To Tell The Truth Series 05 Turning Point

by Melanie

  Pain shot through his skull as he lifted his head. 'What had happened?' he wondered. After a moment he remembered the three big Rachar who had accosted him. 'The Captain's going to be so mad,' he thought, not fully appreciating the jeopardy he was in. 'I'll be degaussing Jefferies tubes for months.'

  When he finally had gathered enough strength to rise to his hands and knees, he carefully crawled around until he found what he guessed to be a wall and laid a hand on it to brace himself as he got to his feet. The moment he had gained his feet, he immediately removed his hand and distastefully shook the grime from his hand, wishing for the cleanliness of Voyager.

  At the thought of his ship, he automatically lifted a hand for his combadge. It was gone. Whoever had taken him obviously knew it was more than jewelry and planned to hang on to him now that they had him. 'But who would do this?' he wondered just as the answer came to him. 'The rebels E'Arte had told the Captain about. What had he called them? The Ver-something? Who else could it be?' Harry shivered. 'I have get out of here," he knew, 'before they come back for me.'

  He stumbled around the perimeter of the wall until he found what he thought might be a door and began feeling for a control panel to open it or even an old fashioned handle like the doors in Tom's holoprograms.

  He paused for a brief moment. As much as he hated to think about the man now, he knew had Tom been with him he would have been able to get him out of there. Undoubtedly, Tom had had plenty of experience with places like this.

  'But he's not here,' he reminded himself. 'You'll just have to do this all on your own.'

  Harry still was groping for a control when the door slid open and two well-armed Rachar entered with dim lights strapped to their wrists. He wished he had a compression phaser rifle to even up the odds, but he did not. And as it turned out, it was unnecessary anyway.

  "You are Ensign Harry Kim from Voyager?" a feminine voice softly asked as she slapped his combadge onto his chest, upside down.

  He righted it and regarded her warily. "Yes."

  "Then come with us." She and her companion made for the door. They stopped in the doorway when Harry did not follow. "If you don't come with us they'll kill you."

  Harry did not budge.

  She swore under her breath. "Look, we may have busted in here to get you, Ensign Harry Kim, but if it comes down to us getting out of here alive without you or the Verta finding us inside one of their secret bases-"

  "You're not Verta?" His tone was one of surprise.

  Hers was one of disgust. "We certainly are not," she denied. "Now will you move? Sooner or later they are going to realize the generator that broke down actually was *sabotage* and they'll start looking for the saboteurs."

  Making a gut instinct decision, Harry nodded and followed them out into the hall where he nearly collided with a huge male who was at sentry. The male did not speak, merely pushed Harry off in the direction in which the other two were hurrying.

  At the end of the dark hall, they ducked into another room. The two in front led him over to the rear of what he guessed, in the dim glow from their lights, to be a small land vehicle. Swinging themselves up into the bed of the vehicle, they popped the lid off of one of the barrels and motioned for Harry to join them.

  "Get in," she told him. "We have to smuggle you out."

  "Why don't we just beam out? I have my combadge. I can call Voyager and-"

  "Your combadge is damaged. When we found it we tried to use it to alert your people to do just that only it wouldn't work."

  He tapped it and discovered they were correct. "At least the translation circuits still work. Maybe I can fix whatever they did to it and-"

  "There's no time for that now. Get in."

  Harry did and they sealed him inside the container.

  For a long time he neither heard nor saw anything and felt only the occasional bump that he attributed to the vehicle's trip. When they finally stopped and the lid was removed once more and he was helped out of the container and into the bright lights of a loading dock. Carefully, they helped him sit on a nearby crate.

  "Where are we?" he asked, shielding his eyes against the light.

  "Our base."

  "Who are you?"

  "We're the P'Chi. You are amongst friends. I assure you."

  Lowering his hand, he squinted at her. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he at last could see his rescuers. The leader indeed was a woman with lavender skin and a head completely shaved bald except for a single indigo braid falling from above her left temple. The smaller of her two companions was a pink-skinned male, equally bald and with a crimson ponytail dangling from his nape. The huge sentry from the hall was a pale green male with a dark green braid dangling from the top of his head. All three had nasty looking

  weapons slung over one shoulder and side arms at their waists.

  "I am Nru," the female introduced. "This is Ksu."

  The pink male smiled.

  "And that is Plwa."

  The green male merely offered him a brief nod.

  "Harry," the ensign said, gesturing to himself. "But then you already know that."

  She nodded and the smile broadened.

  "How did you find me?"

  "One of our people is undercover with the group who kidnapped you and warned us when you were brought in." She noticed the way he was looking from one to another of them with a slight frown. "What is it, Harry?"

  "Your hair." he blurted out, unthinkingly then stopped and flushed. "I'm sorry. I-"

  "It is all right to be curious, Harry. All the P'Chi wear their hair this way. It is a sign of our position." She touched the single pip on his collar. "Like your rank insignia."

  Her touching his pip reminded him of Voyager. "I need to contact Voyager. Let them know I'm okay."

