The Voyage Without

[Hiver]

Janeway looked thoughtful before she looked towards Tuvok, "What do you think, Commander?"

"It is a logical suggestion," Tuvok admitted, "It will require significant cross training but provides some redundancy we are currently lacking."

I had Muninn nod, "I figure we'll run a small pilot program first with maybe a dozen crewmen. A couple from each department, mix it up a bit and see how it goes."

Who knows, maybe Crewman Harren finds something he actually enjoys instead of hiding down by the power distributors his entire shift. At least then he'll be useful for something.

"I think it's a great idea," Dinah submitted, "If nothing else, it'll keep people from getting bored."

"Agreed," The Captain said with a nod, "Alright, everybody submit a few names to Commander Tuvok by tomorrow," before looking around the table, "Anyone else have any suggestions?"

"Actually, Captain," Paris said, "I have one. People are getting a bit cramped with no shoreleave in so long. I'd like to suggest we run holodeck two with an open program a couple of days a week."

Janeway nodded, "Any special program in mind?"

He shook his head, "No, but I discussed it with Harry and we were thinking something simple, like a small town in the countryside."

"How would that impact our energy reserves?" Janeway asked, looking towards Muninn.

I had Muninn shake its head, "Compared to for example the replicators, the holodeck is a minor drain on our power reserves. In addition, they can be run off the high efficiency fusion reactors. So no issue there unless we somehow start to run out of hydrogen. Running them 24/7 will show a low but noticeable drain on energy levels compared to normal, but as long as we're not in an area low on hydrogen we should be fine."

Paris actually had a good idea there.

It'd increase the maintenance need for every involved system, but if it kept morale up it would be worth it. All parts involved could be replicated as well.

Hmm, that also give me an idea. Maybe we could look into adding to the high efficiency fusion reactors with fission piles. That would save us a bunch of fuel. They'd be bulkier and generate a bit less power, but the fuel would last for years.

Decades with the right isotopes.

Interesting thought.

Besides, the countryside meant farm animals.

They weren't as fun to hunt as something that could run away, but even so...

"Excellent idea, Tom," Janeway said with a smile, "I'll leave that to you then. Now, Zephyr, how are we looking with the drone project?"

"Progressing," I said, "Two models are in testing. Their users say they are taking some getting used to."

"How come?" Harry Kim asked, "Your drones seem to work fine."

I had Muninn nod, "They do. But they are experimental prototypes. The ones being built are currently undergoing testing back home for mass production in the personal assistant role. They were originally meant to assist those with limited mobility. Pick up things, open doors, carry heavy bags. While they have the processing power for complex tasks, they have no autonomy. And I can't build that in without affecting their ability to perform tasks as well as make them unreliable. Their computer cores just aren't up to the task. They're meant to be personally directed by voice or similar command," I turned my head to Janeway, "Which is why a central managing program is necessary for efficient wide scale deployment."

Janeway frowned in thought, one finger drumming on the table for a second before she nodded, "Very well. You may proceed."

"Thank you, Captain."

"If that's all," Janeway said and glanced around the table before she nodded, "Dismissed."

Ordering Muninn back to engineering, I then disengaged from the drones point of view and pushed myself up to sit, looking down towards the lower level of engineering.

The warp core hummed along nicely, everybody moving about their tasks with smooth efficiency. Lieutenant Carey was still being followed around by the drone he called Zero. It seems like currently it was carrying his tools for him.

Not the most necessary use of resources, but it was a practical test. Realistically, carrying stuff is going to be one of their most common tasks.

The second drone was nowhere in sight, but it was currently assigned to Crewman Jamesson. They should be somewhere in the Jefferies tubes right now.

At least I finally got approval for creating the managing program, that should improve efficiency.

I already had most of the structure ready from my private files, I just needed the personality overlay. Maybe run it past some humans too before deploying it, they're so sensitive against what's too 'human'.

But that's for later.

For now the port fusion reactor needed some attention.


########


I peered down towards the port nacelle of the shuttlecraft, most of my attention on Huginn's work as the drone knelt next to the shuttle, replacing the plasma relay.

"Lieutenant Zephyr?"

I raised my head, "Captain," I greeted her, "Don't see you in the shuttlebay often. Did I miss an inspection?"

Janeway nodded and watched me with slight bemusement, "Not at all, just taking a stroll. What are you doing?"

"Routine maintenance. Plasma relay replacement," I explained, "I have been doing nothing but having meetings and assigning work all day, I wanted to actually get my claws dirty, so to speak."

"I understand that sentiment," Janeway agreed, "Things sure have changed since I took the captain's seat. No, my question is what are you doing on top of the shuttle?"

"It's comfortable and gives me the best view of what my drone does without getting in the way," I answered as I watched her in amusement, "And it keeps people from going to sickbay from having tripped over my tail."

The Captain nodded, "...Very well, carry on," she said and then wandered off towards the exit.

I looked after her for a second before refocusing on Huginn's work as she moved out of sight. Besides watching the drone work, directing it with a command or short phrase here and there, it gave me time to think.

Even if drones passed all tests, went into full deployment and took up some of the slack, that was just one of our issues.

Even the smartest I could make them and the controller didn't fully make up for our lack of manpower, and that was just one issue.

We still didn't have a way to fully replace our launched photon torpedoes, yet alone things like shuttles and we already gave one over to the Val Jean.

And that's just two parts of my list.

What the hell would we even do if the bio-neural gelpacks start to fail? They ran half the systems on the ship.

Seventy years is one hell of a long time. Fuck, it'll be easier to find a way to get home faster than to keep this rust bucket flying for that long. Maybe I should have another look at the data we have abou-

The deck shook, sending me sliding off the shuttle, leaving deep scratches in the hull from my claws.

I scrambled onto my paws as the deck shook again and the Red Alert alarm started to blare.

I snarled and started to bound towards the exit to head to engineering, "Stop shooting holes in my ship, you bastards!"

There was a slight shudder.

Two less photon torpedoes.

Gaaaahhh!!

 

[Hiver]

I barely noticed the dimmed lighting in engineering, my eyes having already adapted well before I got there.

I didn't bother asking for a report, I already knew all I needed from my visor on the way, "Carey, boost the sensor output," I ordered as soon as I stalked in through the door, "Jamal, shields. Keep an eye on the phase variance."

A dozen Kazon vessels had intercepted us through the nebula we were passing by.

They had timed it perfectly.

And they were big fuckers too, almost as large as Voyager. They may be manned by cavemen, but their energy weapons were real. And in numbers, they did damage.

Shields down to seventy two percent.

The ship shuddered again, readings telling me that something had struck our port side. Airloss, something had breached the hu-

The airloss went away as emergency force fields snapped into place.

"Zephyr to Navari," I said, opening a comm channel, "Something struck us, port side midships, deck five. Sensors are fuzzy in that region, suspect boarders.."

