=/\=

Since they'd left the holodeck program early, Icheb had unscheduled time available. While he could go to Astrometrics to be with Seven, he knew she would call him if, or more likely, when, she needed his help. He decided to go to the Sickbay lab to work on his latest genetic program until she contacted him. That was the next thing on his schedule, and it wouldn't hurt that he'd have a little more time to pursue it. He'd been trying to figure out how to produce a hypospray which would give everyone on Voyager a form of protection against becoming assimilated. If that didn't work, he had another idea that would essentially create the genetic modification his parents had put into Icheb into anyone who didn't mind becoming a "Typhoid Mary" to the Borg. If Voyager was attacked and the crew assimilated, the pathogen might be distributed widely in the quadrant. If many cubes met the fate of the one where Voyager found them, the Borg would be weakened substantially, particularly if he could find a way to send it from cube to cube via each vessel's Central Plexus.

Icheb had also decided it would be a good idea to obtain training as one of the EMH's backup field medics, like Tom Paris. If he stayed nearby, he could help the Doctor if he needed to move injured people around in Sickbay. It wouldn't hurt to practice using the medical tricorder in triage situations, either.

After changing into his cadet uniform, Icheb stopped by Sickbay. "My holodeck excursion ended early, Doctor. I'll be in the lab if you need me." The EMH waved at Icheb to acknowledge his status report, and Icheb went to the lab to work on his independent study project.

A little later, Icheb heard someone arrive in Sickbay. He heard the Doctor shouting, and then the voices of the captain and the commander. Icheb was very curious, but he didn't think the command team would need his help. They'd undoubtedly summoned a security team to help out. Things settled down for a while, but later, Icheb heard many strange, angry voices speaking roughly, accusing someone named "Donik" of being a coward, After he heard the word "Hirogen," Icheb realized who these new arrivals must be. Icheb closed up the console he was working on and waited in the lab, in case the Doctor called for his assistance.

The EMH never did call Icheb in, but once he heard the Hirogen Hunters stomping out, he slipped into Sickbay. A being with the tough, reptilian features of the Hirogen, which Icheb had viewed in Voyager's database, was lying on a biobed. Icheb didn't see the Doctor, but Tom Paris was there.

"Mr. Paris?" Icheb called out. "May I be of any assistance?"

Tom waved him in and indicated Icheb should approach him. In a low tone of voice, Tom said, "We had to shut down the Doctor. Donik was freaking out because the holograms in a training simulation he was controlling overpowered forty-three Hirogen Hunters. The only reason he's alive is because he masked his life signs and hid. He thought all of us were holograms who had captured him. The captain and commander explained the Doc was the only hologram, but they had to shut him down to get anything out of Donik. That's why I'm still here." Tom leaned in and whispered, "Donik doesn't know I've been in touch with the Doc. He's on one of the holodecks, monitoring what I'm doing and making suggestions on this monitor."

He pointed to the display in front of him, and Icheb saw the Doctor's face, with a mute sign in the corner of the screen. The EMH's mouth moved, but what he said appeared in caption form on the display below his face. "We don't want Donik to know I'm still involved with his treatment. Mr. Paris, why don't you ask Icheb to speak with our patient? Maybe he can get more out of him than we've learned so far."

"Does this have anything to do with the Lokirrim holograms' rebellion?" Icheb asked.

"We're not sure yet," Tom answered. "Maybe you can find out. Donik's a young guy, frightened out of his wits by what happened to all of the Hunters. He was attacked and injured himself before he managed to hide out. He might relate to you better than he has to the rest of us."

"Of course. I'd like to help." Icheb nodded to the Doctor's image and to Tom. Both expressed their thanks, from the Doctor in a caption displayed on the screen, and verbally, from Tom.

When Icheb and Tom got close to Donik, he saw this Hirogen was much smaller than Icheb expected from the official log entries he'd viewed. Icheb was noticeably taller. When Icheb tried to start a conversation with him, the young Hirogen did not respond at first. Icheb was about to leave his side when Donik said, "I listened to my Alpha and followed his orders. What else was I supposed to do?"

Since he didn't know all that had happened, Icheb wasn't certain how to answer him immediately, but then he realized he could respond. Orders are orders. "We're supposed to follow orders in Starfleet, too, but there are times when we must speak up and state our objections. Some of our crew have told me they wish they'd refused to go along with some of the actions their commanding officers insisted they take, because they knew they were wrong, but their commanding officers threatened to kill them if they didn't."

Icheb stopped speaking, since Donik was becoming agitated by what Icheb was saying. He realized he needed to clarify the Equinox Five's history better or Donik would be even less likely to cooperate. Besides, what Icheb had just said was misleading because it was incomplete. "Donik, this didn't happen on Voyager. The crew mates I'm talking about served on another ship before Captain Janeway rescued them and brought them on board . She would never give them the kind of orders those other commanders did."

Donik relaxed a little and then admitted, "I don't know if my Alpha would have killed me if I didn't follow his orders. He might have. I knew what he wanted me to do wasn't wise. He ordered me to make the holograms even more powerful than they already were."

