by Star Trek
B’Elanna and Seven made good time, reaching the Monorhan vessel housed two bays over in a little less than thirty minutes. They, too, carried pattern enhancers, in the event that this would make the return trip on foot unnecessary. The docking bay where the vessel, easily twice the size of a Galaxy-class Federation ship, rested was similar to the one where Voyager was berthed, but it appeared that it had been the scene of a brutal conflict. Sections of hull plating, striated by weapons fire, were visibly scorched and charred. Power conduits and plasma relays no longer belched smoke or residue, though telltale trails of grit and exposed circuitry tangled with huge chunks of fuselage made traversing the distance from the dockingbay door to the ship something like walking through a densely overgrown mechanical forest.
The Monorhan ship had been a lean and graceful piece of engineering in her day. Composed of synthetic polymers and familiar Monorhan alloys, two fin-shaped extensions fused seamlessly on either side of the cylindrical mass that made up the central body of the ship and housed its propulsion system. It appeared to have been built with as much a sense of beauty as utility. B’Elanna wasn’t aware of any ocean-dwelling creatures native to Monorha, but in looking at it, she could not stop mentally imagining a huge stingray that had been taught to fly. Sensor networks that would be heavily shielded on a Starfleet ship ran along every surface of the ship like pores. There were no sharp edges, no obvious doors or windows. In short, apart from the technological components that her tricorder and common sense told her were present, it looked like a beautiful, almost fragile living thing.
“So how do we get in?” B’Elanna asked. Extending her hand toward the hull, she took a chance and tapped lightly, as if knocking on a door.
“I do not believe anyone will answer,” Seven observed.
“You’re telling me it wasn’t worth a try?” B’Elanna asked pointedly.
“There are no life-form readings aboard this vessel. Although our sensors cannot penetrate most of the array, I can verify that there are no other living beings within this docking bay,” Seven advised her.
“There were supposedly thousands of people aboard this ship when it left Monorha. Fifty years later, there’s nobody home. That’s disturbing, don’t you think?” B’Elanna asked.
“Any sense of foreboding at these circumstances is irrelevant. Although I agree, it is curious.”
B’Elanna nodded and began circling the aft of the vessel. Seven was the first to find an entry point. The ship rested on four landing struts, and beneath the central mass, which rose only a few meters from the floor, a spherical pod hung precariously.
“This appears to be an emergency evacuation device,” Seven noted as she scanned the small vessel. “Its separation from the ship was not completed.”
Running her hands along the smooth cool surface of the pod, B’Elanna found a small inset latch. She tugged it gently, and a faint whoosh of dank air was released as a door, barely large enough to crawl through, opened in response. At the same time, a similar door within the body of the main ship also opened.
“Found an airlock. Give me a boost,” B’Elanna requested, catching either side of the exposed frame of the door in her hands and relying on Seven for the extra momentum she needed to pull herself through it. Once inside, she returned the favor, securing her legs on one side of the door frame and leaning both of her arms out to Seven.
The corridor they found themselves in was shrouded in darkness, though the end of the hallway was faintly lit by a slowly pulsing yellow light.
“Curious,” said Seven as they picked their way cautiously toward the light, “there are no obvious command consoles present in this area. There is a dense network of fibers beneath the hull plating, indicating the presence of partially organic relays, but there does not appear to be any obvious way to access them.”
“The members of the Fourteenth Tribe were telepaths,” B’Elanna said. “Their abilities were far beyond those of most Monorhans. Maybe their systems only respond to mental commands.”
“Or vocal ones,” Seven added.
B’Elanna shrugged, “Also worth a try.” As they turned the corner into a much wider corridor, and several open doorways came into view, she called, “Computer?”
There was no response, though to B’Elanna’s eye, the pulsing of the only ambient light seemed to quicken for a moment, as if a heart, suddenly startled, began to beat faster.
The first doorway they came to led to some sort of passenger cabin. There were eight bunks built into the walls, surrounding a small common area strewn with a few low cushions they both recognized as Monorhan chairs.
“This level is filled with similar cabins,” Seven announced, studying her tricorder. “There are two hubs that appear to be processing centers eight decks above us.”
“I don’t see any Jefferies tubes,” B’Elanna noted.
“I do not believe they utilized them,” Seven replied, pointing to the far end of the corridor where a circular staircase wound its way up.
They climbed the stairs in darkness, B’Elanna taking the lead. The stairs were not wide enough for two to walk abreast. When they reached the top, they found themselves in a large circular room. Four archways loomed before them, but it was easy enough to see that the second archway to their left led to some sort of command center. It was illuminated at standard working light settings, though the light still pulsed ever so faintly.
One large chair dominated the room. Many-hued lights blinked and flashed at several low display stations around the room, though it was clear that whoever might once have been responsible for monitoring those stations had done it from the Monorhan equivalent of a standing position. The absence of any other stools or chairs made it clear that only the captain of this vessel was ever seated while on duty.
B’Elanna bent to study the displays, gently tapping the consoles in hopes of eliciting some sort of response. A few frustrated minutes later she said, “The main computer core is locked down. I can’t access any primary or secondary systems.”
