Path: inforamp.net!news.nstn.ca!news.dal.ca!torn!howland.reston.ans.net!news-e2a.gnn.com!newstf01.news.aol.com!newsbf02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: pegeel@aol.com (Pegeel) Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative Subject: NEW: "The Red Queen's Repose" VOY, J, 6/11 Date: 1 Mar 1996 18:57:22 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Lines: 273 Sender: root@newsbf02.news.aol.com Message-ID: <4h82t2$1o0@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: pegeel@aol.com (Pegeel) NNTP-Posting-Host: newsbf02.mail.aol.com Status: N "The Red Queen's Repose" c. 1996, Peg Robinson pt. 6 Standard disclaimers Tuvok returned his attention to Chakotay, clearly thrown off balance by my failure to support him. I could see the gears turning as he weighed out the possibilities, and hoped that his logic and his training would hold against his pride, and whatever bitterness had been driving him. At last he drew a breath, and nodded coolly. "My apologies, Commander. That was unprofessional and uncalled for. I withdraw my comment." Chakotay nodded. He didn't smile, but the tension and determination left his face. "Apology accepted, Tuvok. I'm sorry my former crew are giving you hell. If you think of anything I can do to help, let me know. If I think it'll work, I'll be glad to do what I can." Tuvok gave a tight nod, and Chakotay returned to his coffee cup, apparently comfortable, at ease, and without any left over anger or hostility. In which case he was the only one in the room to feel at peace. Tuvok was clearly struggling with the magnitude of his loss, and I... Now that the show-down was over I didn't know which of them I most wanted to court martial and execute. Both of them. Tuvok for pressing beyond the limits; Chakotay for standing up for his right to be respected in his rank, at a moment when we had enough trouble with tension between Fleet and Maquis. I wasn't ready to deal with another "Maquis uprising" right then. So there we were, Tuvok carefully avoiding eye contact with either of us as he worked through the ramifications of the last few minutes, me avoiding eye contact for fear I'd start a fight of my own... and Chakotay looking sleepy, and relaxed, and more or less completely absorbed in his coffee. At which golden moment Paris' voice came in over the intercom. "Captain Janeway?" "Yes, Lieutenant?" "Permission to deliver a report to your office?" "Granted." Tuvok, Chakotay and I exchanged quick glances, wondering what Tom had to bring us. We were all aware of his "meeting" the evening before. It seemed pretty likely he had more bad news for us. After a moment Tom came in, carrying a padd, and calling over his shoulder "This may take a few minutes Federman. Stupid Engineering problem. Might as well make yourself at home in the big chair, seeing as I've got it all warmed up for you already.". The door swept shut, and he approached, his expression shifting from casual to stressed in seconds. I gestured him into one of the chairs. "This one isn't warm yet, but you might as well make yourself at home in it anyway, Lieutenant." He sat gingerly in the chair, looking uncomfortable. It's not that often he's involved in a "Command meeting" this way, and I suspect the situation rubbed him, like a new pair of shoes fresh out of the replicator and not yet broken in. He handed me the padd. "It really *is* an Engineering report. Stuff B'Elanna's doing to deal with the lack of personnel. You probably want to look it over. If I understand what she's saying, she's breaking regulations right, left and center to keep things running." I took the padd and put it down on the sofa next to me. "Thank you, Mr. Paris. I'm correct in assuming that that isn't really what you came here for?" "Good bet, Captain. I was going to report during my lunch break. But the report from B'Elanna came in at the right time to give me an excuse to come in, and since all of you were here together I thought I'd bring you the bad news now." I nodded, and straightened. "How bad is it?" "Bad. Very bad." He looked away for a moment, then back, steeling himself. Then he took a breath, and started. "I went to the meeting last night, like you wanted. There weren't that many folks there... only thirteen, counting me. But the mix isn't what I expected. Captain, there were as many Fleet officers there as Maquis. Some of the lower rankers, the ones who're calling themselves the "perma-ensigns" these days. Mostly flunkies... but *angry* flunkies. Captain, I've been ticked off a time or two since we got out here. I think everybody has. But these folks are downright bitter. A couple of them have families they've lost, a few just are furious that it's beginning to look like they're going to spend the rest of their lives as ensigns, doing the dirty jobs at the bottom of the totem pole. Most of them seem to be the sort who thought they had golden careers ahead of them, that they'll never have now we're stuck out here. The main part of the meeting was mostly a bitch session. But it was a *scary* bitch session. Those folks are ready to raise Cain just for the fun of it... and they seem to think they're only the tip of the iceberg. Just going on the first round of stuff alone, you're looking at a lot of trouble. The only advantage you have is that they don't seem to be able to agree on what they want to do, or just what they're angry about. Some want one thing, some want another... They'll trip themselves up with too many ideas, and not enough organization." He trailed off, and looked down at his hands, trying to find a way to continue. It was "encouragement time". Whatever he wanted to say was