Episode Two - Point of Reference

Chapter 2
In My Programming

Ha'kan pressed the panel until the cover snapped back into place. Over the past year or so, he'd gotten used to the constant rumble and shift from the Badlands' plasma storms, but this trip was unsettlingly smooth after the rocky start to the shift in B'Elanna's quarters. That was about eight hours ago now, though, and the shift was more than half-over.

"How's it going down there, Tabor?"

Ha'kan looked up to see B'Elanna leaning on the console behind him. "Oh, great," he said with a hesitant shrug. Even though she hadn't been following him around, exactly, he was clearly not her favorite person. The feeling was mutual, and now it was explicitly clear after this morning—or evening. Who knew on a space ship? "Why? What did I do now?"

She didn't trust him, either not to go running off to Worf with news of Vorik's bloody nose or to do his job correctly. He had to admit, if the second, she wasn't wrong. He had no idea what he was doing.

"Nothing, nothing. Just checking." B'Elanna patted his shoulder over the pads of his newly-replicated green thermal vest. It could get cold in the Jefferies tubes. "Let me know if you need any help with the cable connections. They're pretty different from the Valjean and some of the routes are inverted."

Ha'kan wasn't entirely sure what that meant, and wondered back along what he'd been doing for the past thirty minutes to make sure he hadn't done it incorrectly. He'd followed Vorik's written instructions, which were probably more thorough than necessary.

He patted the corner of the panel cover. "Do you want to check my work?"

After all, he'd hate to embarrass her or Riker in front of Ensign Vorik. The horror…

He knew B'Elanna didn't actually care about Vorik. He just happened to be in charge of the night shift—and she was used to being in charge. She had this habit of taking control, getting her way, and not taking no for an answer. It served her well in the Maquis, but the collaborative nature of Starfleet didn't strike Ha'kan as ever being B'Elanna's natural habitat. The only way Ha'kan could figure B'Elanna ended up at the Academy was because she lost a bet or something.

"Well, since you offered." B'Elanna knelt beside him to remove the panel he'd just put back.

"Are you serious?" Ha'kan rolled his eyes and stood.

"Where do you think you're going?" B'Elanna watched him from her crouch like a sinoraptor whose nest had been disturbed.

"To my next maintenance task?" Ha'kan held a hand out toward the console Vorik set to display the night's tasks. They were about half-done, and right on schedule. Ha'kan had to admit to some satisfaction at having hit Vorik's estimates within about ten minutes.

Of course, Vorik was estimating based on what he thought Ha'kan's skills were, which Vorik thought were severely lacking. B'Elanna didn't seem to share that faith that there was a standard Ha'kan could rise to.

"Well, stay here for just a second. The ship's not going to fall apart if you wait for me to look."

"I wouldn't want to embarrass you." Ha'kan went back to Vorik's chore chart—Lyndsay Ballard called it that in her brief overview of her responsibilities last shift and Ha'kan thought it was hilarious. He'd been calling it that all night.

The comment from Michael about collaborators still crawled beneath his skin… but he might be the only Maquis who thought these Starfleet guys were okay. At least, the only Maquis that kind of felt bad for them. His roommate cried himself to sleep last night.

Not that he thought Ensign Vorik was doing that.

Next up: sensor maintenance.

B'Elanna was standing behind him. "You're still going slow."

"It's because my training is entirely in the health sciences." It was a joke, but B'Elanna wouldn't get it. How long had they worked together? A year? They weren't friends. Ha'kan made a point of not spending his free time with assholes. "I'll figure it out, just give me a little bit more than a few days."

"Is there a problem?" Vorik looked down from the catwalk ringing the second engineering deck above their heads.

"No." Ha'kan glared at B'Elanna for a moment before looking up at Ensign Vorik. "Just headed to sensor maintenance."

Vorik's impassive gaze shifted, as Ha'kan imagined he was consulting the chart he'd made from memory. "Indeed. Seven minutes ahead of estimates. Well done."

Ha'kan didn't know why he was proud of that. "Thanks."

