Requirements for Kissmekate April Challenge:

• A prank: actually, several

A ring of her officers stood around her desk, pressing in and making her feel unmistakably claustrophobic. Normally, Captain Janeway didn’t mind the occasional visit from her senior staff—a friendly dinner, or billiards at Sandrine’s, or even a midnight philosophical discussion. Tonight, however, she had a blinding headache. After having barely made it through a long and difficult duty shift—not that she could mark anything particularly troublesome as having occurred—she had come back to her quarters and settled in to nurse her headache with a relaxing bath. But now the water was cold and she sat in her robe, surrounded by more than half of Voyager’s senior officers, apparently all with gripes and grumbles to voice. And, to top it off, they all seemed to be perfectly willing to do it on her time.

Janeway closed her eyes, pressed her fingers to her temples, and rubbed briskly for a moment. Opening her eyes, she looked up and attempted to focus on the faces before her. “One-by-one, starting from the left,” she thought, taking a deep breath. “All right, from the top. B’Elanna, what happened?”

“Look at me isn’t it apparent?” B’Elanna blustered.

The Captain had already observed the rumpled and dingy appearance as well as the clenched fists and red face of the engineer. “You’re covered in what looks and smells like syrup.”

“Yes! And do you know how I got this way?”

Janeway tossed her a look, indicating that she was in no mood for a round of twenty questions.

“Someone loosened the top on the syrup dispenser, and when I went to pour it on my banana pancakes—”

“It poured all over the pancakes and you,” Janeway finished.

B’Elanna, crossing her arms over the gooey front of her tunic, nodded vigorously.

The Captain shifted her attention to Seven. Even a painful headache could not keep Janeway’s eyes from wandering slowly over the lithe figure of her Astrometrics officer. “Okay, Seven.”

“There it is again,” B’Elanna thought, watching her commanding officer. “She just checked Seven out for the fourth time today. This is getting ridiculous. . . .”

The ex-drone unlinked her hands from behind her back and placed a phase calibrator on the desk. The Captain looked up at her questioningly. “It is out-of-phase. I have been using it since the beginning of the Alpha shift.”

Her voice was placid, but Janeway could see the anger simmering below the surface. The Captain appreciated Seven’s calm approach as it kept her headache from getting worse. “All the work you did today will have to be redone,” she concluded.

“Yes, Captain,” Seven stated vehemently.

Janeway sighed. A pattern was becoming apparent. She looked at the pinched face of the EMH. “And, Doctor, what do you have to contribute to this?”

The doctor fidgeted, pursed his lips, and laid down the medical tricorder he had been holding in his hand. The Captain stared at it. The palm grip was coated in some sort of slimy, petroleum-based grease.

“And that’s only an example, Captain! The entire medical bay is a hazard zone. I lift a tricorder to do a scan and it slips out of my hand,” the holographic doctor explained. “I—I pick up a hypospray and drop it on the floor. The whole place is a booby trap!”

The Captain smirked. “Okay, so we have a joker afoot. Who can shed some light?”

B’Elanna struggled to uncross her arms, stuck to the sticky front of her clothes as they were. “I can.”

“Please do.”

“Last night, our bed was short-sheeted,” the dark-haired woman enlightened, wiping her hands on her pants.

Janeway snorted; she hadn’t heard of that one since her days at the Academy.

B’Elanna continued, “Tom thought it was hilarious and decided to vindicate his title as Voyager’s reigning King of Pranks. He said he was going to have to teach his subjects a little respect. But maybe they joined forces instead.”

“So, you think Tom and Harry are the culprits?” Janeway queried.

B’Elanna opened her mouth to answer, but Seven interrupted. “I concur with Lieutenant Torres’ supposition. Ensign Kim was in the immediate area and did have access to the phase calibrator. He could have made the adjustments without my knowledge.”

The Doctor, a slimy mark on his chin where his finger had been resting, nodded his head thoughtfully. “Tom was the only one with access to sick bay.”

“That’s right!” the petite engineer added. “Tom was also present when Tuvok’s Kal-toh game kept collapsing.”

Janeway tilted her chin up. “Collapsing?”

B’Elanna nodded. “Every time Tuvok made a move, any move, the sphere would loose cohesion.”

The Captain grinned wryly. “All right, here’s what we’ll do. For the banana pancake stunt—I’ll dock Tom’s and Harry’s replicator rations for double whatever your loss was, B’Elanna. . . .” She looked down at the grimy tricorder. “Doctor, they will clean sick bay immediately and both will volunteer two off-duty hours per week for the next month.” Her eyes softened as they fell over the tall blond. “Seven, I don’t really know what I can do for you. I know that you are more efficient at realigning the phase calibrator and prefer to redo the work yourself. So, do you have any requests?”

