CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The pounding inside Maren’s head reminded her of a warp core about to blow as she dragged herself into main engineering with three minutes to spare before Alpha shift, carrying the coffee John had replicated for her while she had showered.
It had been strange waking up next to him -- fully clothed, to her extreme relief -- and struggling to remember the events of the night before. When she had remembered, she had been terribly embarrassed, but John had always had a way of putting people at ease. He had worked his charm on her this morning, trying to convince her that the kiss they had shared was an accident, a fluke, and definitely nothing to worry about. Maren wasn’t entirely won over by the argument, but she wasn’t about to risk their friendship by pointing out that the kiss had felt a lot more serious than that. Really, she wasn’t sure she wanted to think too hard about the ramifications of it, herself. Not that she really felt up to thinking, anyway -- with her head still foggy from the aftereffects of the fire water, she felt like her brain cells were under a dampening field. It was going to be another very long day.
As she ducked into her office, she nearly choked on her coffee when she realized Icheb was already waiting inside.
“Oh, my God!” she gasped, surprised. She struggled to regain her composure. “What are you doing here? How did you get in here?”
Icheb looked at her strangely. “I’m the executive officer. I have the code.” Of course, Maren, don’t be stupid, she thought.
“You should have waited for me,” she admonished him tiredly.
“How was the party?” he asked, raising his eyebrows as he eyed Maren suspiciously.
“Fine,” she replied vaguely, feeling guilty as she did. She sighed. “What do you need?” she asked warily.
For a moment, Icheb didn’t answer, he just looked at her as if trying to assess why she was such a mess. Either he figured it out, or gave up, because he didn’t ask about it. Instead, he told her, “It’s necessary that we attempt to complete the decryption today. The captain has received information that there may be at least one Borg drone on the cloaked planet in the Tyndoran system.”
Maren almost spat out her coffee in shock, and her eyes widened. “A Borg drone? Why didn’t anyone mention that before?”
“No one knew until last night, at the party you and John attended. Marcus Lindley told Iden Nix and T’Pring that he thought he had seen a drone on the planet. Weren’t you there?”
Maren shifted uncomfortably on her feet. “We left kind of early,” she explained. Her stomach lurched just thinking about the party and the fire water, and she involuntarily covered her lips with her fingers, willing her body not to betray her again. She could not throw up in front of the XO, even if it was Icheb.
Icheb looked at her oddly. “Are you all right?”
Maren looked back at him helplessly. A part of her wanted to say no, tell him the truth about what a mess she was inside, and let him know in no uncertain terms that it was largely his fault. Instead, she kept her lips pressed together and nodded silently. After a moment, her nausea passed and she found her voice again. “So, Captain Oyugo thinks the Tyndorans are connected to the Borg somehow.” It was more a statement of the obvious than a question.
Icheb nodded. “I worked all evening on continuing the decryption and made some additional progress. I’m hoping we can have an answer for the captain this morning,” he said.
“Well, we might as well get started, then,” Maren sighed. She grabbed her coffee and their work, notified her staff that she would be in the engineering lab, and they walked there together.
As they sat down at the work terminal to begin their day, Maren cursed herself for not stopping by sickbay to get one of their miracle hangover cures. She felt horrific. She also half-seriously wondered if sickbay had anything to treat a guilty conscience. It wasn’t so much that she had kissed John -- honestly, she had been too drunk to really stop herself -- what was killing her inside was that she had enjoyed it. She blushed just thinking about it, and forced herself to talk to Icheb, instead, both to keep her mind off the situation, and to keep her promise to be better company today than she had been yesterday.
“What do you think about all this?” she asked him, genuinely curious.
“About what?” Icheb asked, looking up from the screen. As soon as he saw her face, he realized what she meant, but she answered him anyway.
“Tyndorans. The Borg. What happened to you on the away mission. All of it,” she replied. “How are you handling all of this?”
Icheb assessed her carefully. She was looking at him with open concern. He would have told anyone else he was fine, but she wasn’t anyone else.
“I’m experiencing anxiety,” he admitted. “I knew encountering the Borg was a possibility. I wasn’t expecting it to happen this soon.”
Maren stared at him for a moment. “Why did you apply for this mission, Icheb?” she asked quietly, her green eyes locked on his.
Icheb froze for a moment, not sure how to answer her, then Maren’s combadge chirped suddenly. “Telek to O’Connor.” Icheb had never been so glad to be interrupted.
Maren held his gaze for another second before sighing in exasperation, tapping her badge and responding, “O’Connor here, go ahead.”
“Admiral Shane Beckley here to see you, sir.”
