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Episode Synopsis
Seven gets a tad paranoid that everyone's against her. Wherever would she get that idea?

Brief Note
I imagine a lot would disagree with me but I believe that my Voyager Conspiracy was a fitting FV version of an equally insane episode of Voyager. I really didn't want to do much to this episode so it is probably the closest to the original (I mean original FV not original Voyager) episode of Reboot One so far and probably always will be.

Rebooted
29th January 2015
11th - 15th February 2015

Original Written
24th March 2001

Episode Based In
October 2375

Mess Hall:
It was that time of the year again. Every year the room would be more empty than the previous, this year wasn't the exception. Only two tables were full and the so called volunteers didn't look in the right state to be volunteers for anything.

People clapped awkwardly as the pair everyone were watching finished their dance with a bow. Their bow was followed by one of them leaning too far forward and falling head first onto the floor.

"Um. That's Jenson and Evans everyone, cos why not. Every show needs a yearly tradition and this is it," Tom badly tried to improvise. "Who's next?"

He was surprised to see a hand go up at first. He quickly realised it was only Kathryn on her twentieth cup of coffee. It would have been more but there was no more room for new cups on the table.

"Mum, we've seen your talent, put your hand down," Morgan complained beside her.

Kathryn giggled while she reached out to pinch her cheek. Of course Morgan recoiled until she ran out of room as well, doing so nearly knocked the poor ensign next to her out of his chair.

"Oh, no volunteers," Tom said, averting his eyes from that particular table. There was only one left he could turn to. "I see there's two people in the audience who come every year but don't take part. Maybe it's time to..."

"Oh sure, I've got this magic trick where I make teeth disappear," Jessie said in a fake sweet voice, but her eyes screamed danger. Tom's eyes of course widened in horror.

"Oh oh!" Kathryn tried again. "I'm good at making stuff disappear too."

"Yeah we know," James commented.

Tom laughed nervously. "So no good asking James, it's obvious why. What about our newest crewmember?" He dared to look back at Kathryn's table.

Morgan shook her head mostly in disgust as her mother picked up a cup, only to lick the inside of it. Before she could complain about it she made a sad squeaky noise. "Aaaw, all gone."

"It's obvious why?" James repeated dangerously.

Tom didn't pick up on the dangerous part, he just smirked. "Being sarcastic isn't a talent. People with no sense of humour are sarcastic. That's why this series isn't funny."

Strangely enough there was one cup left that wasn't empty. Morgan reached for it to quickly drink the contents before her mum could. She immediately broke out into hyper giggles.

"It's still one more talent than the idiot hosting a talent show for drunks," James said.

Kathryn tried again to stick her hand up, "pick me, ooh ooh, me."

"See. No sarcasm and you're just not funny. Proves my point," Tom said.

Jessie glanced briefly at James with a smirk of her own. "Time for some abra kapunch, don't you think?"

"Oh like abra kadabra, now that's funny," Tom laughed before it really hit him. Jessie was already up on her feet and on her way over when he ran away.

"Aaaw. I wanted to do my dying birdie dance," Kathryn pouted. She patted Morgan's hand right before standing up. "It's his loss, I'm not coming next year right sweetie-weetie." Morgan just giggled in response. Kathryn stomped off without realising that her daughter wasn't following her.

Harry stared at the mostly empty room in disappointment. "I think if even Neelix didn't want to come to this, that's a bad sign." He shook his head and left.

Only Morgan was left still giggling at a table filled with empty cups of coffee.

Cargo Bay Two:
While Tani snoozed in one of the alcoves, Naomi seemed to be wide awake and insistent on hanging around with Seven. The ex-drone was far more interested in messing around with her own alcove.

"Redecorating isn't work," Naomi pouted.

"Aesthetics are irrelevant," Seven retorted. "I'm modifying the alcove to function as a cortical processing subunit."

The doors opened for Morgan, who took twice as long to walk in as she kept going sideways.

"Yeah I thought that's what you were doing, but I'm trying to get the people who hate Wesley to stop sending me similar hate mail," Naomi said.

"Good, then I don't need to explain it," Seven said.

Morgan pulled a face at the pair, at least it stopped her from giggling for a few seconds. "Wait a minute. The computer said it was eleven pm not am."

Seven raised her eyebrow, "perhaps you should use Borg cycles or something easier like the twenty four hour system."

Morgan scowled at her. "I was just saying it's a bit weird that Naomi's bugging you to play with her at your bedtime."

Naomi shifted her eyes nervously. "Um, I... Seven and I always play at this time."

Seven decided to ignore the oldest of the two girls, she turned to address Naomi. "Voyager collects a great deal of information; sensor scans, astrometric data, engineering updates, away team casualty reports."

Naomi's eyes lit up, "the results of our kadis-kot tournament?"

"That too," Seven smiled a little. "The crew must read and study this information, which is inefficient. These data nodes will download that information and upload it into the alcove."

"Which will download it into you," Naomi understood.

"Wow. You become more and more Human every day you big, big lug," Morgan laughed.

Seven barely turned her head to look at her. "So shall I drink alcohol and stumble around the ship?"

Morgan pulled a face, "alcohol? I doubt that would make you more interesting, but whatever." It took a few tries to get up the only step, each time was more hilarious to her. "Who keeps moving this?"

"She smells like Janeway," Naomi commented while pulling a disgusted face.

"You don't need to regenerate until tomorrow," Seven said.

Morgan scoffed. "Oh come on, I don't need to at all. Mum and Dad just like their just friends J/C tease dinners every week. It's only you that keeps doing Borg crap for funsies."

Tani awoke from her slumber and she didn't look happy about it. "Can you keep it down? I need my beauty regeneration."

Seven sighed impatiently. "Very well, I'm finished anyway."

"Can I watch?" Naomi asked eagerly.

Morgan scrunched up her nose, "eew."

Seven continued to ignore her but she gave the little girl in front of her a disapproving look. Naomi rolled her eyes. "Fine, tomorrow." She scampered off, leaving Seven with the two disgruntled teenagers.

"Doesn't that kid have a mum? It was late when I went to sleep," Tani commented.

Morgan tried to nod with a serious face, only to snort into laughter after a second. Tani pulled a face at her.

The next morning:
The door chime to Kathryn's quarters rang numerous times almost like the person there was trying to play a tune with it.

"Come in!" she snarled at it, hoping whoever was doing it could hear her over the noise.

Before the door had fully opened the person calling stumbled inside, laughing for no reason. Kathryn frowned as her guest started waving with both hands.

"Hi mumsy," she said in between giggles.

"Morgan, you don't have to knock," Kathryn said. "Have you been drinking?"

"No! Drinking is bad," Morgan giggled. Kiara and Chakotay stepped into the main living area from another room. "Can I put some music on?"

Kiara clapped her hands repeatedly, "yay music."

Kathryn and Chakotay's eyes widened at the same time. "No, god no!" Chakotay groaned.

"Yes, we have enough episodes showing off the writer's extremely unvaried taste in music in 2001, so no more," Kathryn grumbled.

"Just in 2001?" Chakotay muttered.

Morgan's face turned serious, or at least tried to but laughter was still bubbling inside her. "Would you two stop talking in the fifth wall, it makes no sense to anyone." She then burst out laughing again.

Kathryn covered her face with her hand, "it's fourth wall."

"But there's already four walls. Silly mum count can't," Morgan laughed. Kathryn only mimed the last two words while pulling a face.

Chakotay walked over to her, he was a little relieved that he couldn't smell alcohol on her. "Morgan, you should go to Sickbay to sober up."

"No, I'm not going to see that boring old fart," Morgan replied before storming out of the quarters.

"I don't understand it. There was no alcohol at our table last night. Those two dancing morons drank it all," Kathryn said in a worried voice.

