by Star Trek
“I was just saying…” he began, but her level gaze told him he might be taking his life in his hands if he chose to continue.
The next sound that Seven heard was the chirping of her combadge.
“Torres to Seven of Nine.”
“Go ahead,” she replied.
“Meet me in astrometrics.”
“I’m on my way.” She toyed with the idea of asking Brooks to realign the coil-locking dampers, but opted to complete the procedure herself when she returned. “Ensign Brooks, please review the coil distribution parameters using the following three antineutrino variances. I will expect your report when I return.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he stammered, obviously still unsure how one addressed a former Borg, now human, who had spent more time aboard a starship than he had, if you counted the various Borg cubes she had served on, but had never officially accepted a rank aboard Voyager.
Seven had almost reached the door when she remembered to turn and say, “Thank you, Ensign.” It was an unnecessary nicety as far as she was concerned, but she had realized in the last eleven months how much more efficient working conditions could be when one observed these simple pleasantries.
“When was the last time you slept, Chakotay?” Janeway began, as soon as the door was closed.
“I could ask you the same question,” he replied simply. Chakotay was not at all surprised to see that in the space of a breath, the jovial woman who had just lingered lovingly over a child’s drawing was gone and in her place stood the most determined leader ever to ride point on a Federation vessel. Sometimes he thought they had survived this long in the Delta Quadrant only through the sheer force of her will. And now she had her game face on.
“You left the bridge less than two hours ago. It’s not as if standing over the conn will get us to Tuvok any faster. As long as we’re in Monorhan space…” he began.
“I know. Impulse engines only,” she finished bitterly. “And he’s got a good head start. At this rate he’ll probably reach the singularity at least a few hours ahead of us.”
“I am pleased to report that we’re becoming much more proficient at navigating the unusual space and subspace curvatures of the Monorhan system. It should cut some time off our pursuit course,” Chakotay said.
“And we shouldn’t have to worry about any more ships suddenly popping up right in front of us?” Janeway asked.
“Seven has assured me that we should not,” he replied.
“Well, that’s something,” Janeway acknowledged. With a frustrated sigh, she settled into the chair behind her desk, placed Naomi’s drawing on her credenza, and pulled the most recent operations reports up on her monitor.
“What could Tuvok possibly be thinking?” she asked rhetorically. “There are several crew members I could easily see charging off on some foolish errand if they felt there was no alternative course of action, even some of our bridge officers, come to think of it. But we’re talking about Tuvok. He spent the better part of our early years together making sure I lived up to every comma, semicolon, and period, never mind letter of Starfleet regulations. Tuvok doesn’t leave this ship without reporting to at least one of us where he’s going and why.”
“There was that incident with the Sikarians,” Chakotay reminded her.
“I haven’t forgotten,” she replied, sadness and anger warring for dominance on her face. “But he wasn’t the only one who tried to bend the Prime Directive that day. Hurt as I was by his choice, I understood why he did it.”
“And you’ve been absolutely certain, since then, that he would never disappoint you like that again,” he finished her thought.
Janeway nodded in silent assent.
“Then you might be a little relieved to hear that the Doctor has completed his report,” Chakotay continued, placing a padd in front of the captain, before crossing to the replicator and ordering a cup of orange juice while he waited for her to read its contents. “That’s why I stopped by this morning on my way to the bridge.”
Janeway scanned the Doctor’s findings related to Tuvok’s stay in sickbay just prior to the time he left Voyager for reasons unknown. “A neurochemical imbalance in the mesiofrontal cortex?”
“That’s the part of the Vulcan brain that regulates their ability to suppress their emotions.”
Janeway cast a suspicious eye toward her first officer. “Studying up on Vulcan physiology in our copious spare time?”
Chakotay cleared his throat before offering, without a hint of defensiveness, “I know things.”
“This made as much sense to you the first time you read it as it does to me, right?” she asked.
“Right. I asked the Doctor for some clarification.”
“What’s this about music?” she continued.
“When Tuvok went missing I accessed his personal logs for the past few days. Shortly after we destabilized the Blue Eye, Tuvok noted that he was hearing something he could only describe as music. The Doctor couldn’t explain it, though its occurrence seemed to correspond to the decrease in neuropeptide production in the limbic system. He was particularly alarmed by this specific neurochemical imbalance because he’s only seen it in Tuvok once before.”
“When was that?” Janeway asked in a way that suggested she was not certain she really wanted to know the answer.
“A little over two years ago, when Tuvok initiated his series of mind-melds with Ensign Lon Suder.”
“Well, terrific,” Janeway said, tossing the padd to her desk and taking an extra-large sip of coffee before rising to her feet. “I mean aside from turning Tuvok into a homicidal maniac, that worked out okay, so I guess there’s really nothing to worry about.”
“The Doctor believes the ‘music’ Tuvok was referring to might have been some sort of telepathic communication.”
“From whom?”
“He’s not willing to speculate at this time.”