“And it’s back,” B’Elanna mused, noticing the exceptionally husky, almost intimate, timbre that pervaded Janeway’s voice when she spoke to Seven. Glancing at the tall blond, the engineer took in the other familiar response, the low, steadying breath and the erratically jumping pulse in the smooth flesh of the young woman’s neck. “Yup, predictable,” she mused.

“Only one, Captain. I wish to be present when you dispense the reprimands,” Seven said with a subtle flash of humor.

Amusement poured over Janeway. “Granted. Now, everyone out.”

“Cap—” the EMH began.

“No more discussion. I’ve got a headache and I’m feeling just a bit tired and very testy.”

The Doctor grabbed the slimy tricorder off the captain’s desk. “You didn’t tell me you had a headache. When did it come on? What caused it? You didn’t skip another meal, did you?”

“Early afternoon, Doctor, and no, I didn’t skip any meals,” she placated him.

Seven unlinked her arms from behind her back. “Perhaps, it is the caffeine withdrawal, Captain.”

Janeway looked up at the tall woman. “Excuse me?”

Seven tilted her head. “The lack of caffeine in your central nervous system. You are going through withdrawal. Hence the headache, drowsiness, impaired concentration, and irritability.”

Janeway shook her head. “But I just had a cup of coffee. It’s right there on my desk.” She gestured at the silver mug, and then suddenly it hit her. She picked up the discarded mug and eyed it. “Seven, are you saying my coffee is decaf?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“And has been all day long?”

“I observed you on three occasions with three different cups of coffee. None of them contained caffeine.”

The Captain wondered just how enhanced Seven’s sensory perception was to be able to determine something like that. She looked to the doctor for confirmation. “Doctor?”

The EMH snapped the tricorder closed. “Seven is right. You are going through withdrawal. You have not consumed caffeine in over twenty hours, Captain.”

Janeway eyed B’Elanna. “The replicators?”

“Sounds about right to me, Captain.”

Janeway took a deep breath. “Okay, that’s it . . .!”

The Doctor leaned onto the desk; his hands leaving greasy slide marks. “Captain, Mr. Paris and Mr. Kim—”

She held up her hand to forestall any more comments. “Uh, uh, give me a minute . . . .” Grabbing the material of her robe to close it tightly around her, she walked around her desk, coming to stand between B’Elanna and Seven.

The petite engineer studied the Captain. Still lost in thought, Janeway reached up and rested her hand on Seven’s shoulder. B’Elanna heard the sharp intake of breath and glanced up into the tall woman’s face. Seven was staring at the place on her arm where Janeway’s hand still rested. “Seven—blushing?” she pondered silently. “Someone had better do something before these two blow.”

The sound of Janeway’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “I believe, the best way to combat this problem is to give those two pranksters a taste of their own medicine.”

“Captain?” B’Elanna questioned with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. She definitely wanted in on whatever revenge the Captain would extract.

“Oh, yes, this will line up beautifully,” Janeway said still formulating a plan. “All right, this is what we are going to do . . . .”

Hook

Harry quirked his eyebrows together. “Hey, Tom, look at this.”

The blond helmsman looked over Harry’s shoulder at the Delta Flyer’s ops console. “Subspace transmissions?”

“Deleted subspace transmissions,” the ensign corrected, pointing to the viewscreen. “See, here and . . . here.”

Tom shrugged. “So what?”

Harry glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time we found deleted subspace transmissions on Voyager?”

The lieutenant glanced around the cabin of the shuttle as though searching for an answer.

“Tom, you ended up on an undercover mission to infiltrate a spy operating onboard Voyager.”

“Harry, that was what—seven years ago? And in the Delta Quadrant.”

“Yeah, but deleted subspace transmissions means someone is trying to cover up something. Look at the dates. The transmissions were made three days ago. The Flyer hasn’t been out of the shuttle bay since Tuvok used it for tactical training four days ago.”

“So, someone came to the shuttle bay to make these transmissions and then deleted them. Why?” Tom questioned.

“Well, the transmissions wouldn’t be logged by Voyager’s systems.”

Tom stared at him, knowing exactly what his friend would want to do. “It’ll take hours to recover them . . . if they can even be salvaged.”

“I think I can and it shouldn’t take that much time,” the ensign persuaded.

ΩΩΩΩ

“Harry, we’ve been working on this for two hours,” Tom complained. “By the time, we actually finish running diagnostics on the Flyer, we’ll have missed the last call for dinner.”

The ensign pressed in another series of codes into the ops console. “Hold on, I think, I have something now.”