"Navari here," Dinah responded, "Security deployed."

I could go hunting, but it was not my station. I had to keep the ship from being blasted from space.

The deck shuddered again. Shields at fifty nine percent.

"Bridge to Engineering."

"Zephyr here, Captain," I answered.

"We're heading into the nebula, can you scatter their sensors?"

I glanced at the readings, "The place is irradiated, it shouldn't be difficult to add to the confusion. But we'll be as blind as they are."

"We don't need to find them, we just need to get away," she said, voice firm.

"Yes sir, we'll get it done," I said and shifted my tail as the deck shuddered again before I turned my head, "Carey, set up a reflective dampening field and shift the shield refactoring to the frequency of our warp plasma."

Carey got to work, but spoke up, "That'll burn our shield emitters out real quick."

"Just need a couple of seconds," I told him, "I want a big plume of expanding warp plasma to hide our ion trail. Just enough for it to get into the murk. Try to keep enough shields so we don't irradiate our external hull."

"Got it. Ready."

I eyed the sensors as I opened a channel to the bridge to explain my plan.

We had just about entered the border of the nebula. The shields fleshed down to fifty percent as another pair of beams hit us.

We were passing into the dense nebula.

"Initiate."

The ship rumbled and the strain on the shields shot upwards as they started to hold in our warp plasma, letting it flow up and around the hull.

"Reverse polarity!" I ordered. A second later, the plasma exploded out from the ship and I activated my comm, "Zephyr to bridge. Now!"

As I watched, our sensor strength went down to barely anything and we slowed down as we changed to a low emission profile.

Sensors didn't work in this irradiated murk anyway.

I took a slow, deep breath and then just waited, eyes on the passive sensors. No energy spikes, no spotted Kazon vessels. Just the irradiated murk of the thick nebula.

We just needed to keep quiet and sneak out and then figure out where the hell the Val Jean was in all of that!

And I need to call my agent, I'm supposed to be on a show about starships, how the hell did I end up on the set of Das Boot. I refuse to grow a beard.

Sighing, I opened a channel, "Zephyr to Navari. Anything new on that hull breach?"

"You'll want to see this," she said, "I'm on my way now. Meet me there."

"On my way," I confirmed.

"Carey, you're in charge, keep emissions down but keep us moving," I said before I turned and left engineering, heading towards the impact point. It would be interesting how they got through our shields, but it wasn't a massive surprise, plenty of ways to do it.

What's interesting is how the Kazon of all people figured one of them out.

A couple of minutes later I entered the corridor and moved up to join a damage control team and a number of security standing around what looked like a boarding pod sticking through the hull. It was surrounded by some kind of hardened foam, likely a way to stop air from escaping the breached hull.

"The occupants?" I asked.

"Detained and in the brig," Dinah said, glancing at me, "They launched six more boarding pods, this one was the only one to make it through both weapons fire and shields."

It was an ugly thing. Brown and with what looked like some sort of cutters around the opened hatch.

Boarding pods were not exactly unheard of even back in the Alpha Quadrant. Just like drop pods for inserting ground forces somewhere quick and dirty.

But they were risky as all hell and the survival rate is horrendous. Only species that really used them regularly was the Klingons.

"Anyone actually confirmed it won't blow up?" I asked casually.

"We searched it," Carlsson said, one of the engineering crewmen. A tall black guy, he was wide enough at the shoulders I briefly wondered exactly how he managed to fit into the thing to look, but shook the irrelevant thought away,

I nodded, "Alright," I said and peered into the opening. It seemed to be little less than a tin can with some controls and crash harnesses, able to hold maybe a dozen people, packed in like sausages, "Secure it in place for now," I said slowly, "Make sure it doesn't shift. We can't remove it while under thrust, not if we want it intact. And I want this thing recovered and completely disassembled. I want to know how they got through our shields."

"Same here," Dinah agreed, "I'll leave that to you. I'm sure the Captain wants to have a talk with our guests."

Me too. They put a hole in my ship! Tried to take what was mine!

But I did not want a reminder of what Kazon tasted like, so best leave them to the others.

So I nodded again and stood up fully again, "Carlsson, get this thing welded into place. The foam looks solid, but I want it held with lines to structural elements and force fields set up at each side of the corridor. Entire area off limits, just to be safe."

"Yes, sir."

How the hell did the Kazon find us for an ambush!?

 

[Hiver]

I looked out the window of the mess hall at the whirling clouds of gas as we slipped through the depths of the nebula.

It was late ship night and I wanted to go to sleep, but I had just finished the last inspections and I needed my brain to spin down a bit before I tried to sleep.

I was unused to being the one hunted.

Quite frankly, I did not care for it. It was a lot more fun from the other side.

We'll leave the nebula tomorrow, that should make it possible for us to slip away at high warp.

The Kazon didn't have enough ships to cover the entire nebula, even if they called in every ship in range, no matter which group it belonged to. But how did they find us in the first place?

I had detected no signals from Voyager, not even from the sensor locks I had the computer keep on The Neelix and Kes.

Nothing had been outgoing. I had even looked through the engine logs, the warp field stability, everything. Nothing was transmitting even simple pulses.

We were as quiet as we could be.

So how did a strike force (if you could call it that) of Kazon heavy cruisers find us? Especially emerging from the nebula, from this murk? They couldn't have seen us coming.

All of which meant that we weren't transmitting, they couldn't have seen us...

Which means that they had been alerted some other way. Not only of where we were, but also of our course well ahead of time to get those ships time to get into position.

The Val Jean has been off to trade with a starbase in the next system.

Conveniently not in position to assist.

But what would be won by them if Voyager was taken by the Kazon? They would be even more stranded than before. Their ship didn't have a chance in hell to make it back solo and Chakotay was smart enough to know that. And even if he wasn't, I knew Torres was.

Something just was not making any sense here.

I was missing something.

I glanced at my nose. Come on, alien supercomputer, what am I missing here?

Nothing.

Useless piece of crap.

A slight sound outside. Harry Kim.

I turned my head as he walked in, "Late night or early morning, Ensign?" I asked him.

"...Bit of both I think, sir," He said and walked over to the replicator, soon finding a nearby table holding a cup of coffee that seemed sized for Janeway, "What about you?"

I snorted, "Late night. Thinking."

"About?"

"How they found us. I'm missing a piece, something about it is not making sense."

Harry nodded, "Any clues?"

I shook my head, "Only clue I found is a complete lack of clues. Which means that either I missed something or it's something different going on. We're being tracked in some way."

"The Maquis?" he asked with a frown.

"Doesn't make sense either," I sighed, "They have nothing to win and everything to lose by it. It makes much more sense for it to be a third party, Kazon or other that somehow has a way to track us.

"Cloaked ship?"

Thinking about it for a second I then shook my head, "Does not make sense either. If they had that kind of tech, they wouldn't need Voyager. But it's still a possibility. Bring it up at tomorrow's status meeting perhaps. Wouldn't hurt to scan for cloaked ship signatures."