“Anyone who could force Tuvok to ignore his duties to this ship, never mind altering his normal brain functions…” Janeway said before pausing long enough for Chakotay to see at least a dozen possible scenarios and their probable outcomes play out across her face. “If the circumstances were different, I’d just as soon give them a nice wide berth. In any event, I’ve seen enough of the peculiarities of Monorhan space and subspace to last me a good long while.”
“I agree,” replied Chakotay. “But since that’s not really an option.”
“Take the ship to yellow alert.”
Chakotay assented with a slight nod, and started toward the door that accessed the bridge, pausing at the threshold to say, “Don’t worry, Kathryn, we’ll find him.”
Janeway replied with a wan smile as he left her to her thoughts.
“Good morning, B’Elanna,” Seven said as she walked briskly into astrometrics, almost faltering in her apparent attempt to establish a conversational tone.
B’Elanna forced herself not to smile too broadly as she felt…no, she corrected herself, remembered…what it was like to live within Seven’s conflicted consciousness. Although the residual effects of their linked state had finally passed, the experience of sharing Seven’s mind had given B’Elanna an entirely new perspective on her own internal struggles. “I thought I had a rough time of it, balancing my human and Klingon natures,” she had recorded in her first personal log once the Doctor had separated them. But Seven’s battle to refrain from constantly acting on her own, usually superior impulses, and instead interacting within the limitations of verbal communication among Voyager’s crew until a consensus had been reached, made her own occasional bouts of temper seem pale in comparison. At least she’s trying, B’Elanna thought, surprised at the sensitivity and genuine warmth she now felt from time to time when she looked at Seven.
“Don’t worry,” she said aloud. “I’m not much of a morning person myself.”
“You require my assistance?” Seven asked as she joined B’Elanna at the astrometric display control console and added softly, “Perhaps for the nex
t four or five hours?”
This time B’Elanna didn’t bother to repress her smile.
“You’ve been working with Ensign Brooks again this morning, haven’t you?” she teased.
Seven’s reply was uncharacteristic, due more to the heat than the speed with which it was delivered.
“I have, and if I am forced to return there in less time than I have suggested it is my belief that at least one of us will end up reassigned or on temporary medical leave.”
B’Elanna knew the feeling all too well. The only shocking thing was to see evidence of it or any other decidedly emotional response in the former Borg. Facing Seven with a hand on her hip, B’Elanna asked, with feigned seriousness, “Are you certain that all of the residual effects of our linked state have dissipated?”
“Why do you ask, Lieutenant?”
“Because I don’t think physical violence was ever on your short list of interpersonal problem-solving alternatives before,” B’Elanna said, turning back to her workstation.
Seven managed to resist the temptation to rise to B’Elanna’s bait. “How may I assist you, Lieutenant?”
“By taking a look at this for me,” B’Elanna replied, increasing the magnification of their most recent sensor sweep of the singularity and its surrounding environs. Fun as it was to tease Seven of Nine, there were definitely more pressing matters at hand.
“Does this remind you of anything?” B’Elanna asked, stepping aside and crossing her arms at her chest as Seven analyzed the sensor data and added the readings to her visual scan of the magnified sector.
Finally she confirmed B’Elanna’s suspicions. “There is a construct of almost fifty billion cubic meters revolving around the quantum singularity.”
“I can see that,” B’Elanna responded tersely, “but that’s not what I asked. Look at the power distribution signatures. What do they remind you of?”
Seven studied the readings in question again and to B’Elanna’s annoyance almost immediately tapped her combadge.
“Seven of Nine to Captain Janeway.”
“Go ahead, Seven.”
“Please report to astrometrics immediately,” Seven stated simply, in a tone that was more an order than a request before closing the comm channel.
B’Elanna shook her head and sighed deeply.
“What?” Seven asked in a manner that B’Elanna could have sworn dropped the temperature in the room by at least a few degrees.
“Nothing,” B’Elanna replied, turning again to the analysis.
“I have offended you,” Seven continued, obviously oblivious of B’Elanna’s attempt to drop the subject.
“No, not me.”
“Lieutenant Torres,” Seven began in her most condescending voice.
“Look, Seven, she’s the captain. She doesn’t take orders, she gives them. Would it kill you to ask her to join us, rather than making it sound like you’re the one who’s really in charge around here?”
“I didn’t mean to imply…”
“No, Seven…you never mean to imply anything. But you just…never mind. We’re not having this argument again. You’ll just stand there, a picture of frigid inflexibility, and I’ll end up wanting to break your nose, and at the end of the day, we’ve really got much bigger problems than your unbearably inflated ego!” B’Elanna spat hotly, unsure if she was more annoyed with Seven, or herself for once again allowing Seven’s implacable demeanor to destroy every good feeling she had ever had about the woman.
