Homecoming - Christie Golden [85]
She’d find this Blake fellow, talk to him, and see what she could pry out of him. Perhaps he could give her the one thing she needed in order to make Montgomery a real suspect, someone charges would stick to, instead of just a slippery phantom.
Chapter 20
ADMIRAL KATHRYN JANEWAY HAD HAD ENOUGH.
She’d spent enough time hounding poor Red Grady and others. He was trying, but he couldn’t do anything. And Montgomery was a lost cause by now. It was time to look elsewhere. Seated in her small living room was everyone from her old senior staff she’d been able to get in touch with: Chakotay, Tuvok, Kim, and Paris. Torres was away on Boreth, Tom had told her, and of course Seven and the Doctor still languished in a Starfleet prison cell. She looked around at the dear, familiar faces and hope filled her once again.
“We all know what’s happening,” she said. “We know about the virus, and we know they’re covering it up. We know that Starfleet, indeed the Federation, somehow think that this outbreak is being directed or [254] caused by either Seven and Icheb or perhaps Voyager’s own technology. They’re blaming us instead of coming to us for help. We know that there’s a holographic uprising that has resulted in several deaths, intentional or not, and that the Federation is now being forced to respond. Dr. Kaz dropped an oblique warning about the Doctor, and the thought that they might make some sort of example of him had occurred to me as well.”
Her voice grew hard. “We know these things, but we’re not allowed to do a damn thing about them. We can’t discuss the virus with the innocent, unaware population of the Federation for fear of causing widespread panic. We can’t help our own Doctor, who ought to be assisting Starfleet instead of being their prisoner. Seven and Icheb look worse each time I see them, and our pleas to allow them a regeneration chamber are being ignored. I for one am not about to sit here and watch my friends suffer, or remain still while my homeworld is about to be overrun with Borg.”
“Admiral,” Tuvok interjected. “You spent seven years abiding by Starfleet rules and regulations when you might easily have ignored them. Now that we have returned to the place where they can be enforced—”
“If they’re denying Seven and Icheb access to something that is necessary to their health, then they’ve crossed the line into torture. And the Doctor hasn’t even been officially charged with anything. They need him. If anyone can come up with a vaccine or a cure for this Borg virus, it’s he. I’m not advocating breaking the law. At least,” she amended, her blue eyes bright, “not yet.”
She looked at them, each in turn. “Starfleet and the [255] Federation should be embracing us and our knowledge, not pushing us away. The people who could help the most in halting this dreadful virus are locked up, not in labs where they could assist. Seven of Nine has proved that she doesn’t want to return to the collective. She’s had the chance and refused it repeatedly. She could give Starfleet more information about the Borg in a minute than they could cobble together in years. But they’re afraid of her.”
She gave full rein to the anger, the sense of insult and injustice that raged through her. “I’m not going to let their fear, their ignorance, doom us. Here’s what I propose.”
They remained silent, attentive, while she outlined every aspect of her plan. When she had finished, no one spoke for a while.
“Anyone who wishes to may leave now, and I won’t think the less of you. I know what I’m asking you to do. It could cost us our lives or at the very least, our careers, and I understand this.”
No one moved.
“So it’s agreed.” She let herself smile.