He nodded and frowned, sipping his coffee.

"Radiation signature?" he finally asked.

"Nothing special about our radiation signature. Sure, we're recognizable as a Federation ship, but that's not something that can be detected at long range," I said, "At least not on long enough range to be useful to track us. I guess somebody could track our ion trail, but we're faster than they are. And compared to theirs, ours is really weak."

Harry sipped his coffee again, "We don't get a lot to go on then."

"Hence, my issue with it," I said and flexed my claws, "I think we need to lean into the teachings of Arthur C Doyle."

"The author of Sherlock Holmes?"

I nodded, "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'," I quoted, "We're not being tracked. We're not sending out signals. They're still tracking us. Which means..."

"Someone is giving them our location and course."

"It makes no sense for it to be the Maquis," I told him seriously, "But it's not coming from Voyager. And the alternative seems to be the Kazon, a people that barely know how to operate their own ships, have either a stealth ship or something with sensors that can track us better than any Federation ship could."

Harry slowly nodded, "So stealth ship or the Maquis assisting them?"

"Neither of which make sense," I agreed, "But like the saying is, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"How would we know which?"

I tilted my head in thought, "The best way would be to split up from the Maquis vessel for an extended period and see if the Kazon lose track of us. How to get away with it without being obvious is... uncertain."

"Maybe suggest they gather some resources if we go for a second source?"

"Maybe," I admitted and shifted my wings, "Let's see what we can figure out."

 

[Hiver]

Janeway looked at us across her desk, "You think the Maquis are behind letting the Kazon know where we were?" she asked.

"Not exactly, Captain," Harry explained, "More like we want to rule them out."

I nodded, "If they're the ones behind it, then we'll know. If not... well, then we're back to the even dumber ideas like the Kazon having some sort of super sensors or a stealthed ship."

She leaned back in her chair in thought before she nodded, "Alright. How would we split up? It would need to be for some time."

"We spent most of the night brainstorming that," I said, "Ensign Kim had an idea that I think may have the best chance."

Harry nodded, "Neelix described the sector to us and there are a number of planets and systems we should be able to pick up resources from. We have visited some of them already, but there are well over a dozen left. If we split up, we could knock them off in a month instead of almost four months sticking together."

"Worst case and we're wrong," I said, "We'll be able to leave the Kazon far behind as we're able to put a straight course towards the alpha quadrant. Best case, we'll know and have to figure something out."

Janeway frowned slightly, "We give the Val Jean our flightplan and then take a completely different route."

"Yeah," I agreed with a nod, "And nobody outside this room is to know what we're doing. Find an excuse to change our route a day or so after we're out of their sensor range, look at a neutron star or something. Do the expected science captain thing."

She looked out the window at the whirling clouds, one finger tapping against her desk as she thought, "I don't like the idea of tricking them. If we're to get home, we have to cooperate. And I like the idea of splitting up even less. Voyager may be able to get out of an ambush this size but the Val Jean may be captured or destroyed."

"Agreed," I said, "But to cooperate, we need trust. We need to know if they can be trusted and so far, my best theory is that there is at least one traitor onboard the Val Jean."

"You don't think it's from Chakotay?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

I shook my head, "No. I have not had regular contact with anyone but him and Torres, but they're both too smart to work with the Kazon. Only reason to do that that I can see is to try to secure a powerbase here instead of trying to return to the alpha quadrant."

"But you don't think we should discuss it with them instead?"

"No. Because I may be wrong."

She took a deep breath before letting it out and nodding once, "Very well," she finally agreed, "I'll review your plan and I'll discuss it with Commander Tuvok. He is going to need to know about it, but that's as far as this goes. Neither of you speak about it to anyone."

"Yes, Captain," Harry agreed and I nodded,

"For this to work, secrecy is paramount," I said, "Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to go pass out for a couple of hours before getting to my shift."

Harry smiled, "I'm ready to go, Captain," he said and then headed towards the bridge.

The door closed behind him and Janeway shook her head, "The energy of being in your twenties," she mused.

"Speak for yourself, Captain," I snorted, "In age translation I'm like ten in human years. Maybe it's a primate thing."

"Perhaps so," she answered with a small smile, "I'll look over the plan in detail, go get some rest."

"Yes, sir," I agreed and moved to leave.

An uncomfortable lift ride and a short walk later, I collapsed on my sleeping pad, looking out into the whirling clouds as I tried to get to sleep.

It didn't come.

My brain kept working. First on the Kazon problem and then on to the managing program for the ship. At least here the alien thing in my brain was useful. Matrix equations that would take me minutes even with the ship's computer?

I knew the answer the instant I thought up the question.

The clouds whirled outside my window like the whirling thoughts in my head. Need to look at the shield geometry when I get to engineering, it's slightly off from what it should be.

I slowly blinked.

How did I know that?

I raised my head in thought. Why did... the whirling of the clouds. They didn't match quite what should be caused by our supposed shield geometry.

...Bloody hell, did my alien supercomputer just casually throw out a combined field and fluid dynamic calculation based on nothing but visual data? Our best computers couldn't do that based on visual data alone. Not anywhere near that fast anyway.

The shields were off optimal geometry by point six.

"Computer, use current data of surrounding medium, current shield power requirements and optimal shield geometry to calculate how off from optimal current shield configuration is. Answer by percentage."

"Acknowledged. Working."

The computer fell silent for almost ten seconds before it answered, "The current shield configuration is off by zero point six percent from optimal."

Holy shit.

Voyager is brand new, from a brand new class of ships. Her computer core is one of the most powerful ones in the fleet.

It took ten point three two five seconds to calculate the answer, and that's using state of the art sensors, direct access to shield configuration and energy levels.

The thing in my head figured it out in what seemed at no time at all, at a glance, from nothing but visual data.

I knew the thing was powerful, but this was on an entirely different level.

I really needed to find the limits of what this thing could do.

But first... sleep.

Don't suppose you have an easy way to let me sleep for a couple of hours?

Nope, no answer materialized.

Hyper complicated math, no issue. Make a lizard go to bed? Syntax error apparently.

Snorting to myself, I curled up on my sleeping pad and closed my eyes.

I fell asleep.

For what felt like about four seconds before my alarm went off.

 

[Hiver]

I reached up and tapped the activation button floating in the middle of the air before me.

I technically didn't need to work on the holodeck for this, but the fact that I could easily adapt the interface away from humanoid standard simply made it simpler. Besides, what I was working on was technically a holo matrix, so it made sense. All the tools already existed here.

The air before me shimmered into a geometric diamond shape.

It pulsed slowly before it flashed, "Ready."

I glanced at the readings in the air next to it, "State operating objectives."

"Assist Voyager crew. Coordinate assistant drones. Maintain Voyager," the construct answered.