"Photonic beings, you mean? Like our Doctor?"

"Yes." Donik looked around him, but the EMH was still absent from Sickbay. Tom's body hid the display showing the Doctor's face. "They killed all the Hunters in the simulation! That wouldn't have happened if I hadn't weakened the safeties, which my Alpha ordered me to do. And then the holograms took control and shut them down all the way. I couldn't stop them from killing everyone, and I couldn't stop them from escaping. Once I was hurt, all I could do was hide myself from them, or they would have murdered me, too. The other Alpha and Beta are angry with me. They blame me for what happened."

Icheb nodded. "I followed First's orders even after I realized he didn't know everything he claimed to about the systems on our Borg cube. We killed someone needlessly as a result."

"You were Borg?"

"I used to be. I still have some implants, but I'm not linked to the Borg Collective now."

"Even Hirogen Hunters avoid confrontations with the Borg."

"Donik, aren't all Hirogens Hunters?"

"I'm not. I'd probably die very quickly if I tried to be one. When I was growing up, I was always more interested in engineering and communication systems, and my mother encouraged me to study those subjects. She wanted me to find a way to live without the Hunt. At one time, the Hirogen had a very rich culture, with scientists who created marvelous inventions. She taught me all about that. Few Hirogen males seem interested in doing anything like that anymore. If it were not for the females, like my mother, I think the Hirogen might have died out by now. I hardly ever saw my father, and then he was killed when a hunt didn't go the way his Alpha expected."

"I don't think we've ever met any female Hirogen, unless they look like the males."

"No, I'm sure you've never met them. They live far from here. Their skin is much smoother than mine. Hunters come back and present the females they like with body parts. Most of the females I know, like my mother and sister, think those 'trophies' are disgusting, but the Hunters don't seem to notice - or care. Mother heard about this new holographic technology and told me to look into it, to see if it would be something I could do instead of the Hunt. Killing other beings for trophies has never appealed to me."

"So you learned holographic programming?"

"Yes, so I could service the Hunter training centers. I really liked my job at first, but the Hunters wanted to kill the same holograms over and over again. They insisted I make them more and more cunning, and suffer pain when they were injured. For the 'challenge.' After a while, something happened to a lot of them. They began to think for themselves and came up with ways of attacking that I never programmed into them. And now this. Forty-three Hunters are dead, and they say it's my fault."

Seven told Icheb about a Hirogen Hunter who helped Tuvok and Seven survive in a Tsunkatse arena. This Hirogen Not-a-Hunter might be more like that one. Seven said he was "admirable." After speaking with Donik, Icheb decided the Hirogen are just like everyone else. Some are brutal, others fools, and some are decent people, like Donik, who are victims of the way their culture has become warped over the years - perhaps centuries. Icheb hadn't been in charge of his own fate, either, because of what his parents did to him. He understood what it was like to feel at fault for the deaths of others.

"When I was on the Borg cube, hundreds of drones lost their lives because of me. I still sometimes feel it was my fault, but Seven - who used to be Borg and will be my adoptive mother soon - always says it wasn't. My parents modified my genetic code so that when I was assimilated, a pathogen would be released to kill Borg drones. Then they set me loose in a small ship in the path of a cube so I would be assimilated. And it worked. All the adult drones died. A few neonatal drones like me were born too early, before we knew what we needed to know to survive. I followed the orders of First - my 'Alpha.' We killed an alien when we tried to assimilate him because we didn't have the knowledge we needed to do it right. If I'd really been Borg, I wouldn't care about what we did, but I do feel badly about it."

Donik sighed. "I followed orders, but I'm still at fault. I didn't do it right. The holograms malfunctioned because of the way I reprogrammed them."

"If you could have seen into the future, you would have done it differently. Now all you can do is try to help keep it from happening again."

"I'm not sure how I can do that."

"You can help Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay if they ask you to."

Donik considered this for a few seconds. "You say they can be trusted? Your captain gave the Hirogen this technology in the first place."

Tom approached the biobed then. "Pardon me for overhearing, Donik. Let me explain something. Captain Janeway traded the technology to the Hirogen in exchange for our lives. Several Hirogen Hunter groups had taken over Voyager, and we were fighting to free ourselves from them. The two sides had reached a stalemate. Cataahr, the Alpha Hirogen, wanted to use holographic technology to replace the Hunt, not to be used as a training tool. From what the captain told us about him after the fighting was all over, I don't think he'd have approved of what your Alpha ordered you to do to the holograms, either. But he was murdered by his Beta, who didn't understand that Cataahr wanted what you say your mother wanted. Cataahr thought if your people stayed in one place, they could rebuild the Hirogen culture."

"I see. You don't use holograms in training scenarios then?"

"We do, but we don't make them suffer pain or anything like that. They're three dimensional images of people. It sounds like what your Alpha told you to do turned your holograms into a people, if they suffered and then could think of ways to become even more than what you programmed. Our Doctor, the hologram who was treating you, has become a lot like the holograms you created, but he's also a physician who is programmed to 'Do No Harm.' He's the only hologram here who is completely aware of what he is. He's surpassed his original programming by learning skills on his own, but we needed him to do that. Our entire organic medical staff was killed when Voyager was dragged here. The Doc still is the only true professional physician we have on Voyager."

