“I want to watch you
touch your breasts, Kathryn. I want to watch you
stroke yourself with your hands as I stroke you with my tongue.” Janeway nearly passed out at the thought of that visual
but lost it in the gasp that erupted as Seven’s mouth and tongue returned to their loving task. She felt Seven prop
her legs up to support her and she leaned back against them, confident that Seven would hold her upright. Hesitantly, she
drew her hands up her belly and began to slowly stroke her own nipples, keenly aware of the bright blue eyes that observed
every touch. Closing her eyes and throwing her head back, she began to roll the hard nubbins between her fingers, pinching
and pulling them as her passion grew. Suddenly she was there, her climax exploding within her. Sobbing, she withdrew her hands
and tried to disengage from Seven’s voracious mouth. But her partner clasped her thighs firmly and continued to lave
her most intimate folds with her tongue. Janeway’s belly clenched and with a gasp she felt the heat rising within her
again. She began to moan in rhythm with her rocking hips and unaware, her hands returned to her breasts. She cried out in
ecstasy again and again; Seven refusing to release her until with a scream, she came so hard she could only collapse atop
her partner in tears, her cry lost in the wind and the jungle around them.
* * * * *
Radcliffe was just over halfway through the COMM log when he was hailed by Lieutenant
McDeere.
“So how was the wedding,
Radcliffe? You don’t look too badly hung over.”
Ethan laughed and replied, “I’m the only one in the office who isn’t.
I was passing out hyposprays like candy this morning. I understand some of Voyager’s crew got together last night for
one last party before they all get reassigned. But it was a wonderful wedding.”
“Glad you enjoyed yourself.
Are you ready to get back to work? I’m reserving the holodeck for 1830 hours.”
“I’ll be there,
Lieutenant. Do I need to bring anything special?”
“No, I think we’ll
work on your hand to hand from now on. You know enough to practice your marksmanship on your own. And that’s all it’ll
take. When you feel ready to try and qualify I’ll check you out right before you shoot for any last minute adjustments.
But frankly, you know all you need to know. All you need is practice. And the hand to hand skills take more time to learn.
So let’s focus on them.”
“Aye, aye, Lieutenant.
I’ll see you at 1830 hours.”
“Okay, Radcliffe. See
you tonight.”
The morning progressed quietly
aside from one minor dustup with Lieutenant DiCampo of Logistics and Supply. Radcliffe dealt with it without mentioning his back channel requisitions to Lieutenant McDeere and the officious bureaucrat seemed to be placated. But surface appearances were
deceiving; DiCampo was anything but placated. Later that day McDeere closed down her board and walked out of the office headed
for dinner and her workout with a spring in her step. As she walked past DiCampo’s office she nodded and bid him goodnight,
unaware that with Commander Nixon’s permission
he had broken into her logs and was deep into her Voyager refit files.
* * * * *
While McDeere and Radcliffe worked
out on Mars, on Earth Voyager’s EMH was taking the gamma shift rotation at Starfleet Medical. While his seniority was
such that he wasn’t required to do so he occasionally enjoyed the quiet of the graveyard shift which to plan out the
course of treatment and the timetable for the removal of additional implants for the Free Borg. He and Kate Pulaski were heading up the team of surgeons removing the Borg hardware from the freed drones; the problems of not only weaning them off their
implants but dealing with multiple species’ medical requirements made for a heavy workload. Only the holographic EMH
could maintain the lengthy shifts without feeling the effects of extreme fatigue.
The Free Borg were housed
in a separate wing of the medical complex away from the rest of the facility for security purposes. Starfleet was keeping
their arrival a secret as much as possible: memories of what happened at Wolf 359 were still very fresh in the Federation’s
collective memory. Access to the ward was limited; a damping field blocked transport in and Starfleet security officers guarded
the entrance. It was quiet duty and Security was taking advantage of that fact to season its newest officers. The young officers
were fully trained and guarding the Free Borg gave them experience they desperately needed before shipping out on a starship.
After the EMH completed the
surgical schedule for the remainder of the week he left the small office behind the main workstation of the unit to check
on a particular Balnean drone who had spiked a fever that so far had refused to come down. He pulled out his tricorder to
initialize the special settings her species required and was surprised to watch it indicate physiological signs of extreme
stress as he passed a member of the nursing staff. Looking back, it occurred to him that he had never seen that face before.
He ran some scans of the Balnean and administered a hypospray of netinaline to boost her nanoprobe activity and hopefully
eradicate the infection he suspected was forming beneath a remaining implant. As he walked back to the workstation he noticed
two medics doing a scan of another drone. What caught his eye was that one medic was holding the tricorder upside down and
the scanning module reversed. There was no way that tricorder could take readings being used like that and for some reason
the other medic wasn’t saying anything.
Alarm bells went off in his
mind and he quickly headed to the ward entrance and the security officers. Alerting them to the fact that there might be intruders
on the ward, he ordered them to summon additional security personnel. Grabbing a phaser he headed back into the ward after
ordering the young security officers not to let anyone get past them. Their grim expressions told him they would do their
best.
