CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
It was the little things that gave a person away. Increased heart rate, the barely perceptible quickening of the respiratory system, dilation of pupils, flush of cheeks. For years now, Julian had made efficient use of his medical training and his genetically enhanced senses to analyze people’s reactions to various situations. Reactions could be clues. And clues were exactly what Julian needed to figure out exactly how extensive Section 31’s presence was on this ship.
Until the Section tried to activate him -- and he knew they would, because it always happened, eventually -- he wouldn’t know who else had been assigned there by their machinations. Even when it happened, he probably wouldn’t be told everything. He knew they didn’t fully trust him. It was purely projection on their part -- they were untrustworthy, paranoid, backstabbing types, so they expected it from everyone else. But they were right to be wary of Julian. Because no matter how many assignments he did for them, no matter how much they thought they owned him ... ultimately, he wasn’t working for them. He was working for himself.
At first, he had suspected the command team. Adele Oyugo had been an odd pick for Captain, as young and as relatively untested as she was, and her Betazoid roots could certainly be useful for the secretive organization. But then she had come to him in sickbay, worried about her oddly enhanced empathic senses. No operative would do that, knowing what he was. She had hesitated to take him up on his dinner invitation out of a sense of propriety, but she had given in when he pushed her, and they’d had a great time -- she had even let her guard down enough to drink some of that nasty fire water and loosen up a bit. That behavior just wasn’t the type he’d come to expect from an operative. If she was one, she was the best he’d ever seen.
Commander Icheb was a different story ... he avoided Julian as much as possible, and there had been so much missing from his medical files ... it made Julian wonder. He knew the Section might have been attracted to Icheb for the same reasons they had been attracted to him. The former drone was potentially even more useful, with a body and mind full of technology that could be altered for countless missions, along with enhanced senses and intelligence greater than Julian’s own. But then again, the missing pieces of his medical files had been explained today, and heart-wrenchingly so. Julian still had some suspicions -- but it was getting harder to believe that Icheb had anything to do with Section 31.
It had been Adele’s physical reactions to the very thought of the Advisory Board that made Julian think he needed to look higher than the command team. He had been surprised when her first concern in sickbay that afternoon had been to keep Maren away from them. When he had asked her why, she had said that she had a feeling certain members of the board would expect nothing less than the ending of the young woman’s career, and possibly formal charges, and she preferred -- as she had said -- to “keep the disciplinary ball in her own court.” But her subtle physical reactions had told him there was something more, maybe something she wasn’t even fully aware of. She was frightened of something, and that unsettled Julian. But somehow, it also made him feel she could be trusted.
As the turbolift doors opened and he stepped into the corridor outside her quarters, he hoped he wasn’t walking into a trap.
*****
After a long day of doing nothing but reacting instinctively to one crisis after another, Adele Oyugo was utterly exhausted. As she sank down into the plush sofa in her quarters with a cup of Yridian tea, she felt like the entire day had been lost.
She closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of the sofa, still holding her teacup perfectly still. Barely a week into their mission, her first officer was missing, and now she knew that he was dying, too. Even if they got him back, that wasn’t going to change. What am I supposed to do with that? she wondered. As full of reservations as she was about having an ex-Borg first officer, she knew she needed him. She needed his expertise, his experience, and the knowledge of the Delta Quadrant he had locked up inside his cortical implants. He was to have been, effectively, their guide. How could he not tell Command that he probably won’t last through this mission? How could he be so irresponsible? She thought it was almost just as well he was off ship right now, because she wanted to scream at him, even though she knew it wouldn’t help.
She sighed as she thought about everything that had happened today. Her mind kept wandering to her injured, terrified chief engineer. The feelings she had sensed in Maren this afternoon were familiar ones that she had hoped never to feel again, either from herself or another person. The sensations of loss and fear coming from the younger woman had tied Adele’s stomach in knots as she remembered her own emotions at the sudden loss of her Imzadi. She hadn’t realized until then the depth of Maren’s feelings for Icheb. Despite her best efforts not to, she felt terrible for Maren, and her initial anger over her actions in engineering and the revelation that she had been helping Icheb conceal his condition from Starfleet was slowly receding, replaced by curiosity. Why did they lie about this for so long?
She felt a little guilty when she thought of how she had angrily lectured Maren that afternoon. The truth was, she had needed to feel in control of something during a very out-of-control day, and Maren -- lying on a biobed in sickbay, too injured and tired and upset to really defend herself -- had been an easy target. Maren had made some questionable choices, no doubt, and Adele felt she had legitimate reason to be angry with her, but her usual compassion had escaped her in the midst of the chaos, replaced by the need to feel like she was really in command. She had unwittingly channeled her frustrations with the Advisory Board, her first officer, and the universe itself into her dealings with the chief engineer, and she was starting to feel she owed the girl an apology. Tomorrow, she promised herself. Tomorrow I’ll go and talk with her.