Chakotay stared at the door as if Morgan was still there. "She acted almost like..." In the corner of his eye he caught Kathryn's figure waltz over to the replicator.

"Coffee, black." The cup that appeared was instantly at her lips. "She's sixteen Chakotay." She took another sip. "I doubt she was able to replicate any on her own." Another sip and she was already done. "Coffee, black."

Chakotay's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

The Bridge:
For once the entire crew were quietly keeping to themselves and their work. One of the reasons seemed to be Tom slumped over his station like he was hungover.

The panel attached to the barrier right behind the command chairs bleeped. The ex-Borg standing there spotted it right away.

"Cool, there's this tech thingamajig nearby," she said. Her voice seemed to wake up Tom, he sat up startled.

"When technobabble makes more sense," Harry commented.

Tom reluctantly looked at his station to see what was going on. Once he understood he looked back at the Borg behind him. "For a Borg, you're rather dumb."

"It makes sense. It's a thingamajig, but I described what kinda one it is," Tani protested.

"I suppose she wasn't connected to the Borg very long," Harry said with a sigh on the end.

Tani folded her arms in a huff, "what would you call it then?"

Tom didn't look impressed at all, she wasn't helping with that. "A gigantic piece of sh..." The turbolift doors opened, cutting him off.

Harry glanced over his shoulder to see a random crewmember take a station nearby. "Shingamajig?" he teased once he turned back.

"Wow, it's almost like you're reading my mind Harry," Tom groaned.

"Yeah, people with no sense of humour are sarcastic," Jessie commented.

Tom resisted rolling his eyes for now. "Oh god, just get it over with Jess. You and him may act like Human beings for once, that'll be nice."

Lucky for him Jessie was confused, not mad. "What?"

"Well Tommy boy, aren't you going to fly us to this gigantic piece of shimygig?" Tani asked.

"Why not, it beats Chakotay's nebula," Tom said and he changed course.

Tuvok was already missing that five second silence they had before Tani said anything. "Mr Paris, that is not up to you."

Tom actually looked a little sorry for once. "Sorry, I'm just a bit on edge after what I saw last night. I need a distraction."

"Dare I ask?" Jessie said warily.

The previous night:
Tom wandered down a corridor waving and smiling at everyone. They all greeted him back with comments obviously too made up to be true.

"Hey, loved that holo novel."

"You rock man!"

"Alice was the best episode ever."

"Oh Tom, sign my chest."

Tom gushed at every single one until he reached his destination. The doors opened revealing Sickbay. Strangely the Doctor was nowhere in sight, although his holo camera was set up and the computers were obviously doing something with that. Images flashed across the screen.

Curious he walked over to take a look. His eyes bugged out, he screamed hysterically. Desperately he tried to turn off the images scarring his mind but all he did was wake up the holo camera. That generated an image directly from the computer so it was nice and 3D for him. His screams were heard all the way back in Kazon space.

The Doctor stepped out of his office, wondering what the commotion was about. All he saw was a Tom blur run by him and out the door.

"What's his problem?" the Doctor muttered. He shrugged it off and walked over to his computer. The hologram caught his eye. "Hmm maybe I should take Neelix out of the generational projections. There's no chance I'll need that information."

Present Day:
"It was like stumbling on someone's 18+ fanfic site with photo shopped pictures," Tom shuddered.

"Here I thought that would be something you'd do," Jessie muttered. Tom was tempted to flip her off, instead he just smiled mockingly at her.

Harry was trying his best to stop laughing. In the end he had to force in a deep breath to do that. "Is that where the everyone on Deck Five is pregnant rumour came from?"

Tom only shrugged his answer. Harry knew the answer anyway.

Kathryn and Chakotay stepped out of the Ready Room mid conversation. "I already told you, she only drank soft drinks and had a sip of my coffee," she was saying.

Chakotay wasn't convinced. "Morgan jumped on the bed singing Murder on the Dancefloor." Saying that out loud helped him confirm his suspicions, "yeah, it was probably the coffee."

The turbolift doors opened, B'Elanna and Seven stepped out of it to approach the pair.

"Captain, Seven told me there is some bugs in the ship somewhere," B'Elanna said.

"God, the script's a bit thin," Tani muttered.

"The writer hasn't seen the episode in yonks and well it's a reboot," Harry said.

"Yeah, apparently Seven listens to Bug Stories on tape while she sleeps," B'Elanna smiled.

"I actually assimilate ship logs, sensor readings and astrometric data while I regenerate. That is how I discovered the problem," Seven said.

B'Elanna's smile turned into a smirk. "My mistake."

Chakotay merely blinked a few times with a blank stare on his face. "And we let you do this?" B'Elanna shrugged, Kathryn seemed distracted, everyone else pulled a wary face.

Seven told her story about bugs and Neelix's food, which makes a perfect combination. Her eyes got more and more bugged out with every flashback that went with it. Naturally everyone started to drift off.

Kathryn had time to sneak to the Ready Room, replicate a gigantic mug of coffee, come back and drink half of it by the time Seven had paused for a reaction.

"Hmm?" Kathryn pretended to sound interested while she sipped.

Seven took that as a sign to continue. "So after about half of the population died while escaping the stew..."

Cue yet another flashback. For some reason it was in the point of view of the bugs she was talking about. All that could be heard was coughing and spluttering, the sound of buzzing started to die down until it couldn't be heard anymore. There were green waves emanating from somewhere behind it.

It turned back to see Neelix picking his nose, marveling at his finger afterwards, and then flicking it towards a giant pot. Of course this was where the green waves were coming from. The view of Neelix got higher as if the one watching was falling to the ground.

The point of view then floated around shakily, it spotted the replicator and flew towards that.

"They have now nested in the bio neural gel pack system," Seven continued.

B'Elanna lost her balance just as her eyes shut. She had to put one foot out a bit to catch herself. "Oh god, it's even more boring the second time."

Kathryn stared at the drone, her eyes almost as wide as hers. A sly smile appeared on her face. "Oh, lets check out the buggy wuggy home then." With that she skipped out into the turbolift.

Seven followed, not realising that the entire Bridge was asleep. Tom had even fell asleep on his console. A slight jolt soon woke him and some others up. "Oops, changed course," he stammered.

Chakotay quickly wiped his face just in case he drooled, he was thankful that he hadn't. "Good god, did we really need to hear the lifestyles of the bugs that bred from Neelix's stew but still couldn't live in it?"

"Yes, yes we did," B'Elanna said in a blunt voice. She then realised the story telling drone and crazy Captain left without her. Quickly she ran into the turbolift on the other side of the bridge.

Some random Jeffries tube somewhere:
"Oooh look at the pretty bugs!" Kathryn giggled. She even started to poke at the buzzing horde nestled in the computer panel.

"Seven, next time you take a nap, will you find a glitch in the replicator that turns coffee into alcohol. I've never been able to find it," B'Elanna muttered.

Kathryn laughed as her hand waved back and forth. Her eyes widened in wonder, an opened mouth smirk developed on her face. "Maybe we can find a suitable home for them." She gasped and shared her strange expression with the other two.

B'Elanna was more than amused by it until she looked at Seven beside her. The drone stood there with her arms behind her back, with a self satisfied smile on her face. B'Elanna recognised it as the told you so, as I'm so perfect face. It wiped her good mood away instantly.

Back on the Bridge:
Nearly everyone stared at the viewscreen, either squinting or turning their head to one side. Some even did both.

"It's a catapult?" Tani said.

Tom squinted his eyes again. "Looks like a big ring to me."

The viewscreen image changed to show an alien who didn't look very happy. "Would you leave my piece of shet alone," the alien guy said.

"Tom, what have you been saying to him?" Chakotay asked.