When he got back to the nursing
station in the middle of the corridor the two medics who didn’t know how to use a medical tricorder were just vanishing
into a room half way down the hall. The EMH broke into a run to catch them, doing so just as they attacked the drone lying
in the bed. The EMH took a wild shot to draw the attention of one of the medics while he dodged their return fire. He felt
his matrix flicker as the energy beam passed through it and nailed the intruder with his second shot, unaware that his phaser
was set to kill.
Unfortunately for the other
attacker, the drone they had chosen murder was Hirogen and had been recuperating for several days. The huge hunter came off
his bed with the throat of his assailant in his Borg hand and slammed him against the wall. His roar of fury drowned out the sound
of crushing bones as his grip tightened fully. He tossed the limp carcass across the room and spun to face the Doctor.
“Are you all right?”
demanded the EMH.
“I am functional; more
than most. I have had the longest time to heal.”
“Then come with me;
we need to safeguard the rest of your crew.” The EMH grabbed the weapons of the intruders and tossed them to the hunter.
They spread out through the hallway and gathered as many of the drones as could walk. Together, they organized a rear guard
protecting the drones still too weak to leave their beds.
“Don’t let anyone
by you unless I’m with them. I’m still not sure who to trust. More Security forces are on their way but I don’t
know if there are more of these attackers waiting to storm the ward.”
“Do not worry, Doctor.
No one will pass while we can still fight.”
Nodding in understanding,
the EMH headed back to the main entrance of the ward at a run. What he saw there chilled his holographic heart.
Two of the young Security
officers were down with the other three frantically trying to hold off what appeared to be two dozen heavily armed attackers.
The EMH ran through the phaser blasts to the Security room and grabbed a disruptor rifle. He joined the remaining security
forces and began firing back at the grim-faced group determined to kill his patients.
Across the Starfleet complex,
the mayday call for more security officers tripped an alarm not only in the Security control center but at the Presidio in
the Marine barracks. When Martin and the 1st Rifle Company, FMSG had shipped out to Mars, Admiral Patterson had drafted another company of Fleet Marines to be seconded to Starfleet Security,
HQ. As security officers ran to their weapons lockers, the Fleet Marines were out of their bunks and in full gear in less
than three minutes. Their watch officer programmed the location of the alert into the squad bay transporter and beamed the
squad directly into the ward behind the Security station.
The EMH watched helplessly
as yet another security officer went down under the withering fire of their attackers. He quickly checked the power cell on
his disruptor rifle knowing it couldn’t last much longer. He raised it to his shoulder and took aim at the wall of assailants
in front of him when a deafening barrage of fire erupted from behind his position.
He spun to find fifteen Fleet Marines fully engaged with the attacking forces. And those Marines knew their job very well.
As quickly as that the tide
turned and it was now the attacking forces that endured a withering hail of fire. The EMH dropped his rifle and began pulling
the downed Security officers out of the firefight as the Marines calmly cut down the terrorists arrayed against them. When
the additional Starfleet Security forces arrived moments later the fight was all but over. The fusillade of fire dropped off
to sporadic bursts and finally ended altogether.
Two of the Security officers
were dead but the EMH was able to stabilize the others quickly and then led the Marines down the ward to where the Free Borg
had barricaded themselves. Once assured that none had been injured further they were assisted back to their beds, this time
with armed guards in the hallways. The EMH returned to the injured security officers.
Most of the attackers had
been killed in the firefight, but the Marines and Starfleet Security forces has captured four of them. Identity scans showed
all the dead and three of the unconscious captives to be members of an ultra-conservative “Earth First” terrorist
cell. Hundreds of these fanatic groups had sprung up in the aftermath of the Dominion War, opposed to recognition of any race
other than humans. The bulk of their membership was known to the Starfleet and Federation Intelligence divisions, but the
remaining terrorist was a mystery. He had no identity chip, no DNA, retinal scan or even fingerprints
on file. To all intents and purposes, the man did not exist.
An interrogation detachment
had arrived from Starfleet Security when the EMH returned to the nurses’ workstation. At the request of the lead interrogator,
he did a full-body scan of the unidentified terrorist and discovered a polyceramic sub-dermal implant. To his dismay, the
scan also revealed a false tooth with a reservoir of extremely fast acting poison. He neutralized the compound and removed
both the false tooth and the implant.
The lead interrogator was
examining another device they had removed from the attacker. He had been reaching for it when he’d been stunned by phaser
fire. It was only luck that he’d been hit before being able to activate the strange device. None of the security officers
had ever seen anything like it. When Admiral Patterson arrived he examined the technology and then requested that the EMH revive the still unconscious man.
“Who are you working
for?” demanded the lead interrogator when the hypospray the EMH administered had taken effect.
“Only Earth. Humans
are the most advanced species in the galaxy. We should be protecting ourselves. Let the alien races kill each other off. When
they do, humans will take over their rightful place as the leaders of the galaxy.”
“Is that why you decided
to murder hospitalized guests of the Federation?”
“’Guests of the
Federation’? They’re fucking BORG! We ought to kill each and every one of them! After what they did at Wolf 359 they don’t deserve
to live!”