Adele opened her eyes and carefully reached for the large PADD on her coffee table, being careful not to spill her tea in the process. As she did, the door chime sounded, and she tensed at the unexpected intrusion, splashing a bit of tea over the side of her full cup. “Who’s there?” she called out, setting her cup down on the coffee table and scrambling to find something to wipe up the small spill.
“Julian Bashir,” came the reply over the intercom, and Adele sighed with a mixture of trepidation and relief. She could only imagine what unwelcome news the doctor might be bringing, but thanks to their dinner last night, she felt more comfortable talking to him than just about anyone else on the ship right now.
“Come,” she ordered, and the door opened. Julian stepped through, looking a bit pensive.
“Is now a bad time?” he asked.
Adele looked up at him from where she was bent over the sofa, cleaning up the minor mess she had made with her tea. “It doesn’t appear good times are easy to come by on this ship,” she said with a wan smirk. “Come on in. Would you like something to drink? Help yourself to the replicator if you like.”
“I think I’ll take you up on that,” he replied, and stepped over to it. “Tarkalean tea,” he ordered, and as the steaming cup materialized on the platform, he picked it up. “Thank you,” he said to Adele, briefly lifting his cup in her direction.
“Don’t mention it,” she replied. “How are the drone and the engineer?”
“The drone is stable, at least for now,” Julian reported. “I was able to repair the injury to her organic tissue, but some of the damaged cybernetics are beyond my engineering expertise. Lieutenant O’Connor wants to take a look tomorrow.”
Adele sighed and picked her tea back up, taking a small sip as she perched carefully on the arm of a chair adjacent to the now tea-stained sofa. “She might as well. Something tells me she has a lot more experience with Borg implants than Command knows anything about,” she noted dryly.
“Actually, I’m not so sure it’s a good idea,” Julian admitted, with a troubled expression. “I’m worried about her. I think she needs to speak with a counselor. I just found her out of bed, standing next to the drone in some sort of daze, just about ready to deactivate the force field. The security officer literally had to physically grab her to stop her.”
Adele raised her eyebrows. “What did you do?” she asked.
Julian looked at her over his teacup with tired eyes and gave a light shrug. “I took her back to bed. I think she’ll stay there, she seemed to realize getting out of bed hadn’t been the best idea. Her friend Quigley came back; he’s with her now. I ordered Doctor Sarik to sedate her if she doesn’t go back to sleep soon. And if she gets out of bed again, I’m putting a restraining field on her.”
“Wonderful,” Adele replied sarcastically, the possibility that her chief engineer was losing it making her feel even more tired. “But physically, she’ll be all right?”
“Yes,” Julian replied. “She should be fit to take whatever punishment you intend to dole out within a couple of days.” He gave Adele a knowing glance, and she could sense he felt sympathetic toward Maren.
She sighed. “Point taken, Doctor. I was planning to apologize to her in the morning. Taking my frustrations out on her was out of line.”
“I didn’t say a word,” Julian replied, with mock innocence.
“You didn’t need to. I’m an empath, remember?” she replied with a smirk, which quickly faded to a frown. “Did you make any progress figuring out Icheb’s problem?” she asked.
Julian nodded grimly. “It’s like Maren said. He donated his cortical node to Annika Hansen almost nine years ago. At the time, he thought of a way to regulate his remaining Borg implants with genetic resequencing. It worked for a while, but the problem is that he can no longer fully interface with a Borg alcove. So instead of getting daily diagnostics and minor adjustments while regenerating, he’s just ... recharging the implants. He has to wait for any issues to present themselves with symptoms before he knows about them. For the last four years, the malfunctions have been increasing. Apparently, he’s had two life-threatening implant failures and at least a dozen minor ones, all treated by Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram, Maren, or even Icheb himself. They tried some additional gene resequencing, some reprogramming of his nanoprobes, but none of it worked. The implants just aren’t designed to work without the cortical node. Frankly, it’s amazing he’s lasted this long.”
“So there’s nothing you can do?” Adele asked, frowning.
“I’m not ready to give up yet,” Julian replied. “I want to work with Maren to see if we can come up with something no one has thought of before.”
“Well, she may have plenty of time for that,” Adele sighed.
“Are you really going to relieve her permanently?” Julian asked, surprised.