"I told him to go and wash his face, that make up is just so gross," Tom replied.

"Oooh that reminds me," Kathryn said and she ran towards the Ready Room.

Chakotay watched her leave, then glanced back at Tom. "All right Jessie." He heard Jessie growl out of sight. "You didn't call the structure a piece of sh..."

"No!" Tom protested. "I think it's awesome. It was Harry."

"Er, hello I'm still here!" the alien guy yelled.

"Oh sorry. Now we really should start hinting. Did you know we're thirty five thousand lightyears from home?" Chakotay said.

Jessie looked puzzled, "I thought it was thirty. I lose track."

"Yes, you're gonna have to do something for me before I let you use my piece of shat," the alien guy said.

"I feel better already," Tom groaned.

Later in Engineering:
"So, have you run into an old geezer before?" Kathryn asked.

"My grandad?" the alien guy stuttered.

"Well no. It's just your piece of ship is similar to the Caretaker's," Kathryn said. Seven and B'Elanna groaned.

"To get to the point, did you get the Tetryon reactor that powers it from an array a few years ago?" B'Elanna asked.

"No, I was home years ago. I stole the reactor. I was that desperate," the alien guy said.

"Oh stuff it. B'Elanna continue helping him fixing his reactor thing," Kathryn said. She and Seven started to walk out of the room.

"Haven't we missed a few scenes?" Seven asked.

"Nah!" Kathryn waved her off. "So, what do you think?"

"I still believe that reactor was from the array. Can I check the sensor logs?" Seven asked.

"Oh sure, and don't find any conspiracies," Kathryn replied.

"What?" Seven said.

"Only joking," Kathryn said as she left the room with a big grin on her face.

Astrometrics:
The destruction of the Caretaker's array played in slow motion. It soon reversed so it was okay again. Seven waited for it to play once more, this time in super slow motion. It was so slow it looked like she was watching a slideshow made by an over excited Doctor taking pictures. One command stopped it on a strange source of light shining on the side of the array as it exploded.

"Is that a tractor beam?" Seven asked.

"Insufficient sensor data."

"Scan for the source of that light," Seven ordered.

"Insufficient sensor data."

Seven's eyes filled with suspicion, of course that just made her eyes bug out. "Was there any signs of a subspace tear at that moment?"

"Insufficient sensor data."

"How much coffee has the Captain had today?" Seven asked.

"Insufficient sensor data."

Seven nodded, "I thought so." Another mystery still not solved, she thought.

"I really should reprogram the computer so it pronounces dah-tah correctly." She went to tap on a different panel only to get a zap of electricity. The screen changed to show Kathryn waving her finger and glaring at her. "You're correct, I shouldn't procrastinate. Computer, who fired the tri-cobalt device that destroyed the array."

"Commander Tuvok."

The Bridge:
The turbolift near Tactical opened but nobody came out of it. Tuvok glanced to one side to see what was going on, just in time for a still hyper Morgan to stumble out of it. Craig followed her out looking a bit worried.

"Miss Morgan, you really shouldn't be on the Bridge," Tuvok warned her.

Morgan laughed and waved at him. "Hi Tuvie. How's your ears today?" Of course the only response she got was an eyebrow raise.

Tani looked over from her console behind the command chair, she couldn't help but laugh at her friend. "Ohno, now?"

"Yup!" Morgan laughed.

"Um, what now?" Harry asked nervously.

Tani pressed something, prompting some music to start playing. Tuvok almost face palmed as a result.

Morgan ran over to her to climb onto the computer itself. Tani shook her head while walking around to the chairs themselves. Craig meanwhile walked around the other way.

"What are you doing?" Tuvok demanded.

Just as the music picked up to the chorus Tani and Craig stood up on the chairs, and Morgan struck a pose with her flat hands by her face. "Tragedy, when something something and it can't go wrong, tragedy!" she sang along to the song, a bit out of time and tune.

Tom sniggered to himself, "oh, now I don't need to ask who she takes after. It's obviously Janeway."

The two standing on the chair tried to do the dance routine for the song but failed horribly. Morgan just did her own thing until she fell backwards onto the floor. She found that hilarious though and got straight back up.

James stepped out of the door beside Opps. He looked disappointed, "damn, I missed it."

Most of the bridge were trying not to laugh, which made Craig a little nervous. He ran towards and passed James to get off the bridge. Tani made sure to grab Morgan's arm before following him.

The first turbolift opened again, this time for Seven. She seemed confused at the strange music playing. "What's going on?"

"The extra characters have nothing better to do than sing cheesy pop songs, duh," Tom answered. Jessie responded to that with an airborne tricorder to the head. "Ow!"

Everyone looked towards Jessie, for some reason she was sitting on the back of her chair. She quickly sat in it normally while blushing madly. "I was going to join in but..." Tom snorted into laughter despite his pain. "That's why I didn't."

Tuvok's eyebrow was at critical height. He managed to turn off the music. "What was the point of that exercise?"

"Point? She's a teenaged girl with her mum's caffeine addiction. How did you think she was gonna act?" James said, sniggering slightly.

"What about Mr Anderson, and you?" Tuvok said.

"I dunno, it sounded like fun. I was bored," James answered with a shrug.

Tuvok felt a sigh coming on. "That girl has a way of getting attention when she shouldn't. It's disruptive."

"Ahem!" Seven cleared her throat. "I want to know about the Caretaker episode I wasn't in, so I can point at flaws in it." Nobody looked at her. "Since when does Starfleet use tri-cobalt weaponry?"

"Yeah she'd just have to tell Craig to jump and he'll double jump," Harry said.

Tom nodded furiously, "oh yeah, anything for a pretty face." He pulled a face himself, "wait, how old is he again?"

"Photon torpedoes would have been more than sufficient," Seven tried again.

James groaned, "he's barely a month over twenty."

"You say that like it's okay. Typical Brit and anyone over sixteen is a-okay attitude," Tom said in a teasing voice.

Kathryn stepped out of the Ready Room with Chakotay right behind her.

"Excuse me. I need to know why Voyager used weapons that can tear open subspace, just to destroy a space station," Seven said a tad impatiently.

"Good timing," Tom whispered.

Kathryn walked over to her chair, giving Seven a slap across the back of her head on route. "Nobody cares Barbie." Her eyes widened at her chair. Everyone feared for their lives and braced for impact. Luckily her face lit up soon after, she ran over to pick up the gigantic mug from before. "Ah ha, you'd be perfect for my coffee cocktail."

Chakotay shuddered a little. "What was that noise before?"

"Your daughter thought it would be amusing to do a little dance routine here with her friends," Tuvok answered. "I believe she's intoxicated."

"Still?" Chakotay groaned in his hand.

"I would never do something like that," Seven muttered.

"That doesn't excuse her friends, and also Mr Taylor wanting to join in," Tuvok said.

Chakotay laughed slightly as he looked over towards James. "You, dance? That I'd like to see."

Kathryn's face turned red but no one was paying any attention, so no one braced themselves this time. "Why are there footprints on my chair!" she screeched.

"Um Kathryn, maybe you should make that coffee, cherry and coffee bean cocktail you were planning," Chakotay nervously suggested.

It was too late, Kathryn was already stomping off towards the turbolift. Chakotay quickly decided against following her.

The Mess Hall:
"I still find it hard to believe your mum would let us entertain the Bridge," Tani said.

Craig still looked a little embarrassed. "Oh I dunno. She's done things like that herself in the past. On the other hand if she's not on the er... juice, she may kill us."

Right on cue Kathryn stormed through the closest door. Even in her hyper state Morgan looked worried. "Uhoh."

Neelix though was stupid enough to get in Kathryn's way. "We'll be closing soon, Captain."

