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  The normally bellicose hologram simply said, "Aye, Captain," and mobilized.

  To Seven, Janeway gritted her teeth and stiffly said, "Go to their engine room. Take those warp core modifications off-line."

  Seven didn't even muster the "aye" The Doctor had managed. She simply left. Even she, apparently, could feel the gravity change now that their grim captain was here, dragging her baggage.

  Only Chakotay dared approach her as she lowered into her command chair.

  "Captain?" he urged.

  She dug her fingernails into the fake leather on the chair's arms. She didn't look at nun, or anyone.

  "Let's try," she said, "to make first contact the right way."

  CHAPTER

  8

  "WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO us?"

  Maria Gilmore's question didn't exactly take Commander Chakotay by surprise, though he hadn't come up with an answer for something he expected to be asked.

  "That's up to Captain Janeway," he said, shoving the responsibility over the wall. "You'll be confined to quarters until we find a way to make peace with these life forms you've been killing. If it's not too late."

  Gilmore was anxious as they hurried down the corridor, with a security guard, fully armed with a phaser rifle, clomping behind them. Knowing she was technically in custody, her mood was tense and troubled, yet carried a certain flow of relief. For Chakotay, the guard was just added protection, but not against Gilmore.

  'To be honest," she said, "I'm glad you stopped us. Living the rest of our lives knowing what we'd done..."

  "You could've stopped yourself. Why didn't you?"

  "I don't know ... when the captain ordered me to modify the warp core, I concentrated on the work. I tried not to think about how it was going to be used."

  "Well, think about it now. Because we need your help."

  He stopped at the door of the astrometrics lab-not her quarters, and not the brig.

  "Commander?" She blinked, perplexed.

  "After you."

  In the lab, Seven of Nine was working at a console, and even her posture of aplomb was suffering from the frustration. On the domescreen, a graphic display showed the Equinox warp core and the weird modifications that had been made to it.

  "We're having trouble making sense of all this," Chakotay told Gilmore.

  "The schematics are encrypted," Seven pushed in. "I can't access them."

  Chakotay kept looking at Gilmore. "Do you know the encryption codes?"

  She hesitated. Her hands pressed to her thighs in a kind of resistance.

  "Your captain's been relieved of command," Chakotay clarified. "You take orders from me now. Do you have the codes?"

  With a blink as if awakening, she said, "Yes."

  Seven stepped back from the console. "Proceed."

  Gilmore did as ordered, though obviously she was uncertain and torn, her loyalties, training, and instincts all clashing.

  Moving to her, Chakotay shifted from commanding officer to shipmate for a moment. "Think of it this way, Ensign. You might live with yourself a little easier."

  While she worked, Gilmore's breathing was hollow and ragged as she fed the codes into the computer, then cleared the double-secured access authorization, using both her personal identification and Ransom's. That was a deep encryption, to need two IDs.

  The guard was waiting for her at the door. As she turned, she flinched at the sight of him.

  Turning to Seven one last time before incarceration, Gilmore sadly told her, "You said you wanted to learn more about humanity. But I guess we're not exactly prized examples. I'm sorry ..."

  "On the contrary," Seven returned edgily, "you've taught me a great deal."

  Unsettled by that, Gilmore simply went out in front of Chakotay and the guard.

  Feeling guilty that none of these major and haunting decisions were his, Chakotay caught up with her and set the pace a little slower. As he watched Gilmore at his side, he was thinking of Kathryn.

  "Did you try to communicate with the aliens?"

  "Of course we did," she said defensively. "Our universal translator only picked up random signals. We think it might've taken some damage."

  "Did you try to repair it?"

  "When we had time." She gazed at the carpet as they walked. "You think we're horrible, don't you?"

  "What I think doesn't matter. It's Captain Janeway's interpretation of the law that matters now. We've never had a law enforcement role in the Delta Quadrant until now," he went on. "There was no one else who had sworn to live under our laws."

