Annika's computer lab is impressive. She is on the Star Fleet campus, and still, this is more like what they use at Daystroms. Floating computer screens, massive storage, and floor to ceiling stacks of the latest, glass and alu-carbo processors, makes Voyager's computer seem antiquated. I would never dare to tell the female voice I had relied on for seven years to compute what I needed to know.
"Amazing," I say as I join Annika at her main work console. "You can't be in here alone all the time, surely?"
"No. I'm not." Annika micro expression of discomfort doesn't escape me. It's as if I'm so in tun to every minute group of muscles under her skin, I can detect any change. I can't always read them, but still.
"I share this space with three other individuals. They are my age, but further ahead in their research as they started earlier. Now her shoulders were tensing and without fully realizing my intentions, I moved behind her where she sat on stool by the desk. "You look sore," I murmur and place my hands gently on her shoulder. "This all right?"
Annika has pulled the pins from her hair, and it covers my hands. A sweet and dark scent surrounds her and when she nods and then looks back over her shoulder, I merely direct her face forward again. "No hasty movements. Trust me. If anyone has first time knowledge of trapezius pain, it's me. I've hunched over computers and sat in the command chair for seven years straight." Not to mention how many I have fought in hand-to-hand combat.
"I see. Please, continue. I find I do tense up when some topics come up. It's involuntary." Annika sounded oddly apologetic when she finished the last sentence.
"As I said. I'm a pro." I have paid attention to the Doctor when he used his massage skills on me, and even if I wasn't about to be as vigorous with Annika as he was with me, I know I can loosen some knots.
"Computer, set a privacy lock on the door, security code Admiral Janeway Delta Delta Epsilon 5." I smile as Annika flinches. "You need to remove the top of your uniform. I'd rather nobody pop in here right then. If someone truly needs access to the lab now, we'll stop. It's as easy as that."
"I see." Annika slowly pulls the fastening at her neck and then takes off the jacket. She wears the standard issue grey tank top underneath and a loose collar in the same fabric. For some reason, in my mind, this garment is sexier on her than the sparkly gray cat suit she wore at the Voyager party.
"Tell me if it hurts too much," I say and fold down the shoulder straps, revealing pale, perfect skin.
"I doubt it. I've received enough training to endure." Annika still leans back against me for a few moments. "Go ahead."
If I weren't wearing my usual wine-red lipstick, I would have kissed the top of her head. Instead, I begin massaging her tense shoulders. "This only takes a few minutes. I won't keep you from your work for long, and you'll benefit from it either way." I relish the silky feeling of her skin under my fingers. I don't know when the massage becomes more of a caress, but it's obvious when Annika eventually tips her head back to look up at me through her eyelashes.
"Is this how you normally deliver or receive massages, Kathryn?" The corners of her full lips curl faintly and it's a typical smile that makes me shiver for all the right reasons.
"Please. I was massaged by Voyager's brilliant, but eccentric emergency medical hologram, my CMO. He caused me to well up, he did it so firmly." I chuckle and then I slide my fingers off her shoulders. I pulled up another stool and sat down next to Annika who looked somewhat dazed. "You were going to show me your work."
"Yes. Right." Annika blushes still but turns to the hovering screen. She pulls up her research material and walks me through the different aspects of it in more detail. "Some of this is actually classified, but your security classification is more than sufficient. I checked." Annika pulls up another document and different diagrams where the bars eventually begin to make more sense.
"You're planning to use your research in a practical sense," I say slowly as I do my best to understand her area of expertise. I pull down another list where I can deduct what she expects to find out. "This sure wasn't part of the seminar." I point to a table and the text under each point. Where are these coordinates, exactly? I find the star chart oddly familiar and squint at the screen as I try to remember. All the damn interrogations and hearings by Star Fleet and Section 31, the latter is part of a covert Federation unit, had toyed with my gray matter. Then I realize…the coordinates are close to the last known coordinates of Voyager before we blew up a large chunk of the Borg transwarp cluster and escaped through it to the Alpha Quadrant.
"That area is part of Borg space. A huge influx of ships and infrastructure. Why would you study…" I suddenly understand. "Are you crazy? Why would you want to go even remotely close to that place? I nearly lost a third of my crew before we figured it out."
"It's thanks to the intel from Voyager's logs that I knew where and how to continue my research." Annika raises her chin. "As I have your entire log to my disposal, I will make sure the crew has all the knowledge they need. I'm in the last quarter of the planning phase."
"We haven't been home for very long," I say, and feel disappointment and dread fight for space in my mind. The hair on the back of my head is prickling me. "Is this why you seek me out? To pick my brain?" Sadness joins the disappointment and dread. So that was that.
"No!" Annika looks so shocked, I can tell she's not lying. If I think about it, I have yet to catch her with a lie as I can't claim to be entitled to knowing about her research. The fact that it's pure insanity has nothing to do with that. People research all kinds of weird stuff. This is an exciting field—it is the application of it that she's planning…I stop that trail of thought when something hits me. I don't know what her true objective is. Studying the Borg in situ as it were, can't give her more knowledge than Voyager's logs can. She can't be insane enough to risk herself, her crew, and the ship, by engaging the Borg in idle conversation. "So why are you really going?" I lower my voice and try not to sound as shocked or judgmental as I did before.