"I don't care. I'm just here to tell off my daughter and maybe have some coffee and Cherry Coke mixed in together. I dunno if that second one is good mixed with coffee..." Kathryn's anger disappeared as she thought about that. A few seconds of drooling later and she was back on the rampage.

"Hi... mum," Morgan said nervously. "Are you here to tell off Tani for always influencing my bad behaviour."

"Hey!" Tani complained.

"Morgan! How dare you put your dirty feet on my chair! Do you know how long it'll take for Harry to scrub that off?" Kathryn yelled.

"Tani was the one on your chair," Morgan said.

"Hey!" Tani moaned again.

Neelix hurried over with a big glass in his hand, filled with a black liquid. Kathryn snatched it off him without even looking. Annoyed that he was still standing there afterwards she gave him a nasty shove.

"But it was your idea, wasn't it?" Kathryn asked. Thankfully she took a sip of her drink. "Mmm, cherry-ey."

"But it's so boring around here. I just wanted something to do." Morgan then looked up at her, clearly interested in her drink. She got up to try and snatch it. Since it was coffee, she didn't have a chance at getting it.

"That's it, you're grounded," Kathryn snarled.

"It's my regeneration night though. Don't make me stay all day with Seven. She snores," Morgan complained.

Craig stared at her with a smirk on his face. "She does?"

"You're going there anyway, she won't be there all day so what does it matter if she snores?" Kathryn grumbled.

Morgan folded her arms in a huff. "Separate complaint, sheesh." Tani laughed at her.

"And you Tani, you're going to scrub my chair," Kathryn said.

Tani stopped laughing. "Damn," she muttered.

As if she knew people were talking about her, Seven walked in quickly. Her first stop was Neelix trying to get up from the floor. "Mr Neelix."

"Oh, Seven...s," Neelix said while swaying side to side. He tried to shake it off, his head hurt a lot more though so he stopped. "Is this about the Caretaker?"

"You know?" Seven was surprised.

"I've been warned, yes," Neelix said carefully. "You want to know about the array."

"Yes. It appears that the Tetryon reactor being used on the catapult is the one the Caretaker used. I intend to find out why. However I am having some difficulty getting data from the sensors," Seven said.

Neelix nodded. "Voyager was under attack at the time."

"By the Kazon?" Seven said in her version of a bemused tone. Neelix smiled, yet he knew others found it insulting.

"There were a lot of ships if I recall," he said. "You know, Kes always said it was strange. The Caretaker would pull people from the farthest reaches of the galaxy, test them and send them right back." The thought of Kes distracted him for the moment. Seven waited patiently for him to return to her.

The pair missed Kathryn running after Morgan, each of them with a glass in their hand. Also Kathryn screaming, "no, that's my recipe. Mine!"

"Were there any other vessels besides Voyager and the Marquis ship?" Seven asked.

"Only the Kazon," Neelix replied.

"But it could be possible that the Caretaker could've brought in another vessel. A cloaked ship perhaps," Seven said.

"Seven, what are you getting at?" Neelix asked.

"I believe there was another ship, hidden from both Voyager and the Kazon," Seven replied.

"What was it doing there?" Neelix asked.

"Preventing the Tetryon reactor from being destroyed," Seven said.

Neelix's jaw dropped, he stared with his eyes wide. "Kes was right. Something was going on."

"Voyager's sensor logs were damaged at the time, I can't be certain," Seven said.

A thought popped into his head. "My ship was in the shuttle bay at the time. Its sensors won't have been damaged. I can give them to you."

Cargo Bay Two:
"You're boring, do you know that?" Morgan moaned.

"Boredom is irrelevant, you must regenerate," Seven said.

Morgan groaned and she clumsily stepped into her alcove.

Seven stared at her for a while with interest. Once the girl was out she turned her attention to the computer nearby. The text on the screen said sensor log download complete.

"Computer begin regeneration cycle. Commence upload once the cycle begins," Seven ordered. The computer bleeped its acknowledgment as she stepped into her alcove.

Several hours later:
Morgan was awoken by the most horrific sound she'd ever heard. It sounded to her like a really bad transmission of somebody eating with their mouth full, with an added grinding metal sound in the background.

With a groan she stepped out of the alcove, ignoring the computer's warning that she was up early. She already knew where the noise was coming from and what it was. What she needed was a way to stop it. It seemed to do just that before she did anything.

"Mmm, hmm... conspiracy, mmm, piece of shhhhartank top," Seven's voice mumbled before the noise came back again.

Morgan shuddered in revulsion. Her search for a way to shut her up continued.

"Plasticine, irrelevant," Seven continued her mumbling. "Carrot armada."

Morgan pulled a face before miming the last two words. Her head shook. Finally she spotted something that would help. She picked it up in a hurry.

"Resistance is..." Seven mumbled a few non-words. Morgan approached her slowly. Just as she was about a foot away from her, the ex-drone suddenly roared, "toblerone!" Morgan jumped back while her heart thumped furiously in her throat, or that was how it felt like anyway.

Seven finally awoke, for some reason she couldn't understand with a nasty headache. It didn't matter, something more important was on her mind. The first thing she saw was Morgan quickly hiding a wall panel door behind her back and smiling innocently.

"Seven of Nine to Commander Chakotay," she said with a quick tap to her commbadge.

"Go ahead."

"I must speak with you in the Astrometrics Lab," Seven said urgently. She hurried out of the Cargo without even a passing glance to the younger girl.

"She's a Barbie girl, in her own little world," Morgan sang to herself in a hushed tone. "Bitch."

Astrometrics:
Chakotay was barely through the door when Seven barked at the computer, "computer seal the doors, deactivate all sensors in this room!"

Chakotay's eyes widened in panic. He tried to run for the door without really thinking. "No, I don't want to do C/7. No!"

Seven looked confused, "did you say you don't want to see Seven?"

Chakotay turned back around, laughing nervously. "There was a do in there somewhere." His eyes widened even further, his head turned red. "Oh god, that's not what I meant. Forget it. What's the matter?"

"I have startling news. I believe that our presence in the Delta Quadrant is no accident. You and the crew have been stranded here intentionally," Seven said.

Chakotay looked on with worry, but not as much as before. "By whom?"

"Captain Janeway," Seven answered.

There was silence for a few minutes. In the end what broke it was Chakotay's laughter.

Meanwhile:
The alien looked on nervously from the viewscreen, he was starting to sweat. Kathryn stared back at him menacingly from her seat.

"I'm certain if you value your... integrity, you will hand it over before Chakotay gets back. It'll be our little secret," she said coldly.

The poor alien was drowning in sweat by now. Luckily he was spared a little by somebody on Voyager's side running in front of Kathryn, blocking his view of her. The said somebody handed something large over to the Captain and ran off. Kathryn glared at him until he was out of sight.

Tuvok's eyebrows were pointing up so much he looked like he had a V on his forehead. "It wasn't necessary to threaten him. He must know what to do by now. It's been many years."

"Hmph. This is why you'll never make Captain, Commander," Kathryn scoffed. "You're too soft."

"Um," the alien piped up, meekly raising his hand. "So, I'm about to launch."

Kathryn brought the large item to her lips. I think you know what it is by now. Seconds later she was a completely different woman; bright, bubbly and approachable. "Oh, Tashy Washy! Hi!" she giggled, with a hand wave on the end. Everyone was used to this by now but the alien definitely wasn't, his eyes flew wide open. "I forgot you were there. Okay cutey, good luck."

The alien swallowed many lumps in his throat before he was able to speak. "Okay, thanks."

The viewscreen changed back to space view. Kathryn took another brief sip and giggled. "Ah cup one hundred. You're the best one. I feel so naughty." Of course most of the bridge shrivelled their nose in disgust in response.