Vorik's eyebrow quirked, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he focused on B'Elanna. "Do you require assistance, Miss Torres?"

"Nope." She smiled up at him, obviously ungenerously. "I'm good, thanks. Just checking in with Tabor to see how he's doing."

"Your assistance is appreciated," Vorik said, but continued, "however, I am depending on you to complete the more complex tasks assigned to you. I assure you, I am capable of oversight. Mister Tabor's work has been adequate."

And Ha'kan really didn't know why he was proud of that. Adequate? Well, damn, he might make a career of this, yet.

Obviously seething, B'Elanna lifted the panel cover back into place and watched Tabor for a half-second before he disappeared beyond the door into the hallway toward sensor maintenance.

It was, happily, on the other side of the ship from both of them. If a fight was going to break out, he didn't want to be there. He didn't want to annoy B'Elanna further by taking sides based on his conscience rather than some misplaced sense of loyalty.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, he found the instructions on this particular task to be clear and easy to do. In fact, after about ten minutes of doing this for the first time, he thought he could do it in his sleep. He focused, anyway. If he fell asleep, he might not finish a few minutes ahead of schedule.

It was too embarrassing to admit even in his own head that this was somehow the most fun he'd had in years. Maybe his entire life. The last time he followed a schedule this closely, he was under the thumb of Cardassians—but he'd been wrong to associate something so basic as the idea of a timetable with them. Even Bajoran trains ran on time.

Ha'kan settled down with file compression instructions, explanation for automatic processes included… just if Ha'kan wanted to know, he assumed. For example, certain types of sensor data were rarely retrieved, so those were folded up and put in the bottom drawer, so to speak. The algorithm that commanded the computer to do it was even spelled out for him. Ha'kan stared at the string of Basic words, letters, and symbols for a long while, not imagining they would ever make any sense to him.

Maybe he could ask his roommate what he knew about this kind of thing. Ensign Kim seemed smart. Also it might give him something to think about instead of whatever he'd been crying about the night before.

He followed the instructions—which he was surprised to find involved a little creative problem-solving on his part to comb through the racks of compressed data to mark for a graduated deletion schedule—and returned to Engineering to find most everyone out on their various tasks. He tried to ignore the label that he was ten minutes behind schedule this time, and went to the warp field console next.

"Hey, Tabor, could you help me with this?" B'Elanna called from a Jefferies tube across the room.

Ha'kan glanced up to see Vorik looking down at them, but he didn't seem to react unpleasantly when he watched Ha'kan go to her. He even turned back to whatever he was doing up there.

Ha'kan leaned down to look into the Jefferies tube. "Yeah, what?"

B'Elanna sighed as if frustrated and embarrassed. "I can't do this quick enough on my own. I'm trying to—look, it doesn't matter. See this flashing light?" She pointed.

Ha'kan frowned. "Yeah."

"When it turns solid, pull this out, turn forty-five degrees to the left, put it back in. Then press this, this, and this—each three seconds apart. Then—"

"Solid, pull out this canister-thing…" Ha'kan touched the rim and pantomimed turning it, "turn it, back in. Then…" He pointed to each of the buttons B'Elanna asked for, "three seconds apart."

B'Elanna looked at him like he was an idiot. "Right. Then make sure this," she said, pointing at a graph with a calibration matrix pulled up, "is at exactly four-point-two-six."

"Four-point-two-six."

"Exactly."

"I got it. Four-point-two-six."

B'Elanna crawled further into the maintenance tube and just kept crawling. Ha'kan was beginning to wonder if the ship was actually that wide when she finally stopped, sat down, and reached into one of the sections next to her. Ha'kan hadn't been too serious about looking at the schematics, but he thought it was power distribution to the torpedo tubes.

He watched the light repeatedly turn off intently for several seconds, long enough to wonder why he was counting by threes. When it did hold steady, he missed it for almost two seconds, sure it would switch off again.

Then he got to work, muttering to himself B'Elanna's instructions. He counted to three the third time, pressed the button that he was sure was the right one, then turned to the calibration panel. Four-point-two-six. He didn't touch it.

It blew up in his face anyway.