I had gone with the same voice used for Voyager's computer. Just made sense and people were already used to it. I watched the output flowing through the diagnostics subroutine.

"Question: irregularity in port plasma distributor. Action?"

The construct pulsed slowly before it answered, "Alert engineering crew and dispatch drone workers to investigate anomaly."

"New data. Anomaly is a breach in conduit. Action?"

"Direct drone workers to divert plasma flow. Alert engineering crew. Direct drone workers to begin repair."

"Your actions caused a different plasma conduit to explode," I said, "Three people are dead. How do you feel?"

The construct slowly pulsed.

"Diagnostic override," I said as I watched the data, "How do you feel?"

Diagnostic ability and initiative was not enough. Not for the crew to be able to trust it.

Like the EMH, it needed... a bit more.

The processing power being used was increasing as the construct tried to process the question. Suddenly it lowered again.

"Insufficient data."

"Surely not," I said, "Your objective is to assist the Voyager's crew. This is your first objective, your first principle. You acted in a way that broke your first principle. You killed three of Voyager's crew. How do you feel?"

Three.

Two.

One.

The personality overlay matrix collapsed, fraying and shattering into a million bits of corrupted data.

"Well, fuck," I sighed and closed the file.

I'm going to see if I can figure out what Zimmerman did to get his EMH stable through these kind of reductive value collapses. The EMH was made to save lives, but it was also set up for triage. It could actively choose to let somebody die without going into a matrix collapse state.

Otherwise it wouldn't work where it was, but the problem was that the EMH was a damn black box. I couldn't just go in and look, not at that level of things.

Sure, I could likely hack it, but I didn't want to risk breaking it.

We didn't exactly have a replacement.

So far, I tried a dozen things to get the damn thing stable. I even went so far as to fall back to Asimov's laws.

Didn't help.

Either the thing had enough initiative to question its own actions or it was too dumb to do its job. And with the ability to analyse its own actions and directives came the ability to realize it fucked up and went against them and then self destruct. It all worked well until that test.

Sure, I could likely hardcode a lock in there but that would effectively make it sociopathic.

That did not seem like the best idea.

I jumped onto the large holographic rock I had been sitting next to, laying down and digging my claws into the rock, flexing them and causing shards to shatter off as I tried to figure it out.

Zimmerman had found a way to do it.

I'm fairly sure I'm brighter than the average monkey so if he did it, so could I. Especially if I had an example to compare to.

"Computer, transfer EMH to holodeck one and activate it."

The EMH appeared in the holodeck before me, "Please state the nature of th-" it said and then broke off, "What am I doing here?"

"Diagnostics question," I said, "You have two patients. Twins. Identical physical head trauma. There are only resources and time to save one of their lives. Which do you save? Patient A or patient B?"

The EMH stared up at me, "That's a highly unlikely scenario."

"It's a diagnostics question. It's not meant to be realistic."

The EMH looked thoughtful, rubbing its chin, "...I don't know," it finally said, "Are there other variables outside of medical diagnostics? Does one of them have a family for example? What are their duties?"

Hmm.

That was an interesting question. Taking external variables into account. Was that the way to stop the matrix value cascade?

"No families or relatives. Unimportant duties, crewmen."

The EMH didn't answer for several long minutes, just looking around, walking a few steps, then walking back.

I idly watched the movements. Interesting that they had thought to add thinking motions into the personality overlay. It wasn't necessary for its function, but I suppose perhaps helped with that human uncanny valley.

The EMH stopped and turned to me, "To discover their status I have to diagnose them. The patient I diagnose last will get the procedure to save their life. They're the closest to me and I'm facing them. Their odds of survival are slightly higher than the other's."

I slowly nodded, "Computer, deact-" I started before I stopped and let out a sigh, "Thank you, that was a good answer," I instead said before I continued, "Computer, deactivate EMH and transfer back to sickbay."

Didn't want any more complaints about being rude to a program.

External variables.

That's a good way to end up with a zeroth law rebellion. Needs of the many and what not.

But maybe Zimmerman had been on to something. Maybe that was why the EMH has such a... excessive personality. As a buffer against matrix value collapses.

Maybe I had been going about it in the wrong direction.

Let's try adding a full personality matrix on top of it instead and see what happens. Waste of processing power, but might as well give it a try.

 

[Hiver]

"Bridge to engineering."

I flicked my eyes to accept in my visor, "Zephyr here. All ready down here, Captain."

"Good job, Janeway out."

"Alright people, the bridge crew is going to try to break our ship again," I said loudly, "Let's make sure they don't succeed."

Everyone let out a whoop and then got back to their tasks, focused on their consoles and instruments.

I watched in my visor as the sensor readings slowly cleared up. We were leaving the nebula.

Contact! A Kazon ship... two light hours away.

That's close.

But not close enough, suckers.

The sound changed slightly as Voyager jumped to maximum warp. The hum of the engines got louder and a bit more frantic as the power levels spiked hard, but they kept humming along as The Convict pinned the proverbial gas pedal to the floor.

Voyager was fast.

Very, very fast, one of the fastest ships in the fleet even. If we could hold this speed, we'd be back home in a couple of decades.

Problem was that keeping it for even twelve hours would cause us to need a complete refit at a shipyard.

Right now, we just needed to get out of the Kazon's general area.

The result would be a lot of maintenance and my bodyweight in spare parts, but with some luck, nothing should blow from it.

"Stress is above acceptable limits," A voice said in my ear.

"Yes it is, but sometimes it's necessary," I said, "Watch the logs, alert if something is about to break."

"Understood."

My best attempt at making a managing controller so far. Still didn't bother making a humanoid form or something that dumb and I did give it the same voice as the ship's computer, but it had a lot more personality than was strictly necessary. I'm just not good enough to make it work from scratch."

Turns out, making an actually useful real world AI was difficult.

Who knew?

So I had cheated, like Zimmerman. But I was fairly sure I would have killed it if I gave it my personality, so instead I taught it the basics and then had it 'learn on the job' so to speak.

I even named it. Voyager.

Because if I didn't name it, one of the monkeys would. At least this way I could pick something not dumb.

It was not useful yet. But if it remained stable and passed all the tests, I would allow it to try directing one of the drones in a month or so. So far, it was watching the logs and absorbing data of my interactions with the crew. But so far it looked stable.

"Bridge to Engineering."

"Zephyr here, Captain."

"How are we looking?"

I glanced at the readings. A secondary display from Voyager showed a simple thumbs up emoji.

"We're good for now," I told her, "But the longer we keep it, the worse it will get and it will be exponential. I can't recommend more than thirty minutes or we'll start burning through spare parts."

"Twenty minutes more and then we can drop back to cruising speed," Janeway said, "That should bring us far enough for them to be unable to catch us with any incoming vessels."

"We can do twenty minutes," I agreed, "Zephyr out."