clearly going to take him into areas he wasn't comfortable telling us about. "Thank you, Tom We needed that information, and I appreciate your telling us. Now, what else have you found out? You aren't breaking a sweat because some of the crew are tired and angry... What's the big problem?" He took a deep breath, and looked me in the eye, obviously prepared to face some real displeasure. "I'm afraid I exceeded your orders, Captain. I know you wanted me to keep myself out of the line of fire on this... but after the main meeting I was invited to join the 'core group'. The folks who put this thing together. I accepted. " Before I could make any comment he hurried on, trying to justify himself. "Captain, I was never going to get a better chance to find out what *really* was going on... the main meeting wasn't much more than a bit of rabble-rousing.... a chance to stir folks up and test the waters. If I'd stopped there, I wouldn't have been telling you much you couldn't have guessed anyway, or found out in a few days of asking around. When they asked me to join... I don't care if I do end up in trouble, at least I've gotten what you really *need* to know about." I looked from Chakotay to Tuvok. Chakotay watched Paris' face, then glanced at me and nodded slightly. Tuvok met my eyes, raised an eyebrow, and also nodded. I leaned forward, and addressed Tom. "We'll take up the matter of your "initiative" some other time, Lieutenant. For now I think you can assume that if you found out anything crucial, you'll probably survive the reprimand. Tell us what happened." Tom looked at us all, and appeared to decide he had at least a few hours longer to live. "The core group is mixed too... Two Fleet officers, one Maquis. With me, I guess the total would be two and a half Fleet, one and a half Maquis. None of them seem to know where to place me in terms of loyalty lines... The Fleet officers see me as Maquis, the Maquis sees me as Fleet... but all of them see me as a line into information about your command team, and the likely approach you'll take to head off a mutiny...and they all think I won't really give a damn how it all turns out so long as I get my cut." His voice was bitter. "I didn't tell 'em otherwise, either. It's the first time being the 'bad-rep boy' on the bridge has ever been good for anything. So I get to be part of the 'Gang of Four'." Chakotay leaned forward in the sofa, resting his elbows on his knees, coffee cup wrapped in both hands. "Who are they, Paris?" Paris met his eyes. "The Fleet Officers are Bintar, from Weaponry, and Kilpatrick from down in Stellar Cartography. The Maquis is Jorland." "Shit." Tuvok, Paris and Chakotay all exchanged glances, some unspoken discomfort running between them. Whatever it was, I had to understand the trouble. "Why does that appear to bother you gentlemen?" Paris and Tuvok silently ceded the floor to Chakotay, who looked less than grateful. "Jorland's a 'breaker'...he came to us by way of the Crime Syndicate out on the Ferengi border. He's a good fighter, and that's all we usually had the chance to use him for.. but his specialty was breaking up organizations from within. I only saw him at work once... we didn't normally have the time to invest in the kind of thing that he was good at. But there was one time when we *had* to take the time... There was a regional governor who was managing to pull his people together, and becoming a real threat to Maquis operations. We had to do something to kill off the team, destroy it's usefulness. Jorland spent about three weeks, tapping into the computers, finding his way through the system into private correspondences. He put out feelers in the local bars, and managed to find a minor clerk who liked to gossip, and had a tap into all the juiciest rumors. By the time he was ready to move he knew every petty jealousy, every scandal, every professional conflict in the bureaucracy. He started planting little leaks, spreading a rumor or two of his own with forged messages, inserted a few through the clerk, who never *did* catch on that he was being used. He used the computer to wreck a couple of operations... and did a great job of making it look like the mess had been intentional on the part of a couple of different parties who had a stake in promoting themselves, and showing up the officers who'd been in charge of the original operations. When we finally pulled out he'd pretty much managed to rip up any cohesion the governor had built over the time he'd been posted. The end result was a coup... a blood bath. The last I heard they were still trying to sort out the mess. Jorland is smart, manipulative, he has an eye for the weak spots in an organization... and the only person he cares about is Jorland. If he's at the heart of this, we're in trouble." Paris nodded. "I never got to see him work... it was before my time. But his rep was solid. I heard enough to know he was good. It's worse than just Jorland though. You can pretty much write off Zad Bintar. The only reason they have him so near as I can tell is that he's the one member of Weaponry with a real mad on about being stuck here... and they need the connection with weaponry, and through weaponry to both security and ship's ops. Practical; like picking me up because I have the bridge connection. But Susan Kilpatrick is a predator. I dated her a time or two when we first got out here. If Jenny Delaney and a few of the others in Stellar hadn't made a point of wising me up, I never would have caught on that she was playing me for a sucker... using me to find out what things were like up here, trying to figure if there was any way she could get a handhold