A static-filled image flickered onto the screen.

Harry drew back disbelievingly. “It’s Seven.”

Tom got up from the helm. “Seven?” He peered at the screen. “What’s she saying?”

“Uh, I can’t tell. I’m trying to clear up some of the harmonic resonance.”

Seven’s voice filtered through a cacophony of noise. “It . . . arranged . . . the neuro— . . . designated coordinates . . . Cap— . . . influence . . . confidence . . . complied.”

Tom shrugged as Seven’s image flickered off the screen. “Well, that’s not much to go on.”

“No, but she did say something about neuro—, neuro—,” Harry left off, then suddenly, his eyes grew wide. “Neurolytic. Could she have been talking about the neurolytic contagion Admiral Janeway used to destroy the Borg?”

“Harry, she could have been talking to her Aunt Martha about her neurotic tendency to . . . to, oh, I dunno, to sigh all the time.”

“Why would she come out here? Why would she delete the evidence of the conversation?” Harry quizzed.

“I don’t know!”

“Maybe it’s what’s missing. We should go to the Lieutenant Commander,” Harry concluded.

Tom seemed to think about it. Then he pushed back from the console and looked at the ceiling of the Flyer. “Oh, yes, very clever.”

“What?”

“Harry, don’t you get it? We’re being set up,” Tom guessed.

“Huh?”

“Harry, Harry, Harry . . . the jokes we pulled. This is the retaliation. Follow me here. . . . We go rooting through the Flyer systems and what do we find?”

The young ensign’s disbelief was evident. “But the Captain already reprimanded us, and besides, the transmissions were made three days ago.”

Tom looked dubiously at him. “If they can falsify data, don’t you think they can skewer a couple of dates? And maybe the Captain reprimanding us was just a smoke screen,” he paused, more convinced than ever. “Think about it, Harry. B’Elanna could do something like this blindfolded and with her hands tied behind her back. And . . . do you think that a couple dozen rations would satisfy her Klingon sense of justice?”

“No?” Harry answered pensively.

“No! That’s right.”

Harry looked askance. “You think your wife would go to all this trouble just to get us back.”

“You bet she would.”

ΩΩΩΩ

From the corner of his eye, Tom watched B’Elanna sit on the floor next to him. Pretending to be distracted by what he was watching on the television, he asked, “Miral asleep?”

B’Elanna picked up his glass and took a sip of his drink. “Uh, huh. . . .”

“By the way, nice try,” he commented, his eyes still trained on the television.

Leaning into his chest, she snuggled into his body warmth. “Huh?”

“Leaving those phony subspace transmissions for us to find in the Flyer’s databanks.”

B’Elanna looked up at him. “What?”

He ignored the puzzled look. “What did you think we would do, run off, ranting to Tuvok about the Captain and some wild conspiracy?”

“Tom, what are you talking about?”

He sighed and put his glass down on the floor next to him. “Your joke, B’Elanna, it didn’t work.”

She smirked into his chest. “Oh, that. Well, I gave it a shot. . . . When did you notice?”

“While running diagnostics on the Flyer.”

She laughed. “You didn’t notice until then?”

He grabbed up another handful of popcorn. “Well, when else would I have?”

“All day long; every time you looked at a viewscreen . . . was supposed to make you feel like an old man. Which you are, Daddy,” she teased.

“What?” he said, chewing on a mouthful of popcorn.

She cuddled closer. “I programmed the variation to follow you to whatever console or viewscreen you used.”

He inspected the top of her head. “What?”

She got up suddenly and strode over to the computer console. Accessing the screen interface, she pointed at it. “This.”

Standing up, he followed her to the console, and then looked down at the viewscreen. “I don’t see anything.”

“That was the whole point,” she huffed. “I adjusted the viewscreen parameters.”

He scrunched up his face in bewilderment. “Why?”

“So that every time you looked at any viewscreen, anywhere on the ship, it would be blurred.”

He snorted. “I thought everything looked fuzzy. Is that why I keep seeing spots?”

Line

Tom stalked down the corridor, and after a few long strides, jogged up next to Harry. Looking at the shorter man, he snickered. “What happened to your face?”

Harry rolled his eyes and replied, “It’s green.”

“I can see that. Bold, new fashion statement?” he taunted.

“Someone programmed my sonic shower to spray uttaberry juice.”

Tom sniggered and put his hand on Harry’s shoulder. Then he recoiled all of a sudden, removing his hand and looking at it offensively. “Uttaberry juice does not explain that smell though.”

“All right, uttaberry and snail juice.”