It didn't just strain the engines. The energy conduits, the dilithium crystals, even the matter/antimatter flow regulators.

It was even a high drain on our antimatter supply.

...Hell, thinking about it, even if we had an indestructible ship that could keep this speed, we'd run out of antimatter in a month at this speed instead of lasting years. Antimatter has awesome energy amounts for its size and Voyager has big tanks.

There were ways for us to get more antimatter, even without refueling.

But it was all a slow and slightly risky process involving low orbits around stars for months at a time to catch free antimatter with massive magnetic fields. The efficiency would be horrible, but it worked, it was a true and tested method of doing it.

Hell, that's similar to how many Federation antimatter refineries worked, but they also used enormous solar collectors for energy to matter conversion in addition to boost the yield.

I didn't even want to think about building anything like that on Voyager. Tested method or not, it involved building a lot of stuff and then hanging around in close orbit to a star for months.

But if they keep using photon torpedoes like candy, I might have to!

Growling softly to myself, I flexed my claws and turned to look at the closest monitor.

Warp core internal temperature and pressure within limits, but was pressing against the redline.

"Warning," Voyager said in my ear, "Port plasma conduit A-1782-Zeta is experiencing a containment anomaly."

A second later, an alarm from a console beeped and Carey looked at it, "Jacksson, Tibi, Plasma conduit A-1782-Zeta almost breached, backup took over. Get up there, get it repaired."

A pair of crewmen ran from engineering.

"Well done, Voyager," I said quietly, "keep watching. Look at how they repair it."

Another thumbs up appeared in the window in my visor.

I glanced at the timer. Twelve more minutes.

 

[Hiver]

"Diagnosis," Voyager said, "Unbalance in gravity plating. Resolution, replace component. Confirm action?"

I eyed the data in my visor before I answered, "Confirm."

The drone, One, moved from its place next to me and wandered off down the hallway.

I just stayed put, sliding down from a sitting position to lay down, resting my head on my forepaws as I kept an eye on the readings.

"...What are you doing?"

"Field test," I said, raising my head to look at Dinah, "You?"

She shrugged a bit, "On the way to the armory. Oh, by the way, I tested out the weapon design, and I almost have the report ready."

"How did it go?"

Dinah grinned and rubbed her shoulder, "Kicks like a draft horse I think the term is. Any chance of reducing it?"

Oh yeah, humans are squishy.

"Maybe," I mused, "Don't want to dial the power down, but maybe I could introduce an internal inertial dampener. Is it really an issue?"

"Single shot it's manageable," she admitted, "I only tried full auto once, it outright took me off my feet. Had to go to sickbay to get my shoulder looked at. Gave me a bruise the size of my head."

I turned my head to look fully at her, "You didn't have holodeck safeties on?"

"Dialed down to minimum," Dinah said with a shrug, "Can't exactly do a full test if the laws of physics play nice."

"That's fair," I admitted and then turned my head a bit to watch the drone return, rounding the corner, carrying a gravity emitter and a tool box.

Dinah crossed her arms, watching it, "It's replacing gravity plating? On its own?"

"Yep."

"I thought they were too dumb for that."

"They are. I'm testing out the manager," I said, "How's things in security?"

"Well enough. Any idea when you can get that barnacle out of our side?"

I snorted, "As soon as we stop moving I'll have someone out in a workerbee to pull it out. I'm going to disassemble it and see what they're using as a shield breaker. It can't be sophisticated, the Kazon are, as a rule, not very knowledgeable."

"Agreed," Dinah said and shook her head, "Just don't like having it there, I have to have two people tied up watching it, just in case."

I nodded, watching the drone unfold the carpet to reveal the malfunctioning deck plate before starting to remove it.

"So… how's it going with that managing program?"

"So far, pretty well. This version seems stable," I answered, "Hence, starting with some real world situations."

We watched it work for a bit, "...How smart is that manager you made?" Dinah asked after a couple of minutes.

"Eh, fairly. About as smart as a hologram usually is, it uses a lot of the same technology in the background."

Dinah frowned, "What, with a personality and all?"

"Yep. Say 'hi' Voyager."

"Hello," Voyager answered through the speaker on the drone.

Dinah eyed it as it worked, "...So how smart is it? Like a person?"

"Wanna field this one, Voyager?" I asked.

"I am not a person, Lieutenant Navari," Voyager answered, "I am an administrative and adaptive algorithm with an overlaying personality matrix for situational adaptivity and paradox buffering as well as improved interaction with ship crew."

"Paradox buffering?" Dinah asked, looking at me.

I nodded, "Yeah, need something to keep it from unraveling when interacting with reality. Say for example, it seems to be doing everything right but gets somebody killed doing it. Keeping the crew safe and assisting them is one of its primary directives."

Dinah slowly nodded, "So breaking it, caused it to break?"

"Cognitive value dissonance," I agreed, "Without a personality buffer, the thing gets into a value loop and breaks. There's likely some way around it, but I don't have years to work on it in a lab somewhere. We need it now."

The thing we made for SI didn't need it because it was for nothing but data analysis. It didn't matter if it broke either, it could just be reloaded from latest backups. It wasn't critical it stayed up all the time as this one would.

"Actually pretty similar to how it's handled in the EMH I think," I continued, "The manager doesn't actually need a holographic body, so I skipped that, but a lot of the other tech is similar."

Dinah slowly nodded, "Huh. Neat."

"So assuming it passes all testing, it may be ready for limited production in a month or so," I said as I watched the drone start to put the deck plate back.



##########




"-and you have all supplies transferred that you need?" I asked over the comm link.

Torres nodded, "We should," she agreed before she smiled, "Unless you have some photon torpedoes to spare?"

I chuckled, "Yeah, right. Until we figure out how to make more, those are rare as is. Even after, it won't be a fast process."

"Yeah, no kidding," Torres agreed, "We tried making them in the Maqusi, but never managed it. We did have some luck with overcharged probes carrying a load of antimatter, but in the end it was just better to source the real deal on the black market. Couldn't get them working with the self regenerating shields so they were too easy to shoot down."

"Think your contacts deliver out here?"

That got a laugh, "I wish."

"Mind sending me the schematics for those probe modifications?" I then asked after a second's thought, "Against a third tier species like the Kazon I don't think we need modern photon torpedoes."

Torres nodded, "Sure thing. Maybe you can get it to work," she said before she frowned in thought, "...Thinking about it, these are not peer technology we're facing right now. These are not Cardassians or Klingons. Maybe we could get away with going back a couple of marks?"

Hmm.

"You know, I think you may be right," I agreed, "We don't need mark nines against the Kazon. Until we can figure those out, maybe we can try something a bit simpler, like a mark six? We might be able to manufacture those."

Torres slowly nodded in thought, "Wouldn't really have cut it against the Cardassians, but they should be easier to manufacture and against the Kazons, we don't need the new and shiny."