“Continue working,” Seven suggested. “There is another staircase in that corner. I will search the area.”
B’Elanna nodded, too engrossed in her task to worry much about what Seven might encounter there.
Leaving B’Elanna to her work, Seven cautiously followed the winding staircase down into dimness. The first sight her wrist beacon exposed were the fragmented skeletal remains of a Monorhan male lying prostrate over the entrance to another large room at the end of the corridor. Seven started toward him automatically, pausing only when her light caught the walls. Unlike the other corridors she had passed, the entire hallway was covered with an intricate design formed from small pieces of colored glass. She was able to make out small figures within the designs, also Monorhan. Playing her light slowly over the intricate piece of art, she discovered several scenes from what she could only assume were Monorhan history, or legend. Most striking was a vast field beneath a purple sky, covered with thousands of dead. On a rise above the field, a figure wearing robes of light was pointing to the heavens above.
She took a few moments to scan the images into her tricorder, then continued toward the doorway. Stepping gingerly around the bones, she entered the room. An entire wall was devoted to shelves that housed dozens of scrolls rolled into ornately woven cases. She pulled one from the first shelf on the right and gently opened it. The parchment was brittle in her hand, and broke in two places. Nonetheless, she could clearly make out Monorhan script on the parchments.
Something sparked in the darkness behind her. Turning, she saw a low desk, where a display station, similar to those in the command center, must have been housed. The display had been torn from its housing, and fragments of the panel were strewn about the desk and on the floor nearby. The entire level was shrouded in darkness, but the circuitry of the display still pulsed with power. Extending from deep with the guts of the display, delicate skeletal fingers protruded upward. Seven stepped slowly toward the desk, scanning the area with h
er light. Though the arms of the hands that were embedded in the display had broken off at the first joint, the rest of the body to which they had once been attached was crumpled on the floor behind the desk, still swathed in a finely embroidered robe.
As Seven bent low to get a closer look at the body, the lights of the cabin pulsed into a bright harsh glow.
B’Elanna studied the alien control panel. She had been attempting to enter simple commands, using her tricorder to decrypt what she could of the strange system. Frustrated, she set it aside and tried to think like a Monorhan. Playing her fingers intuitively across the panel, she entered a series of strokes that would have made sense to her, had she designed the system.
Suddenly, a square section of what had been a solid wall opposite the command chair began to glow. It was immediately obvious that this was some sort of viewscreen. A bright flash of static illuminated the room and the face of a Monorhan female appeared before them.
“I am Assylia,” she began. But as she continued to speak, the message blinked in and out, garbling the rest of her words beyond understanding.
“This is the source of the transmission we picked up before we boarded the array,” B’Elanna said to herself, studying the controls. Following her instincts, she began to work to clear up the distorted image.
It took only a few more tries for B’Elanna to restore the transmission. She set it to replay, then stood back, wiping from her fingers the dust that she had collected while working the controls that had obviously been untouched for some time.
Her momentary satisfaction turned quickly to alarm as Assylia spoke.
“I am Assylia, rih-hara-tan of the fourteenth Monorhan tribe and commander of this vessel, the Betasis. There is a hostile, parasitic life-form present on this array. It took the lives of almost ten thousand of us in a matter of days. We came in search of Gremadia. We found nothing but death. If you attempt to board the array, you will meet our fate. I beg of you, turn back. Do not make the same mistake that I did.”
After a brief moment of silence the message began again.
“I am Assylia…”
“Seven?” B’Elanna shouted into the darkness, slapping the panel to abruptly end the transmission.
When she received no reply, she followed the path Seven had taken down the winding stairs.
She found Seven pulling dozens of scrolls from a musty shelf in a brightly lit cabin at the end of the corridor.
“These scrolls contain data of historic and religious significance to the Fourteenth Tribe. Several of them mention the Key. We should take them back to Voyager,” Seven said as B’Elanna entered.
“We have to get out of here,” B’Elanna said.
“Were you able to retrieve any data from the computers?” Seven asked.
“We don’t have time. It will take hours to crack their security codes and I’m not staying here that long. The message…the transmission we received…it was a warning from the captain of this vessel. The reason we aren’t picking up any Monorhan life signs is because they all died within days of boarding the array.”
Seven’s eyes widened.
“It is our duty to collect as much information as we can while we are here. We may not have another opportunity to examine the files contained in their computer system,” Seven said.
“I agree, but if we don’t live long enough to make it back to Voyager, what’s the point?” B’Elanna replied, agitated.
Turning back to the fragmented display console, Seven paused. Then, resolved, she stepped back toward the desk and closed her right fist, extending her assimilation tubules into the exposed circuitry.
“Seven, what are you…” B’Elanna began, pausing when a spasm of shock momentarily convulsed through Seven’s body.
Undeterred, Seven maintained the connection. Low, guttural sounds, formed in the back of her throat, began to pour from her mouth like a dull growl as her eyes rolled into the back of her head.
