VOY - String Theory 2 - Fusion (c)

by Star Trek

  As she waited for confirmation of the successful execution of her orders, she took a moment to hope that Tuvok would forgive her choice, assuming he was still alive. If what she was about to attempt worked, the odds were dismally low that they would be able to attempt another rescue mission. She knew that he would have been incapable of feeling pain or regret at her choice. She wished she could be sure that he knew the lengths she had taken to rescue him. Although it wouldn’t have comforted him, she knew he would have seen her gesture, however futile, as an appropriate testament to the level of respect and love they shared in their many years of friendship.

  Assuming they survived, she would have time later to regret her choice and to transform the guilt and torment into something that at least vaguely resembled acceptance. Like so many others, it would be her lonely burden to bear.

  “Captain,” B’Elanna’s voice interrupted her thoughts, “I can’t activate the warp engine. I’m locked out of the control system.”

  “What?” Janeway demanded, attempting to rise from her seat.

  But she didn’t get an answer to her implied question. A moment later the ship was struck hard by an unknown force, and instantly the viewscreen was bathed in a deep green glow. Simultaneously, the tumultuous jarring ride they had endured since crossing the event horizon ended, and with the help of the inertial dampers, the ship resumed a calm, smooth course.

  “Mr. Kim, what happened?” Janeway asked, certain that he was already searching for the answer she was seeking.

  “We’re caught in a tractor net, Captain. It’s coming from the array. We’re being pulled into one of the docking bays.”

  Relief battled with concern as she considered this development. On the one hand, it was an entirely unexpected reprieve. For all she knew, it might be the only way to safely enter the array. On the other hand, she instinctively hated turning over control of her vessel to unseen hands.

  “Harry, can you show me where we’re headed?”

  Instantly the view of a docking bay came up on the screen. Janeway noted with some alarm that the entrance glistened with a faint blue forcefield, but she could only assume that if the tractor beam had been automatically activated, the station’s controls would also drop the force field as they approached. A moment later, her suspicion was confirmed, as the field blinked out of existence.

  An eerie calm settled over the bridge. The alarms had been silenced, the smoke had cleared. All they could do now was wait.

  Chapter 7

  The bridge was silent. Janeway watched with an unmistakable sense of foreboding as Voyager cleared the entrance to the docking bay, and came to rest within its cavernous depths. She was so accustomed to facing the unknown with stoic faith in her crew’s ability to overcome any challenge presented that she didn’t even flinch at the heavy metallic clanging of alien docking clamps securing Voyager to the docking bay. She did, however, involuntarily release a faint sigh of relief as the bright green web that had drawn them here finally flickered out of existence, leaving the main viewscreen lit by only the faint bluish glow of the bay.

  She was the first to speak.

  “Status, Mr. Kim?”

  “The docking clamps are secure and the forcefield has been restored. Damage reports are coming in now. Impulse engines and shield generators are offline.”

  “Chakotay?”

  “A few minor injuries, none life-threatening.”

  “Ensign Kim, do we have a lock on Tuvok’s life signs?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Janeway to Tuvok, do you read?”

  She held her breath, awaiting Tuvok’s reply.

  None came.

  “Voyager to Lieutenant Tuvok…if you are receiving this transmission, I order you to respond,” Janeway said more forcefully.

  Again, no reply.

  “Janeway to transporter room one,” Janeway called over the comm.

  “Transporter room one reporting.”

  “Lock on to Lieutenant Tuvok and transport him directly to sickbay.”

  There was a brief moment of silence as she waited for confirmation of the successful transport.

  “Transporter room one to Captain Janeway.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Transport failed. We can’t establish a lock.”

  Janeway rose from her seat.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Throughout this exchange, Seven of Nine had been busy at tactical. “I believe I may have an answer, Captain,” she said in her maddeningly calm voice.

  Janeway closed the distance between herself and Seven in a few quick steps and examined the readings.

  Seven began to speak as Janeway reached her. “There is a mineral compound of unknown origin contained within the metal that comprises over ninety percent of the station. It acts as a natural barrier to our transporters. It seems designed to repel any directed energy beams, including those used for the transfer of matter.”

  Fascinating as all of this was, Janeway refused to be sidetracked for long.

  “Would pattern enhancers help?” she asked.

  “It is impossible to tell,” Seven replied.

  “We’ll take them anyway, just in case,” Chakotay said.

  “Commander,” Janeway ordered, “assemble your rescue team. I’m sorry we couldn’t make it easier for you, but at least we know where Tuvok is.”

  Chakotay had already risen to his feet, presumably expecting this command as soon as Seven made her report about the transporters.

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Chakotay nodded assuredly. “Mr. Kim, Mr. Paris, you’re with me.”

  As the doors to the turbolift slid shut behind them, the bridge was suddenly bathed in a bright white glow.

  Seven was the first to diagnose the situation. “Captain, we are being scanned.”

  “By what?” Janeway demanded, shielding her eyes from the blinding light.