Back in Astrometrics:
"Captain Janeway has fooled us all. She's intelligent and quite brilliant. I think we are victims of a Federation conspiracy. The overall intent to expand their territory and recruit allies to their cause," Seven said quickly.

Chakotay wiped the tears from his eyes left behind after his laughing fit. "Sounds like a bad fanfiction." His eyes shifted side to side nervously.

"As improbable as it sounds, I have found compelling evidence to support my theory," Seven said while turning completely around to tap on the station.

"Um I'm gonna stop you there. How would a lone starship be able to conquer anything, and why bother with territory that takes a lifetime to reach?" Chakotay questioned.

He didn't know he'd soon regret asking that. The only hint to that he had was a slight sparkle in Seven's eye after he did it. "I am glad you asked. It first began with one member of your crew. A Lieutenant Tuvok. He was a spy..."

"Yes I was there," Chakotay muttered.

Seven nodded, "he would send constant position and tactical reports on your vessel to Starfleet. Their peace treaty with the Cardassians allowed them to manipulate your position under the guise of an ambush, avoiding suspicion."

"It's a little bit too early in the morning for story time, Seven," Chakotay sighed.

"In the months before Voyager's arrival, Neelix recorded the appearance of fifty two vessels, including this one." Seven tapped on her console. A Cardassian warship appeared on the giant screen.

That part got the Commander's attention. "What?"

"Only days before Voyager arrived, the Cardassians were already in the Delta Quadrant. A coincidence?" Seven said.

"It makes sense. The Caretaker was looking for a mate. He was probably taking species from our region of space at the time. Seems efficient would be a better word than coincidence," Chakotay said.

Seven's eyes flashed with impatience, she gave the Commander a cold hard stare. "They were returned to the Alpha Quadrant, delivering strategic information regarding the area."

"They probably did, the Cardassians like that sort of thing, so what? It has nothing to do with us," Chakotay said with a shake of his head. "I'm starting to think the craziness of this ship is getting to you."

"At the same time the Cardassians were meeting with the Caretaker, your Marquis vessel was infiltrated by the Starfleet spy," Seven continued anyway.

Chakotay let out a huge sigh, a headache was starting to creep its way in. "The Marquis were mostly ex-Starfleet officers who didn't like the Cardassian peace treaty and the territory swap that came with it. Starfleet wanted it stopped but they didn't know where we were. Why wouldn't they send a spy?"

"As your navigator, Commander Tuvok guided your ship to the pre-arranged coordinates in the Badlands..." Seven said.

Chakotay held his hand out flat, hinting at her to stop. "One of our bases was there, we were nearby and under attack. How are you not getting this? There's no conspiracy, there's no deception."

His disbelief was making her madder, "Voyager followed you, and was also pulled into the Delta Quadrant. The Caretaker already had Human specimens, did he not?"

"Oh god, there's more than just Humans on this ship you know. Voyager had to retrieve their crewmember," Chakotay groaned.

"Why won't you believe me? The evidence is obvious to me," Seven snapped.

"Yes because you're always right," Chakotay muttered sarcastically. "Marquis ship heads home, Caretaker kidnaps them. Voyager pursues as their spy is missing, is also kidnapped. Cardassians head home to tell their friends about this region of space but find they can't repeat the accident. The End. Your evidence can barely be called that. Next you'll be telling me they faked the moon landing."

"Why did the Captain destroy the array?" Seven demanded.

Chakotay couldn't be bothered anymore, he only groaned into his right hand. He luckily missed the footage of the array she was playing with earlier. However she paused it in the same spot.

"Tuvok fired two tri-cobalt devices. Interesting as photon torpedoes are the standard weaponry, at least until quantum," Seven said.

"Quantum what?" Chakotay continued his groan. He finally looked up to see what she was talking about. That tiny bit of light pointing at the array mid explosion looked like it had been added on later. It didn't faze him. "Voyager also had bio neural circuitry and was one of, or the first starship to have the capability to land. Call Security, Voyager is obviously some sort of warship bent on galaxy domination."

He noticed the ex-drone clench one of her fists while hiding it behind her back. "Tri-cobalt devices can create a tear in subspace. A cloaked vessel waited for this moment, grabbed the Tetryon reactor and pushed it into subspace."

"I didn't know the Cardassians had cloaked ships, but sure, whatever," Chakotay grumbled.

"It eventually reached here, delivered by many different people, to Mr Tash," Seven still continued. Chakotay frowned. "The alien." He nodded in understanding. "So he could build the piece of sh..."

"Okay it's weird when you call it that, re-occurring joke or not," Chakotay interrupted. "We've made several different jumps using slipstream, Kes' abilities, Borg technology. You're saying that a bunch of random ships were able to keep up with us. Did they have transwarp, slipstream? If so, why not go all the way, why use different ships?" Seven's face tightened up. "How did they know where we would be? I'd call Voyager showing up at just the right time to use it a coincidence. You do know what that word means, right?"

Seven seemed to finally snap. She began to pace erratically, her voice almost to a shout. "Episode One Point Twelve; Voyager discovers a species with the capability to get the ship home faster. Marquis crewmembers attempt to smuggle it onboard but they find that Tuvok did it first. The device doesn't work. Interesting."

"Oh we're not even trying the Stardates are we?" Chakotay sighed.

He was ignored, "Episode One Point Thirteen; a Marquis crewmember attempts to make an alliance with the Kazon. Lieutenant Tuvok and Commander Chakotay discover her intent and she flees. Was it her own intention or did the order come from somewhere higher up?"

"Episode Two Point Zero Four; The Kazon steal a transporter module. Marquis crewmembers sneak off Voyager to retrieve it. Voyager made no effort to do this themselves. The two crewmembers were punished, why?"

"Episode Two Point Zero Seven; Voyager establishes the first of many alliances with Damien."

Many long hours later:
Chakotay slouched to one side as he dozed. Seven's voice getting louder for a sentence startled him awake. He quickly shook his head to keep him that way. He was annoyed to see her still talking.

"Episode One Point Zero Four; Janeway sends the Doctor's program to a Starfleet vessel in the Alpha Quadrant. An attempt to contact Earth or a secret message to inform Starfleet of her progress?"

"That wasn't actually shown so you can't say what episode it was," Chakotay yawned.

"Irrelevant," Seven quipped harshly. "Each alliance was called diplomacy. What it really was, was an attempt to establish a tactical infrastructure in the Delta Quadrant."

"If the Captain's job was to make tactical friends everywhere, she sure did a rubbish job," Chakotay muttered quietly.

Seven raised an eyebrow, "what?" Chakotay shook his head. "There were two hundred and sixty three course changes in the name of exploration. In reality she was mapping..."

"Okay I get it. Big bad conspiracy, sure, I'm on it. Sheesh," Chakotay said while trying to escape. The doors were still sealed. Seven decided to let him go and unsealed them, he heard the click telling him so.

"You mustn't allow Captain Janeway to get a hold of that piece of sh..." he was already gone before she could finish.

Feeling like he had just lost a few weeks of his life, Chakotay hurried down the corridor. He ran into Morgan who was listening to music through some in ear headphones. "Hi!" she giggled. He ignored her.

They both stepped into the turbolift. "The Doctor freaked me out with his opera singing, now he's a ballerina in a tutu," Morgan said. Chakotay still ignored her. "Tuvok's snapped and he's gone on a killing spree," she tried again. He still ignored her.

The door opened and the pair stepped onto the Bridge.

"Are you all right?" Kathryn asked towards the viewscreen. It was a little fuzzy but the image of the alien they had met was clear enough.

"Just a little damage, nothing serious. I'll send the modifications to you. My piece of shoot is yours Captain. Safe journey," the alien guy said. The viewscreen switched off.

"I've got it," Harry grinned like a kid.

"Get that data down to B'Ella. Yey! We're going home!" Kathryn giggled.