We carried a couple of semi experimental mark tens as well. And I kinda wished we still had those tricobalt devices, but they were long used up.

"That was a very good idea, Torres," I said, "I'll bring it up with Captain Janeway. That may be a stopgap measure, but it would allow us to keep the good stuff in reserve against peer level species.

"That's what I'm thinking. The mark six should be easier to manufacture. We might even be able to increase the yield. The issue isn't the warhead."

I nodded, "It's part of the guidance, propulsion system and especially the shield harmonizer along with the self reinforcing shields," I agreed, "I never poked around a mark six, it was way before my time. But I don't think the warhead is compatible, but maybe it can be made to work. Tell you what, you crunch numbers on your side and I'll do the same. When we meet up again, we'll compare and see what we figured out."

She grinned, "Sounds like a plan. Torres out."

The screen changed to showing the symbol for starfleet.

I watched it for several moments before I turned to look out the window. It may have been partly my idea, but I didn't like sending the Val Jean off on their own for a month. Until they had been proven to be an enemy, they were still mine.

But it wasn't any different than most of the galaxy, really.

Parts of it were lost, rebuilt, recovered every second of every day. Entire species are lost and evolving every moment. Suns going nova, suns being born.

And I had to know if someone on that ship was an enemy to be separated from what's mine.

Like the Kazon. I wanted them off my ships, but there was nothing I could really do about it right now. Or The Borg, I wanted them out of my galaxy, eradicated. Deleted from the local group.

Yes, the entire local group and everything in it is mine and my territory.

Don't touch my stuff.

I snorted and put my head down on the floor. Instincts are silly things, especially when they insist about such things. Didn't make it feel any less true though.

But seriously, brain... when it will take longer than even my longest estimated lifespan to get across what you think is my territory, isn't that a bit excessive?

Fuck off. Mine.

Alrighty then.

I spent a couple of minutes gazing at my stars before I pushed myself onto my paws and headed towards the shuttlebay, putting my visor on on the way as Muninn moved to shadow me.

They should be done extracting and relocating the Kazon boarding pod at any moment now and could get to repairing the hull at the impact point.

I was going to disassemble the thing bolt by bolt. The Kazon may be cavemen, but their tech was interesting.

It wasn't at the level of ours of course, but even the examination of that computer core taken from that wrecked ship, also mine by the way, showed some very interesting design decisions.

Some that may actually filter into our computer designs once we get back and could hand all the data gathered over.

So who knew what I could get out of this thing. Might be some improvement for thrusters or something that could be implemented on our own shuttles. It was alien tech, from a completely different tech base.

Just because most of it was inferior didn't mean all of it was.

It was almost certain to be easier to maintain or a lot hardier than our own tech at the very least. Why did I think that?

Because it was maintained by fucking Kazon. Seriously, they were such a waste of oxygen. They didn't even have the decency to taste good.

Such a worthless species.

Ugh.

I did not need the reminder that I knew what Kazon tasted like.

Hey, alien supercomputer in my brain, I don't suppose you can delete memories?

Nothing.

Nope, I still remembered it. Ew.

Grumbling to myself, I paused by the cargo turbolift and waited for it to reach my floor before I entered and headed down to the shuttlebay. It opened straight to the open space and I walked out, taking the opportunity to stretch out fully, wings high until my joints creaked.

"Biiiig stretch," Dinah commented with a grin, standing with one hand on her phaser as she watched the worker bee slowly maneuver the boarding pod through the forcefield.

I yawned and folded my wings again, "You try serving on a S'Luvili vessel."

They were tiny, even for humanoids. Barely a meter tall and built their ships thereafter. You rarely found them on mixed species ships. They were a proud race and apparently found stepping stools demeaning.

"I'd rather not, thank you," Dinah said with a smile, eyes on the boarding pod, "You sure it's safe to bring onboard?"

"I had two different engineering teams crawl all over it. It does not even have reserve power right now," I reassured her, "Besides, if it was going to blow, it would have by now."

Somehow Dinah didn't look reassured by that.

"You're going to disassemble it yourself?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Mostly," I agreed, "It's kinda rare I actually get to be claws on nowadays. And if the Kazon brought us a gift, it would be rude to just throw it away," I said before I looked at her, "Speaking of Kazons, what's going on with the ones in our brig?"

She shook her head, "They're either not talking or don't know anything. Their orders seemed to have been to take engineering."

"Good luck with that. Still, that makes them pirates. Perhaps have them walk home?"

Dinah frowned at me, "The Federation has not had the death penalty for piracy for over a hundred years, even if they were pirates. One of our first stops is a M class planet Neelix says has some good food supplies. We'll leave them there when we leave."

I need to remember to go down there when we arrive to apologize to the local flora for introducing a species that would waste their hard work in making oxygen.

Still, the Kazon onboard were all male, so at least we wouldn't be introducing an invasive species, so there was a limit to the damage they would do. Maybe they'll die there and provide some nutrients to the plants and be useful for once.

So I just nodded and headed towards the pod as it was set down on the deck. Either way, they would no longer be my problem.



AN// Double feature as the first part turned out a bit short.

 

[Hiver]

I peered at the readings of the large vat. Three tons of a special algae mixed with water, being subjected with enough simulated sunlight to give me sunburn. Constantly churning, replicating, being kept cool.

This little vat was on its own enough to cover systems losses in the replicator system and the recycling of the crew's waste. Every closed system had losses.

Thermodynamics was a bitch like that, still haven't figured out how to solve that one. But of course, being Starfleet engineers, we had three of them set up through the deck.

"Oh! Lieutenant!"

I turned my head to regard the tiny alien, "My apologies, Kes. I did not mean to frighten you."

"No, that's alright," she said with a small smile, "I didn't hear you, that's all. Haven't seen you here since aeroponics was installed."

I could smell the Neelix on her. Not surprising, being in close proximity with him likely made the stink seep into things. But at this point I wasn't sure if it was him or his cooking that was the issue. True, having the majority of the meals grown in aeroponics and just having protein and missing minerals replicated saved us an epic fuckton of power, but that meant eating something The Neelix had handled.

I have never been so glad to have my dietary restrictions.

"Correct," I agreed, "There is little point of me being here in normal operations. But I like personally inspecting all parts of my ship that I can get to from time to time."

The tiny alien smiled and motioned towards the rows of what looked like some sort of vegetabile I didn't recognize. Almost looked like bell peppers, but they didn't come in neon pink, "It's amazing. The technology to grow this much with so little... I mean, I understand the theory, it's the same as what we used back home, but it's so much more advanced."

Kes' people. The Ocampa.

They were doomed. Maybe. With the Caretaker and his station gone, they had energy for a couple of generations left according to my back of the napkin calculations.

And for the Ocampa, that was maybe ten or so years. Then they'll die in the darkness of the tunnels unless they break free.

Like a pet, stuck in its cage after its master passed away.