Tom laughed. “Well, sounds like B’Elanna’s been at it again. At least this attempt wasn’t as pathetic as what she did to me. Do you know she actually programmed the computer to readjust the viewscreen resolution every time I accessed a console . . . so no matter where I went on the ship, I would see a blurry screen?”

“I fared much worse,” Harry bellyached, inspecting his green hands.

“Hey, I’m her husband, and besides, you pulled two jokes on her. That means you get double the punishment.”

“So that’s it? Can’t be,” Harry concluded, shaking his head.

“Would seem so. And be grateful, because I’m beginning to think that we got off lucky.”

Coming up to the turbolift, Harry followed Tom inside. “Bridge.”

Harry also addressed the computer, “Deck 5,” then turned back to the other man. “What about the subspace transmission sent from the Flyer?”

“Oh, Harry, come on.”

“Yes, but what if the Captain is somehow being coerced by . . . by—”

Tom interrupted, “You have too much time on your hands.”

Harry sighed in frustration.

“All right, by who?” Tom huffed.

He smiled smartly. “By Seven, and in turn, by the Borg.”

The blond slung a look at the ensign. “The Borg? We don’t even know if there are any Borg left in the Alpha Quadrant. And just how could Seven be influencing the Captain?”

Harry ignored the snide tone of Tom’s voice as the turbolift came to a stop. “I have to go see if the Doctor can, uh, return me to normal. Can’t hurt to poke around and find out about the Captain’s deassimilation.”

“Oh, so that’s it . . . .” Tom eyed him speculatively. “That’s your theory? Seven is influencing or coercing or . . . whatever . . . the Captain on behalf of the Borg in order to get the neurolytic antigen. Harry, we don’t know that there is an antigen. And—and,” he added, “if there is, it exists 20 odd years in the future.”

Harry nodded thoughtfully, but was unconvinced. “So, you’ll talk to Tuvok.”

“What? No! He already thinks I’m illogical,” the lieutenant mimicked Voyager’s Chief of Security.

“Come on, Tom. I’ll talk to the Doc. You talk to Tuvok. And that way, when we find out my theory is wrong, you can really rub my face in it.”

“You are wrong. . . ,” he tossed back.

“But what if I’m not?” Harry defended.

“You’re being gullible.”

“But what if I’m not?” Harry repeated stubbornly.

“All right, all right, I’ll talk to Tuvok. But if he demotes me for this insanity, that snail juice will be the least of your problems.”

“Be subtle,” Harry encouraged.

Tom shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. “Sure, subtle.”

“We’ll meet in the mess hall at the end of the Alpha shift,” Harry tossed out as he exited the turbolift.

“All right, but I still think you’re being a sucker,” Tom commented under his breath.

ΩΩΩΩ

Spotting Harry sitting at a table with his dinner tray, Tom crossed the mess hall and sat beside him. “How’s dinner?”

Harry put down his fork. “Not bad, but sometimes I still miss Neelix’s Leola root stew.”

Tom chuckled and crossed his arms over his chest. “I wouldn’t admit that to too many people.”

The ensign grinned, and then glanced around suspiciously. “Okay, what happened? What did Tuvok say?”

Tom shrugged and shook his head. “Nothing really.”

“Nothing! You told him what we saw in the Flyer?”

“Keep your voice down,” Tom advised. “People are staring. . . . I didn’t tell him what we saw exactly. Only enough.”

“And?” Harry asked impatiently.

“And he said he was sure Seven of Nine had good reasons for making and deleting the transmissions. And he said we were misconstruing the data and that maybe we should harness our imaginations into less reckless endeavors.”

“And?”

Tom grinned. “I’m inclined to agree with him.”

Harry sat back, picked up his fork, and poked at his dinner. Abruptly, he leaned towards Tom and whispered, “He was assimilated.”

The lieutenant glanced around to see if anyone was listening. “What?”

“Tuvok was assimilated at the same time as the Captain. Maybe he’s being controlled, too.”

“Whoa! Harry, we haven’t established that anyone is being controlled.”

“Seven said she was influencing the Captain.”

“We don’t know what was said in those communications,” Tom corrected.

“Okay, but what about what the Doctor told me?”

Tom snorted. “All right, I’ll bite—what did the Doctor say?”

“Well, he said that all of the Captain’s Borg implants were removed.”

“Yeah? No kidding.”

Harry’s brow furrowed in concentration. He hadn’t learned anything particularly relevant during his visit to sick bay. But he was sure something questionable was going on. “All right, the Doctor wasn’t really forthcoming, but—”

“The Doc wasn’t forthcoming?” Tom scoffed.

“Would you let me finish?”

Tom chuckled.