Maren’s eyes grew wide with horror. “Oh, no, I completely forgot,” she breathed anxiously, before tapping her combadge again to reply. “Understood, Telek. I’m on my way.” She looked apologetically at Icheb. “I’m sorry. I scheduled him first thing because I thought you would check in on the bridge first and then I knew we’d be working all day on this ... God, and I’m a wreck this morning ... I swear I’m never drinking again,” she blurted out. Icheb smiled slightly as he finally realized the reason for her disarray. “It won’t take long,” she assured him. “I’ll be right back.” As she headed out of the engineering lab, Icheb stared after her for a moment. When she was gone, he turned his attention back to the decryption.
*****
One thing that irritated Shane Beckley about the position he was in was the attention it garnered in public places. As long as he had on the uniform of Admiralty, people stared, saluted him, and generally kissed his ass. It could be useful, but it also made him feel like a target. Years in SI and careful training had conditioned him to want to blend in. As the only admiral on board the Tesseract, that was impossible.
As he walked into main engineering for the tour Martha had scheduled, eyes widened all around the cavernous chamber as officers from at least a dozen different species snapped to attention. An Andorian lieutenant was in charge, and he stepped forward to greet the admiral, saluting as he did so.
“At ease, Lieutenant ... ” Beckley trailed off, inviting the Andorian to complete the sentence with his name.
“Telek, sir.”
“Lieutenant Telek,” said the admiral, “it’s good to meet you. I'm Shane Beckley. I have a meeting with the chief engineer.”
“I’ll let her know you’re here, sir,” Telek replied. He tapped his combadge. “Telek to O’Connor.”
“O’Connor here, go ahead,” came the reply.
“Admiral Shane Beckley here to see you, sir.”
There was a brief pause, then the young engineer’s voice came back, sounding anxious. “Understood, Telek. I’m on my way.”
“Where is she?” Admiral Beckley asked Telek.
“She’s in the engineering lab with the first officer, sir. She’ll be here momentarily.”
“Contact her again. Tell her to bring him,” the admiral replied, pleased with his luck. Not only would he have the chance to assess the chief engineer, he might actually get some insight into the connection between her and the XO.
Telek tapped his badge again. “Telek to O’Connor.”
“O’Connor here.”
“The Admiral has requested you bring Commander Icheb with you.”
“I’ll let him know, thanks, Telek.” The young woman sounded less than enthusiastic about the prospect, but within two minutes, both officers walked briskly into main engineering. Maren was blushing furiously, and immediately began apologizing. “I’m so sorry, sir, we’re working on a high-priority assignment for the captain and I lost track of time. I’m so sorry you had to wait.” She looked thoroughly embarrassed, and strangely disheveled.
Admiral Beckley’s mind processed through the possible responses. If he wanted her to fear him, he could say one thing. If he wanted the XO to get angry with her, he could say another. But ultimately, what he wanted was an ally, someone who was inclined to listen to him when the going got tough, so he smiled and reassured her. “Nonsense, Lieutenant. I know you’re very busy. I’m glad you were able to accommodate my curiosity about the slipstream drive.” He turned to Icheb. “Commander Icheb. It’s nice to see you,” he said.
Icheb nodded in reply. “Likewise, sir,” he said, though he looked a bit wary.
Admiral Beckley looked from Icheb to Maren and back again. “I have to say, it’s quite a treat to have both of you here. Commander, I hope you don’t mind coming along for the tour. I did a bit of homework before I came down here, and saw that you were both heavily involved in the development of the slipstream drive. I’d feel privileged to have you both show me the finished product.”
Maren demurred. “This drive was Commander Torres’s project. She made it happen. We only helped.”
“Don’t be so modest,” insisted the admiral. “I understand Commander Torres handpicked you both for the project, fresh out of the Academy, and her instincts certainly seem to have paid off. According to the project reports, the two of you shaved at least a year off the production process with modifications you suggested for the design. I read the paper you wrote together. Fascinating stuff. I admit I only understood about half of it, but I suppose the field of quantum mechanics has come a long way since I left the Academy.”
“Yes, sir,” Maren replied, not knowing what else to say. She noticed Icheb staring at her strangely and gave him a questioning look. He almost imperceptibly shook his head as if to say, I’ll tell you later. She nodded just as slightly in acknowledgment.
“Well, I’m sure you both have a lot to do today. Shall we get started?” asked Admiral Beckley. Maren and Icheb exchanged a glance. “After you,” Maren said, motioning her superiors toward the door. They walked down the short flight of stairs onto the main floor of the engine room.
