Cybersong by S. N. Lewitt Page A

log was, or even if they kept one.”
    “They kept one,” the captain said with absolute conviction. “We just have to find it.”
    ***
    Chakotay was furious. He knew that no one else knew it, but he knew it. And he couldn’t let whatever was broadcasting from that ship know it.
    It was a trap. After they repeated their plea for help for the third time, when the captain and Paris and Kim were already over there, he knew for certain. It was a trap, and it was a bad trap to boot.
    Chakotay knew that he had to get them out of there. No matter what these creatures were telling him, it was a lie. It had to be. They didn’t acknowledge the away team, and Chakotay wished it was time for their checkin.
    He tried their commbadges, but with the tachyon interference, the badges only reported an empty cackle. The fact that the away team couldn’t be raised did not mean that they were in danger, Chakotay told himself. There were no life-sign readings on that alien vessel. There was nothing there to attack.
    So why should there be a trap? What had put out the bait?
    A trap was just a technique of hunting. Chakotay knew something about hunting. Some things wore different guises but never really changed.
    The hunter baits a trap and then waits for the prey to take the bait.
    The bait is different for different prey.
    How could something in the Delta Quadrant bait a trap for mostly humans? How could it know that it wanted them? Or were there others here that it sought, and there was just enough similarity that this had all been meant for someone else?
    But if that was the case, why was the language Federation Standard?
    Chakotay was stunned when he realized it. Back home no one even thought of language as an issue. But here on the other side of the galaxy, they had been greeted in their own tongue. Fluently.
    Even poignantly.
    How could anything without a Universal Translator use their language so quickly and so well? The Kazon and a few other races they had encountered seemed to have some translator capabilities, but the level of expression he had heard was not up to the same technology Voyager used regularly.
    There was only one way it could be done so well. The alien computer must have uploaded their Universal Translator files.
    That created a whole new set of questions. Chakotay wished he had some time to consider the larger implications, perhaps think through the puzzle.
    But he didn’t have the time.
    He had a choice. He knew what the captain would do in his place. o he decided that he would have to do it himself not because it would make him feel better to take action than to order others to do so but because if the captain got angry about it, she would get angry at him.

CHAPTER 11
    Kes showed up at the shuttlebay just as Chakotay arrived. “I’m coming with you,” she told him, looking him straight in the eye.
    “No, you are not,” he corrected her. “You have duties in sickbay.”
    “I have duties here,” she said. “If they are in trouble, they’ll need medical assistance.”
    Chakotay weighed the advantages. Kes could be very useful if there was a need for her medical skills. If someone was hurt while they couldn’t use the transporter, Kes might be able to keep him or her alive.
    On the other hand, Kes was not a trained member of the crew, neither Federation nor Maquis. And given that she was fully half the medical personnel aboard, he thought risking her in an unplanned mission was not prudent.
    But she was certainly brave.
    Finally he nodded. “You know how to use an environmental suit?” he asked quickly. “It looks like there isn’t much life-support left aboard the alien ship.”
    Kes nodded and smiled. She climbed into the shuttlecraft and belted down into the copilot’s seat. She kept her medical kit on her lap.
    “Clearance for shuttle,” he spoke briskly into the board.
    “Are you certain you wish to proceed with this, Commander?” Tuvok asked from the bridge. With both Janeway and Chakotay