The Key to Gremadia, a gift that had been presented to Janeway by Kaytok, one of the scientists who had aided Voyager in their recent successful attempt to destroy the Blue Eye and escape from a subspace fold, sat in front of its intricately carved case in the captain’s cabin, precisely where she had left it less than twenty-four hours earlier. It shared a place of honor among some of the other personal souvenirs that Janeway had collected during Voyager’s long journey in the Delta Quadrant, among them a coin—actual currency used on Earth in the mid-twentieth century—given to her by Amelia Earhart before they had left her and the other 37’s on the planet that had been settled by their descendants; a necklace that had belonged to the wife of an Alsaurian resistance fighter named Caylem, who had mistaken Janeway for his daughter in the last tortured days of his life; and a rock that had played an integral part in her journey on the Nechani homeworld to find the ancestral spirits in order to save Kes’s life. Once she had completed the ritual, her Nechisti guide had suggested she keep the rock as a reminder that oftentimes our experiences are limited rather than enhanced by our expectations.
To the naked eye, the Key was roughly the same size as the Nechani rock, though it had formed or been carved into a perfect circle. Janeway fully intended at some point to analyze the extremely hard yet porous sphere for any scientific or archaeological data it might reveal. But since Tuvok’s strange departure had forced them to leave Monorha abruptly, she had scarcely given the gift a thought. Nor had she noticed that almost as soon as she removed it from its ornately carved case and placed it on a small glass table beside her door, it had begun to vibrate almost imperceptibly.
By the time the first intruder had entered her cabin, emerging from the bulkhead in the form of dozens of plasmatic energy tentacles that oozed down the walls, seeking the strange vibrating sphere, the Key to Gremadia had begun to glow as if lit by an internal pinkish gray light. The second intruder barely arrived in time to activate an energy barrier around the Key, protecting it from the one who it knew instinctively had come to destroy the Key, and anyone who got in its way.
“Bigger problems than inching through a section of space that seems to defy every law of physics in search of our head of security, who has gone absent without leave?” Janeway asked, entering the astrometrics lab and the fray at the same time.
B’Elanna and Seven turned to face the captain simultaneously, and Janeway couldn’t help but think that at this particular moment these two eminently capable women resembled nothing so much as errant children who had been caught with their hands in one of her mother’s antique cookie jars.
B’Elanna looked to Seven, who nodded with only slightly condescending grace to indicate that she should begin their explanation to the captain.
“Well…?” Janeway demanded.
“I’ve been scanning the singularity, Captain. So far the gravimetric interference has made it difficult to get any clear readings, but in the last hour or so, I’ve managed to clean up enough of the signal to see this.”
Janeway spent a few moments studying the readings, but quickly turned her attention to the large display screen beyond the workstations that bordered the room. Walking calmly up to the staging area just in front of the display, she allowed her mind to integrate both the visual image and the numeric data scrolling beside the image at the same time.
Finally she spoke, almost reverently. “It’s a space station, orbiting a black hole.”
“Not just orbiting, Captain,” Seven chimed in.
“No,” Janeway continued, examining the readings more closely, “you’re right. It’s powered by the singularity. Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Captain,” B’Elanna said quietly, “it’s a little soon to say definitively, but even from this distance, the power signatures appear to be similar to those we saw when we encountered the alien relay stations that had been coopted by the Hirogen.”
Janeway turned abruptly. “Have we detected any Hirogen vessels?”
“No, Captain,” she answered, “but with the interference, we might not detect them until we were right on top of them.”
Janeway considered for a moment before resolving, “I’m confident that the understanding we reached with the Hirogen after our last encounter will hold for the time being. And even if they have somehow discovered this, I don’t see how or why they would want to make use of it. The relay stations allowed them to stalk prey over much wider areas of space while maintaining communications. Unless this station is filled with beings the Hirogen would
find challenging to hunt, I doubt we’ll get any trouble from them,” Janeway said as she turned back to the display. Finally she asked, “Can we date this technology?”
Seven quickly ran the data through a dozen different algorithms before replying, “The station is at least eighty thousand years old.”
Janeway shook her head, awed. “So we have another mystery to add to those we’ve already encountered in the Monorhan system. It’s possible that whatever ancient civilization managed to safely harness the energy of microscopic singularities and build the communications arrays we discovered several months ago didn’t stop there.”
“You’re saying the next step was stabilizing a singularity large enough to power a space station?” B’Elanna asked, clearly ready to rethink her earlier supposition in light of this intriguing hypothesis.
“The relay stations were at least a hundred thousand years old. And the similarity in the power signatures is more than the complex mechanics of harnessing the energy of a singularity. I don’t think it’s a huge leap to suggest that both the arrays and this station were built by similar, if not, the same hands. The size of it, though,” Janeway continued, her eyes glued to the viewscreen image, “It’s so much larger than any space station the Federation would ever consider building. It’s more like…”
“A city,” Seven finished.
All three women stared silently at the image of the massive circular construct that orbited slowly around a singularity large enough, by all rights, to have sucked it into oblivion ages ago. Though none of them posed the question aloud, Janeway knew that both Seven and B’Elanna were as curious as she to know exactly what kind of stabilization field would be necessary to keep a piece of engineering that size intact around the densest and one of the most powerful gravitational forces known to the universe.
Finally Janeway broke the silence with a simple order. “I want continuous scans running on every sensor array we have until we reach this. Reroute internal sensors if you have to. We need to know everything we possibly can about it before we get there.”