A Captain And A Madman

Chapter Eighteen: Perfection

The battle began as soon as the Ready Room doors had hissed shut.

"What the Hell were you doing?" Janeway barked, turning as soon as they'd entered the Ready Room to confront the Captain of the Enterprise.

"Offering you alternatives," Picard replied tightly, his voice quieter, but hardly submissive.

"Alternatives?" Janeway swept her arm towards the bridge door, "you questioned my orders in front of the bridge crew, when you should know damn well that, as a guest on my ship, any concerns you have should be brought to me in privacy. I expected you to declare mutiny right there and then."

Picard scowled, but finally gave a short, curt nod.

"It was bad form on my part," he admitted, "but Captain, leaving the Sphere's departure point is a mistake, one that will only serve to guarantee the Borg acquire what they're looking for."

"So, what do you suggest?" Janeway asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "That we sit there for a week and wait until the Borg decide to drop a Cube on top of us?"

"The alternative," Picard snapped, "is to do nothing and allow the Borg to assimilate all the knowledge in his possession and use it to vastly increase their power. Whatever the cost, whatever the risk, we must retrieve him before they can complete the assimilation process."

"And how do we do that?" Janeway countered, hands spread wide. "We have no transwarp coil, no way to catch up with that Sphere, and even if we did, his capture was a 'top priority' according to Seven. I wouldn't be surprised if they've surrounded him with an entire fleet. Voyager wouldn't be able to get within a light year of that ship."

Picard's mouth opened to reply, but he finally just shut it, frustrated. Pacing, he scarcely noticed when Janeway settled into her chair, elbows resting on the desk and hands cradling her head for just a moment. Inspiration struck the Enterprise's Captain soon after, though, and when he whirled towards her, it was with fresh purpose.

"His TARDIS," Picard said. "Temporal Prime Directive be damned, I can't imagine the Starfleet of the future would have intended for the Borg to get their hands on all the Doctor's knowledge. If we can gain entry, somehow glean its controls, we could use it to intercept that Sphere. Or, at the very least, sent you a warning a week ago so we'll both know to keep him locked in the brig."

Janeway frowned pensively, fingers drumming on her desk. Trying to break into a highly advanced alien timeship was probably a bad idea. Trying to operate said vessel without any clear indication on how it functioned might well prove disastrous.

But then again, if the Borg managed to tap into the Doctor's mind... could anything else be worse?

"Very well," she agreed. "I'll have B'Elanna and an Engineering team assemble in the shuttle bay; hopefully we can find some way to gain access without resorting to force. In the meantime, I'll need you to remember anything you can about how he controlled the-"

Before she finish her instructions, however, the EMH's voice piped through the comm speakers.

"Doctor to Captain Janeway."

Sighing, Janeway tapped her commbadge. "Janeway here."

"Captain," the EMH said gravely, "I was just informed of the Doctor's captivity by Mister Paris. As I am presuming that a rescue mission is unfeasible, I simply wanted to confirm whether or not I should discontinue my assignment."

"Doctor, now isn't the-" she paused, blinked, then echoed; "-your assignment? What assignment?"

Voyager's Doctor paused as well, speaking a little more carefully. "The construction and calibration request the Doctor had given me to complete by 2100 hours."