Tom winced, "I wouldn't call her that to her face. It never ends well." He rubbed his ear.

"Who cares, Janeway's been on the Cherry Coffee again, she won't even notice," Harry mumbled.

Chakotay walked over to him so he could take the padd off him. "I'll take it to Engineering," he said.

"But..." Harry looked like he had been kicked in the nuts. Or told he couldn't take his favourite toy outside. Chakotay ignored him and stepped through the nearest door.

"Yey! We're getting closer to home using a piece of shh..." Kathryn said, the last word muffled by her sipping her coffee.

"How comforting," Tom muttered.

"God, what a big strop," Morgan grumbled.

Kathryn tried to turn around in her chair to look up at her daughter. "What?"

"That jerk just ignored me when I was talking to him. I hate him," Morgan huffed.

"No you don't. He's probably only in a bad mood," Kathryn said. All she got was an eye roll. She went to take one last sip of her coffee, only then noticing it had been snatched out of her hands. Her threatening growl was drowned out by Morgan's hyper giggles.

Engineering:
"I want you to add a .03 variance to these shield modifications."

B'Elanna briefly glanced at the PADD while wondering why he was whispering. Once she did she gave him a stare that made her worry that there was something wrong with him.

"That'll disrupt the emitters."

"And you'll need another six hours to get them back online. I know."

"Have you run this by the Captain?"

"No... and I'm not going to. Not yet."

Not long later the pair weren't alone, they had been joined by Jessie, Craig and James.

"Why would she do that? We'll still be twenty thousand lightyears away from Earth," B'Elanna stuttered.

"I knew it wasn't thirty five," Jessie commented to herself.

"I don't know. I want you to delay the shield modifications. I'll have a look at the readings myself," Chakotay said.

Harry walked up to the group. "Janeway and Janeway Junior were driving me nuts. Someone really has to do something, everyone's getting addicted to Cherry Coke again. It makes everyone act like drunken idiots," Harry said. Jessie, James and Craig daydreamed for a little while and they ran out of the room. "See what I mean?"

"Harry, we don't need any help, go and bug the Doctor," B'Elanna snapped.

"Okay," Harry whimpered and he hurried away.

"Download complete," the computer's voice said.

Seven's eyes sprung open, her jaw almost dropped in shock. She tapped her commbadge quickly. "Seven of Nine to Captain Janeway."

"Jesus Christ Seven, you pick your moments, I almost fell off the seat."

"I apologise but I need to speak with you in the Astrometrics Lab urgently," Seven said nervously. The sound of a toilet flush distracted her for a second, her eyebrow raised. "Oh."

"Fine, as usual I'll drop everything for my favourite ex Borg drone," Kathryn's voice grumbled.

Seven was about to reply to that but the comm bleeped off half through a very rude swear word.

Like before Kathryn was barely through the door when Seven barked at the computer, "Computer seal the doors, deactivate all sensors in this room!"

Kathryn just smirked though, "oh Seven, you're not my type but I'm flattered."

"No, I believe Chakotay and other members of your crew are involved in a conspiracy to resurrect the Marquis rebellion," Seven said.

Kathryn sniggered while she sipped her coffee. Once she was done she spoke up, "did Chakotay put you up to this, that rascal."

"Chakotay intends to launch attacks against Cardassian and Federation starships using the piece of sh..." A loud slurp interrupted her. "Captain, are you listening?"

"No, if I need to listen to anymore of this crap, I'm gonna need a bigger cup," Kathryn muttered. Forgetting the doors were sealed she turned to leave, only to nearly walk into them. Seven heard the deadly growl but didn't worry about it.

"As improbable as it sounds, I have found compelling evidence to support my theory," Seven said while turning completely around to tap on the station.

Many more long hours later:
Kathryn was busy imagining various different ways to kill Seven. She was currently on strangle her with her own catsuit when Seven unknowingly to her reached the half way point.

"Episode Three Point Sixteen; a subspace rift appears inside the ship which threatens to tear it apart. It stops for no reason at all. The phenomenon was never investigated or mentioned again. Episode One Point Zero Three; Kes made a sudden decision to leave the ship. Apparently she thought that the crew had been manipulated into forgetting key information about this incident. Was someone trying to silence her?"

"Seven," Kathryn yawned.

To Kathryn Seven's response to that was, "blah blah, don't interrupt me, I'm so special, blah blah."

"If I don't get another coffee two hours ago I will be forced to kill the person nearest to me," Kathryn warned her.

"Blah, blah, blah, I'm better than you cos I'm Borg, character development, what's that, blah blah," Seven apparently said in Kathryn's point of view. Seven's voice finally started to fade away but so did the surroundings. Kathryn landed face down on the console and started to snore.

"Captain! How dare you fall asleep while I'm saving the day!" Seven snapped at her.

Kathryn waved her off, still half asleep. Seven continued anyway as if she was fully awake, despite the obvious drool.

After Seven had released Kathryn from her prison, the ex Borg was walking down the corridor. Everytime somebody walked by her she'd turn her head to watch them until they were gone. Her shoulders were higher and tensed up. When no one was around her head would dart side to side.

She almost leapt out of her catsuit when the only two kids on the ship ran straight over to her. It didn't help when they were followed by Morgan. Seeing her made her even more tense.

"Hi Seven. Kiara says you're a scary know it all with big bubs, prove her wrong," Naomi said.

Morgan pulled a face, "no, I said that."

"Yeah and Morgan said that mum said you liked sticking your nose in stuff. That's gross," Kiara said.

"Not literally," Morgan corrected her. Kiara stared up at her blankly. "She doesn't actually stick her nose in stuff. It's just another way of saying that Seven likes to be in every episode and every scene, and everyone must worship the ground she walks on."

"That sounds more like you, how many scenes did you stick your nose in? At least I do something useful," Seven snapped at her.

Morgan giggled, "oooh, Barbie now comes with a handbag."

Naomi pouted at the two of them, "stop being mean. It's not her fault she's clever and helpful. You're jealous."

"No, I like my bubs the way they are," Morgan said.

Seven scowled back at her, then looked down at Kiara. "Your parents. Which side are you on?"

"What? I love both of them," Kiara was obviously confused. She wasn't the only one, the other two girls stared at Seven blankly.

"And you, your father was Ktarian. The Ktarians were officially with the Federation but they sympathised with the Marquis," Seven said.

"Oy! Stop being so horrible, they're just kids and I'm the one..." Morgan said angrily.

"Who's side are you all on, Chakotay's or Janeway's?" Seven asked angrily.

Kiara started crying, Naomi tried to comfort her.

"Tell them it's too late, get lost!" Seven yelled. Kiara ran off in tears and Naomi followed her.

Morgan pushed Seven so she'd stumble back a few steps. "Haven't you got anything better to do than pick on little kids?"

"Who's side are you on?" Seven asked.

"Definitely not yours. No one makes my sister cry and gets away with it," Morgan said angrily.

"Well maybe I'm tired of everyone ignoring me or insulting me, when all I've done is help this crew on their journey," Seven grumbled.

Morgan laughed but insincerely. "Oh really? It was super helpful when you tried to get us assimilated. Took off to get assimilated, pissing off the people we were trying to get to let us through their space. Made us lose slipstream. Intentionally pushed the Doc into a mental breakdown. Mention you were a Borg in every situation, even if has nothing to do with you..."

"Well there would be better examples if you didn't steal everything from me," Seven said. Morgan's jaw dropped. "Admit it. You want to be me and you can't stand the fact that nobody cares about anything original you do, unless it's wander around the ship like a drunken fool."

"It was coffee. Mum chucked about fifty spoons of coffee in her replicator order!" Morgan snapped. "I'd never want to be like you. I have some self respect... and a personality for that matter."

