Star Trek Voyager: Independence

“…and so I’ve confined her to Cargo Bay 2 until further notice.” Captain Kathryn Janeway’s agitated pacing around her quarters’ coffee table came to a terse halt as she glanced over at her companion in the room, the former Maquis leader and her First Officer Commander Chakotay, her gaze narrowing uncertainly. “I’ve allowed her to continue her duties in Astrometrics on a restricted basis. She’s been locked out of essential command systems and I expect you to stop her if you catch her trying to circumvent that…” Janeway sighed heavily, “I can’t have a different set of rules for her, and she broke several of my most important ones today.”

“I don’t think Seven would expect leniency Captain, she’s a part of this crew just like everyone else.” Chakotay replied, “And I will keep an eye on what she’s doing down in Astrometrics.” He shifted uncomfortably on the flimsy dining chair he was sitting on, trying to tuck in his long legs. He didn’t think now would be the right time to remind the Captain that, if she wanted to, Seven could do plenty of damage with just the ‘non-essential’ systems at her command. In the back of his mind, he didn’t doubt that Seven could gain complete control of this ship with access to something as simple as a replicator.

“Oh, I don’t think the Borg left Seven with the word ‘leniency’ in her vocabulary.” Janeway remarked darkly, “As for expecting to be treated…punished like every member of my crew would be, I don’t think she’s sees it that way either.”

Chakotay reached over for the mug of tea the Captain had presented him with and took a long, deliberate gulp as he debated whether to voice the question her comments were begging for. He almost gagged as he swallowed, like the Captain’s anger over this situation with Seven, the Hirogen and Species 8472, the drink had been stewing far too long, and was bitter and cold. As with the meals she replicated and then partially tried to cook, or at least heat-up herself, the Captain liked to manually make their respective drinks for these dinners of theirs, generally leaving him with a soggy tea bag at the bottom of his mug on each occasion and the Captain hyped up by overly concentrated coffee. Finally, he decided, for the sake of his curiosity and to stop her from boiling over, he asked the question. “What exactly did Seven say to you?”

“She…” Janeway began tightly, her hands clenching by her sides for a moment as her throat seemed to close up, “She said she was puzzled.” She reported shortly as she sank into the other chair across the small table from him, frowning in thought at how to proceed as Chakotay merely raised an eyebrow to urge her to continue. “She finds it puzzling that after all these months of encouraging her to ‘cultivate her independence’…” Janeway mimicked Seven’s formal inflections bitterly, causing Chakotay to grimace slightly behind his mug of tea, “…after trying to get her to let go of the Collective and embrace her independence and her humanity, how I can then punish her for asserting that independence?” Her lips twisted and Chakotay knew that, despite her unashamedly indignant tone, Seven’s point had still hit home somewhere, gotten under her skin. “I explained to her that on a starship, on my ship with an established chain of command, there’s a limit to individuality, at least to how she seems to view individuality, but then she accused me of being frightened of her! Angry and frightened because she doesn’t deign to think like I do, because she’s not becoming like me, like all of us!” Janeway halted for breath, her painfully tight chest heaving, but as she did so she saw something flicker over Chakotay’s inscrutable face, something that made her freeze in disbelief. “You…” Her hands curled around the edge of the table for support, “You think she’s right…”

The blare of her small kitchen’s fire alarm cut through the tension that had been building in the room like the smoke just beginning to wisp out from the door of her oven. Jumping at the noise as if she’d been whipped, Janeway swore as she sprang up and shoved one hand into her already scorched pair of oven gloves and yanked the door open, hurriedly salvaging the cottage pie inside. “Damn it!” she exclaimed with more passion than another burnt meal warranted, but rather than give in to disaster she stubbornly dragged a knife around the blackened, disintegrating crust to loosen the pie from its pan and tipped it onto a serving plate before marching back to the table, looking over Chakotay’s head. “It’s still edible.” She muttered quietly.