  "We will do our best to get word to them. However, it cannot be from here. The Verta don't know of this base yet and we would prefer to keep it that way for as long as possible. If our transmissions were discovered, they might be tracked back here and our security will be compromised. First thing in the morning, we'll send one of our people out a safe distance with a communications unit and contact them."

  "Why not now?"

  "If the Verta stumbled across our people and a comm unit they would know immediately know what they were up to. Right now they don't know how you escaped. That works in our favor. We have another operation underway and I don't want it compromised by them thinking we have you and they start attacking innocents in retaliation."

  "My shipmates will be concerned," he insisted.

  "I know, but it is the best we can do. It's not much, but will you accept our hospitality for the night?"

  Reluctantly, Harry nodded.

  "Good. In the meantime, what can you tell us about who took you? Anything you can tell us will be of great assistance."

  "I was unconscious for most of it. I woke up where you found me. I don't know how long I stumbled around in the dark looking for a door." He grimaced at the pale green stain still on his palm, picked up from contact with the grimy wall of his cell. "Then you three came and brought me here. Yours are the only faces I saw and the room where you found me, the corridor, and the room where you stuffed me into the container were the only places."

  Nru laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. "What about when you were taken? Didn't you see or hear anything then?"

  "No. These three Rachar -- at least they were built like Rachar -- they were in cloaks and hoods and they pushed me into an alley with them and injected me with something. The next thing I know I was waking up- Why are you looking at me like that?"

  The moment he had told them of the injection, Nru's hand had leapt from Harry's shoulder as if it were an open plasma manifold and she and the others had taken a reflexive step back. Glances were flitting from him to each other then back again.

  "Where were you injected?" she choked out.

  "The left bicep. Why?"

  "Show us."

  Harry removed his uniform jacket and
grey turtleneck. It was as he was peeling the turtleneck down his left arm that he saw what had them so worried. On his bicep was a red welt the size of his fist. "What is it?"

  "Ksu, alert the medical staff."

  After watching the pink Rachar scramble to obey the command, Harry looked in askance at Nru. "What?"

  "There are two possibilities for what they may have injected you with, Harry. Both have the same result -- unconsciousness. One of them, however, also results, in some species anyway, paralysis and/or death. Both of them can produce a large red welt around the site of the injection. It's not until it is too late to do anything about it that we know which injection it is. By then the victim is dead and the infection has been transmitted to others."

  He looked at the redness on his arm then back at her. "I have to get back to my ship. To Sickbay. The Doctor will-"

  "I'm afraid you're too much of a risk to your crew now, Harry. We'll transmit your vitals to your medical staff and see if they have any new insights into this, but for their sakes you will have to be quarantined here until... well, until we know one way or the other."

  "How long until we know?"

  "Each species is different. It could be hours or days. Weeks maybe. We don't know.

  Harry's head dropped to his hands. "Why would they do this to me? Voyager's got nothing to do with this... disagreement of theirs."

  "The Verta want to bring down the government. You are here, wanting to trade with the government. Maybe they're thinking they could turn your people against E'Arte and the rest of the government if one of your people die. You ship's said to be powerful. You could inflict much damage to the government were it turned against them."

  "But why me?"

  "Luck perhaps? Anyone probably would have done. You, your Captain, whomever they could get their hands on."

  "And I broke orders and wandered off alone, practically begging the Verta to snatch me."

  "Well, yes."

  "The Captain is going to kill me. *If* this infection doesn't first."

  "Harry, we don't even know if you are infected yet. Don't start assuming the worst."

  Ksu reappeared at her side and nodded.

  "Harry, the medical staff has secure quarters for us to stay in until we can determine if you're infected or not."

  His head snapped up. "I may have infected you too," he suddenly realized.

  Nru sighed and nodded. "I won't lie. That is a possibility."

  Harry could not meet her eyes any longer. "You three risked your lives to save me and how do I repay you? By maybe killing you."

  "Don't think like that. We knew the risks when we went in after you. We accepted them. If we did not, we wouldn't have gone. Now, stop feeling sorry for things not within your control and let's get you to your quarters. I bet you would like a shower. I know I would had I been confined in there."

  Nodding, he slowly accompanied them to the door.

  One end of a long, white tube of a plastic-like material was surrounding the doorway when Plwa opened it. It was large enough to seal the opening entirely and for the four of them to walk two abreast through it.

  He looked at Nru.

  "It is a temporary corridor. The emergency staff erected it so we can travel down the hall and into our quarters without risking infecting anyone who was not inside this room. Once were out of here, this room will be sealed off until we know if the infection is inside."

  "What about this thing?"

  "The inside of the tube is coated with a chemical. Once we're through, the exterior will be heated, causing the chemical to be released. It will bond with any molecules of the infection and trap them as the heat makes the entire tube begin shrink. What's left of the unit will be gathered up and incinerated. All very safe for all concerned. Come on."

  Sighing, he followed her.

  -------

  "Captain Janeway, what can I do for you," a sleepy-looking E'Arte yawned.

  "My Ops officer is missing."

  One set of grey eyes abruptly became as wide awake as those watching him. "From off of your ship?"

  "From the surface. This afternoon. He was down there with two others when he disobeyed orders and wandered off on his own. One of your people apparently saw him after that. A male named C'Nar."