"Yes angry and stroppy teenage girl who slags people off and listens to bad music. There's something that's never been done before," Seven scoffed.

Morgan couldn't help but growl like her mother would. "I'm being judged by the cow that has to be dressed in a painted on suit to lure in the boys, and whose only character development was faking a smile into a mirror and a crying scene that is retconned later cos apparently I don't cry, I must be broken."

Seven's eyes narrowed.

"Don't get me started on the I don't have dreams or I'm incapable of loving people without flipping a switch cos I'm Borg rubbish later. I have plenty of examples of that being wrong. It's almost like any signs of growth isn't part of your character. It has to be undone, erased so you're back to your boring one dimensional self, just to do the same story all over again. Weird that."

Cargo Bay Two:
"Is it true?" Kathryn asked.

"What?" Chakotay raised his eyebrow.

The two seemed to be in the middle of a suspicious staring contest, with phasers on their belts.

"That you're a two timing son of a bitch," Kathryn growled.

"No, you're the two timing one," Chakotay said.

"What's that suppose to mean, Tattoo Boy?" Kathryn asked angrily.

"It's supposed. I know all about your plans, you're not going to get away with it," Chakotay snapped back.

"There's no plans you little nit wit. Now off to the Brig with you!" Kathryn said with danger in her voice, her eyes sharper than usual.

"Why?" Chakotay asked.

"Don't act dumb, because you already are. Anyway I found out about your little plan for the piece of sh..."

"It's a catapult," Chakotay interrupted.

Kathryn saw red, her finger snapped up to point at him. "Will people stop interrupting me! You're not the censor bar! Typical, you tried to say that I had plans for it. Nice cover you sneaky buffoon."

"Wait a minute. Seven said the same thing to you that she said to me?" Chakotay asked.

Kathryn blinked a few times, then she caught on. "The cheeky cow! She set us up."

"Sickbay to Janeway."

"Go ahead, and make it quick," Kathryn said.

"Morgan was found unconscious on Deck Ten."

"Oh god, is she all right now?" Kathryn stuttered. Chakotay looked on with the same worried expression.

"She's fine because I'm just so great."

"I want you to come to Cargo Bay Two. You'll have to scan Seven's new alcove," Chakotay said.

"I'm on my way now."

Kathryn and Chakotay headed out the door. "Chakotay, forget everything I've just said," Kathryn said.

"Done," Chakotay said. They left the Cargo Bay.

Meanwhile:
"You were originally a member of the Federation, but you let the Marquis walk all over you. Who's side are you on?" Seven screamed.

Who was on the receiving end didn't answer her. It couldn't. Still Seven was outraged and pointed her finger angrily at the window.

"I knew it, you're in on it too!" she roared.

The object through the other side of the window still didn't say anything.

Seven's cheeks were bright red from the shouting. Her hair had fallen out of her usually impossibly neat bun, a bruise had swollen up her eye. Both looked more bugged than usual. "Fine, I'll show you!"

She huffed about a bit while trying to figure out the silly controls at her fingertips. Once she did she turned her back on her latest victim with a flourished hmph and nose in the air.

Voyager still sat there and said nothing, enraging her further.

The Bridge:
Kathryn and Chakotay stepped on the Bridge just in time to see the Flyer fly off ahead of them. Oh and Tom sobbing over the helm.

"Seven's taken the Flyer. She's screwed up the tractor beam targeting sensors and the helm isn't working correctly," Harry reported. "We can't beam her off either, she's done something to alter her bio signature."

Chakotay groaned. "This is why people hate characters that can do anything. They're always the ones to do stuff like this."

"Yes, how hard is it to think up some real obstacles, something related to the plot. Not this character is a genius and out thinks us before we've even done it," Kathryn said. She stared at Tom in distaste. "What is he..."

Chakotay rolled his eyes. "Tom, maybe the helm would work if you stopped leaning on it."

Tom sniffled, then stopped, immediately perking up. "Oh right."

"Yeah that's better," Harry bluntly commented.

"We can't chase her forever," Chakotay pointed out.

Kathryn glanced towards Tuvok, "target her propulsion and weapons."

Tom cringed, "that's your solution to everything."

He could feel the death glare heating up his back. It didn't help that the phasers fired were displayed on the viewscreen. They may as well have turned around and hit Voyager.

"Targeting scanners are out of alignment," Tuvok explained before she asked.

Kathryn's whole body tightened, smoke started to rise. "I hate that stupid piece of shi..."

"Doctor to Janeway."

"Oooh so close to saying the whole word," Tom complained.

"Seven downloaded too much data into her cortical implant. She's trying to make sense of more information than she can process."

"Oh so like Tom in a meeting. Only instead of conspiracy theories it's bad look at me jokes," Kathryn nodded in understanding.

Tom bit his tongue for now, but his head was swimming with many swear words.

"Beam me aboard the Flyer," Kathryn ordered.

"You know, we do have a transporter room. If we can beam from here, what's the point of it?" Harry questioned. He soon melted from the rays emanating from Kathryn's glare.

Chakotay turned to face her, "I'm going with you."

"No, she's going to bed without any supper," Kathryn joked.

"This isn't part of your mission, is it?" Chakotay said, not seriously. The slight lip curl at the end of his sentence gave him away.

"Is it part of yours?" Kathryn asked with an amused glint in her eyes.

"Good luck," Chakotay smiled.

"Energise," Kathryn said.

Once she was gone Tom dared to say something, "what's her mission, to rid the universe of coffee? Is it yours to stop her?"

"It's clear who's winning," Jessie commented.

The Delta Flyer:
Kathryn dematerialised only a few metres behind Seven. The ex-drone didn't seem to react. She carefully took a few steps forward only to bump into a forcefield.

"You came here hoping to stop me. You'll fail," Seven snarled with so much venom in her voice.

"No. I came here hoping to spank the crap out of you, kick you out and get my shuttle back. Do you know how long it took to build this thing? Three whole days!" Kathryn snapped.

Seven rolled her eyes, not that Kathryn could see. "Your orders are irrelevant. I'm no longer under your command."

"I don't remember saying any version of the word order," Kathryn butted in.

"You deceived me," Seven seethed.

It was Kathryn's turn to roll her eyes. Her arms folded tightly to stop them flying to her hips. "News flash; any fake Marquis or Starfleet conspiracy would have nothing to do with you. Typical."

"I realise that!" Seven snapped back, briefly turning her head to one side. "I found out what your true objective is."

"Gee, I wonder!" Kathryn groaned.

Seven swung around to stare daggers at her. "Me."

"Shocking," Kathryn muttered.

Seven ignored her, she had another story to tell. Kathryn recognised that look, she went to have a sit down in the nearest seat. "Stardate 31611..."

"No episode numbers this time?" Kathryn murmured.

"The Federation sends my parents to study the Borg Collective..." Seven explained.

Kathryn's eyes turned deadly, her fists even clenched. "What the hell? Were the original writers on crack or something?" Seven wasn't sure what to say to that yet. "The Hansons sent themselves. Starfleet had never heard of the Borg until the Enterprise encountered them, twelve years after the Hansons left. Them knowing at all is a plot hole in itself."

"But..." Seven tried to interrupt like she kept doing.

"Oh no I'm sorry, please go on. I want to hear the rest of this crap," Kathryn said.

"They knew we'd be assimilated. That was their intention," Seven continued on.

Kathryn giggled into her hand, "evil megalomaniacs aren't we? Thirteen years after we sent a family of three to their doom, Starfleet were all shocked that Picard was taken the exact same way. Interesting."

"Voyager is sent to the Delta Quadrant with orders to retrieve me," Seven said. Kathryn bit her lip to stop herself laughing out loud or even talking back this time. "When they reach Borg space Captain Janeway negotiates an alliance with the Collective in exchange for information regarding Species 8472. They agree to give her Seven of Nine."

