The Trouble with First Officers

Space: The final frontier.

These are the voyages of the starship...Voyager.

Her continuing mission; to seek out new wormholes and quantum singularities, always hoping that the next anomaly will be the leap home.

Captain Kathryn Janeway was setting a table in her quarters. The bridge of her ship was currently manned by a skeleton staff of ensigns and crewmen. The senior staff, with two notable exceptions, were on shore leave on the pleasant blue-green planet that could be seen hanging serenely outside of her viewport.

Janeway could have done with leave herself, but she had been determined not to visit the planet. The only way that she had been able to convince Chakotay and the Doctor to leave her here was to pretend that she was planning to visit a nice holodeck programme while the ship was quiet. There had been considerable coughing and eyebrow raising at that point in the conversation, but the two had hurriedly agreed that she should stay.

The holodeck story was a lie. She was through with holographic boyfriends. She had been determined to stay onboard for one reason only: She knew Seven wasn't going planet-side. They would have the ship to themselves. Apart, of course, from the skeleton crew of low-ranking officers necessary to operate the transporters etc., but they didn't count.

The appointed time for shore leave was coming to an end, but Janeway felt that the week had gone well. She had spent lots of time with Seven, and this evening she had arranged for them to have a quiet dinner together. She had decided that tonight was the night. She would tell Seven how she felt. She hoped that Seven felt the same way; she thought that she had seen it in the way Seven looked at her sometimes, but she couldn't be sure. She had wrestled with her conscience for a long time and decided that she'd never forgive herself if she didn't give this a go. Even if Seven was a member of her crew. Of course, if Seven didn't return her feelings, she'd be mortified. But she'd deal with that if and when it happened. For now she was excited and nervous. It was a long time since she'd dated.

Seven arrived promptly, and took in the changes to the Captain's quarters. The room was lit not by the customary ship's lighting, but by starlight and candles. Janeway was out of uniform and Seven thought she looked beautiful in a silky black dress. Not quite sure how to react to this scene, Seven stopped just inside the door and nodded to her commanding officer.

"Captain."

Janeway smiled and moved towards her, taking her arm and guiding her further into the room.

"Hello Seven, come in."

"Thank you."

According to the Doctor's lessons, it would seem that this meal with the Captain was to be treated as a date.

"Your choice of attire is very nice."

She hoped she was doing this right; the Captain was the only member of the crew she wanted to explore this scenario with. It would not do to get anything wrong. The Captain moved closer to her and smiled up at her. Seven was still very conscious of the Captain's hand resting on her arm.

"Thank you. I've always admired that biosuit."

"Bridge to Captain Janeway."

In that moment it was as though the woman that had welcomed Seven vanished. Janeway stepped away from her and was all business as she responded.

"Janeway here."

Then she was back as she flashed Seven an apologetic half smile.

"Captain, we have a problem..."

The senior staff had all been recalled and, with the exception of Commander Chakotay, were gathered in the briefing room. Sitting at one end of the table was Crewman Tran s'Pawta, feeling a little out of his depth, and trying to look inconspicuous. He didn't manage it for long.

"Crewman s'Pawta. Report." Janeway did not sound happy.

"Yes Captain. I was on duty in transporter room one, when Commander Chakotay requested to be beamed back aboard. While the transport was in progress, there was an odd energy fluctuation which caused a disturbance in the pattern buffer. When the commander materialised, he looked fine. I looked down to check the energy readings again and when I looked up...well, there were eleven of him."

Tom looked dubious.

"Eleven Chakotays?"

"Yes Sir." s'Pawta confirmed.

"Doctor?" Janeway questioned.

"Commanders Chakotay were brought to me in sickbay, however they seem to be reproducing at a phenomenal rate. They are spreading throughout the ship."

"Why?" Tom still wasn't convinced. "What's happened to him?"

"It would seem that Commander Chakotay had a pet tribble."

"A tribble?" B'Elanna's question was almost a growl.

