I do have fun to write this story (or more like re-writing it as I translate it from my French as I go) and find a way to bring some imperfect details of life as it is in the usually-perfect-world of Star Trek. I hope I'm not offending too many people with this slightly "parody" attitude (I'm referring to hacking Starfleet, hacking the borg, not finding the washing machine, putting bugs into holodecks and such).
I thank you, Firebirdgirl, Aditu (don't apologize… your reviews are always welcome no matter which day I receive them) and Anthro-Angel, for your reviews. :-)
Chapter VI. Mysterious programs
As it turned out, Kathryn accepted willingly to give an access code to Merrrshika, under the condition that Merrrshika told her what she wished to program, which Merrrshika did after she had the captain's solemn promise that she would keep it secret. As soon as she had her access code, the hacker spent almost all her free time – well, when her schedule fitted Harry's – taking lessons of holographic programming. She was learning along very well, because her mind was used to the logic and twists of programming and codes of all kinds. She could easily catch up with a new type of algorithms.
She was a little anxious to request of Kim more time than he wished to give her, but he welcomed her each time with a smile and a affable smile. They always talked a little before the beginning of each lesson, learning to know each other. Merrrshika used it as a way to learn about him as much as about his culture and Voyager's past adventures. Once, he told her how the vessel had fallen into the hands of hunting saurians that had tried to turn the whole ship into a gigantic holodeck. He told her how he had activated the Doctor in the middle of a corridor and had made him disappear just before the arrival of the two saurian guards. He had been accused of being late in his work and had asked to give his report to the bridge, to the guards' superior officer. As he was refused, he had said to the guards to warn their superior officer that he was now under their orders and that it was the reason why he would never get his report. The two guards had yielded, and he had made his report, without being accused or even suspected.
There, there was like a distant light at the edges of Merrrshika's mind. She needed… barely another brush of light…
"Could you rrepeat what you jusht shaid, Harry, please ?"
He did so, and the light brightened.
"Oh yeah!", she exclaimed with contentment. "You'rre prroud of how you got out of that shituation, arren't you?"
"Yes," Kim admitted. "But what's your point?"
"I felt it on yourr mind."
The light instantly faded to nothingness. She smiled with regret and reassuring thoughts in equal parts, and she pressed on:
"Don't worrry, Mirrresh arren't good telepathsh. In fact, we arrre "team telepathsh". It means that we can jusht… sense the generral shtate of mind of people we arrre a good team with. The link is alrready gone. It is only a little help with shuttles orr forr militarry actions."
"If you say so. What were you supposed to do today?", Kim asked, changing subject with little subtlety.
She answered, but promised herself not to brush the subject with him again. Another thing to ask Tuvok: was everyone onboard uneasy about telepaths? She was not even a real telepath; as she had said, she could just get a glimpse of the state of mind of close friends or team-mates. And she would not let him see if she ever got other "lights" from him.
ooooo
"Merrshika, may we join you for dinner?", Chakotay asked. He was accompanied by Tuvok.
"Well, actually thish is my brreakfasht, but neverrmind and shit down," she pointed with a smile.
With her triangular sunglasses, she always seemed to have a mischievous smile. She seemed happy and also always ready for a trick or joke. Her electric blue gloves and black outfit added to the impression.
"Mershika, what is this holoprogram you are working on with such determination?", Tuvok asked.
"Ah!", she exclaimed with a mysterious look. "You will know it jusht onche it is finished."
"Tuvok doesn't want to admit he's eager to know about it," Chakotay remarked with a wink.
The Vulcan, either oblivious to the wink or badly wishing to correct the offending assumption, corrected patiently:
"Eagerness is a feeling and I do not have feelings, Commander."
Merrrshika smiled even more slyly, and Chakotay grinned.
"Well, if Tuvok is not eager to know, I am."
"You will know what it is jusht onche it is finished. But I can tell you I worrk on two differrent prrogrrams."
"Two?", Tuvok inquired, too quickly to give the impression that he really was not interested.
"Yesh. Don't even trry to hack them, Tuvok, therre arre thrree differrent locksh on each of them. And among these locksh is a shterrika algorrithm."
She took a sip of her water, winking behind her blue-tinged sunglasses. Chakotay laughed and Tuvok lifted an eyebrow.