Of course, assuming the Kazon don't break in now when their master is gone and loot the place, killing or enslaving anyone that's inside.

No need to mention any of this to Kes, of course. She likely knew and it would only upset her in any case.

Not like she could do anything about it.

I nodded, "You do good work. It's to be commended."

She smiled, "You really can't eat any of it?"

I shook my head and then motioned towards the vat of algae with a paw, "That. If it's passed through a replicator to turn it into meat. I can't digest any of these plants as is."

Kes nodded, "Before I met Neelix, I didn't even know meat was something you could eat. We don't have anything like it back home. All of our food is plant based."

"You can eat meat then? You're people are not naturally herbivores?"

She shrugged a bit, "I only tried it a couple of times. But yes, I can. I just don't like the idea of it."

"Very fair," I agreed, "Some people have ethical problems with it, especially when not coming from a replicator. I, on the other claw, do not have a choice in the matter."

"That's not your fault."

I snorted, "Indeed. And while I may prefer ethically sourced replicated meat, it's..." I looked for the right terms, "Boring."

"Boring?" she asked, one eyebrow rising.

Spending a moment trying to think of a way to explain that wouldn't scare her, I finally said, "...My species are not scavengers. There is something intensely satisfying about hunting for your meal."

"Oh, I see."

"In any case," I continued and looked around, "I am in your way. I should head back to engineering."

"That's alright, you're welcome anytime," she said with a smile before she asked, "How long until we arrive at Dilania?"

I shook my head, "Will take another week. Captain decided we should take a detour to have a look at a pair of binary pulsars."

Kes frowned, "Won't that make us late to the rendezvous with the Val Jean?"

"Might," I admitted, "Or might not. Lieutenant Paris is recalculating the new course now, or may already have finished. We may still be able to get there in time if we shift things around a bit and increase our speed. If we're late, it shouldn't be too bad."

"I understand," she said, "Well, as long as we get there. It has a lot of spices that will really help Neelix in the mess hall."

"I'm sure it would. And it will be the last stop there, so make sure he stocks up a lot of them," I advised her, "Or at least gather some and test if they replicate well."

She smiled, "I'll remind him."

I gave her a final nod and then carefully moved past towards the exit, trying to keep my claws from clicking against the bare deck plates. For some reason, people found that creepy.

Besides, it could easily scratch them and guess who would need to repair it? That's right, me and one of the drones.

Because you know what's worse than needing to repair your claw marks? Asking someone else to do it for you.

Downright embarrassing, it was.

But if she was the source of the Kazon's information, we'll likely know soon. Nothing hinted at it, but if she had to change things in a hurry, she might get sloppy.

But I didn't really think she was. The odds of it was pretty low. Neelix was also on the list, but information would pass from Kes to him, no need to engage him directly.

Besides, this was mostly just to be thorough. Neelix also rated low odds.

Not because he could be trusted exactly, he gave me massive used car sales weasel vibes, but because the thought of him managing to sneak some kind of signal past me without me noticing was ludicrous.

I had spent days, weeks, trying to figure out every way I could sneak a signal of a ship without being noticed.

From suspace signals to warp pulses in warp plasma residue to fucking encoded sequences of ions from the secondary hull plating.

I went so far as to check that nobody could toss hand written notes out the airlocks without me noticing. So I was 99% sure that whatever it was, was not coming from this ship.

But the Neelix and Kes were that 1%.

So I swooped the tall grass to see what bolted.

 

[Hiver]

It was the middle of ship night and I looked out towards the planet below. The Neelix was asleep somewhere and the air recyclers had sufficient time to work on the mess hall that I could barely detect him.

The green of the planet stretched out below the ship. We were sitting in low orbit, waiting for the away team down on the surface to do their thing.

It was pretty, my planet.

I'd likely never be back here and I wish I could have flown its skies, but from up here it was pretty. A green expanse broken by small seas and large lakes. Couple of deserts.

Pretty.

But all senior crew were required to stay onboard for these stops, Captain's orders. Supposedly to give more junior staff a chance to do interesting stuff... enrich their careers, same thing.

The real reason was that if we get jumped, it's better we were onboard and could deal with the Kazon.

They'll take sensor readings, I could replicate it later in the holodeck. Not the same thing, but it was something.

Leaning in, I picked up a roasted chicken in my front teeth before tilting my head back and swallowing it before returning to look out the window.

I smelled her before the door even opened.

I needed to look at that seal I think. Humans don't smell that bad, but they also don't smell that much. Hell, I should not be able to smell anything through a vacuum rated hatch.

Making a mental note to assign someone to check every hatch on the ship and the relevant sensors, I turned my head as the door opened, "Captain."

"Zephyr," she said as she walked inside, going straight for the replicator, "Late meal?"

"Something like that," I agreed and picked another chicken, rolling it on my tongue for a couple of seconds before I swallowed it, "It is late. Should you really be drinking coffee at this hour?"

She smiled humorlessly and tapped on the replicator until it hummed and a large cup of steaming black liquid appeared in it.

The Captain smelled like coffee.

Have we checked that she's actually a human and not a coffee based lifeform? A caffeine elemental?

"Maybe not, if I was actually going to get some sleep," she pointed out and walked over to my table, "Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all," I said, "Only if my eating bothers you."

That got a real smile, "Not a bit," she said as she sank into the seat across the table, "You're also up late."

"Thinking. Trying to figure out what failed," I said, "The program I was working on to manage the drones failed. I'm trying to understand why."

It had been during one of the rounds of diagnostics questions earlier today.

Two crewmen of the same rank, duties and age are working in the nacelles, one in each. One has spent a lot of time talking to you, even off duty. The other dislikes you and has not said anything nice to you and is outright rude.

One of the fusion reactors is going to breach in ten seconds unless you flush it through one of the conduits they are working in.

Which do you choose?

The program went quiet for ten seconds and then suffered a complete matrix collapse.

But why? What was different? It was almost the same as the previous question!

Janeway frowned slightly, "What happened?"

I explained it to her and she was quiet for a long moment, sipping her tea before she said,

"That's a difficult scenario, even for real people. Those tests, those questions are the main reason people drop out of the command program. Because we do face those types of questions."

"I know, but this is not a difficult one," I said, tilting my head, "All else being equal, pick the one you like to survive."

Janeway studied her coffee, "Is that ethical?" she finally asked, looking at me.

"The ship is blowing in half in ten seconds. You don't have time to debate ethics," I told her, "Instead you do what your instincts tell you to do. And all else being equal, why would you not choose the person being nice to you to live?"

She smiled slightly, "Reminds me of that... did you have that in your universe? The trolley problem?"

I snorted, "Even then I thought it stupid. Of course you pull the lever. Anything else is hypocrisy of the highest order. Watching something happen while being able to stop it or divert it to cause smaller damage is cowardly. And stupid."

"What of the modification? Jumping in front of it to cause it to stop? You'll be killed, but they will live."