"Yes, he had hidden it, but decided to take it on shore leave with him so that it could get some fresh air. He had been careful never to feed it enough to let it reproduce, so there was still only the one. However, the energy fluctuation that Mr s'Pawta reported caused a problem with the pattern stability and Chakotay and his tribble were fused. He is now reproducing in earnest, as only a tribble can, and he knows how to work the replicators. We're looking at a plague, Captain. By now there must be..." the doctor paused, mid-flow, "lots of him."

"Assuming average tribble reproductive rates, there are currently approximately one thousand, three hundred and thirty one Chakotays." stated Seven.

Janeway stood and regarded her officers with a determined expression.

"That's already more than enough." she announced. "B'Elanna, shut down all of the replicators. Doctor, are they sentient?"

"No, they are acting purely on instinct Captain."

"I want a thorough clean up. They've got to go! Arm yourselves, and hunt them down. Dismissed."

As the briefing room emptied, the Captain caught hold of Seven's arm, holding her back.

"Seven, we don't know how the Chakotays are going to react. Be careful."

Seven regarded her Captain curiously. She had not expressed similar apprehension to the others.

"Captain, your concerns are..." she paused, considering the implications of Janeway's actions. "thoughtful." She took a moment to consider how best to respond. "Thank you. You must also take care." She left the room without looking back.

Left alone in the briefing room, Janeway used the nearest panel to access environmental controls. She increased the ambient temperature onboard by several degrees. Then she shrugged off her jacket, straightened her tank top, grabbed a phaser rifle and tricorder, and headed off to wipe out Chakotay.

Harry was a little disturbed by the fact that he was patrolling the corridors of Voyager, CPR in hand, stalking his first officer. Or, officers apparently. To settle his nerves a little, he was whistling quietly to himself. He reached a junction and paused to check that the way was clear. In that moment, he heard movement behind him. He spun around. Three Chakotays were following him. They looked puzzled for a moment and then seemed to lose interest in him, settling down close to each other cooing and muttering about angry warriors. He hefted his phaser rifle and prepared to fire. But why had they been following him? Puzzled, he whistled the last phrase of the song again. The muttering stopped. The Chakotays looked up at him and got to their feet. This looked promising. Distractedly he shot the Chakotays and hurried off in the direction of his quarters.

Seven had headed straight for her cargo bay, disintegrating Chakotays that she passed on the way. She had a plan. She carefully extracted and reprogrammed some of her nanoprobes and loaded them into a hypospray. She quietly approached the nearest Chakotay. He was sitting on the floor chattering about scorpions. She stretched out her hand to him. He looked up at her and cooed. Too fast for the Chakotay to react, her Borg enhanced hand whipped out and injected the modified nanoprobes into his neck. She watched as grey tendrils spread out, observing the necrosis of his flesh as the partial assimilation process began. The Chakotay's cooing stopped as the greyness seeped into his cheeks. His head snapped up. He seemed suddenly to have a sense of purpose. He got to his feet and lumbered over to another happily chirping Chakotay. Dazedly he extended his arm and assimilation tubules sprang from his hand. He thrust them into the neck of his prey and then straightened and turned to look for his next victim. Seven was pleased; it seemed to be working. She set off to inform the Captain of this development.

After she had disabled the replicators, B'Elanna had armed herself with a batleth. These Chakotays were essentially mutant tribbles, which made this part of the Klingons' glorious campaign to purge the galaxy of the horrible fluffy parasites. Harry had contacted her and asked her to meet him in engineering and her route there from her quarters was strewn with dismembered Chakotays. In places their blood had formed spreading puddles that the cleaning staff would no doubt curse her for, but the Klingon blood-lust was coursing through her veins and she roared as she sighted another Chakotay just outside the main entrance to engineering.

"Die Chakotay, die!" she yelled as she threw herself on him.

The Chakotay was soon nothing but a bloody heap at her feet. She would have roared her victory in honour of warriors past, but she was distracted by Harry rounding the corner at a jog, playing his clarinet.

"What are you doing?" she demanded incredulously.

He shook his head and went on in to engineering. She stared in disbelief as he was followed through the door by a stream of Chakotays that must have numbered well over a hundred.

She stumbled through the door after them and watched Harry leading them all well inside the room. He stopped playing and paused to catch his breath.

