome aboard. I'm...glad you came."
He nodded slowly. "I'm here for Marla," he said resolutely.
"As are we all."
The doctor could sense the tension and interceded to break it. "I believe Lieutenant Paris's suspicion is correct," he said. "Mr. Lessing's brain scan indicates that he was recently...probed."
Both Lessing and Janeway seemed surprised. Still, the atmosphere seemed less tense than before.
"What did these guys do to my head?" he asked.
The doctor smiled nervously. "Most likely, they attempted to retrieve data from your brain," he suggested.
"They could've just asked me."
"It's likelier they needed to extract a large amount of data under quick circumstances. Also, it seems that they used some sort of drug to erase your memory of the encounter. I may be able to help you remember."
Lessing turned away from Janeway to stare at the doctor. "And just what do you need to do to my brain?"
The doctor seemed on firmer ground when discussing medical procedures. "I'd need to sedate you and stimulate your synaptic pathways," he said. "I assure you, the procedure is harmless." For just a moment, Noah Lessings eyes flicked back to Janeway in an unspoken accusation: Can I trust an EMH on her ship? Janeway pulled herself up to military attention and said nothing. It was, after all, his decision.
"And what would happen?"
"You may be able to remember the person who did it. If they said anything. That sort of thing," the doctor said. "You wouldn't suffer damage, Mr. Lessing. I assure you, I'm programmed to protect all my patients from harm."
Lessing eyed the doctor suspiciously for another moment. He did, after all, know very well how easy that was to change. Then he glanced at Tom and pointed.
"Don't you start in on me about how it's about Marla," he said.
Tom shrugged. "Wasn't dreaming of saying anything like that," he said, and smiled.
"Seems my poor old brain's already been worked over. Might be better to leave it alone." His eyes slid to Janeway for just a second, just enough to make it clear what his real thoughts were.
"Mr. Lessing." The name escaped her before she'd decided what to say, an she felt foolish for a moment while she gathered her thoughts. "Mr. Lessing, I assure you...what I did to you that day was inexcusable. It's one of, if not the most, embarassing moments in my career. I was wrong, and I am truly sorry for it. But Mr. Paris is right. This is not about you or me. It's about Marla Gilmore and whoever kidnapped her. Please...Mr. Lessing, no one in Starfleet appears to care. Except the crew of this ship."
Damn, but he had spooky eyes when you came down to it. His dark features were a model of equanimity. She couldn't tell if she had reached him or if he would swing his legs over the biobed and head to the transporter room.
Lessing let out a snort.
"Fine," he said calmly. "I'll do the procedure. For Marla, fine. Fire away, doc. Let me just ask you this, Captain. You don't want to be judged by your worst moment. How come you never granted that privilege to us?"
Ouch. He knew just where to hit, now that he was a civilian and could speak his mind to her. She dug her fingernails into her palms behind her back for a moment while she searched for something to say.
"As I said, Mr. Lessing, I sincerely apologize," she began. "And I'll help you redeem yourself to Starfleet when this is over, and you have my word that every member of my command crew will provide you with a letter of reference to help you do that. For right now, though, let's set aside our differences. Marla Gilmore needs us both."
Lessing shrugged and lay down on the biobed.
"We'll do that," he said lightly. Janeway left the sickbay, Chakotay close in behind her.
"That didn't go so bad," he said, once they were out in the hallway.
Janeway's mouth quirked. "Not for you," she quipped. "It's...it's hard to see him. It's hard to be reminded of what I did. I don't know whether to hate him or offer him everything he could want for his forgiveness."
Chakotay exhaled through his nose in a long, thoughtful breath.
"This seems to have affected you a lot, Kathryn," he said as they headed for the turbolift.
He had always been the one she could be somewhat vulnerable around. As her most trusted confidant, he could be trusted. She could lower the captain's shields she maintained constantly around everyone else.
"It has," she admitted. "Everything about this bothers me. Starfleet not caring, someone stealing from my ship, seeing her hustled into the van, reading her logs....there's something about this whole thing...I couldn't tell you exactly what it is, Chakotay. I'm not sure myself. But this is something I...I have to do."
He nodded and smiled warmly. "Perhaps it's something you have to do to redeem yourself," he suggested. The same words she'd thought to herself in the readyroom.
Damn, sometimes she really hated how he could do that.
"Maybe," she said. "But to whom? Lessing? Gilmore?"
Chakotay shook his head gently. "No," he said. "To the only person who really matters, Kathryn. To yourself."
She found herself thinking about that even as she continued tracking all two hundred and fifteen Nova-class starships in service. Most were easily locatable and she crossed them off the list. Sixteen were on deep-space missions and could conceivably be missed. Six were in non-Federation space on diplomatic science missions, and could also conceivably go astray for a while. Five were being refitted.
Somewhere, out there, was a Nova-class ship that was missing. The commander of that ship was as ethically compromised as Ransom had been. Marla Gilmore was a prisoner on it. Kathryn Janeway would find it.
Several decks below her readyroom, Benning crawled into a Jeffries tube and opened a panel. His Starfleet uniform indicated he was just a crewman. No one had given him a second look. He was quite technically apt, and it wasn't hard to tap into Voyager's communications array. The message he sent was text, heavily encrypted, and to the point.
Attn: Kilbourne, Commanding Agent/Project SLING
From: Benning
Voyager is not just asking questions. Noah Lessing is aboard. Suspect they will discover mindscan. I am aboard Voyager, undetected. Please advise as to further orders.