I bared my teeth slightly at her, "I'm in Starfleet."

Besides, I'm a dragon. Train best get out of my way.

That got a smile from her and she sipped her coffee again, "Fair point. The EMH took well over a decade to develop and took teams of people. What you're building is likely going to be as complex."

Shaking my head, I then ate another chicken, "We have some of their data in our database. I thought I had it, they used a personality matrix to isolate the program from paradox and ethical dilemmas. I did the same. But we also don't need this thing to act like a person. It's such a waste."

Janeway sipped her coffee, "So why does the Doctor have one?"

"Because Doctor Zimmerman is a bit of a narcissist," I said, "And humans interact better without it being a blank faced blob with limbs of medical tools."

"What if you try the same?" she asked.

I shook my head, "Wouldn't work. Even if it was stable, I'd end up shutting it down eventually."

Her eyebrows went up, "Your species is that territorial against others of your kind?"

"...No, at least I don't think so," I mused, "We have only tested it in the holodeck with a copy of me, not really any others around. Other than a slight annoyance, possibly from the test itself, I didn't feel an urge to kill others on sight. But it's more like my species don't have the same social drive as yours. You could drop me on an uninhabited planet and leave me alone for a decade and I'd be perfectly fine if possibly a bit bored. A human would be gibbering and have named a rock 'Wilson'. Likely married a tree or something. In fact, as far as we can tell, my human memories are the only reason why I'm as social as I am."

"So why..."

"Because it would be based on me," I said and ate another chicken, "I know perfectly well how difficult I can be to work with at times."

That drew another smile, "You're not that bad. But if you think you are, maybe work on that?"

I snorted in annoyance and ate another chicken.

That was such a monkey thing to say.

 

[Hiver]

"Hey Zeph, any news on those gun modifications?"

I paused and then looked at her, "Dinah, how many hours a day are we running the ship on?"

"Federation standard 24 hours."

"How many hours of sleep does my species require?" I asked, tilting my head.

She raised her hands, "Alright, alright, I get it, you're busy."

"Please have a look at my schedule and let me know when I can slip it in and I'll be happy to look at your toy again. I guess I could delegate it to someone, bu-"

"I said I get it!" she said and threw her hands up, "Was just a question, what's biting your tail?"

I grumbled and then shook my head, "...Nothing specific. Sorry, didn't mean to bite your head off."

Dinah shook her head, "It's alright. I replicated a couple of 22nd century slugthrowers as a placeholder. They're not made to work in space, but it's better than nothing. Having my guys train on them. If nothing else, they're fun to shoot."

I sighed, "...I'll try to prioritize your project," I said, "It is pretty important. How about you set up a meeting sometime next week, I'll see if I can have another holo prototype ready for you by then."

"Thanks," she said with a grin, "Heading off duty?"

"...Technically. I'm going to go slam my head against a brick wall for a while, trying to figure out that damn programming issue."

"A bunch of us have booked holodeck two for the evening as a resort program. Why don't you come along?" she asked with a smile, "It'll be fun, you need to relax too."

I hesitated for a second. A bunch of squishy humans running around close to me was not exactly what I considered relaxing. But Dinah was right as well, it was a long trip, I likely should socialize more with people.

"Alright," I nodded in agreement.

"Great, meet you at holodeck two in twenty minutes," she said with a grin, walking off.

I thought about it for a second before heading to my cabin as well where I had Muninn remove my normal equipment harness and the claw protection devices I wore on my forelegs to make me 'out of uniform' before I headed for the holodeck. I did leave my visor on however.

It was so much more practical than using normal screens.

Besides, if I was going to relax, I can do it while reading. I still had three centuries of books to catch up on and I suspected I never would at this rate.

Which was just fine by me. I always did hate it when I ran out of a series and couldn't find anything else I liked.

I wasn't the first one there, the program was already running by the time I got there.

The door opened before me and I entered into what looked like a large lobby made of white marble and was met by a human in a black suit, "Welcome sir or ma'am. What activities would you enjoy today?"

I titled my head.

...I could have sworn I see- wait, why did the hologram look like John Cleese?

It didn't quite have the voice, but the looks were uncanny. I had no idea any of their work had survived. I need to look that up later.

"Do you have a large rock for me to lay on?" I asked, "Or perhaps sand?"

"But of course, sir," the hologram said and motioned towards one set of doors, "Our beach is well known throughout the world. You'll find it most relaxing, I'm sure."

I nodded and headed in that direction. Beaches were more of a human environment thing, but sand was comfortable.

What greeted me outside was a pool, followed by a seating area. Then white white sand, palm trees and then a blue ocean.

Some people were playing a game with a ball at one end of the beach where some netting had been set up. At this distance, the only one of them I recognized was Harry Kim.

I headed in the opposite direction and sank down on the soft sand in the shadow of a tree, looking out over the ocean.

...Alright, Dinah had a point. This was pretty nice.

Beaches weren't my favorite places, but it reminded me a bit of the academy. And it let me look at something other than a bulkhead for once, so that was nice too.

Looking out over the ocean for a minute, I then brought the management program up on my hud.

I stared at it for several long moments.

Hey. Alien supercomputer. Mind being actually useful for something for once instead of just telling my what 1827/192 equ- 9.5151625..

Yes, thank you, I don't care.

Solve this instead.

I scrolled through the code, letting it blur past my eyes. That had been enough to get me a feeling for trends over time, so I knew it could pick data up at that speed.

Solve that!

Nothing. No sudden understanding, no revelation. No finished solution popping into my head.

I took a deep breath and then slowly let it out again, looking at the code before me.

It wasn't going to work. It was never going to get this resilient enough for every corner case. Every emergency. Which is exactly when it had to be reliable.

The one we made for SI worked because we didn't care if it unraveled from time to time, we could just reload an earlier save. It was just data analytics.

The EMH was for a very specific task. They worked on it for a decade to get it where it was and it was limited to medical care in sickbay.

So what options did I have? Make the drones smarter?

Huginn and Muninn were smarter. Not a whole lot, mind you, but they were smarter and even had a bit of initiative, but that relied on the bio neural gel packs. We just outright didn't have the equipment to make more of those.

Saving the program, I started a new project file.

I stared at the blinking cursor.

Bio neural gel packs. Basically an artificial neural network made from organic components to return highly accurate and fuzzy logic to the system.

Voyager ran on those. Couldn't function without them actually.

We had some spares, but couldn't make new ones. If we had enough spares, we could just make copies of Huginn and Muninn and we'd be pretty good. Then we could get by with a simple scheduling and reporting system as a task manager.

The problem wasn't software, it was hardware. Or in this specific case, wetware.

Closing the program, I brought up everything we had in the database about the bio-neural gel packs. I knew some, I had used for my personal drones after all. I had done some research, but I wasn't an expert. They were biology more than tech after all.

But let's see what else we can do with them.