Machination

Kathryn concentrated on Voyager's battle with the Hirogen because she literally could do nothing else. Though damn it, she wanted to. She was furious and she knew it was compromising her objectivity and tactical thinking. The small fighters the Hirogen had taken to using were irritating as hell. Tuvok reported they had the transphasic capabilities now in their smaller photon torpedoes. The large ship that seemed to be the leader's vessel was veritably laughing at them. Small holes opened in Voyager's shield grid. But the moment they'd get the spot closed, switched to a backup generator, the damn things would open a hole over the other nacelle, threatening to vent dilithium gas, which would prevent them from getting to warp.

But it was Tuvok's order to his security teams following a breach in the port nacelle that sent a chill through her. They'd been here before.

"Hirogen have boarded Voyager. All security personnel intercept. Deck 9, section 84. Repeat: the enemy has boarded the ship."

Tuvok's solution, mentioned by Icheb, had worked, to a degree. The munitions team had set up an auto-sensing laser, which, every time the large Hirogen vessel turned belly up, zapped the hydraulics that would have moved the transphasic cannon into firing position. But they had people likely working on that and would have the cannon available to use at some point.

They just needed to stop the smaller fighters long enough to engage the larger ship directly.

She raised her phaser rifle to aim as she and the security team headed into Deck 9. "Look alive, everybody. They're here somewhere." All non-essential personnel had been evacuated through Jeffries tubes. She motioned for Dixon and Hill to fan out as they moved down the trio of corridors that allowed engineers to monitor the many injector and expulsor ports for thrusters and the warp manifold.

Noticing movement ahead, she aimed her light beam and spotted three of the leathery-skinned Hirogen. One just finishing materializing. "Halt!" she shouted and ducked aside as the phaser beam of one's weapon arced toward her. It impacted the wall to her right. Inhaling and exhaling she steadied her sights, spun around the tank she'd ducked behind and pressed the rifle's trigger. The Hirogen went down with the blast to his chest.

His companions immediately fired in her direction. Then she spotted Dixon to their left. Distraction, she told herself. "Hey!" she shouted and fired at the two remaining Hirogen. They lumbered toward her and she fired several more shots. A pair of phased rifle shots erupted from the right and the left, Dixon and Hill catching the two remaining Hirogen completely off-guard. They went down, one just to a knee, but the second dead. Kathryn advanced on the remaining Hirogen, business-end of her rifle leading.

"Two down, one to go," Janeway remarked coldly. "You can get up and be interrogated, or die here. Your choice."

"We do not negotiate with prey."

"I see, so it's choice two." Aiming at a space between his armor and his helmet, the unprotected spot practically whispering to her "hit me," she pulled the trigger.

Dead, he fell to the ground.

"Clean this up," she told Hill and Dixon. Slapping her comm badge, she barked, "Three dead in the port nacelle. Where's the next party, Tuvok?"

"There has been another breach and boarding on Deck 7," Tuvok reported. "My team and I are already there."

Janeway pulled out a tricorder and scanned the area to make sure that three Hirogen was all there had been in this breach. The readings showed clear, so she lowered her rifle.

The crew had already lost to Hirogen once. They had spent almost a month as their playthings on the holodeck before waking up and fighting Turanj to a standstill. This hunting party, however, was even more inventive. She wanted to know what species they had robbed of the transphasic cannon, and how they'd managed to adapt it to their ships so quickly.

When Dixon and Hill had transported to the morgue with the dead Hirogen, Janeway marched out of the nacelle access and down to main engineering.

She found B'Elanna and her engineers shoring up leaky plasma vents leading into the intermix chamber. "Status report," Janeway barked.

"Last several shots compromised the warp core power regulator so for the moment we're only capable of impulse," B'Elanna reported.

"Well, we shouldn't have any Hirogen on board to make that more complicated, so get it up and running as quickly as you can."

"Of course."

Kathryn moved from main engineering and met Tuvok in the corridor. "Did we get them all?"

"I have one still alive and have detained him for questioning."

"Are they going to tell us anything useful?" She was doubtful.