"He won't hurt me because of what I did to other holograms?"

Mr. Paris replied, "Donik, if he ever hurts you when he's treating you, it's because it's unavoidable, and it's the only way you'll get better. He'd never deliberately inflict pain or suffering on any of his patients. Won't you let me bring him here to finish treating you? My main job is steering this ship through space, and I have a feeling they'll be needing me for that job sooner, rather than later."

Icheb added, "I'll stay with you, Donik, until our Doctor has finished what he needs to do for you. I've been wanting to find out more about being a field medic anyway. This will be an opportunity for me to observe what the Doctor does to treat injuries like yours."

Donik considered this for a short while, but then he gave permission for the EMH to be reactivated. As soon as he took form in Sickbay, the Doctor approached his patient with an encouraging smile. "Thank you for trusting me, Donik. I assure you, Mr. Paris and Mr. Icheb are telling you the truth. My mission is to heal. Now, let's release Mr. Paris to do a job he is truly qualified for. To the bridge, Mr. Paris!"

When Icheb and Tom both laughed at the imperious way the Doctor said this, Donik relaxed onto the biobed. Mr. Paris left Sickbay to return to his primary job as Lieutenant Paris, Chief Helmsman of Voyager, while the EMH used his evaluative tools - painlessly - to finish treating the young Hirogen. Icheb remained with Donik, diverting him by asking him to tell him more about his mother and what it was like to grow up Hirogen, with the expectation of having to become a Hunter, whether he wanted to become one or not.

=/\=

Once his treatment was over, Donik still needed to rest in Sickbay to completely heal from his injuries. Icheb was due to report to Astrometrics, and Donik agreed he no longer needed to stay with him in Sickbay. He thanked Icheb for staying with him and acknowledged, "You were right about your EMH."

Icheb was still working with Seven in Astrometrics when a decoy bomb, set up by the renegade holograms, went off and destroyed the Hirogen vessel that attacked it, thinking it was the ship the holograms had commandeered. Seven sent Icheb to Sickbay to help with the care of the injured Hirogen, who had been transported to Voyager before their ship exploded. He arrived just after the hologram ship abducted the Doctor's program.

With the Doctor gone, a decision was made to transfer all the wounded Hirogen to the mess hall, to keep them all in one place. Most of their injuries were minor. Icheb stayed in the mess hall with Tom, helping with triage. Icheb looked on while the captain and the Beta-Hirogen had a confrontation. He was gratified to hear Donik's offer to help the captain find the hologram ship. After the captain and Donik left the mess hall, he did his best to help their Hirogen "guests." Icheb decided that while he liked Donik, he really disliked the Beta. After what Seven had told him about Turanj, the Beta from the World War II simulation, Icheb wondered if one of the requirements of being a Beta was to be belligerent and foolish enough to prove he had what it took to be a single-minded Alpha.

Icheb was relieved when he heard the EMH was back on board. That all changed when the Doctor never showed up in the mess hall to help Tom as ordered by the captain and had, in fact, left the ship again of his own volition. Right after that, the ship shook, and only emergency power was available in the mess hall. Tom sent Icheb down to Engineering to help repair whatever had been done to the ship. It was only after Icheb arrived there that he found out what had happened. The holograms used a feedback surge to counter Voyager's attempt to deactivate them. The surge damaged Voyager's systems, leaving the ship adrift in space. The hologram's vessel got away. The EMH was with them, and so was Lieutenant Torres. The holograms had kidnapped her from Engineering.

=/\=

Seven assigned Icheb to work on repairs with Ensign Bristow, the last engineer Icheb would have chosen as a partner. He'd never told Seven about the way the ensign mocked him when Icheb had mistaken Lieutenant Torres's friendliness for romantic intentions. He wasn't about to say anything about it now, in such a critical situation. Fortunately, Ensign Bristow seemed even more uncomfortable being with Icheb, and they proceeded to work together without either of them complaining about being forced to work together. They didn't have the time to waste, since Seven and Lieutenant Carey were hard pressed to fix Voyager's systems as quickly as possible. Icheb overheard Seven telling the captain that the work was taking longer than it would if Lieutenant Torres had been available to give directions to her staff.

Once power was restored and the ship's propulsion system was back on line, Seven ordered Icheb to go to Astrometrics to provide answers if the captain asked for them, as long as Seven had to remain in Engineering with Lieutenant Carey to finish "refinements" to the repairs. As Icheb turned to go, Ensign Bristow extended his hand to Icheb. "Thanks for the help, Cadet. When Lieutenant Torres gets back, she'll be happy to hear you helped us out."

"You're welcome, Ensign. It was . . . good to work with you."

Bristow smiled and tilted his head. That was as much of an apology as Icheb was ever likely to get, but under the circumstances, it was enough.

=/\=