“Maybe the Doctor knows something. He has ethical subroutines that can be altered, right?”

Tom shook his head dubiously as he got up. “Harry, you’re a good guy, but you’ve got terrible instincts for a Starfleet officer.”

Looking up, Harry whispered, “You know, B’Elanna was assimilated at the same time as Tuvok and the Captain.”

Tom smirked at his friend. “Good night, Harry.”

ΩΩΩΩ

“Tom did indeed report the deleted subspace transmissions, Captain. Beyond that, however, he did not provide much information,” Tuvok reported. “He was, as you would say, on guard.”

“Yeah, after I put Miral to bed, Tom did a little ranting about being setup. It was apparent that he and Harry found the transmissions we left behind,” B’Elanna added.

Janeway tilted her chin up. “What did you say to him?”

The dark-haired lieutenant crossed her arms over her chest. “I anticipated that he would be skeptical about the transmissions, so I left him a false trail. I played along; I acted as if the joke I had played on him was adjusting the computer displays . . . which he didn’t even notice.”

The Captain chuckled. “The old bait and switch. Good work, B’Elanna.”

The engineer, satisfied with her own cunning, grinned blithely. “After that, he didn’t say another word about the transmissions, Captain.”

The Doctor rubbed at the dimple in his chin. “I suppose you had something to do with Mr. Kim’s unusual appearance this morning, then?” he asked B’Elanna matter-of-factly.

B’Elanna snickered.

“He came into the medical bay just before the start of the Alpha shift. He was green,” the EMH emphasized. “It took me 20 minutes to remove the dye from the visible portions of his skin.”

“You mean he’s still green under his uniform?” B’Elanna chortled.

Janeway tossed a smile at B’Elanna and then one at Tuvok, who remained silent but his eyebrow was quirked up on his forehead.

The Doctor nodded. “I only had long enough to remove the color from exposed areas or he would have been late for his shift on the bridge.”

Janeway, seeking an explanation, shot B’Elanna a questioning look.

“I programmed his sonic shower to spray a mixture of uttaberry and snail juice,” she sputtered, trying to control her laughter.

The Captain laughed. “Uttaberry and snail juice?”

“Cold uttaberry and snail juice,” the Chief Engineer clarified.

The Doctor cleared his throat, attempting to draw Janeway’s attention again. “Well, all that aside, Ensign Kim was just full of the strangest questions. You know, he tried to be subtle, but I saw right through him—”

“Of course you did, Doctor. What precisely did he say?” the Captain inquired.

“Oh, he was a veritable Curious George. He asked about neurolytic pathogens and antigens. Borg assimilation techniques, deassimilation—in particular, your deassmilation, Captain—and . . . don’t ask me where he came up with this, but he wanted to know about mind control.”

Janeway grinned. “So, Harry has formulated an entire plot around the single clip of data we planted. I have to give him credit for imagination. His conspiracy theory is so much more imaginative than what we planned. . . . Now all we need to do is convince both of them that it’s real.”

B’Elanna shifted her shoulders. “You’re right, Captain. I think that’s the one big glitch. I don’t think Tom’s buying the Captain-Seven connection, so to speak. He probably just doesn’t see how that could occur, and I’d imagine he’s telling Harry not to believe it either.”

“This is consistent with what we know of Lieutenant Paris; he is skeptical by nature, and therefore, he is not a good pigeon,” Tuvok added.

The Captain pressed her lips together and nodded slowly. “Well, we will just have to do something about that,” she paused. “B’Elanna, Seven is working in Engineering, isn’t she?”

“Yes, as we speak. She is realigning the phase couplings,” the Chief Engineer replied.

“Speak with her about turning up the heat.” Janeway wrinkled her nose. “Maybe a little show of force or something of that nature to convince them that Seven has some sort of dominion over me.”

“She sure does,” B’Elanna, her eyes flashing playfully, thought. “Yes, Captain.”

And Sink Her

The chief engineer strolled into Engineering. B’Elanna couldn’t decide if she was being intentionally devilish or just being meddlesome, but the duplicity of her whole plan appealed to her. Getting revenge against Harry and Tom would be great, but even better would be bringing together the two most stubborn women she had ever had the privilege of knowing.

Climbing up the ladder to the second level of engineering, B’Elanna spotted Seven on the other side of the warp core. “Seven, there you are.”

“Lieutenant Torres . . . do you require assistance?” Seven asked without removing her eyes from her task.

“Nope, just looking to relay a message from the Captain,” B’Elanna replied casually, thinking that that would get the ex-Borg’s attention.

Seven put down the phase coil resonator and turned to regard B’Elanna. “Proceed.”

