VOY - String Theory 2 - Fusion (c)

by Star Trek

  “Where is he now?” Janeway asked.

  Neelix paused, at a loss. “I didn’t want to deactivate him, but he insisted. He’s…wherever he goes when…”

  Janeway raised a hand to halt him as she fortified herself with a deep breath and entered sickbay, Neelix right on her heels. Naomi still rested peacefully on her biobed; her mother had fallen into a light slumber, her head resting on crossed arms at the foot of Naomi’s bed.

  “Computer,” Janeway called, “activate Emergency Medical Hologram.”

  Her initial fear that once he had been deactivated he might not be immediately recoverable was allayed when the Doctor materialized before her. But her other concerns were heightened when his first words were “Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”

  Although his standardized programming included this automated activation greeting, he had long ago dispensed with it, unless he was in a particularly peevish state.

  “Doctor,” Janeway began, “what is the last thing you remember before you were deactivated?”

  The Doctor inclined his head to one side in a gesture Janeway had come to recognize as his body language for You can’t possibly have summoned me here to answer such an idiotic question?, but answered, “I checked the vitals of the half-human, half-Ktarian female in that biobed and asked this rather garishly attired gentleman to deactivate me.”

  “Doctor,” Janeway continued, “do you know who I am?”

  He paused briefly and said, “Based on the insignia on your collar I assume you are the captain of this vessel.”

  “But you don’t remember ever meeting me?” she persisted.

  “No,” he said perfunctorily.

  “What about my sister, Phoebe Janeway?”

  “Phoebe Janeway is your sister?” he asked. “I shall add that to my records, though she should also inform your chief medical officer.”

  Janeway was flabbergasted. “Doctor, you are our chief medical officer,” she said.

  “That’s impossible,” the Doctor replied. “My program is not designed to…”

  “Yes, I’m well aware of that, but in the past four years, you and your program have adapted to Voyager’s unique circumstances,” Janeway said.

  “What circumstances are those?”

  Throughout this exchange Janeway had grown more concerned with every response the Doctor gave. Although she had faith in the Emergency Medical Hologram, she knew full well that much of the Doctor’s expertise had been gained in the trenches of their voyage. A brand-new hologram would have neither the wisdom nor the ability to treat the crew, Naomi in particular, without the benefit of those experiences. Not to mention the fact that this brief exchange was a visceral reminder of just how far the Doctor had come in four years. Painful memories of the Doctor’s acerbic and somewhat hostile early bedside manner came flooding back to Janeway. They left a taste in her mouth like burnt coffee.

  “Captain…if I may?” Neelix interjected.

  “Yes, Neelix?”

  Neelix addressed himself to the Doctor. “May I ask, sir, on what stardate were you first activated?”

  The Doctor replied without missing a beat. “Stardate 52004.2.”

  Janeway and Neelix exchange knowing glances. The correct answer to that question was stardate 48315.6, almost four years earlier.

  “Now, if you wouldn’t mind,” the Doctor continued, “what unusual circumstances…”

  “Computer, deactivate EMH,” Janeway ordered.

  Without another word, Janeway went to sickbay’s control console and pulled up the Doctor’s file. A cursory examination told her that the program currently running was, in fact, the least sophisticated of the backup modules that had been created in the past year. The Doctor standing before them wasn’t lying, and he wasn’t damaged. But he was also not their Doctor.

  Next, she set about locating and recovering the real Doctor’s program. At first frustrating blush, it appeared to have been deleted from the database. But a closer analysis revealed that the situation, while dire, was not as bad as all that. The Doctor’s program had been fragmented. It was no longer intact in a workable form, but had been broken into several large—and in some cases corrupted—data blocks. Though the captain could have reversed this process with several days’ work, she knew that B’Elanna or Seven would likely have the real Doctor up and running in a matter of hours. She opted to leave the problem to their more capable hands as she turned to the next major question.

  How had this happened?

  “Mr. Neelix,” Janeway asked, “when was the first moment you noticed anything different about the Doctor?”