"It is clear that the smaller ships are entirely designed to be a distraction," Tuvok said. "They are single man fighters. Therefore those boarding the ship have been coming from the larger lead vessel."

Because their memories had been wiped and rewritten dozens of times during the last encounter, none of Voyager's crew remembered how the Hirogen had boarded and taken over Voyager before, but this seemed to suggest that the tactic was the same. "They really didn't get the memo," she remarked, referring to the accord with Turanj."

"The Hirogen commander did state his opinion that Turanj was a disgrace. It is probable that had they received 'the memo' he would have burned it."

Kathryn laughed despite her exhaustion. They entered the turbolift together. "Bridge," Kathryn said.

"Let's see if we've made any progress on neutralizing the transphasic cannon."

"The commander would have reported success."

She nodded. "I know. I just can't think of anything else to do. Have you had an update fro-"

"Icheb to Captain Janeway."

The young man's voice was business-like and even-toned. She tapped her comm badge. "Go ahead, Icheb."

"We have a solution. You may fire when ready."

The turbolift to the bridge opened just as he finished his statement. "What's the solution?"

Tuvok went to his board. "There is a photon torpedo in a launch tube in the munitions bay."

"Fire when ready," Icheb replied simply.

Though she wanted to watch his board, Kathryn moved quickly to the command seat. Just as she reached it, Tom gasped. She looked toward him, then past him to the forward viewscreen.

The torpedo had obviously been augmented. Its path was intercepted by phaser fire from the large Hirogen vessel, except the skin of the torpedo rippled, shrugging off the impact.

"It has Borg shielding," Tuvok stated. She glanced at him. Borg. That meant… Anxiety and anguish hit her so hard it was almost physically painful and she couldn't stop her gasp as she turned to watch the torpedo's progress.

The torpedo didn't wait for the ship to raise up, homing in on the underside, dipping and curving its path, as if it had a mind of its own. Kathryn supposed it did.

Tuvok deployed a drone and patched the camera's signal to the forward viewscreen. The camera followed the torpedo's path up under the Hirogen ship and through a closed port.

A moment later the Hirogen ship exploded into stardust.

Janeway dove for her chair determined to read the sensor report for herself. "Report!"

Tuvok reported, "The Hirogen are in retreat."

"Oh my god," Tom whispered.

"She blew the whole thing." Harry's tone was disquieted.

"Survivors?" Janeway asked.

"There's no debris out there bigger than a few centimeters," Harry reported.

"Nothing?" She looked over her shoulder to see him shaking his head.

Standing again, Janeway said, "Tuvok to find out what you can from our prisoners about how they came across the technology." She walked to the turbolift.

"Where are you going?"

"To the munitions bay." There had been no word from the Doctor. And Icheb had only reported when the solution was available. She had a sinking feeling that only seeing Annika, talking to her, would make this...annihilation make sense.

Tuvok stepped away from his station meeting her gaze as she turned in the turbolift. "Icheb has taken her to cargo bay 2. I will accompany you."


At the entrance to cargo bay 2, Kathryn paused. "Did you get a full readout from the torpedo before it launched?" she asked Tuvok.

"Borg shielding, self-guidance system, and the torpedo's typical explosive components," he replied.

"But that level of destruction...wasn't from a base yield explosion."

"It may have hit something centrally vital inside the ship," he pointed out.

The cargo bay doors opened. "Captain. Tuvok." Icheb said, stepping into the entry. "Voyager is safe?"

"The ship was completely blown up, Icheb."

A droning voice with a faint echo sounded behind him. "We are aware that our countermeasure was successful."

Kathryn moved quickly inside the cargo bay, followed closely by Tuvok. "You killed at least a hundred people."

Borg exoplating had reformed over Annika's torso. Her mottled and reddened skin had become sallow and pale. Where old technology had fallen out, new Borg organelles had replaced them. Soft golden hair had fallen out, replaced by a mechanized skull cap, undoubtedly reasserting the cortical node's control over the body.

"Voyager would have lost a hundred had we not acted," the drone replied, looking up from a console where its hands moved with lightning speed. "The technology was from species 10026. Remnants of that civilization improved their modulating phaser pulse technology."