B’Elanna grinned knowingly. “The Captain wanted me to tell you that we will have to take Operation Hook, Line, and Sinker a little farther. Some of the participants are not yet convinced of its legitimacy,” she paused. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

B’Elanna nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “The Captain wants you to convince the participants that you can affect her. She wants you to turn up the heat.”

Seven’s ocular implant shot up on her forehead. “Clarify.”

“You know, the Captain wants you to make it hot, so that the participants will be convinced that you and she are in cahoots together.”

“Cahoots?” Seven questioned.

“Yes, in bed together,” B’Elanna said, priding herself on keeping a straight face.

The taller woman tilted her head. “I do not understand how this will assist the effectiveness of the persuasion.”

“Well, if you turn up the heat, the participants will believe that you are capable of coercing the Captain.”

“Oh.”

B’Elanna watched the confusion spread. “Got it?”

The blond woman stayed silent for a moment, and then confirmed, “I believe so.”

“Good,” B’Elanna said, an impish grin breaking out over her face as she turned away. “Oh, and Seven, don’t forget . . . make it believable . . . make it hot.”

ΩΩΩΩ

Squatting on the floor behind the second row of storage containers, B’Elanna half listened to the holographic doctor chatter excitedly. The two had positioned themselves in the cargo bay so they had a clear view of where she predicted Tom and Harry would conceal themselves behind the first row of storage containers. The hiding spot was perfect as it also gave a completely clear view to where the Captain and Seven would stage their little routine. Given her misleading instructions to Seven, B’Elanna couldn’t wait to see what would happen. The EMH stopped talking suddenly as Harry and a noticeably disgruntled-looking Tom entered the cargo bay.

The helmsman, thinking he could be doing anything else at that moment, sank down against a large storage container on the hard floor. “Now tell me why we’re here,” Tom requested.

Harry, kneeling next to him, peeked around the edge of another storage container. “I heard the Captain and Seven talking about meeting privately in the cargo bay.”

“Harry, this is rid—”

But his protest was cut off as the cargo bay doors opened. “Shh . . . they’re coming.”

The Captain walked up close to Seven as they entered the cargo bay. “Follow my lead,” Janeway whispered, and then she raised her voice, “We are to send a shuttle to deliver the neurolytic antigen just before we arrive at the outpost?”

Seven shifted and linked her hands behind her back. “Correct, Captain. There will be a distress call from the surface of the third planet in Sector 213. The atmosphere of that planet is not penetrable by a ship as large as Voyager. You will need to send a shuttle. You must forfeit the crewmembers flying the shuttle.”

“That line will have them squirming,” Janeway mused, and since her back was to Harry and Tom, she winked, showing her approval to Seven. “I’ll send Ensign Kim and Ensign Anderson—they will be the lowest ranking officers on the bridge.”

Seven nodded distractedly as she heard in her auditory apparatus the disembodied voice of the Doctor. “Tom is speaking about a setup. I don’t think they believe the performance.” Walking behind Janeway, she turned her back to the two huddled behind the cargo containers. “I don’t think they’re buying it,” she whispered.

The Captain’s only acknowledgement was to a slight nod. Seven realized that this was the point she was to establish her control over Janeway. But, truthfully, she wasn’t sure just what this should entail or why it would prove effective in this situation. However, Lieutenant Torres had told her to ‘turn up the heat’, and if that is what the Captain believed would be effective in this situation, she would not question the method. “We must seal this alliance, Captain,” Seven said, grabbing the diminutive woman and pulling her into her arms. “You must comply.” Then, as if in some ridiculous holoromance, Seven paused, looked deeply into Kathryn’s eyes, bent her backward, and then with a great display of passion, she kissed her with all the force and energy a single drone could muster.

Staring at the scene before him, the EMH braced himself against the storage containers. “I don’t remember discussing that,” he muttered lowly, outrage dripping off of every word.

B’Elanna smirked. “I think we have entered the Borg Improvisational Hour.”

The kiss went on for what seemed like an excruciatingly long time, and then Seven loosened her grip and moved away from the Captain. Feeling the cool air surround her body, it occurred to Janeway that it was a good thing Seven released her when she did or she might just have had to participate in the kiss as something other than a prop.

“We have a pact?” Seven said, her voice low and sensuous.

“Uh, yes, a pact,” Janeway replied dazedly as she smoothed her tunic back into place.

ΩΩΩΩ

Escaping the cargo bay, Harry and Tom walked along the corridor to the turbolift. Each was lost in thought as silence filled the air. Harry spoke up first. “Look, here’s what I’m thinking. . . . This is what makes sense. Seven is forcing . . . or coercing . . . ,” he searched for the right words to describe what he’d seen, “or urging the Captain to give the neurolytic antigen to the Borg.”