Adele sighed again. “I don’t know. I really don’t. And I don’t even have my first officer to help me decide. Not that he’d be a neutral party,” she added dejectedly. “Forgive me for dumping this on you.”
“It’s all right,” Julian assured her. “I’m a doctor; I’m used to listening to people’s problems. In fact,” he added cautiously, “that’s actually why I came here. I wanted to ask you about one of yours.”
“What do you mean?”
Julian took a deep breath. “The advisory board. I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with Maren. I noticed you seem very distrustful of the board, and I was wondering if you could tell me why.”
Adele raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”
“Curiosity, I suppose.”
Adele sighed wearily. “They’ve been hostile,” she explained, “especially regarding Commander Icheb. One of the members in particular, but there’s another who isn’t much better. They also have a tremendous amount of power if they choose to use it, and I’m trying desperately not to give them a reason to do it. Also ...” she hesitated, unsure of whether to voice her concerns about Admiral Beckley. After a moment’s pause, she decided to confide in the CMO. If anyone would have an explanation, she reasoned, it would be him. “...and I want to clarify, this doesn’t leave this room, understood?”
Julian looked surprised, but nodded. “Perfectly,” he replied seriously.
Adele took a deep breath. “I can’t read Admiral Beckley,” she said tentatively. “Empathically, I mean. At all. According to his file, he’s one hundred percent human, but he feels more like a hologram. I know it’s probably unfair of me to feel this way, but it’s extremely disconcerting. I’d hate to ask you to pry into his medical files, but is there any kind of condition, a disorder or something that can make a human completely unreadable to a Betazoid?”
“You’re only part Betazoid,” Julian pointed out carefully.
“But I’ve never had any trouble reading any other human’s emotions,” Adele protested. “And the full Betazoid on the Advisory Board told me today that she can’t read him, either.”
Julian frowned. “That is strange,” he said. For a moment, Adele thought she sensed something like dread in him, then, just as quickly, it was gone. “I’ll look into it,” he said. “There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation.”
Adele sighed. “It would make me feel a lot better if you could find one. In all honesty, he creeps me out, and I think it’s coloring my view of the entire board. Three out of five of them seem like nice, reasonable people. It’s just the bitchy lawyer and the admiral who have me on edge. Are you listening to me?” she asked, suddenly noticing that Julian looked like he was light years away, his brown eyes troubled and distant.
“Huh?” Julian replied, shaking himself out of his reverie. “Of course I am. Bitchy lawyer. Let me guess, the lovely Eleanor Gentry?”
Adele’s eyes widened. “You know her?”
“I met her on the recreation deck the night of the launch. Delightful woman, isn’t she?” There was a hint of sarcasm to Julian’s voice, and he smirked wryly. It made Adele wonder if he’d been shot down by the attractive, but sharp-tongued attorney.
Before she could inquire further, her comm. chirped. “Bridge to the Captain.”
Adele tensed at the sudden interruption. “Oyugo here,” she replied, businesslike.
“We’re receiving an incoming subspace transmission.”
Adele frowned. “I ordered radio silence.”
“The identification code is Commander Icheb’s.”
“Commander Icheb’s,” Adele repeated back, incredulously.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s being routed through our own comm. array, using his codes.”
Adele and Julian exchanged a stunned look, and both set down their teacups. “I’ll be right there,” Adele told the bridge officer, “Oyugo out.”
She looked at Julian, shocked, for a moment, then gestured for him to follow her. “You’re with me,” she said. “If it’s him, and we have a visual, I want you to do your best to ascertain what kind of condition he’s in.” Julian nodded in reply, and without a word, they both headed quickly for the bridge.
So I think you'll be seeing Julian and Adele chat soon.
(And that's all I'll say about that. 
) Re: your suggestion for Maren's actress ... I think she's too ... fierce-looking, I guess, is the only way to describe it. She's all raven-haired and curvy and sexy. Maren's been described as pale, blonde and kind of scrawny. And at the moment, there's nothing fierce about her, she's a wreck. But that actress is really pretty. As for Taran Madar, Adele referred John to see her directly way back at the beginning, he's been seeing her like he's supposed to. She's a counselor, and she's on the advisory board. Conflict of interest? Perhaps. But those aren't unheard of in Starfleet (see: Deanna Troi helping Riker with crew evaluations). She's potentially super-dangerous for that reason, but what if she's actually a nice, helpful person? And ethical? It could go either way. But frankly, the very reason you think it's a conflict of interest is the very reason Starfleet wanted her on the board -- someone to pick up on the emotional/mental state of the captain and command team and be able to realize when people's decision-making skills are compromised, in a way a medical doctor may not pick up on. 
OH NO YOU DIDN'T!!!!