“Seven!” B’Elanna demanded, stepping closer, but too disconcerted to touch her. “Seven, can you hear me?”
The growls became more like hisses, as Seven struggled to form words.
Silently cursing Seven’s rash actions, B’Elanna steeled herself and firmly grasped Seven’s right arm with both hands, determined to sever whatever link she had just made by force.
A voice, Seven’s, but lacking her irritating inflection and infinitely more menacing, escaped Seven’s lips.
“Get…off…my…ship,” it said.
B’Elanna had no idea who or what Seven was communicating with but she already knew she didn’t like him, her, or it one bit. For a few seconds, Seven’s face was again her own.
“Not until we retrieve the data we require,” Seven said forcefully.
The next words that came from Seven’s lips only served to strengthen B’Elanna’s initial dislike of the entity.
“Then…you…will…die.”
The first long corridor that Chakotay, Tom, and Harry entered after clearing the docking bay’s airlock was as dull and utilitarian as any Tom had ever seen. Though reasonably well lit, it appeared that no creativity of design or decoration had been considered in its construction. He could hear a rhythmic clank echoing within the walls every few meters, but Harry’s tricorder offered no indication as to the mechanism that might be the source of the noise.
A few hundred meters later, he no longer noticed it. They were approaching a fork in the path ahead. One well-illuminated corridor led to the engineering center. The other was shrouded in darkness, but Harry paused as they approached, scanning the area.
“Commander,” he said softly, “I’m detecting minute traces of tetryon radiation emanating from this corridor, maybe a hundred meters down.”
“Suggesting what?” Chakotay asked.
“This might be our transport,” Harry replied. “There are dozens of junction points where the configuration of the relays is similar to the coherent tetryon transporter used by the Caretaker. We don’t have much data on that system, but the similarities are striking.”
“Let’s check it out,” Chakotay decided, leading the way into the darkness. Harry stepped aside for Tom to follow as he recalibrated his tricorder, looking up when Tom did not immediately fall in line.
“What is it?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know,” Tom answered. “We have a perfectly well-lit corridor here to our right that we know leads to the engineering center. And on our left, we have the dark spooky hallway. You want to check it out? You first, my friend.”
Harry shook his head and followed Chakotay, Tom trailing behind.
They soon came to a large control panel embedded into one of the walls. Stretching beyond it on either side were dozens of alcoves. As he waited for Harry to analyze the panel, Tom thought of Tuvok. He knew that every moment they spent trying to reach him might be a moment that Tuvok couldn’t spare. He had been alone and injured for several hours. Tom and Tuvok weren’t exactly friends. It was hard to crack that stoic Vulcan veneer, though Tom was more sensitive than some to Tuvok’s well-shrouded depths. He could have hated him, however, and still not wished him a lonely death. Tuvok had worked tirelessly for four years to keep Voyager and her crew safe. He deserved better than this.
Suddenly more anxious than he had been at any time thus far to find Tuvok and return him to the ship, Tom stepped quietly past Chakotay and Harry, who were murmuring to one another over Harry’s tricorder readings. As he passed the plane where the first two alcoves on either side of the wall sat opposite one another he was suddenly engulfed in a bright white light.
He barely heard Chakotay call out his name in alarm.
“Tom!”
The flash of light took both Chakotay and Harry by surprise. Harry had all but determined that this was some sort of transporter, but the control system was too complicated for him to make immediate sense of. Harry could sense Tom’s frustration. From the corner of his eye he saw Tom move past him into the darkness.
A split s
econd and a flash of light later, Tom was gone.
Chapter 8
Janeway approached sickbay to find Neelix standing outside, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The moment he caught sight of her, he rushed toward her as quickly as his short legs would carry him.
“Captain,” he stammered, “I swear to you, I didn’t do this.”
“I believe you, Mr. Neelix,” Janeway replied as calmly as she could under the circumstances. “What didn’t you do?”
“I didn’t break the Doctor.”
Janeway almost smiled. The reality was that there was precious little Neelix, or most anyone else on board, could do to “break” the EMH. They had expended considerable resources over the years supplementing and securing his program. The few instances when his survival had been at risk had forced them to consider the possibility of completing their journey without a dedicated physician, and that had been simply unacceptable. Between the backup modules they had created and the Doctor’s personal holoemitter, he was more stable at present than he had ever been.
“Neelix,” she sighed, “if you could just tell me what happened.”
“After your sister left, the Doctor was deactivated. I couldn’t understand why he would have done that, so I reactivated him and he had no idea who I was, who Samantha was, or who Naomi was. He operated on her brain less than four hours ago,” Neelix said, his voice rising in pitch and force, “and he didn’t remember treating her!”
Janeway’s brow furrowed. This is a problem.
“And that’s not the worst part,” Neelix continued.
“It isn’t?” Janeway frowned.
“No! Once he had examined Naomi and pronounced her well on her way to recovering, he asked me to deactivate him!”
The Doctor had been in control of his activation subroutines since the early days of Voyager’s journey. If he was truly unaware of his program’s parameters, Janeway was forced to conclude that he might be facing another cascade failure.