  "Until now." Gilmore slowed down even more, to an uneasy stroll. She didn't have to hurry anymore, after all. "Please don't judge Rudy too harshly. I know this seems to you like a giant step, but for us it was a lot of little steps. An inch at a time. At first we tried to keep the nucleogenics alive and just borrow the power. If only that had worked! We tried for weeks to modify our containment chamber just to hold them for a few minutes and let them go back. When we tried a second time, a third-every time we really expected them to live. We really did. Every time we failed, there was just enough difference that we tried again. We kept getting little bits of hope that we could keep them alive and ourselves too. There were a few variations on a theme, but every time... they ended up dead."

  "And each time, since they were dead anyway-"

  "Yes, we used the nucleogenic matter. Of course! Why not? You would too, if you were in our shoes. Rudy kept trying to communicate with them and kept failing. We would've happily traded for their natural dead, like an organ donation. We didn't want to kill. But they wouldn't talk, or just plain couldn't. All they

  did was attack and attack. When the aliens kept breaking through, we defended ourselves. That means more of them died. And, yes, we used the corpses. So would you."

  Chakotay felt his chest constrict with the truth of it. She was right-this was different from indiscriminate slaughter. And she was also right that he might've done the same thing, given the same circumstances. They hadn't just shot into the water.

  "We're scientists," she quietly reminded. "Science was our way to survive. We couldn't make it with speed and brute force and tactical advantages and sheer power like a starship could. After two years of trying to communicate, we gave up trying. Wouldn't you? They'd been viciously attacking us without ever pausing to learn signals or even try to talk to us. They were just killer bees, animals with some sense of organization who attacked us every chance they got. We defended ourselves, and some of them got killed. When they died during attacks, we used the matter. Then on Christmas Day three years ago, we got caught in a nova wash. We were completely stuck, trapped. We struggled for days to get out. Do you understand? We were dying by centimeters. We gave ourselves up for dead. It wasn't the way the story was supposed to end. I saw Rudy during that time ... he'd failed. Suddenly he hadn't just lost half his crew-he'd lost all of it. On New Year's Day he ordered us to summon one of the creatures with the Ankari device and use the matter for a boost. It worked. The creature died, and we lived. After a while, it wasn't so hard to summon

  them when we needed to move ahead again. In Rudy's mind, he's hunting animals, not murdering people. He never jumped happily over that line. He zigzagged over it an inch at a time, until we were finally all the way over it."

  "Captain Janeway's not going to see it that way," Chakotay warned. "Things are pretty cut and dried for her where regulations are concerned. In her mind, that's what has saved us."

  "And what saved us was suspending the regula tions," Gilmore said. "Captain Janeway hasn't lost half her crew. I scanned your logs ... you've been a lot luckier than we have. She hasn't paid that high a price for decisions in the Delta Quadrant."

  "Not like that," he confirmed.

  "Maybe you could talk to her," Gilmore suggested nervously. "Help her understand us. If you were on the Skeleton Coast and the natives wouldn't trade with you, would you kill them to get your supplies? Well? Would your

  Chakotay thumped his
hands on his thighs by way of a shrug. "I really can't say. I've actually been there, but only after they put the resort there. As I understand, it was a savage place. They had to virtually ter-raform it."

  He was trying to change the subject, but she didn't go for it With more force than he gave her credit for, Gilmore challenged, "Would you hold on to your nobility and just die? Or would you fight?"

  "I might fight," he said. "But I'd be wrong."

  "Then up the ante. What if your crew was with

  you. Sit and watch them die because the natives won't trade? Or would you go and steal and kill to live?"

  "The theory goes," Chakotay said, "that Starfleet officers swear an oath that they'll die first."

  "What if you had your children with you? How tight does the noose get before you do cross the line and you think you're right to cross it? After a while, the question becomes 'Will I kill somebody else's child so mine can live?' That's wrong too, but you start to think it. You convince yourself it's fair because the other guy is keeping water from you and he knows you need it."