The lip biting only worked for a few seconds. "That last line I could believe."

"Janeway then extracts implants from my body to remove any knowledge I have of her agreement with the Borg. Janeway then finalises plans to use the piece..."

"Yes, crap is one way of putting it," Kathryn mumbled to herself.

"To deliver Seven of Nine to the Alpha Quadrant; where Starfleet will dissect and analyse the drone to gather tactical data to fight the Borg," Seven finally finished.

Kathryn shook her head. "Once again we're forgetting about Jean Luc Picard, the man the Borg picked as a leader role. If we wanted to dissect anyone it would be him. Though my mistake, that happened after the Hansons went after a species we had never heard of. My bad!"

"I won't allow you to complete your mission. If necessary I will destroy the piece of sh..." she paused to wait for the interruption. "And myself."

"Why couldn't you take one of the older shuttles? Those things are great at crashing into things," Kathryn questioned seriously.

"See, you have no argument," Seven hissed.

Kathryn's eyes widened in anger, "what the hell have I been doing this whole time?" She inhaled deeply to calm herself down. "So, you're saying that the entire reason for our journey. No, the entire premise of this series, was just to bring your majesty on this ship?"

"All of the evidence is too coincidental to ignore," Seven said.

Kathryn seemed to think about it. "So the first three years was just a waste of time. Prep work before the main star of the crew shows up. She who shall save us from difficult situations and character development."

"No. You want to use me to destroy the Borg. I will not be a pawn any longer!" Seven snapped.

"It would explain a lot. The Borg are a bunch of balls," Kathryn said quietly to herself. "Without the Species 8472 invasion, how would we have been able to negotiate?"

Seven stared blankly while thinking of a response.

"Better yet, if my goal was to destroy the Borg, why wouldn't I just improvise and do nothing to help them?" Kathryn asked. "I'm sure Species 8472 are in on it too. Just like the Marquis, the Cardassians, Seska, the Borg themselves, my mum, the tooth fairy..."

"Why do you continue to mock me?" Seven demanded.

"I bet Q is in on it too. He likes doing things like this," Kathryn finished her sentence anyway. She frowned at the drone while her fingers began to drum on the nearby console. "Let me tell you what the real conspiracy is. You couldn't be bothered to learn things like everyone else does, so you make this modification to your alcove. Doing this makes you no better than a walking USB dev..."

"USB?" Seven was obviously confused.

Kathryn shrugged, "I wanted to insult you so I went with ancient technology you'd be aware of.  As you're not, let's go old school. A walking floppy disk instead of a Human being. Basically the floppy disk can't fit all of the information being written onto it. The only way to do it is to compress the data. Since floppy disks can only fit a tiny spreadsheet on it, if that, all you get is a garbled mess which is exactly the situation we're in now."

"I am not a floppy disk!" Seven snapped.

"I can't go any more outdated than that, most people probably don't know what a floppy disk is," Kathryn complained.

"No, I'm much more than just a data storage device," Seven said.

Kathryn pretended to look shocked. "But... I thought that's what you wanted. Wasn't that the point of the learn everything while you snore book on tape?"

"See, you have nothing but contempt for me. You never really wanted me to be a member of your crew. Why else would you violently disconnect me from the hive, why give me a hard time?" Seven said.

Kathryn nodded, "now finally we're providing some real evidence." Her face attempted to soften. "Look, when you were disconnected I was in the middle of pushing a Human being out. You meanwhile were trying to assimilate us. What else could we do? Sit and watch? I was irritable and I knew you would do this, so I sent somebody to deal with you. The disconnection was a surprise to even me.

"I may have given you a hard time but you weren't the only one. Days after having a baby I still don't remember making, my ship was adrift in Borg Space with an entire deck looking like Neelix's better dishes. It's been a stressful few years and I know I take it out on people. As I complained before, it's not all about you."

Seven stared down at her console, thinking deeply about what was said. The anger was still bottling inside of her though, it made it harder to do so.

"You know Kiara told me that Naomi spends more time with you than her," Kathryn said. Seven looked around with a surprised expression. "I guess that annoyed me too. But at least you are capable of acting Human. Perhaps concentrate more on that, than trying to find ways to alienate yourself from everyone else."

"Naomi Wildman, she wanted me to play kadis-kot but I was more interested in finishing my alcove," Seven mumbled, realisation washing over her.

The shuttle trembled, the consoles began bleeping afterwards. Seven turned back to look but the familiar tractor beam light shone on the windows.

"Shuttle Cochrane to Delta Flyer. We hadn't heard from you in a while, so we're taking you back," James' voice said over the comm.

Seven tensed up again, which Kathryn noticed. She tapped her commbadge. "Using a shuttle to get around Seven's alterations, not bad."

"Oh my god, are you ill?" Craig's voice stuttered. Foster and Thompson's voice sniggered quietly.

Kathryn sighed impatiently. "Why would I... oh cos I gave a compliment, very funny." She looked towards Seven, "hopefully we won't need a Security team, right?"

"Correct," Seven nodded. Kathryn knew she wasn't lying as the sound of the forcefield lowering immediately followed.

"Good, cos I can't do anymore sappiness. I haven't had enough coffee yet," Kathryn said honestly.

Seven couldn't help but smile, which took Kathryn aback as she hadn't really seen it before. She smiled back afterwards.

It seemed like a nice moment until Kathryn spoke up again, "so, about my daughter having to go to Sickbay?" Seven's face fell.

Captain's Log Supplemental: I swear we've been ripped off. That bloody alien said he jumped five thousand lightyears but we only managed three. I suppose they don't call it a piece of shit for nothing.

The rest of the table stared at her open mouthed, little Kiara just giggled instead.

"What?" Kathryn said curiously.

"You actually said it," Chakotay muttered.

Kathryn rolled her eyes, "well we ran out of good interruption ideas on the second, maybe first time it was said. It was annoying."

Kiara opened her mouth, "sh..." Chakotay quickly put a hand over it. He heard a little innocent whine come from her.

"Sooo, conspiracies huh?" Morgan said quickly.

"No, it's not true. It was just Seven's imagination," Chakotay said.

"Oh, well don't even think about it or I'll make you regret it," Morgan said in such a way that made the adults think she meant it.

Kathryn laughed, "yes ma'am."

"It's not crunch time mum," Morgan smiled. Kathryn faked a scowl her way. "So you two coming to blows was a rumour?"

"I wouldn't believe a word of it," Chakotay answered.

"Me neither," Kathryn smiled. Chakotay did the same. "I'd win before he'd raise his fists anyway."

"Thanks," Chakotay laughed.

Morgan sipped on her cup, "mmm, coffee is actually quite nice."

"Actually it isn't coffee. It's just that Cherry Coke stuff flat and hot," Kathryn said.

Chakotay waited to see how Morgan reacted to that. She just shrugged and continued drinking the so called coffee, then he allowed himself to smirk. "Seven was malfunctioning. We don't have that excuse."

Kathryn smiled warmly at him. "You're right. We've been through too much to stop trusting each other now."

Morgan and Kiara both pulled a disgusted face.

"Besides, if my intention was to conquer the Delta Quadrant with Voyager, I probably wouldn't have took your crew in," Kathryn said. Chakotay's smile faded away. "Just saying."

Chakotay glanced down at his cup suspiciously. "You didn't poison the coffee, did you?"

"Yep. You only get that decaf crap," Kathryn smiled sweetly back.

Chakotay laughed, so did Kathryn before continuing their drinks. Once they stopped they heard Morgan giggling, they looked over to find her climbing feet first onto her chair.

"Maybe I should have done that to her instead," Kathryn muttered.

THE END

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