"I believe that I'm close to figuring out a way to utilize the technological application to create advanced cognitive augmentation. It involves controversial nano-technology—and no, before you assume that I intend to utilize Borg technology, that's not it. What my research has shown is…" Annika pulls up new screens and add them to the bigger one hovering above the desk. "Look. These are not the nanobots the Borg uses to assimilate individuals. You're Doctor's research has added the last pieces of the puzzle."
I have to give it to Annika—she works fast. She must have worked this new data, most of it from Voyager's computer log, into her original research, at breakneck pace.
"What are these?" I point to the screen to the far right. A strange, diamond-like shape with what looked like thorns sticking out all over, slowly turned. "DAP? What does that stand for?"
"Disrupt Aegis Pulse." Annika turned her back to the screens and held out her hands, obviously beckoning me closer. "When they're fully programmed using my invention, they'll protect us from the Borg, and, when updated, any other hostile cybernetic species. To add to that, if Khan and his cryo sleeping augments should return, we will have protection against them as well."
"This doesn't make sense to me—yet." I held up my hands to ward off her objections. I stepped closer and cupped her shoulders. "You're brilliant, Annika. There's no denying that."
"But?" Annika tensed.
"There's no but. Just follow-up questions. My mind is trying to wrap around the logic behind something having to do with cognitive augmentation being used to protect an individual against augments." I shrug as an apology at using the colloquial term for those augmented illegally.
"I see." Annika hesitates, but she doesn't pull away from me. "DAP is not permanent. They need to be either 'fed' or reapplied. By fed, I mean that carriers have to take a medication of sorts to sustain them. If they die, a new population need to be injected."
I shudder at the idea of her calling them a population as if they were alive. So was the Doctor, obviously, despite being constructed from a piece of technology. Still, the Doctor wasn't coursing through my veins. Having been subjected to nanobots, and half assimilated, I wasn't keen on either those, or DAP.
"What does Aegis stand for," I ask, to stall as my mind is reeling.
"In modern times, Aegis stands for protection, but it stems from Greek mythology." Annika slowly raises her arms, perhaps to make sure it's all right and pulls me closer. I let my arms wrap around her shoulders.
"I want to understand the purpose, apart from test driving the DAP. Will you share it with me?" I saw in Annika's eyes that she wanted to but was wary of showing all her cards.
"Borg records from Wolf 359 showed that my father, Lt Commander Magnus Hansen belongs to Unimatrix 01, and that means she should never be far from the Borg Queen. I wish to find out of this is still the case. Perhaps I can also find out what happened to my mother, Erin."
I have dreaded this. This is not the proper reason for setting out on a science mission. Annika's eyes are begging me not to shoot her down. She trusted me with her secret agenda, which, to anyone who knows her past, can't be all that hard to figure out, and I'm not sure what to say.
"It's a dangerous mission. A mission your parents, given their fate, would never want you to embark on." I can see her chin start to rise again. "That said, I do understand why you are adamant about this. I spent seven years in the Delta Quadrant, doing everything I could to get my crew home. My decision stranded us there. There's no question about that. And it was my commands during our journey back home that either kept us all alive or got some of my crew killed. No matter what I did, I knew I would never return to Earth with everyone safe and sound. It just wasn't doable. Dangers are everywhere." I cup Annika's cheeks and kiss her gently. "Nothing is more dangerous out there than the Borg collective, even if we ran into a myriad of other dangerous people or entities. I'm not being condescending, because I know you already know this. You lost your parents to the Borg." Holding her closer I run my hands up and down her back, as if attempting to reassure her ahead of my words. "So, even if you are prepared to risk a confrontation with the collective, perhaps with a deep desire to rescue the being that used to be your father…can you live with asking this of the crew onboard your ship?"
To my surprise, Annika relaxes and then kisses me. "I know you speak from a place of concern and protection, Kathryn. I respect that, and it warms me, oddly enough. I haven't talked about the crew yet, but when I do, you will understand why your main objection isn't quite the concern."
I tip my head back and stare at her. "What do you mean? It should be a major concern."
"I will let you know why it isn't later. Please, trust that I know what I'm talking about. And even if you can't take my word at face value, you know that Admiral Paris and Captain Picard have both signed off on my plans, if the funding comes through completely." Annika smiles gently. "Apparently, custom outfitted Defiant class are expensive."
I can only hug her close, as no matter what, I'm not about to let her think I don't believe her, or in her. Because I do. No matter what the seven years in the Delta Quadrant have turned me into, I'm inclined to take her words at face value.
Annika slumps against me, and only now do I understand that she might not have been sure of my reaction. She must realize that I have a lot of pull with the brass at the moment and my involuntary celebrity status with the rest of the world. Considering this, it is brave of her to show me her work and talk about her plans. I suspect she knows I can never abide by being curious for too long—if at all—and I hope she's not going to keep me guessing why my warnings were inconsequential.
Bending me back a little, Annika takes my mouth as if she owns it. She kisses me until I forget about work, the Delta Quadrant, and where we are, and in that moment, she is all that matters.
Continued in part 5