  Neelix turned the question over in his mind a few times, determined to give as accurate an answer as he could.

  “Let’s see…after Naomi’s surgery he spent a long time in his office. Samantha had just arrived and we were discussing the Doctor’s prognosis. She was crying…of course…I asked if she needed anything and offered to run down to the mess hall…”

  “Mr. Neelix,” Janeway said with a bit more urgency.

  “Oh…right…sorry. I did check with the Doctor a few times. He was examining the scans he’d just taken of Naomi’s brain and muttering about…well, something about another fine mess you’ve…but I’m sure he wasn’t talking about you. At any rate, then you stopped by with Phoebe. She’s such a kind person. But then I guess you know that since she’s your sister. Truly, though…she was so concerned about Naomi, and so comforting to Samantha…”

  “So up until that point, you are certain the Doctor’s program was intact?” Janeway asked, attempting to move the natural-born storyteller along.

  “Well, you spoke to him next, didn’t you?” Neelix asked. “Did you notice anything funny about him?”

  Janeway shook her head, no. The Doctor she had spoken to just before Voyager had boarded the array was definitely their Doctor.

  “So, I guess…after you left…he spoke briefly with Phoebe,” Neelix suggested hesitantly.

  Janeway checked the ship’s chronometer and logs. It coincided almost precisely with Neelix’s estimation. In fact, the Doctor’s program had been altered and the backup module activated just a few seconds before Janeway had left sickbay.

  Given the fact that only Neelix, Ensign Wildman, and herself were present and conscious at that time, and that none of them would have had a motive or vested interest in damaging the one person on board who could save Naomi’s life, the only other likely suspect was Phoebe. But Phoebe didn’t know the first thing about holographic programming. Something like this was far beyond her rudimentary skills. She recalled the first time she had introduced Phoebe to Master da Vinci, one of Janeway’s favorite simulations. Phoebe had been amazed and impressed with the depth and reality Janeway had achieved and had immediately set about studying with the Renaissance master.

  No she hadn’t.

  There it was again. That strange voice of doubt that had been pestering Janeway almost every time she talked with or thought about her sister.

  “Captain,” a soft voice interrupted her thoughts.

  Across the room, Naomi had regained consciousness.

  Both Janeway and Neelix walked quickly to her side as her mother stirred awake and smiled with relief.

  “How are you feeling, Naomi?” the captain asked gently.

  “I have to speak to you…alone,” Naomi said.

  Janeway cast a questioning glance toward the others, then nodded as they all moved away from the biobed. This seemed to cost Samantha dearly, but Neelix quickly put a protective arm around her shoulders, whispering silent assurances.

  Janeway bent closer to Naomi to limit the exertions the child would have to make in continuing their conversation.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Naomi’s eyes were alert. She did not seem in any way deranged or incapacitated by her ordeal or the medications the Doctor had given her to relieve any residual pain. Nonetheless, Janeway found it difficult to accept the child’s next words.

/>   “Captain,” Naomi whispered solemnly, “there was a monster in the mess hall.”

  Harry and Chakotay paused for a confused second after Tom disappeared before their very eyes.

  “Where did he go?” Chakotay was the first to give voice to thought.

  Harry turned first to his tricorder.

  “I’ve got him, Commander,” he said with definite relief. “He’s in the other ring. And he’s within a few meters of Tuvok’s signal.”

  “The system is obviously automated,” Chakotay theorized. “It’s probably set to transport directly to a similar area in the other ring. Tuvok must have made it this far. He might have transferred to the other ring accidentally.”

  “Or, he might have been trying to reach one of the medical bays situated there,” Harry added.

  “I’ll go next,” Chakotay offered. “Confirm my transport, and then follow me,” he ordered, stepping toward the first pair of alcoves.

  “Yes, sir,” Harry replied.

  As Chakotay vanished in a second flash of light, Harry gave his tricorder a cursory glance to confirm that the commander’s life signs were still present, and with a deep breath and a silent hope that they would not be too late to save Tuvok, stepped into the path of the alien transporter.