"How did you get that information?" Kathryn demanded.

"We assimilated it," the drone replied. "We encountered an individual who beamed into the corridor outside the munitions bay."

"You tortured it out of them?" Kathryn stared at Icheb. The young man was stoic. Apparently the assimilation hadn't just left them with an amoral Annika Hansen. "You can't do that."

"You complain, yet you are safe. Voyager is safe."

Kathryn couldn't believe it. She stormed forward. Icheb stepped between her and Annika. Tuvok then stepped between Kathryn and Icheb. In a standoff, the four stared at one another. Kathryn could feel her temper rising, the heat in her face almost unbearable. "Tuvok, they are to be confined to the cargo bay, go nowhere and see no one. Is that clear?"

"Yes, captain."

Icheb stepped back. "We are no danger to Voyager's crew." Behind him Annika stumbled. He turned quickly. "Regenerate," he said.

Annika rigidly walked to the alcove, her right leg still braced by Borg and human medical technology. The alcove lit up as she stepped back into it, accepting her connection.

Icheb turned back to Captain Janeway. "Her plan was sound, captain."

"It was cruel."

"It was necessary."

"There had to be another way."

"There was not."

Kathryn closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I told her this was too risky."

"She was determined to end the risk to Voyager."

"At the expense of her own humanity," Kathryn retorted.

Tuvok's hand landed on Kathryn's shoulder. "Captain, I believe we must accept what has happened. The question is how do we prevent it from happening again?"

"Icheb? You're in charge of her."

He shook his head. "I am not."

"What the hell do you mean you're not? You assimilated her. You just gave her an order."

"It was a suggestion, based on logical data. She acceded to the logic of it." He looked pained as he continued, "I couldn't bring myself to be her superior. She's...I have always considered her mine."

Kathryn felt her stomach sink. Worriedly she asked, "What did you do?"

"I made her One of One. She is her own hive mind, able to confer with all those she assimilated in the past, and direct them within herself."

"You gave her multiple personality disorder?"

"I gave her multiple personality order."


"Regeneration cycle complete." We stepped out of the alcove to find a human individual standing beside our console. Following a standard self-system scan, we looked around our surroundings. Our data identified it as "Cargo Bay 2." Bringing our visual scanner forward, we identified a human with auburn hair, blue eyes, one-point-six meters in height, wearing a red and black uniform. Our database supplied her identity. We said, "Kathryn Janeway, species 5618, human, rank captain, in command of Federation vessel USS Voyager."

The Starfleet captain straightened her tunic and crossed her arms over her chest. "And you are?"

"My designation is One of One." We cocked our head, accessing our collective memory. There should be more. But what was it? "We are assigned to Voyager."

We noted that Captain Janeway's core temperature was rising and her tone was sharp, brittle. Our database concluded this was the human emotion anger. "What do you remember before your regeneration cycle?"

"My regeneration cycle was a duration of 36.25 hours."

"Yes, it was. Do you remember what you did the day before yesterday?"

"I was assigned to eliminate the Hirogen threat to Voyager."

A PADD was held toward us, which we reached out and took. "Read it."

The PADD screen showed the face of a young girl, blonde, blue eyes, a red dress. "It is biographical data."

"I said read it."

"Annika Hansen, born on Stardate 25479 to Magnus and Erin Hansen, where they resided on the Tendara colony prior to filing flight plans to the Delta Quadrant." She looked up. "What should I do with this information?"

"You told me to help you find your humanity again, Annika, and I intend to do just that."

"We are not Annika Hansen. We are One of One, auxiliary drone assigned to USS Voyager."

"Bit of a mouthful. How about something shorter?" Captain Janeway's facial expression became unfamiliar, a drawing of her lips downward and the eyes. We could not look at them for long without a strange sensation, so we ceased.

"We are One..." The designation immediately felt incorrect. We searched our databanks and found a file: One. "No, we are not One, they...he...is gone." The statement of fact nevertheless made our synapses strangely react. We looked down at the PADD, fingers moving, and opened another file. "Annika Hansen, personal log," we read aloud.