to the top. She's smooth, she's smart, and she doesn't really give a damn that we're out here, so long as she can find a way to be top dog so long as she's here. And she and Jorland have figured out a good game." He paused, organizing his thoughts. We waited for him, none of us looking very happy. I know I was feeling thrown off to hear Tom talk about a Fleet officer the way he had about Kilpatrick. I didn't know her well; I'd interviewed her when she first came aboard though, and my impression had been of a competent, likable woman, with a bit of a hero worship thing for me. It happens. Make it to command, and a lot of the youngsters start looking to you as a sort of promise of things to come; what they want to be. It hadn't seemed unusual at the time. And I tend to see Fleet officers as essentially "good". It's easy to forget that even with all the sifting, and sorting, and training we have our fair share of bad apples. But if Tom was right, Kilpatrick was the kind you dread will make it to the Admiralty... and who far too often manage to do so. Brilliant manipulators, with an eye to advancement. I sighed. "Might as well get it over with. What's the plan, Tom?" He was getting nervous again, his eyes flickering over us all. Whatever he had to say, he really didn't want to say it. He's a brave man come crunch time, though. He continued. "As near as I can tell, the whole thing started with Kilpatrick. Like I said, she works Stellar. She's had a good look at those star charts they made up from the information we picked up from the Escher Phenomenon, and from my little shot at transwarp. She's thought about it a long time, and the way she sees it, we have the strongest individual ship in this neck of the galaxy, and the best and most thorough information about what's out here that *anyone* has. If she and Jorland can find a way to take the ship, they can "go pro"... I think what they have in mind is a short, but impressive career as pirates, raiding the trade routes and some of the richer and less well defended planets. Then find some nice little backwater, set up a kingdom of their own, and settle back to a long and tyrannical retirement, with all the money, power, and weaponry they need to keep their hold on the "ignorant savages" on whatever planet they stake out... and to hell with the Prime Directive. Jorland and Kilpatrick, megalomaniacs at large. No conquest too small, no booty too insignificant. All they have to do is figure out how to take Voyager." And now, judging by his jitters, we'd come to the heart of the matter. "Encouragement time" again. "Go on, Tom. You're putting together an impressive picture, but we need *all* the details... even if we won't like them. We'll remember that you're only passing on what you've learned. No blame to you if it isn't something we enjoy very much. We don't "kill the messenger" on this ship." He studied our faces. I still admire Tom's father. There were many worthwhile things about him. But knowing Tom has shown me a side of him I never knew. He did a lot to break that boy, not the least of which was being too quick to judge. I think it will be a long time before Tom really trusts anyone not to condemn him at a moment's notice. Apparently what he saw in our faces was sufficiently reassuring to allow him to take the risk. "Like Chakotay said, Jorland's a 'breaker'. Kilpatrick apparently asked around, looking for a good partner, and locked onto him early. They've been together for a while now, looking over the situation, looking for an opportunity... and planning ahead, looking for a good moment to make their move. They've decided that there are two clear weak points they can use to get where they want to go. The first is the general problem of crew unrest... both Maquis-Fleet, and the problem that *no-one* really wants to be stuck out here for the rest of our lives. That one's easy to see, and easy to exploit. Last night's meeting, and the way the Maquis have been behaving the last couple of days, has made it clear that there's a lot of potential there. But the other weak point..." He licked his lips. "I'm sorry. They've decided that the command team itself is the other weak point. You, Tuvok, Chakotay. Jorland figures the three of you haven't really done more than set up a temporary makeshift... that between a lot of distrust, and too much uncertainty, and professional jealousies, you're not going to be able to present a united front, or put in a very good showing if they start to work on you. I don't know just what they have in mind... they didn't say, and I didn't expect them to right away. But they were pumping me for all they could get. How well you communicated with each other, whether you all seemed to trust each other, whether the information exchange was purely professional, or if you spent enough time to really get into more than the most superficial stuff." He dropped his eyes. "I'm afraid they liked what I passed on... and I was trying not to give them a very clear picture." Tuvok, Chakotay, and I sat silent. There wasn't much we could say. It was clear that, no matter how loyal Tom was, he thought Jorland was probably right. Worse, *I* thought Jorland was probably right. The struggle between Tuvok and Chakotay over the last few days only served to highlight an on-going problem between all three of us. I'd thought it was a problem we could safely leave as it stood. We've faced disruption before without having to close the gaps, and it had seemed as threatening to try to make the transition as to leave it as it was. I'd been wrong, no matter how logical or comfortable my reasons for preferring not to face the issue. End pt.6