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Phoebe shared their overwhelming joy when, a few moments later, Tuvok ceased to struggle… and opened his eyes.

Burning with the hope that this unforeseen possibility presented, Phoebe returned, undetected, to Voyager. She found a quiet corner of the deserted mess hall and immediately began reorganizing her thoughts.

The spores were gone. They had been awakened from their dormant state by the Monorhans who had stumbled upon the array they called Gremadia. But the new life-form generated in the process of the transformation was capable of creating the spores anew. The abominations would bow to her will, and the will of those for whom the spores had been intended. Even if they did not, there was at least one… the unknowing one… who would suit Phoebe’s purposes perfectly. Now all that remained was to keep Janeway ignorant of the Key’s true purpose until she was able to contact the full number of her companions and bring them to the array.

She had stood alone in her dark corner of the mess hall for several minutes, pondering the view of the array that loomed large through the windows, when her tranquil reflection was shattered by a piercing screech.

Turning to the door, she saw a small humanoid standing in the entrance. A child. She was female, a hybrid of some kind, and her tiny fists were balled at her sides as she continued to scream.

Obviously the girl was terrified, but this shouldn’t be the case. Phoebe had resumed her human form the moment she returned to the ship. Every member of the crew should be seeing her exactly as Janeway did. They should accept her presence as normal. The memories of “Phoebe” and her interaction with the crew that had been implanted were not threatening in the least. In fact, she had made herself truly liked by the crew, to limit any conflicting interaction.

But the girl was still screaming.

Something was obviously wrong.

She didn’t take the time to consider all of her options. She knew the alarm that the girl was sounding would not go unnoticed for long. With a thought, she entered the girl’s mind, searching for a way to calm her. The moment she had done so, she realized her error.

This one is different.

Her next action was uncharacteristically rash, though she decided later that it had been her only choice at the moment, and probably a result of her inability to reason without emotion while she assumed a human form.

Crushing the neurological pathways that supplied the impulses that directed oxygen to the girl’s brain, she silently hoped that there were no others like her aboard the ship. Though Phoebe saw no intrinsic value in the lives of Kathryn’s crew, the only hesitation she felt as she took the girl’s life sprung from the certainty that Kathryn did.

She couldn’t afford to kill them all.

Yet.

Chapter 5

Neelix was multitasking. He had spent the last few minutes gathering gear for his impending away mission. En route to the mess hall to lock down the supplies he had already prepped for lunch and dinner, he walked with his nose buried in a padd, reviewing the section of the array he and Crewman Dalby would be analyzing within the hour.

He liked Dalby. The somewhat distant Maquis who’d had such a difficult adjustment to life aboard Voyager was gone. In his place was a capable and disciplined officer in the making. That had earned him Neelix’s respect. More important, Neelix trusted Dalby for one simple reason. Dalby was unflinching in his honest estimation of Neelix’s food. Although taste was ultimately less significant than nutritional value, Neelix strove daily to serve the crew the most delicious and satisfying food available. Tom Paris’s colorful jests aside, most of the Starfleet personnel accepted their meals stoically, as if eating, no matter how unpleasant, was a duty. He knew they were appreciative of his efforts. But also knew that without honest evaluations of his work, there was little he could do to improve their culinary experience and with it their morale. On more than one occasion, Dalby had quietly pulled him aside to offer suggestions