  A second later, Harry found himself in the middle of one of the most horrifying scenes he had ever witnessed.

  The room was easily a hundred meters wide and at least half again that high. It was lit by a faint blue glow and filled, floor to ceiling, with the skeletons of countless dead Monorhans. Unseeing eyes peered at him from every corner. Many had been piled facedown, and from some of their backs the strange secondary arms indicative of female Monorhans hung lifeless, like broken insect wings.

  Months earlier, Voyager had been boarded and briefly occupied by a pack of Hirogen hunters. They had used the ship’s holotechnology to create brutal scenarios used to stalk the crew over and over again for pure pleasure. Time and again Harry’s friends and comrades had been placed in these grisly fabricated realities, hunted to near death, revived by the Doctor, and hunted again. Though Harry had been kept outside the simulations in order to constantly maintain and upgrade the system very much against his will, he had seen most of the holographic environments and the programmed scenarios. In one of the more disturbing simulations, captured prey were hung in cold rooms on large hooks used in Earth’s distant past for meat storage, until almost all of the blood had been drained from their bodies. Slaughterhouses, he remembered. Apart from the absence of the hooks, this room had the same feel. What was most overpowering was the sense of waste.

  Harry had broken out into a cold sweat at first sight of the room. As his central nervous system debated the options of either collapse, or hyperventilation to counter the shock that was engulfing him, Harry was slapped back to the present by Tom’s urgent call.

  “Harry!”

  Tom was kneeling over a body that Harry did not immediately identify as Tuvok. The face and uniform were caked green with blood.

  “Get over here and give me a hand,” Tom demanded.

  Harry willed his legs to step through the throng of bodies. A med kit lay open beside Tom, who was busy taking readings from a medical tricorder.

  “He’s alive…but just barely. His left leg is shattered and he’s suffered second- and third-degree burns over a third of his body, but he’s breathing,” he reported.

  “His eyes are open,” Harry observed. “Is he conscious?”

  “No,” Tom answered. “His pupils are fixed, but not dilated. We have to get him out of here. Where are the pattern enhancers?”

  Harry knelt and opened his rucksack. With shaking hands he began to assemble the three pattern enhancers they had carried with them, in hopes that they would boost the transporter’s signal through the otherwise impenetrable alloy.

  Tom tapped his combadge. “Paris to Voyager.”

  “This is Rollins. Go ahead, Lieutenant.”

  Tom smiled, relieved. “We’ve found Tuvok. We’re almost ready for transport. Stand by.”

  Harry completed the perimeter and joined Tom beside Tuvok. He was about to signal for transport when the same troubling thought dawned on him and Tom at the same time.

  “Where’s Chakotay?” they asked each other.

  “He came through before me,” Harry began.

  “You transported here just a few meters away from me. Almost the same spot where I materialized,” Tom said.

  “So where did Chakotay end up?” Harry asked, pulling out the tricorder he had just stowed. After a few seconds, he had it. “He’s here. He also transported to this ring.”

  “Where?”

  “He’s almost five thousand meters from our present position.”

  Tom grabbed the tricorder and slung his rifle over his shoulder. “You go with Tuvok. I’ll find Chakotay.”

  Harry didn’t like the idea, but there was only one alternative and Tom didn’t look like he was in a mood to discuss it.

  “Paris to Voyager…transport Ensign Kim and Lieutenant Tuvok directly to sickbay.”

  For a few interminable seconds it looked as if the pattern enhancers would not be sufficient to cut through the array’s natural barrier. Finally, Harry felt the vague tingling sensation that often accompanied the onset of transport. The last sight he saw was Tom collecting his gear before the makeshift morgue vanished.

  Chakotay materialized in a darkened corridor. For a moment he worried that the transport had not been successful. Through the dimness ahead, he could make out the junction of the corridor connecting to a well-lit adjacent hall. Reaching automatically for his tricorder, he remembered that Ensign Kim had been carrying all of their equipment aside from Tom’s med kit. He had designated himself as the team’s defender without seriously considering the possibility that they would be separated.