As Maren showed the admiral the slipstream drive and explained how it worked, Icheb watched quietly as he walked beside them. She was in her element here, in the heart of the ship, making the absurdly complex look like child’s play, and Admiral Beckley reacted well to her. Indeed, the admiral was downright chatty with Maren, to a degree that surprised Icheb, considering how quiet he had been at the advisory board meetings. He made a mental note to tell Adele about it.
Admiral Beckley kept asking questions. He didn’t really care what the answers were, he just wanted to keep the girl talking so he could learn more about her, and put her at ease around him. She willingly obliged, running her mouth at slipstream speed as she showed off her knowledge in the field of engineering, which even he had to admit was formidable. She struck him as one of those intellectual savants who seemed to have been born with an innate understanding of her chosen field. She was also possessed of a dry, subtly sarcastic wit, and talked with her hands a lot. He noticed she tried to avoid looking at Commander Icheb, but frequently failed for an instant at a time, sneaking peeks almost unconsciously. All in all, she struck him as extraordinarily intelligent for a non-augmented human, but her mannerisms and general demeanor were that of a particularly precocious child, and she was quite clearly distracted by whatever the situation was between her and the XO.
The admiral also glanced over at Icheb every so often, glad to have the opportunity to watch and analyze the two officers together. As he had suspected, the young exec was obviously captivated by the chief engineer, but Beckley was surprised to observe that he also appeared to be analyzing the admiral just as critically as the admiral was analyzing the two younger officers.
By the time Maren was finished with her presentation, Admiral Beckley had decided it had been worth coming down to engineering. The young engineer seemed to have warmed up to him quickly, as he had laughed at her subtle humor and judiciously complimented her skills. Even the XO seemed to have relaxed a bit by the end, smiling occasionally and gradually looking less wary of the admiral. As he thanked both Icheb and Maren for their time and departed engineering, the admiral felt he had taken a small step toward building a relationship with both officers.
On the way back to the engineering lab, Icheb told Maren, “He seemed to like you.”
“What do you mean?” Maren asked.
“I’ve never seen him talk that much. At the advisory board meetings, he sits there silently. With you, he wouldn’t stop talking,” Icheb explained.
“Maybe he has an interest in engineering,” Maren suggested. “He certainly seemed interested in the slipstream technology. Even the captain has never asked that many questions about it.”
Icheb looked skeptical. Something about the way the admiral had questioned Maren bothered him, but he couldn’t figure out quite what it was. “Perhaps,” he conceded, “but it was still surprising to see him talking so much.”
“Well, a lot of people would be surprised how much you used to talk around me, too,” Maren pointed out. “Not everyone who’s quiet in one situation is quiet in another.” She sighed and added, “I don’t know anything about the advisory board. It sounds miserable.”
“It is,” Icheb assured her, as they returned to their workstation in the engineering lab and resumed working on the Borg code.
Two hours passed with limited conversation. Finally, they both sat up a little straighter and looked at each other. “We did it,” they said in unison, both sounding relieved. The screen was suddenly filled with schematics and what seemed like kilometers of Borg script.
“What is it?” Maren breathed, looking at the flood of data. It had been quite a while since she had read anything more complicated than Icheb’s alcove panel in Borg, and she wasn’t as quick as she would have liked, especially with her brain operating at half-impulse from a hangover.
Icheb also stared at the screen, visually assimilating the information. Both officers were so absorbed in their task that they failed to notice when the ship dropped out of slipstream. The activation of the red alert klaxon was a little harder to miss, as was Adele’s tense voice on the shipwide comm.: “All hands, Red Alert. Senior staff, report to the bridge immediately.”
Poor Lindley takes it on the chin here, after deciding to hold his tongue after the actual incident. But, it’s been said that a person’s career doesn’t really begin until their first major screw-up. That’s when their superiors learn what they’re made of by whether they take responsibility for their mistake and learn from them.
) 
Regarding Maren, yeah, she's in a bad spot that she's not prepared for with the admiral. She's an engineer, not a spy, and she's pretty distracted right now by both the mission and Icheb, so she's not exactly hyperaware at the moment. As for Icheb, he just wants her back, and is acting pretty irrationally because of it. Even ex-drones are not immune to that sort of thing, as we saw with Seven a few times during VOY's run. 
Thanks for reading and commenting!
so glad to see someone evaluating Beckley as objectively as he evaluates others - he is such an enigma - it would almost be better to keep him an unkown quantity throughout the entire adventure - it will keep us hanging on for future work. AS if we needed additonal reasons to keep coming back! Unworthy sits on my pile o' stuff I WILL READ BEFORE I DIE yet these easy little pieces show up in my mailbox so very very conveniently! Better than chocolate! Still deciding about coffee . . . 
That's awfully high praise. And even being in a contest against coffee .... well, Janeway would certainly disapprove. But I don't! 