Tom scowled. “Harry, it doesn’t make any sense. We’re being setup . . . the Captain didn’t even call for the doors to the cargo bay to be sealed. Besides, why would Seven do this now? And why would the Captain? It’s ridiculous. They’re playing with us.”

Harry sighed and looked off down the corridor. “I don’t know. Seven is still part Borg. Don’t you remember when she stole a shuttle and went to that deserted planet. Why? Because of a Borg homing beacon. And remember when she downloaded too much data into her cortical node? She accused the Captain and the Commander of conspiracy, and then took another shuttle. And remember—“

“Okay! Enough, Harry. So, Seven behaves a little erratically sometimes. That still doesn’t explain how the Captain would be involved.”

Harry looked down at his shoes and then back up. “She’s being influenced. She was assimilated. Maybe somehow Seven is using that—“

“All the Captain’s implants were removed.”

“Okay, but how do you remove microscopic nanoprobes? They’re small; how do you know when you’ve removed all of them?” he speculated.

Tom shook his head and grinned.

“Okay, the Doctor would know. But . . . you saw it . . . what about that kiss?” Harry asked, playing his trump card.

That stopped Tom in his tracks. That was the one and only thing unsettling him. Everything else smacked of a classic setup—everything but that kiss.

ΩΩΩΩ

Harry watched uneasily as Seven strode onto the bridge and took her place at the stellar cartography console.

“All right, Mr. Kim and Ensign Anderson, take a shuttle to the surface and see if you can offer some assistance,” Janeway directed.

“This is it,” Harry thought. “The distress call. The order to the surface. I bet the antigen is somewhere in the shuttle.”

Ensign Anderson stood and walked to the turbolift. Noticing that the other junior officer had not followed, he turned around just as Harry exhaled and squared his shoulders. “I respectfully decline, Captain.”

Everyone’s attention was trained on him now. He flushed deeply, even his ears turned red. From the corner of his eye, he could see Tom shaking his head.

Janeway shot him a look. “Ensign, are you questioning my orders?”

“Yes, Captain, I am,” Harry resolved, despite the fact that Tom was now making choking gestures at him.

“On what basis?”

He balked. “You are not yourself.”

“Mr. Kim have you hit your head? Do you need to make a trip to sick bay?” she asked facetiously.

That was met with a round of half-stifled guffaws.

Harry glanced around, looking for an ally. “Tuvok, listen to me,” he said, the desperation growing noticeably in his voice. “The Captain is being coerced.”

Janeway did her best to look startled, and truthfully, she was a little taken aback as she didn’t foresee this turn in the plot; she certainly didn’t want Harry revealing everything that had happened in the cargo bay. She stood abruptly. “Mr. Tuvok, escort the Ensign off the bridge.”

The Security Chief moved from the tactical console. “Yes, Captain.”

And then she had a moment of inspiration. “Belay that. Seven, you handle this.”

“Yes, Captain,” Seven responded.

Harry watched Seven move towards him from her station behind the Captain’s chair. He spared a glance at the helmsman as he stepped out of the ops station. “Tom, tell him!”

The pilot, his eyes resting assuredly on each face, looked around the bridge. “I told you, Harry, you’re on your own here.”

The Ensign’s eyes became saucer-like as Seven approached him. He backed up, bumping against the side of the ops console. “But she is going to assimilate me!”

Unexpectedly, Seven stopped, straightened her shoulders, and assumed her normal position by locking her hands behind her back. “You flatter yourself, Ensign Kim.”

Janeway snorted and all the tension in the room seemed to fall away.

Suddenly, the pneumatic doors whooshed open and Chakotay entered the bridge.

“Commander!” Harry simpered.

Seeing how the Ensign was backed against the ops station, how everything else seemed to be at a standstill, and how everyone was staring expectantly at him, the Commander blurted, “What the hell is going on?”

Janeway glanced at her first officer, and then eyed Harry. “A little payback.”

ΩΩΩΩ

Curling up on the couch, the Captain tried to assume a casual position as she waited. But she was preoccupied, and admittedly, a bit nervous. She had asked Seven to meet her in her quarters at 2100. Janeway wanted, no needed to discuss why Seven had taken the action she did in the cargo bay. She had to confirm what her instincts had already told her was the truth—that the beautiful, young woman had romantic feelings for her.

It was true that Seven and the Commander had just ended their short-lived relationship, and although Janeway was not privy to the reason, she was thankful. After finding out the two were involved, she had grown jealous and come to regard Chakotay as an interloper of sorts. The end of that relationship had given Kathryn another opportunity and she had resolved she would not let it slip away.