  “A coherent tetryon beam,” she replied, oblivious of the instinctive alarm this raised in Janeway, and most likely in every member of the crew who had been aboard Voyager the day they were pulled into the Delta Quadrant.

  A few seconds later, the beam was extinguished.

  “Let’s hope whoever activated that scan liked what they saw,” Janeway observed.

  “I believe it is an automated system, Captain,” Seven informed her as she switched the image on the main viewscreen to a multipicture view of several areas of the docking bay.

  The bay was lined with dozens of power nodes. Long black cables were wound neatly at the base of each node. As Janeway looked on in awe several of the cables that had been wound innocuously on the walls appeared to unwrap themselves and seek out external ports along Voyager’s hull. Their movement was slow but precise. The eerie dance reminded Janeway of the hypnotic movement of a cobra, charmed from a wicker basket by an Indian shaman. She had never seen the spectacle in person, but Chakotay had shown her a holovid of such a scene, research he had collected after a particularly disturbing vision quest. The only thing missing in the moment was the gentle whistle of the lute that the snake charmer had used to coax and then regulate the motion of the deadly cobra.

  With a series of barely audible clicks and hisses, the cables attached themselves to ports along Voyager’s hull.

  Janeway called to engineering. “B’Elanna,” she asked, “are you detecting the activity along our hull?”

  “Yes, Captain” she replied. “Most of them are power-transfer cables. However, there is also one dataport being compromised. I believe the array’s computer system is attempting to interface and synchronize with ours. Should we attempt to disengage them?”

  Janeway was torn. Everything she already knew about the array suggested that this could be an opportunity they might never have again. It had been years since all of their reserve systems had been stocked at maximum levels. But a nagging voice of doubt in the back of her mind persistently reminded her that nothing, even in a society that had eliminated currency, came without a price. S
he would have preferred to initiate and oversee any power transfers from the array. It appeared, however, that she wouldn’t have that chance.

  “Monitor the levels closely, Lieutenant. At the first sign of an overload, disengage them by force if necessary.”

  “Understood, Captain,” B’Elanna replied as Janeway moved toward ops and pulled up the same readings that B’Elanna would be seeing in engineering. Within moments the interface procedure completed its operation, and the green bars on the display that indicated Voyager’s reserve supplies began to climb.

  As Seven peered over her shoulder Janeway said softly, “It’s amazing, isn’t it? While humans were still wearing animal skins and living in caves, an alien race designed a system that could anticipate the needs of every spacefaring vessel.”

  Seven nodded silently.

  Once the power transfer was complete, all of the cables with the exception of the data-transfer cable disengaged themselves automatically. Janeway pulled up several different external views of the docking bay, and her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the power cables neatly wrapping themselves up along the walls.

  “B’Elanna,” Janeway called, “the power transfer is complete. Why is our dataport still connected to the array?”

  “The port is still active in order to allow us to send commands to the array’s systems.” She paused before adding, “Since I’m assuming we’ll want to leave the array at some point, I don’t think we should disengage it. I’m seeing limited command controls, including those that control the docking clamps and forcefield active in this bay.”

  “Understood,” Janeway replied. “Leave it active for now.”

  She turned her attention to the sensor displays. “Seven, life-form readings are still unclear. Take B’Elanna and go as quickly as you can to the Monorhan ship. If you encounter any of them, contact me immediately.”

  “You do not trust me in a first-contact situation?” Seven asked innocently.

  “It’s not that, Seven,” Janeway chided. “It’s a matter of protocol.”

  Though obviously dissatisfied with Janeway’s curt response, Seven nodded dutifully and directed her steps toward the turbolift. Once Janeway had given B’Elanna her orders and set about overseeing repairs in her absence, she silently wondered whether or not it was a good idea to send B’Elanna and Seven into a potentially hostile situation again, so soon after their misadventures on Monorha. Brilliant as they both were, they usually mixed as well as matter and antimatter. In controlled amounts, they generated significant power, but it was a delicate balance. Not for the first time, she wondered how they had survived as a mini-collective.

  Once she had assured herself that repairs were progressing at an appropriate pace, Janeway retreated to the solitude of her ready room. Replicating a cup of coffee, she took a moment to pause over the drawing that Naomi had left her. She made a mental note to check in with sickbay as soon as possible, then turned her attention to the schematics of the array’s power systems.

  Prickling at the back of her mind was the coherent tetryon scan that had preceded the energy transfer. The Caretaker had used coherent tetryon technology to pull Voyager across seventy thousand light-years in the wink of an eye. The Key was generating a subspace dissonance field, possibly in response to the presence of another Nacene. All of the evidence at hand certainly pointed to the possibility that the Monorhans, like the Ocampa, might have been unwitting victims of Nacene manipulation. But any substantive understanding of the Nacene’s intent in designing the system and the miraculous array eluded her.

  Her musings were interrupted by a call over the comm system from Neelix.

  “What is it Neelix?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Captain, but I believe there’s a problem with the Doctor.”