"Sorrry, I have to go worrk a little morre on those prrogrrams. Have a good day."
She left the mess hall, Chakotay and Tuvok alone at her table behind her. She took the now-well-known itinerary to holodeck two. No one was using it anymore, because she had literally seized it. And, before she was actually good at programming, she had tried quite a few new experiences. The results had been uneven, to say the least, and a few bugs that were impossible to drive out without a complete clean-up of the holodeck matrix, which would be a long task. And she preferred to be over with her experimentations before she set to it. One of the numerous minor dysfunctions and fixes was that, when a simulation worked bit by bit, stopping every two words, she had to ask for the opening of a color modification operation and close it right away. All those bugs made it so that no one else was using holodeck two. B'Elanna would have come to try and repair it, but she was busier elsewhere, with the annual regeneration of the warp engine. As all engineers were very busy with their annual inspection, the holodeck was left deserted and half-unworking.
And B'Elanna had sworn to drag Merrrshika into a merciless game of Klingon wrestling if she did not fix everything back to better-than-perfect order once she was done with the holodeck. The programs might be for the good of the ship – as mysterious as they were – but still, there were things the chief engineer would not tolerate regarding her mechanical devices.
This day was a rather busy day, even by Mirrresh standards. First she spent eight hours programming non-stop. After that, she closed the program and engaged the security lock over it, and she went to lunch. She dragged herself, famished, to the mess hall that was empty at this hour, which so happened to be the middle of the night by human schedule.
She addressed silent apologies to Neelix to be trudging around his mess hall in the middle of the night and looking through his precious culinary creations.
And, again, she was reduced to ask a tartar steak to the replicator. She was thoroughly bored to be eating this all the time, but it was the only compatible food in the database, except for the baked cereals she kept for the morning, because they were lighter on the stomach than the steak.
After that, she went back to the holodeck and programmed another ten hours straight. And she put the final touches to her programs. Her biological clock told her loud and clear how late it was. She stood and yawned, stretching, rolling her cat's tongue between impressive canines. When she opened the holodeck's doors, she found herself face to face with Tuvok.
"Hi, Lieutenant-Commander," Merrrshika saluded him.
"Hi, miss Mershika."
"Sho, what werre you doing in the holodeck?", she inquired, barely able to stifle her laughter.
"I was... I was running a tactical simulation about Wolf 359," the Vulcan stammered, with a noticeable lack of his species' characteristic coolness.
"Oh yeah!", she mocked. "Thish is not good forr a shecurrity officherr to be caught shpying!"
"I was not."
He was about to argue, but she went around him grinning. She did not feel like going to bed, despite the late hour inscribed on her biological clock. When she entered the mess hall, it was full. Kim, Chakotay, Janeway, B'Elanna and Seven were not on duty, because they were chatting with Neelix, leaning on the kitchen's counter.
People were getting used to the feline step of her hips as she walked, and so she was not attracting so much incredulous stares now, but right now her smile was so bright and her step springing so energetically that Kim said, as a matter of greeting:
"I guess these programs are finished."
"Oh yesh, they arre," she announced with a huge smile.
She commanded a Klingon alcohol, very strong. B'Elanna made an appreciative smile. Merrrshika took a long sip, then added:
"I plan to drrink a little. I shwear I won't get drrunk beforre the captain. Then I'll have a good and long night of shleep, and trry my prrogrrams tomorrow. Oh, by the way, Captain, we'rre shtill going thrrough horshe's head conshtellation in about twenty-fourr hourrs?"
"Yes," Janeway confirmed.
She was the only one onboard who could guess why Merrrshika was asking those questions, but Chakotay asked:
"Why? Is there a danger there?"
"No, not if you tell them that you'rre jusht trravelling."
"Who? That system is not inhabited, according to our database," Seven observed.
"Oh, it isn't mosht of time," Merrrshika admitted. "But it is shix yearrs shince the lasht ionic burrsht in thish shyshtem. A perrfect timing. Good night, everryone."
She lifted her glass, got down of her stool and strode out of the mess hall with her feline walk that did not fail from hypnotizing a good third of the room's males.
When she reached her room, she stripped of her clothes, left them in a most untidy – and un-Starfleet-regulated – pile on the floor, rolled into bed, started purring from the sheer satisfaction of having written and saved the last lines of code, then fell asleep.