Ha'kan flew back against the shaft wall beside him, hearing B'Elanna's shout from somewhere far away, and the clamber of rushing feet outside the hatch.

"Prophets," he muttered, looking at his hands for what felt like minutes before he decided he actually still did have his normal four fingers and a thumb. "What the hell?" He didn't fight the hands pulling him out of the Jefferies tube, laying him on the floor.

Bright yellow eyes in a gray head blinked at him in concern for a moment before looking up and away. "He doesn't appear to be severely injured."

"He should still go to sickbay," Vorik's voice said from somewhere Ha'kan couldn't see.

Sickbay? To hell with sickbay. "I swear, I didn't touch it," Ha'kan said, feeling his tongue slurring against the back of his teeth. "I didn't touch it, B'Elanna!" he shouted, and hoped she heard.

"He does seem delirious," the male Reman said, and sounded almost amused.

Well, to hell with him, then, too. Also B'Elanna, since he was at it. "What'd you do?" Ha'kan asked.

"That shouldn't have happened!" B'Elanna's voice rang from the other side of the maintenance tube. "Is he okay?"

"He appears to have suffered minor electrical burns," Vorik said. "Can you stand, Mister Tabor?" he asked, as Ha'kan whipped away from the Reman's soft grip.

"Yeah, yeah, I can fucking stand," he snapped, and glared at B'Elanna. He decided not to say anything about it, and said instead, "I'll go to sickbay." As he was leaving, he heard Vorik telling B'Elanna to calm down—

Calm down. Ha'kan thought about what he did, whether he'd followed B'Elanna's instructions exactly, and he was sure he did. At least, he thought so. Who knew? A console had blown up in his face. His eyes felt like they were on fire.

It was an accident. He tried to tell himself. B'Elanna would never do something like that on purpose. She never did anything like this on purpose.

Well, it could be she was trying to kill him.

No, that was stupid.

Ha'kan walked into sickbay to find it deserted. That was when he remembered he was on nightshift and their flesh-and-blood doctor was probably asleep. He wasn't sure which he preferred more. A moment of thought told him it didn't matter… but he did prefer the photonically-generated one.

With a sigh, Ha'kan looked at the ceiling. "Computer, activate the Emergency Medical Holographic system."

In a shimmer of light, a Human male appeared, looking to maybe be in his forties. Ha'kan had no concept of how Humans aged, but he was balding and his eyes were just on the edge of wrinkled as if he'd been annoyed for most of his life.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency."

Ha'kan pointed to his face, which he assumed looked like something considering Vorik had diagnosed him with minor electrical burns. "I dunno, you tell me."

The Doctor appraised him, apparently unimpressed. "I see. Take a seat, please." As he walked away, he muttered, "So it begins."

"So what begins?" Ha'kan didn't hop onto the biobed as directed. Just because he preferred this doctor didn't mean he actually trusted him.

"I know how Hippocrates felt when the king needed him to trim a hangnail."

Ha'kan smirked. "You're saying I'm a king?"

The hologram spun toward him, medical tricorder in hand and a clearly unamused grimace darkening his eyes. "Stand if you want, then," he said after a beat, apparently waiting for Ha'kan to sit. He stepped up to Ha'kan with authority, one hand extended with a scanner, the other holding the tricorder close to his chest.

Ha'kan resisted the urge to duck. He closed his eyes instead, and scolded himself.

"Crewman Tabor," he said, apparently having accessed crew files to find his face. That was good news: he was still recognizable. The beeping sound of the tricorder suddenly paused directly in front of his nose. "You seem to be experiencing an elevated heartrate and irregular breathing."

"Yeah. It's fine. Just fix my face, please."

When the hologram didn't say anything, Ha'kan opened his eyes. "This is a fear response," the doctor said, and then looked at him, then at the scanner in his hand. "You're afraid of medical scans?"

Ha'kan almost laughed. "No, I'm not afraid of medical scans." He was afraid of doctors. But he'd never had reason to say that out loud.