  Chakotay, Tom, and Harry stood tensely as the ramp lowered from Voyager’s lower hull. They walked quickly down, once it had settled firmly on the floor of the docking bay. Chakotay and Tom were armed with compression rifles. They walked on either side of Harry, who carried his phaser in one hand and his tricorder in the other. Harry couldn’t help but feel an unreasonable sense of vulnerability. If his brief history aboard Voyager was any guide, he was certainly the crewman most likely to suffer a painful and violent death at the hands of an unknown hostile alien. But he had to acknowledge that this arrangement was the most practical. Chakotay and Tom were better shots than he was, and he would more efficiently gather as much sensor data as he could along the way. As tense as the knot in Harry’s stomach was when they stepped onto the solid plating of the docking bay’s deck, he was also certain that they were going to need as much information as possible at their disposal to safely leave the monstrous structure. Falling into step beside Tom and Chakotay, both dimly illuminated by the reassuring glow of the bay’s forcefield separating the atmosphere within from open space, he struggled to put his fears and doubts aside. Maybe this time it would be different.

  “Welcome to Black Hole City,” Tom said quietly, as they started toward a ladder which climbed toward a cat-walk into the darkness above them. The only doorway leading to the interior of the station was a few meters beyond the top of that ladder.

  “Very funny,” Harry replied, to Tom’s feeble attempt to lighten his mood.

  At several points along the walls of the bay, black power cables were wound and stored in their places. As their eyes adjusted to the dim blue lighting, Voyager, suspended by four large docking clamps, cast large looming shadows all around them. The bay seemed to pulse with energy. It could have been tension, the seriousness of their mission combined with the strangeness of their surroundings. Though Harry didn’t voice his thoughts, he was struck by the almost palpable currents running through the air, as their boots whispered softly across the floor.

  Data was streaming into Harry’s tricorder faster than his processor could organize it.

  “Commander,” Harry murmured, overwhelmed.

  “Yes, Ensign?”

  “I’ve pinpointed the location of the tractor net system. There are generators present every hundred meters or so along the outside of the array, but they are routed to a central processor located in what looks like an engineering center.”

  “That’s fascinating, Harry,” Tom jibed, “but what about the life-form readings?”

  “I’ve still got a lock on Tuvok. He’s stationary, approximately twenty-five hundred meters from our present location.”

  “So he might be injured,” Chakotay offered.

  “And there’s another problem,” Harry added.

  “Of course there is,” Tom said with obvious dismay.

  “What is it Harry?” Chakotay asked.

  “Tuvok isn’t in this section of the array. His life-form readings are coming from the other ring.”

  “So how do we get there?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t know,” Harry answered. “There are no direct access points anywhere on this level. The rings move independently of one another. There’s no physical connection between the two as far as I can tell.”

  “But we know that ring is filled with living quarters, don’t we?” Chakotay asked.

  “Among other things, yes,” Harry replied.

  “So if these are the only docking bays, there has to be a way,” Chakotay said firmly. “Tuvok’s shuttle, or what’s left of it, is currently housed in this ring. He must have found a way onto the other ring. I suggest we make our way to the engineering center. If they have transport technology it might be there, or at the very least, point us in the right direction.”

  “The engineering hub is located approximately twelve hundred meters from our present location,” Harry said.

  “Then we’d better move fast,” Chakotay replied.

  As Tom slung his rifle over his shoulder and began to quickly ascend the ladder, which was easily a hundred meters high, Harry thought he caught a flicker of movement in the shadows to his left. Dropping his tricorder to the ground, he instantly fell into a crou
ch and aimed his phaser into the darkness.

  Chakotay followed suit, but after a breathless second it seemed they were both jumping at shadows.

  “What is it, Ensign?” Chakotay asked.

  “I thought I saw something, Commander,” Harry replied, still crouched.

  Bending gingerly to retrieve Harry’s tricorder, Chakotay leveled it toward the darkness. The readings showed a data-transmission junction with a large cable attached to its base.

  “It’s a dataport. I’m not picking up any life signs, Harry,” Chakotay said gently.

  Swallowing hard, Harry rose and confirmed the readings. As he holstered his phaser and tricorder to begin his own climb, Chakotay clapped him on the shoulder saying, “But you can’t be too careful.”

  “Are you guys coming?” Tom panted from above.

  “Right behind you,” Harry called, hoping the exertion of the ascent would dissipate some of the adrenaline pounding through his system and willing himself to get a grip. He relaxed a little more when he saw Chakotay standing with his back to the ladder and his rifle leveled, covering him and Tom as they climbed.

  Several minutes later, all three had gained the top. As they directed their steps toward the heavy door that stood between them and the rest of the station, they took a moment to catch their breath over the spectacular and unusual view of their ship afforded them from this vantage point. Even without her exterior running lights aglow, the fluid grace of their starship buoyed Harry’s spirits.

  Before leaving the ship, they had been apprised of the miraculous energy infusion Voyager had received in the time it took them to collect the gear they required for their rescue mission. By the time the entered the docking bay, the power-transfer cables had coiled themselves neatly back into place. Harry didn’t know whether he was more disconcerted or relieved when the airlock door opened automatically as the away team came within a meter of it.