  He shook his head, thinking. "I don't know him. I'Nu, find this C'Nar and get him here." Off screen, there was the sound of hurrying footsteps and a door closing. "We will find him. Can you tell us exactly where your officer was?"

  "B'Elanna?"

  B'Elanna stepped forwards to repeat the story of the incident.

  E'Arte tried to look reassuringly at them, but it was clear to all it was forced. "Probably he lost all track of time, that's all. Some of the shopkeepers love to chat and if he's as interested in music as you say and he met a like-minded individual, he might still be there, talking."

  "We can't raise him over his combadge," Janeway informed him. "Nor can we get a lock on his signal."

  "Maybe he is in someone's basement? I know our own sensors have trouble with this planet sometimes. Practically all structures on Rachar have subterranean rooms for cold storage of produce or as living quarters during the warm season."

  Though the alien would not have understood the phrase, everyone on the Bridge thought it -- "grasping at straws."

  "I'll personally go to see this shopkeeper," he promised nonetheless. "And I'll spread the word amongst my people. Surely someone will hear something."

  "Thank you. We'll contact you if we find out anything."

  "And I the same. Hopefully by the time I'Nu and I beam up to your ship tomorrow, we will have news."

  It was on the tip of Janeway's tongue to say the tour of her ship that she had promised the two aliens was off. Years of Starfleet training and practical experience in handling diplomatic situations demanded she not rescind her offer.

  "Of course," she nodded then the screen returned to a view of Rachar and the surrounding stars.

  Rubbing her face, she knew it was going to be a long night.

  -------

  "Well, I'Nu?" E'Arte inquired of the clerk standing just inside of the door he supposedly had closed behind him as he "left."

  "Everything is ready for tomorrow."

  "Good. I want it double checked before we go to their ship. No mistakes. I'll see you in the morning."

  "Yes, E'Arte."

  -------

  "And that is the story of the Mess Hall," the Captain told her brunch companion the next day. "If you've finished, we'll move on to Sickbay where I know our Doctor has a few questions for-"

  E'Arte's communicator bleeped before the Captain could finish her statement. Laying his napkin next to his tray on the table, he withdrew the device from his pocket and checked the text message on the display. Smiling broadly, he returned it to his pocket and nodded to I'Nu who stood a respectful distance from the table of his superior and the Captain. The clerk's hand slipped into his pocket for his own device.

  "Harry?" Janeway asked hopefully.

  He stopped smiling. "I'm sorry, no. This was another matter. Something I had been waiting for finally is about to come to fruition. I'Nu?"

  Within seconds it was over. Everyone in the Mess Hall and all over Voyager slumped to the deck, unconscious. As far as E'Arte and I'Nu knew, the only ones still awake were the two of them and C'Nar in the Transporter Room. Once questioned by Janeway, the Gherop technician had remained as ordered in Transporter Room One, supposedly until it was time for them to leave. The thumbnail-sized devices I'Nu had deposited throughout the ship during their tour had been triggered by the signal from the clerk's

  communicator and the very hull itself became a giant conductor for the sonorous vibrations. Only the three of them with the neutralizers hidden behind their earlobes had remained.

  "Readings?"

  "All asleep, E'Arte," I'Nu reported, consulting the readout on the device in his hand.

  "Then I think that's enough. I don't want them so asleep they can't
be awakened to answer a few questions if necessary."

  As I'Nu signaled the tiny devices to switch off, everyone in the Mess Hall began disappearing in transporter beams.

  "Let's go to the Transporter Room and see if C'Nar has mastered any more of their technology than just the transporters."

  B'Elanna had been correct when she had pronounced C'Nar to be an excellent potential engineer. He was the best of all the technicians on Rachar and that was the reason he had been hand picked by E'Arte for this mission -- that and the fact he was quite adept at the art of manipulation. E'Arte had possessed no reservations regarding C'Nar's ability to sweet talk B'Elanna Torres into showing him how the transporters worked, though he still had reminded him the punishment for failure would be severe. It would be nothing like what E'Arte had claimed to Janeway C'Nar was facing because he had let an offworlder, clearly alone which was against all precedent, disappear before he could get to him to ensure his continued safety. A real punishment from E'Arte would not have been to be on a ship amongst aliens "he so wanted to meet" and being confined to the Transporter Room, forbidden to speak to anyone.

  "Well?" his superior asked as he and I'Nu strode through the Transporter Room door.

  C'Nar gestured to the sleeping Chief Engineer lying on the deck behind the transporter console he was examining. "As predicted, she fell for the pleading look I gave her once I'd finished 'explaining myself and what had happened' and you 'pronounced punishment.' She reappeared not long after you left with her Captain." He pointed at Nozawa, also asleep and on the deck. "The male who had been at the controls was ordered not to tell anyone of her being here and she began talking to me. She was quite kind," he sneered as he instructed the transporter to remove Torres and Nozawa from the ship too. "It was a simple matter to

  bring the conversation around to my 'being intrigued with their technology.'"

  Watching the two bodies vanish, E'Arte nodded approvingly. "Once the last of them is in their new homes, begin beaming up our people."