  "We have to be bigger than our needs," Chakotay attempted halfheartedly.

  "You might let yourself die," Gilmore responded, "but would you be so noble if that little girl Naomi were the one dying? How far would you go to save her? To gain one more day? Or a thousand more light-years?" She laughed without a bit of mirth. "We talk about rules and regulations and commandments as if we're androids programmed for yes or no. These aren't yes-or-no problems. I never thought it'd come to this... to be honest with you, I thought we'd die before we had to be accountable."

  Chakotay offered a sympathetic glance. "You're very loyal to him. He must deserve it in your eyes."

  "He saved all the rest of us," she said. "It's only in the past few weeks that our shipmates started dying again. He kept all of us alive all those months. When we were starving, somehow he found food. When we

  were out of power, somehow he traded or bought power. When we needed medical supplies, he beamed down to a swamp planet by himself and collected botanical substitutes. He was sick for months after that. But he smiled all the time because he knew he'd done it for us. Loyal? You bet I am, Mr. Chakotay. I didn't like what we were doing, but I'd do it again for him."

  The weight of these problems, the intensity of them, made Chakotay feel physically heavier. This wasn't going to get better any time soon. If the aliens broke through, the same firefight that ravaged Equinox would be here in these bright corridors, scorching them into dark and fearful tunnels.

  "He might still be right, you know," Gilmore pointed out. "They could still turn out to be just animals."

  "They attacked in an organized manner," he countered. "They changed tactics. Then they changed them again."

  "So do the Borg. But didn't you kill them when you had to?"

  "If you all feel this way," Chakotay asked, "why didn't Captain Ransom make this argument to Captain Janeway?"

  "Why should he? He's a captain in his own right. He doesn't have to answer to a peer. She's not really his superior. Besides, we've already been through all this for ourselves. Rudy shouldn't have to justify himself again."

  She stopped walking and put her hand out suddenly, catching him by the arm. Behind them, the security

  guard came to a defensive stance and lowered his rifle to her.

  "Stand easy, crewman," Chakotay ordered, meeting the guard's confused gaze.

  "Aye, sir," the guard said, and relaxed.

  Gilmore seemed bothered by the rifle, but she focused on Chakotay.

  "Will you talk to Captain Janeway?" she asked. "Explain to her that we weren't celebrating every night because we got a chance to be mean and nobody was around to stop us? It's your job to help her understand, isn't it? Isn't that what a first officer does?"

  For the first time in years, Chakotay found himself torn between two crews, two philosophies, and two relatively successful methods of command that clashed with each other. Both had worked in isolation, yet only one could prevail in unity.

  He took her elbow in a reassuring way. "I'll try," he promised.

  Dark and damaged, the Equinox research lab was a troubling place for a hologram with a conscience. Voyager's doctor worked with deliberation at the consoles, but he was getting absolutely nowhere. The captain was anxious, he knew, to find a way to communicate with the nucleogenics, if they could indeed communicate at all.

  "Computer," he began, irritated, "I decrypted this data file. Why can't I access it?"

  "EMH authorization is required."

  "Your EMH is still functional?"

  "Affirmative."

  "Activate him."

  Across the bay, the Equinox doctor fritzed into solidity, a perfect duplicate of the Voyager physician. The vision was somehow comforting, at least supportive.

  "Please state the nature of your medical emergency," the Equinox EMH introduced, only now noticing that his counterpart was here instead of a patient. "Who are you?"

  "Your counterpart from the Starship Voyager."

  "Where's Captain Ransom? My crew?"

  "In custody."

  The Equinox EMH eyed him curiously, indeed with a certain hostility. "How were you able to leave your sickbay?"

  The Voyager EMH waggled his arm, where the little gift from past encounters was the only item setting him apart from the other hologram. "This device allows me to go anywhere I please. In case you weren't aware, your crew has been running criminal experiments here."

  Picking up a PADD on the end of a diagnostic bed, the Equinox EMH crossed the deck to him. "I know. I designed them."