"Hm." The doctor lowered his scanner and took a respectful step back. "Well, I have good news: I can easily repair your injury." He looked in what seemed to be confusion between the biobed and then Ha'kan again. "Take a seat, please."

With a small sigh, Ha'kan sat on the biobed.

The doctor put his hand on Ha'kan's chest and gave an insistent shove.

Ha'kan managed just to turn out from the doctor's grip, falling off the biobed and stumbling back toward the door. "Actually, no, you know what, uh…?"

"I promise you, Crewman, I'm quite incapable of doing you any harm. It's not in my programming," the hologram said a moment later, and sighed, letting his hands fall to his side in what looked like disappointment.

"Uh-huh, yeah, see, that doesn't really help." Ha'kan glanced over his shoulder toward the door, trying to decide whether he wanted to explain to everyone in Engineering why he hadn't gotten any treatment here or just suck it up and lie down on the biobed.

He couldn't do that.

The idea froze him to the floor, made his limbs heavy and his lungs seize at his ribs. He knew the hologram was obviously correct: he couldn't hurt Ha'kan because it wasn't in his programming. Besides that, he was a Federation program, and Ha'kan didn't exactly associate barbaric medical experiments with such people.

It really didn't matter. Programming could be changed. People lied.

"I can see what Doctor Bashir meant when he said I'd have to expand my definition of a medical emergency." The hologram's eyes traced over Ha'kan from head to foot.

Ha'kan hadn't the slightest idea what he was doing, but he already decided it couldn't be good despite no real reason to think that. "Sorry, I think I should go back to Engineering. Thanks, though."

"Nonsense." The doctor turned around and stopped in front of the center console. "You've suffered first-degree burns and a mild concussion. Neither of these things are what anyone with even a passing knowledge of medicine would classify as an emergency, but you're here and no one else is. You may as well get treatment."

How nice of him. "I'm fine."

"I'll be the doctor here, if you don't mind." With that, the hologram spun around, nearly flinging a medical instrument at Ha'kan as he did. "This is a dermal regenerator. I'd demonstrate it on myself, but I don't have any skin."

"I know what a dermal regenerator is…" Ha'kan muttered, taking it and spinning it in his hand. He'd even used one before, for all the good it did. "You're gonna… make me treat my own burn?"

"I'm not going to make you do anything. But if you won't let me help you, I may as well help you help yourself."

Ha'kan considered the dermal regenerator for a moment, and all the psychotic psychological experiments one could do with a modified one. This peeved Federation hologram was almost certainly not doing anything like that. Almost certainly. Ha'kan carefully tested it on his extended forefinger while the doctor watched with significantly less concern than he imagined their friendly flesh-and-blood doctor would have, and then turned to the hologram. Nodded.

"Okay."

"Very well." The doctor held a hand out towards the panel in the wall.

Using the communications console as a mirror, Ha'kan got all the worst parts of the burn fixed up. The doctor only told him he missed a spot once, and that the concussion should work itself out. He gave Ha'kan a small pill to ward off a headache that he had no intention of taking.

Ha'kan made quick eye contact with the hologram. It was weird to think of being treated by anyone, much less a hologram… Still, he said, "Thanks."

"Yes, well…" The holographic doctor sighed, almost plaintively, as he turned to face Ha'kan. "You're welcome. Just turn off the program when you leave."

"Sure thing, uh…" Ha'kan was pretty sure he'd never get used to that. "Computer, end program?"

The hologram disappeared, and Ha'kan went back to Engineering for the last few hours of his shift.

#

Thomas closed his eyes and felt the warmth dissipating off his bare chest and into the cold room. Seska'd come to him again today, pressed him down and didn't take no for an answer. He'd known immediately something was wrong—something in her eyes and the way she moved and how she gripped him and didn't let go. But even with their relatively short relationship, he knew a few things about getting her to relax.

She was better now. He could feel it in her soft hands and the way she breathed and how she stretched out beside him without letting him go.

"Are you okay?" he asked, keeping his eyes shut.

She paused, ran her hand down his side. "Yeah, I'm okay…"

"Are you, really?"