"Everybody out!" he ordered briskly. "B'Elanna, they quickly lose interest when I stop playing." he panted. "They should all stay put for long enough for us to initiate a coolant leak and get out. It's quicker than dealing with them all individually."

B'Elanna stared at him for a moment and nodded. She ushered the last of the engineering staff out of the door and grabbed a hand phaser from a weapons locker.

"You take that one, I'll do this."

The pair of them took aim at the coolant ducts by the warp core.

"Careful," she instructed, "ok, three, two, one, now!"

They fired.

"Coolant leak in progress." intoned the dispassionate voice of the computer.

As the coolant began to leak into the compartment Harry and B'Elanna ran for the door, making it through just before the bulkheads were sealed. The Chakotays screamed as the coolant flooded the deck, eating into their flesh and tearing them apart. There would be nothing left of them.

Janeway was hot. She was an impressive sight as she strode down the corridors brandishing a large weapon. Her skin was slick with sweat, her tank top clung damply to her chest and she had managed to get strategically grubby. She had single-handedly purged the mess hall of Chakotays was now clearing the corridors on her way to the armoury. She wanted a bigger gun. She burst through the doors, throwing herself to the ground and rolling to a ready stance in order to present small fast-moving target. Not that any of the Chakotays had fought back yet, but you couldn't be too careful. Not a Chakotay was in sight. She whipped her tricorder from her belt and scanned the area. The readings indicated that there were Chakotays nearby. She homed in on the them. Cautiously, she pulled open the overhead storage locker, pointing her CPR at the opening. With a squeal, a Chakotay tumbled out on top of her, knocking her to the floor. In a moment many more Chakotays landed on the heap; undignified gruntings from Captain Janeway acknowledging every impact. She was entirely engulfed. There was a moment of stillness, followed by a groan from the bottom of the heap.

"Oh, ow...Chakotay, you've put on some weight!"

There was movement. Seven had arrived just in time to see her captain swamped in a flood of first officers. She pulled them off easily, throwing them behind her as though they weighed little more than cushions. Janeway found herself suddenly captured by the concerned gaze of her Astrometrics officer.

"Not that I'd know how heavy you would be if you were on top of me or anything." she mumbled. "Thank you Seven."

She smiled hopefully upwards, and struggled out from underneath the now rather smaller heap.

Seven pulled her to her feet and then turned her attention to the Chakotays. The doors slid open and another Chakotay shuffled into the room. When he sighted the heap against the wall he thrust out his arm and assimilated one of the prone first officers. Once his tubules had retracted he took one more faltering step and with a moan he fell to the floor. Gurgling and writhing in pain, his face contorted in agony and he choked. For a couple more seconds he twitched and then his body went limp.

"Seven?"

Janeway was shocked. The Chakotays that had fallen on her were all busily assimilating one another.

"I modified some of my nanoprobes Captain. It seemed efficient. The Chakotays will kill each other off.

"You're creating a Collective consisting of mutant tribble Chakotays?"

"Not exactly. The modified nanoprobes are programmed only to partially assimilate the drones. They give them the ability to assimilate and then instruct them to find and assimilate other Chakotays. Then the nanoprobes begin to shut down the primary organs and central nervous system. The Chakotay is only alive for a short time after assimilation.

"Very...efficient. Are you controlling them?"

"No. The nanoprobes are able to give them sufficient instructions. They are very simple to control Captain; it appears that most of their mental faculties have been inherited from the tribble. Their only objectives are to eat and reproduce."

"I think Seven, that you'll find most of their mental faculties have been inherited from the commander. Lets go and see how many more there are to get."

"Captain's Log, supplemental. After two days of chasing them down, our Chakotay problem has been solved. Tuvok has security squads giving the place a final once over, but I'm confident they've been eradicated. I shot the last few out of an airlock myself. Unfortunately, it seems that in the enthusiasm to wipe out the Chakotays, someone accidentally killed my first officer. Tuvok will take his place, and at last I'll be able to promote Harry Kim. I just hope that this doesn't set a precedence for the way to get promoted in the Delta Quadrant."