  "You? That's a violation of your programming!"

  "They deleted my ethical subroutines."

  The Equinox EMH made his statement casually while eying the mobile emitter with understandable curiosity. Perhaps envy, if a machine could dream.

  Evidently a machine could plot. The Equinox EMH

  made a single sweeping motion, using the PADD as a weapon.

  Too late, the Voyager's EMH calculated the results of the swift move. He felt the PADD strike his arm, felt the impact drive the mobile emitter against his arm, and felt the frazzle of panicked electrical impulses surge through bis body.

  Abruptly, he felt nothing.

  "Captain? A moment?"

  "Come in, Chakotay. Be aware, though, I won't pretend to be in a good mood. What are you doing here? We're at Red Alert."

  Feeling their relationship make a not so subtle shift from friends to officers, with Janeway holding the higher cards, Chakotay amended his idea about sitting down and remained standing before the captain's desk in the ready room.

  He'd been asked a question, and his commanding officer was standing by for an answer. Not exactly what he'd had in mind when he came in here. Chakotay was a statuesque man, accustomed to having a slight edge of intimidation, just by virtue of physical presence. It worked on most people. It never had on Kathryn Janeway. Her sense of purpose was as big as he was.

  "I had a talk with Gilmore. There are some things I agree with. Since I'm her first officer now, it's part of my duty to bring her concerns to the appropriate level. In this case, there's no-"

  "Forget it. I'm not letting them out of confinement.

  When we extricate ourselves from this mess, I intend to convene a court-martial."

  Chakotay shifted his feet. "Well, that's more or less the message. Captain-would you mind if I sit?"

  "Yes, but go ahead anyway."

  Now he didn't want to. He did anyway. Once seated, though, the equality failed to buffer the ferocity in his captain's face. She was completely hardened to her cause, still furious, daunted by the failure to communicate with the life forms now putting siege to her ship.

  She waited, no longer prodding him to speak as she might have in better times. If he had something to say, he would have to get to it himself or she would dismiss him and that would be that.

  "I've been speaking to Gilmore," he began, as awkwardly as that, "and I
have to admit some of her perceptions shook me up a little. She made me realize that Captain Ransom isn't taking care of himself. He's looking out for his crew. He's eaten up with guilt over losing half his crew because of one judgment call. Now the chance of getting the others home is consuming him, whatever the cost."

  "I can't forgive him, if that's what you want, Chakotay," Janeway aborted. "He stepped over the line."

  Adjusting his tone to mollify her, Chakotay tipped his head as if in thought. "All due respect, Captain, but that depends on where it's drawn."

  Her brown eyes were cold, bitter, and lay upon him with acrimony. "Are we going to have a seminar on ethics, you and I?"

  "You have to admit," he attempted, "the directives are deliberately elastic. They have to be. If not, we can't even defend ourselves. And we will, if they break in. We'll kill them to preserve our own lives. We've done it before. We draw and redraw the line every day. We draw it in one place to defend ourselves, in another to... answer a distress call, for instance. Ransom drew it where he drew it. If the galaxy had been as hostile to Voyager as it was to Equinox, what might we have done if we were handed a chance to get home? Do we sacrifice ourselves to an evolution that might or might not happen?"

  "We don't know they haven't evolved to intelligence already," Janeway rasped. Her voice was strained. "We have to assume they do, and find out later that they don't."

  "If you're in the woods and hungry, you hunt the moose. You take the bees' honey. And you don't wo rry that a million years from now they might evolve into a society."

  In the shadow across the desk, Janeway's jaw hardened. "Are you challenging my order to relieve him of command?"

  "I'm questioning it," he said, trying to keep from matching her level of frustration and steely resolve. "He's a post captain. His ship is still functional and could still be mended, and if he wants to kill the bees and take the honey, I believe there's precedent for his point of view."

  "They're not bees," she insisted.

  He leaned forward. "That's all they are so far.