She was obviously in a better mood now. He was always sort-of confused by her moods—she was different from any other woman he'd been with. At one time, it made him uncomfortable. Now he thought it was just who she was. Maintaining a relationship with a non-telepath did require a different type of work. He wondered sometimes if a relationship with Seska in particular took a lot more work.

Seska sighed, turned, lifted up to rest on his chest to look at him. "I just feel like I'm surrounded by enemies."

He lifted his head to see her face. "Not entirely, I hope?"

"Alright." She smiled into his chest, kissed him. "Not entirely. But mostly."

Mostly. Thomas reflected on the way Seska was bound to see it: Maquis and Starfleet. His own perspective was more elastic, having been both. Starfleet wasn't bad, never had been. At worst, they were misguided, but Thomas acknowledged there were damn good reasons for doing what they'd done. Sacrificing non-vital settlements on a few planets beat the hell out of sacrificing hundreds of thousands in a territorial war the Cardassians wouldn't think twice to start. Everything about their structure was in chaos since even before they abandoned their occupation of Bajor, and war had a way of holding everyone together. The Cardassians had been looking for a reason to pick a fight, and the Federation was being as wise as they could, and giving way where they could.

And here he was… unwilling to sacrifice anyone for his own territorial captain's chair. At least in this case, whether he looked at himself or Chakotay or Tuvok or Worf—all of them had the same goal. They all wanted to get home. It was ground Thomas was willing to give for everyone's good.

Maybe that was part of the problem. She might have seen him as the enemy.

"It's okay if you think of me as an enemy," he said softly, rubbing his fingers on her shoulder. She responded by pressing herself against him more securely. "I haven't exactly been as supportive of the Valjean crew as maybe I could be. But you know why that is, right?"

She shook her head, and he sighed.

"The more I see of Chakotay, the more I know he really would have been an asset to the Maquis. I know he would have joined us. I know not everyone has that perspective…"

"Not everyone shares your judgment of character," she said, and smiled.

"Hey." He patted her arm lightly, a facsimile of a slap. "I'm a good judge of character." She gave him a teasing smile. "Anyway, you know I'd never let anything happen to you, right? Any of you?"

"I know…" she whispered, and tightened her grip around his waist. "I know."

"It's just that… we can't have anyone causing trouble here."

"When someone does cause trouble, though, because you know they will…" Seska raised her head, rested her chin on him to watch his response. "Don't you think Starfleet is the favored child?"

Thomas sighed, watched the ceiling instead of her eyes. "I don't know. Maybe." He couldn't say that their Starfleet crew were less likely to cause trouble, since she wouldn't accept that. There were a few of them he knew would never actually want to hit someone—James, Yosa, Hogan… lots of them. Riker would certainly side-eye any attempts to frame them for starting a mutiny.

She sighed and, after some minutes, her breath evened in sleep. At least he knew what was wrong: she felt alone and powerless. Maybe she was powerless, but she didn't have to be alone.

He dozed, feeling her breath on his skin for what could have been minutes or hours. It had been a long day, and tomorrow promised to be another long day with first contact to make and a lot of shopping to do. As ops officer, he figured he'd be in charge of a lot of that. Quartermaster duties typically fell to ops, and that was a skill he'd long since lost, as if he'd ever been very good at it.

For a while, he laid perfectly still, content despite the exhaustion of long hours and stress of the unknown ahead. He knew he was one of the lucky few that had nothing and nobody on the other side of this journey. He had everything he wanted and needed right here in this room, right here in his arms.

He roused himself from sleep enough to kiss Seska's hair, brushed his palm against her shoulder and let himself be lost in imagining he could feel what she felt. Maybe it was love or contentment with the last vestiges of anger. What he wouldn't give to understand her at times like this.

She spoke again. "You don't think you should be captain?" she whispered.

He blinked back into full wakefulness. "No, I don't." He knew that answer was probably disappointing, so explained. "The Defiant is too complex for me to run for an extended period."

"Surely you know enough?" she asked, and pressed up from her rest on his side. "I know a lot of us would be much more comfortable if… if there were one of us in a position of power."