  He walked double-quick toward the light, his senses heightened by the very real vulnerability he now felt. When he reached the branches of the hall, a quick glance told him that at the very least, he was now in a different part of the array. He hoped that he was also on the second ring, but his first priority had to be locating the others. Taking careful mental notes of his location, he started down the hall toward the right. He debated the wisdom of calling out for Tom or Harry. If they were close, they might hear him. But then, so would anything else that might be here, and he wasn’t keen to give his position away to any potentially hostile aliens. The inconclusive life-form readings they had taken both before and after boarding the array led him to believe that it was certainly possible they were not the only living things here. He could hope, but not state absolutely, that whomever or whatever he might encounter would be friendly.

  His years in the Maquis resistance had heightened the survival skills ingrained in him by his father and the elders of his tribe. It was almost an afterthought when he remembered to reach for his combadge.

  “Chakotay to Ensign Kim,” he said softly.

  There was no answer.

  “Chakotay to Lieutenant Paris,” he tried.

  Again, no answer.

  As he started down the hall he realized immediately that it bore little resemblance to the corridors he had traversed when they entered the array. Far from utilitarian, the doors spaced along the hall were awash in vibrant flowing colors. Vivid oranges and purples in swirling designs gave a sense of motion in their stillness. Farther down a similar pattern in varying hues of green and yellow wound itself into infinity.

  It occurred to him that, however unlikely, it was possible that Tom, Harry, or Tuvok might be behind one of these doors. He didn’t relish the thought of searching each of these rooms, but soon resigned himself to the inevitable.

  He began with the purple and orange door. There was no obvious lock or entrance pad, so he raised his hand and placed his palm in the center of the swirling design. The design on the door began to move. Stepping back, he watched, transfixed as the colors dissolved into blackness.

  Suddenly, thro
ugh the door frame he saw a vast, still desert. It looked like many holographic simulations he had seen. It was obvious from the size of the room and its proximity to the next door that the pale white sands could not stretch as far as they appeared to. It was also obvious that none of his crewmen were within.

  Resisting the urge to explore the strange environment, he moved to the green door. Again, placing his palm in its center, he waited for the pattern to dissolve and reveal what lay beyond.

  This time, a milky violet liquid rose from floor to ceiling. It was faintly disorienting to see the gentle undulating motion held in place rather than flowing out through the open door, but he had certainly seen stranger things.

  He continued on, searching one alien landscape after another. He didn’t pause again until he opened a door that revealed a lush green tropical jungle. His steps were halted by the vividness of the picture before him. Rich spices invited him to explore the fragrant depths, and in the distance he was certain he could hear the faint gurgling of a small stream dancing through rocks. But somehow, the perspective of the view was wrong. Unlike the other vistas he had observed, this one had the uncanny appearance of a painting. Stepping back, he focused on several different points but was unable to shake the illusion that he was somehow seeing a two-dimensional representation of three-dimensional objects.

  He told himself he must press on, but something about the room kept him rooted to the ground. Raising his right hand, he reached out carefully and allowed his hand to pass the plane that separated the hallway where he stood from the jungle.

  The searing pain that assaulted his senses was dizzying. He heard and felt the bones of his hand crunch and crack as his hand was forced into the two-dimensional reality of the scene. For a moment he saw his flattened hand, and part of his mind marveled at the fact that he was somehow existing in two dimensions and three at the same time. But that moment was brief. With all his might he pulled his hand back from the door frame. He could have sworn that the whoosh and pop that accompanied the freedom of his hand was an illusion, but the pain was all too real. As he extracted his hand, wincing at the sight of his flattened palm and fingers, the fire of the initial injury became a dull aching throb. Once it was restored to the normal space outside the door, however, his hand returned to its familiar, three-dimensional shape, though it continued to ache incessantly.