“And just how far are
you prepared to go in support of your cause?”
“I would die to keep
those filthy monsters off Earth!” Admiral Patterson wasn’t listening intently as the interrogator questioned the fanatic, but he observed the process closely. The
man’s answers sounded like what the lunatic fringe would spout, but there was a look in the man’s eyes that didn’t
jibe with the intense hatred spewing out of his mouth. His eyes were just a bit too cold; too calculating to be a true fanatic.
And lunatics didn’t usually plan ahead far enough to have a false tooth and a reservoir of lethal poison drilled into
their jaw.
With a growing feeling of
unease, Patterson took the mysterious device and headed back to Headquarters. Back in his office he turned the device
over and over examining it closely. His scans couldn’t penetrate the encryption coding and there was no outward indication
of its function. He summoned his technical chief and turned the device over to him requesting hourly updates on the analysis.
With that, he began to review the after-action reports of the officers involved in the firefight and prepared to contact the
families of those who had fallen.
* * * * *
The sun had risen before Admiral Patterson surrendered. The updates he’d demanded were prompt, concise and identical.
No scan, probe or analytical tool employed by Starfleet Security seemed capable of breaking the encryption of the device they
had recovered from the mystery man apprehended in the attack on the Free Borg. Finally accepting the irrefutable data in front
of him, Admiral Patterson picked
up the device and left his office headed for the Starfleet Intelligence Directorate one floor up. His expression caused several
officers approaching him to quicken their pace in a different direction.
Admiral Chapman’s adjunct ushered him into the inner office immediately and closed the door behind him. If Patterson was
at all surprised when his peer held up a silencing hand and activated a tiny device on the desk before rising and greeting
him he didn’t show it.
“Hello, Rob. What
brings you up to the happy land of spooks this morning?” after shaking hands, Chapman indicated they sit in a conversation
area by the windows of his office.
“Alan, I’m
sorry to bother you so early without a call first, but we had a somewhat disturbing incident last night.”
Both men settled in the comfortable
chairs ignoring the panoramic views over San
Francisco Bay in front of
them. “The assault on the Free Borg at Medical?”
Patterson nodded. “We captured four of them. Three are your garden-variety xenophobe
nutcases. But one of them is something more. Something much more dangerous I think. He doesn’t exist. No DNA,
fingerprints, retinal scans or identity chips on file for him.” Chapman’s surprised expression became more pronounced
as Patterson continued. “We found a false tooth with a very nasty poison embedded in his jaw. And he was trying to
use this when we took him down.” Patterson placed the device on the arm of Chapman’s chair. “None of our equipment
seems able to penetrate the encryption on it. We’ve been working on it all night and nothing. I was hoping that maybe
your tech wizards might have something else we could try.”
Chapman picked up the innocuous-looking object and examined it closely. “You’ve
been at this all night you say? God, Rob, do you need some coffee?”
“I’m fine, Alan. I
was going to head to the dining room when we finished here.”
“And there’s no
record of any kind on this man? That’s impossible; even if he was raised in the wilderness somewhere we’d have
some record of his existence. It takes some serious work to make all records of
an individual disappear.”
“That’s what frightens
me, Alan. Why I came up here. I need your help.”
“Well then, let’s
get the ball rolling.” Chapman tapped his COMM badge and instructed his adjunct to send their tech director in. Ending the hail
he turned back to Patterson. “Is there anything else you can tell me about this or the man who was trying to use it?”
“I wish I could, but
he’s refused to talk except to spew the usual racial hatred you’d expect from these lunatics. But it was his eyes,
Alan. He didn’t have the eyes of a fanatic. His eyes were too cold and calculating. That’s
why I need to find out about this…thing.”
A sharp knock at the door
announced the arrival of the Intelligence Tech chief. The tall, handsome Dokkarian male strode into the room and walked over
to where the Admirals were seated.
“You asked for me, Admiral?”
“Yes, Lieutenant. Rob, this
is my technical chief, Garan Rekar. Lieutenant, this is Admiral Patterson.” The men nodded briefly in greeting as Chapman continued. “Last night
a group of fanatics attacked Starfleet Medical trying to kill the Free Borg recuperating there. Security took this off one
of them. Any ideas what it might be?”
Rekar examined the small device
closely, pulling a small scanning probe from his pocket and passing it over what appeared to be an activation ridge on it.
He frowned at the result.
“I do not immediately
recognize this, Admiral. May I return it to our labs and begin analysis on it there?”
“Of course, Rekar. Make
it a priority and notify me immediately if you have any results.”
“Of course, Admiral.”
The Dokkarian nodded his goodbyes and hurried off to his lair in the secured analysis laboratories.
“If anyone can discover
what that thing is it’s Rekar. The man is a genius with anything technological. I’ve never seen anyone with a
more intuitive grasp of how things work than him. I’m sure he’ll figure it out.”
Patterson rose and extended his hand. “Thanks, Alan. The faster we get some
answers the safer I think we’ll all be.”
“I agree, Rob. Now
why don’t you go have that breakfast you were talking about and I’ll call you as soon as we have something? Or
if we don’t.”
* * * * *