But first, she had to know that Seven felt the same. After all, her senses having been quite clouded at the time, she could have easily misinterpreted the other woman’s intent. Even now, she felt inflamed just thinking about the feel of Seven’s soft, full mouth pressing against her own with such raw passion. If she had responded the way she wanted to, well, B’Elanna really would have had something to harass her about. And if she wasn’t wrong about what the other woman was feeling, the engineer may still have something to razz her about. “I can hope,” she thought.

Seven stalked into the captain’s quarters. Her eyes fell immediately on Janeway, who was sprawled on the sofa. Given the Captain’s casual appearance, the ex-drone sensed this was to be an informal conversation. “You wished to speak with me?”

Kathryn smiled warmly and Seven wondered at how her heart sped up and her breath became heavy in her chest at the sight. Seven swallowed hard.

“Seven, I’m glad you could come. . . . Please have a seat.” Seven moved to sit at the end of the couch opposite Janeway. “I wanted to talk about the little prank we pulled on Mr. Kim.”

“Did you not like the result?”

Kathryn chuckled. “It was effective. I would have preferred if Tom would’ve been convinced to participate, but Harry’s performance made up for that. But what I really wanted to discuss was why you . . . kissed me.”

Seven noted the increase in Janeway’s respiration and heart rate. She wondered at how the Captain’s own words seemed to act as impetus for the changes in her physical state. “I apologize, Captain. I did not mean to offend you,” Seven said softly.

“Seven, I don’t want an apology . . . and you didn’t offend me.” How could she ask this without sounding like she was fishing for a particular response? “I just wondered why you chose that . . . method.”

“I am not sure what you mean, Captain. I followed your instructions.”

“What?”

“Lieutenant Torres told me to turn up the heat.” Seeing the Captain’s quizzical look, the ex-drone elucidated, “I was unsure what that meant until B’Elanna clarified.”

Janeway was beginning to get a clearer picture of just what had gone on in the cargo bay. “Oh, she did, did she? What was her explanation?”

Seven shifted uncomfortably. “To make it hot.”

Janeway shifted on the couch. “Oh.”

“Was my action incorrect, Captain?”

“Well, the Lieutenant’s explanation was accurate yet misleading.”

Seven tilted her head. “Explain.”

Kathryn thought about it for a moment. “B’Elanna should have explained that the heat should have been turned up on Harry and Tom.”

Seven’s eyes grew large with disbelief. “You wished for me to—”

“No. No! Seven, that’s not what I mean.” Janeway scrambled for words. “You should have threatened me with force or assimilation or . . .” she let off, shaking her head as she watched the other woman’s eyes grow even larger. “Never mind, it’s not important now.”

Seven considered Janeway’s words. “It would not have worked. It was illogical. An individual such as yourself would not have betrayed your crew on the basis of any threat.”

Kathryn smiled at the vehemence Seven put into her statement. “Pulling off a prank like that one has less to do with logic and more to do with playing on your victim’s fears. So, although, nothing seemed to make sense to us, Harry’s fear made it make sense to him.”

“Ka-ta-pa,” Seven pronounced in perfect Vulcan dialect.

“The Inner Chorus—exactly,” Kathryn confirmed.

Seven appeared to consider this information for a moment, and then her posture sharpened. “Captain, I must apologize again.”

“Why, Seven?”

“I believe I was also listening to my Inner Chorus. I may have intentionally misinterpreted B’Elanna’s instructions.”

Kathryn leaned forward on the couch. The conversation was definitely taking an interesting turn. “How so?”

Seven took a steadying breath, trying to qualm the fluttering in her stomach. “I wished to, Kathryn.”

The Captain stopped breathing as surprise flooded over her at hearing her first name fall so exquisitely from the other woman’s lips. And for a few long moments, Kathryn seemed to consider Seven’s words. Perceptibly, Janeway breathed in again and she allowed her gaze to fall back on the other woman. “Wished to what, Seven? What are you saying?”

Seven swallowed hard, and then confessed, “I wished to kiss you.”

At a loss again, Kathryn swallowed nervously. When she managed to return Seven’s gaze, the younger woman saw how Janeway’s pupils had grown to engulf the blue-gray of her eyes. Her breathing and heart rate had increased acutely. Seven sensed all of these physical responses, and now she understood that it was not anxiety or impatience or annoyance that induced them, it was desire. “And I wish to do so again, Kathryn. . . .”

Janeway took a calming breath and found her voice. “Please do,” she rasped, reaching up to run her fingers along Seven’s jaw and around her neck.

The End

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