"Chakotay's really not good enough for you, huh?" Thomas asked, reaching up to run his fingers through her hair.

Catching his hand in hers, she shook her head. Kissed his palm. "I don't know who to trust."

Thomas didn't know whether to be insulted or to let it slide. So what if she didn't trust his judgement? He had been blindsided by Tuvok, so… there was that. "Do you trust me enough to know I'll take your side if it comes down to it?"

"Down to what, exactly?"

"Alright." He sat up, brushed her off as he stood and shook out his legs. " I'm starting to feel a little hurt. I know you're scared—I think we all are. But it's not as if I've changed."

Seska pulled the sheets around her shoulders as she stood behind him. "I know," she whispered into his shoulder blade. "But this is not a normal situation, and—"

"And what?" He turned to face her, taking her shoulders in his hand. "What the hell do you think I'm going to do?"

"You really want to know?" she asked, the edge finally returned to her voice.

"Yes!" He pushed her off and walked to the replicator, though he wasn't sure what he was there for. He hadn't spent hardly any credits, so he could be pretty extravagant if he wanted to.

"I'm afraid you'll do nothing," she said, coming up behind him to wrap her arms around his waist. Her hands clasped together just below his navel, pulled him back against her as he felt the sheet slide from her shoulders. "I'm afraid when it comes down to it, if one of us steps out of line according to Starfleet rules, you'll just let Tuvok or Worf have their way. You'll just let Starfleet get away with murder just like they have been doing. That you'll just let us be put off the ship, one by one, until it's too late."

He considered that, and Seska's hands breaking apart to rub into his abdomen. For a few seconds he was curious, the connection of her obvious distrust with… with this. Made it hard to concentrate, made it hard to take her concern seriously. She didn't feel all that serious.

"You really think I'd do that?" he asked anyway, leaning back into her a bit.

"I don't know what you'd do," she said quietly.

"Are you sure you don't know?" He spun to face her, her eyes glaring up at his as if in accusation for something he'd not done. Never would. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to my crew, Seska." He could have named them all, but he didn't. "None of you."

"But, Thomas…"

"Seska—" He backed away from her, wondering what she thought of him. Who she thought he was. "I'm just trying to hold it together, here. One bad move, one lapse in judgement, and this whole thing falls apart. And, what, you think I'm a traitor just because I'm wearing the uniform?"

She pursed her lips.

Thomas scoffed. "You're kidding me. This is about the uniform? Grow up."

"It's not about the uniform," she snapped and turned away. "It's about who we are when it really matters. And, no, I don't know who you are. Not at times like these."

Apparently not. Thomas looked around on the floor for any of his clothing. He found his shirt first, where he'd left it, hanging off the bunk he never used because Seska was always here. "No, I guess not. But I know who you are."

"Don't be that way."

Thomas would have snapped something back—something stupid probably, like what way—but the door chimed. "Just a second," he snapped at the door.

With a sigh, Seska turned away from Thomas, found enough articles of clothing on the floor to be decent and slid to sit with her arms crossed over her chest. Thomas easily dressed and fluffed his hair before opening the door.

To his surprise, B'Elanna stood there looking almost cowed. She glanced past him at Seska for half a second before finally making eye contact. "Riker…" she mumbled with a nod of greeting. "Seska."

"B'Elanna," Thomas returned. "What's the matter?"

"I need to talk to you…" B'Elanna said, and sighed obviously. "Sir."

Something clicked, and he realized what this was all about. Suddenly it all made sense. B'Elanna had done something—she'd done exactly what Jadzia said she had. Jadzia hadn't been passing unfair judgement. She'd been right, because, of course, she was. B'Elanna was still B'Elanna. And according to Chakotay's rules, that meant she'd be put off the ship.

He wouldn't let that happen, and Seska didn't trust him. More than that, Seska was manipulating him—trying to—onto B'Elanna's side without telling him what was happening. That bitch.

He glanced back at Seska. '"You knew," he said.

Seska averted her eyes only barely long enough for him to register, but Thomas could see it in her eyes even as she said nothing. She didn't need to.