Path: inforamp.net!winternet.com!news1.io.org!chi-news.cic.net!news.math.psu.edu!psuvax1!news.cc.swarthmore.edu!netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!uwm.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!news.eng.convex.com!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.uoknor.edu!news From: Carolyn Bremer Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative Subject: (NEW) VOY: And Then There Were None 3/4 Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 21:03:18 -0500 Organization: The University of Oklahoma (USA) Lines: 219 Message-ID: <314B72E6.29EC@uoknor.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp60.modems.uoknor.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Status: N And Then There Were None VOY part 3 /4 (the first part was the synopsis) Carolyn Bremer cbremer@uoknor.edu DISCLAIMER: Star Trek, Star Trek Voyager, and the Characters created within are the property of Paramount. The story and those parts not designed by Paramount are copyright 1996 by Carolyn Bremer. Part Two When Janeway entered the bridge, all seemed normal. It had been over two hours since the last attack, and the crew was almost willing to relax. "Janeway to Engineering, status report." Chakotay responded, "All stations report at least minimal power restored. We are still pursuing the theory that the bio-neural circuitry has been compromised." "Thank you, Commander. I want a conference in 30 minutes." She went to her ready room, her private oasis, and ordered vegetable bouillon. Taking the cup into her hands, she lowered herself onto the couch and thought. Thought about Kes and Tuvok. Gone. Where were they? Who had taken them? Why those two? The earlier conversation about commonalties between her missing crew--her missing friends--needed to be revisited. She realized with a jolt that Mark had probably asked some of the same questions when Voyager had disappeared. It pained her to experience the same feelings Mark had no doubt encountered those many months ago. Too soon, thirty minutes had passed. Her senior officers had assembled in the Briefing Room and were waiting for her. B'Elanna spoke about the repairs, detailing the results of the myriad diagnostic tests she and the engineering crew had performed. Janeway was trying so very hard to concentrate, but the trains of thought often eluded her. When B'Elanna finished, Janeway stood up and leaned against the back of her chair. "I would like to find the connections between the unknown assailant, the disappearances of Kes and Tuvok and the damage to the bio-neural circuitry." No one chimed in with an idea, so Janeway continued. "I believe we were thinking along the right line when we discussed commonalties between Tuvok and Kes. They are unique members of their species, they are the youngest and oldest members of the crew. What else?" Chakotay shifted uncomfortably. "They are both quite strong willed." Janeway encouraged him to continue. "They practice mental exercises, and their psychogenic abilities certainly place them apart from the rest of the crew." "Yes, and Kes' command of telepathy is growing by leads and bounds." Janeway smiled. "I think you're on to something, Commander." "Captain!" B'Elanna broke in. "That might also explain the power fluctuations in the ship's bio-neural circuitry. Not that the ship is telepathic mind you, but the power is channeled by a compound similar to a neurotransmitter." "Can you verify the connection?" "I believe I can rig a tricorder to sweep the subspace bands known to carry psionic waves." "Good work, let's get on it." * * * * Hours later, Janeway was still in her ready room. She had personally scanned every log of every system on the ship looking for a shred of evidence to back their latest theory. Although she found none as the evening wore on, she was still certain B'Elanna was correct about the bio-neural systems.. How she craved the counterbalance of Tuvok at a time like this. In the back of her mind, a sound burgeoned. It grew--slowly--and fleshed out. It overtook her thoughts, it outgrew her head, it was clearly in the room with her. She stood and tried to turn toward the source but couldn't position it anywhere specifically. It was everywhere and the volume kept increasing. Bending at the knees, she cowered and covered her ears with her hands: the sound was inside of her and outside of her and becoming more and more familiar. It was vocal, she was sure, but the voice never stopped to breathe it just kept screaming--that was it!...it just kept screaming and screaming and screaming. So loud it was painful, so loud her ears were dripping with the ring and the reverb. *Breathe! No one can scream that long without breathing. No one. Not even Tuvok. Not even,* oh god it was Tuvok. It was Tuvok's voice. Tuvok was screaming everywhere. Moments or hours later--she had no idea--she realized the screaming had stopped. She was sprawled on the floor of her ready room, her arm had fallen asleep, pinned under her. She turned to release her arm and was greeted by her still-sore ribs. Letting a sigh escape her, Janeway crawled up onto the couch and steadied herself. Touching her communicator she whispered "Janeway to Chakotay." Nothing. "Janeway to Commander Chakotay." Still no response. "Janeway to Bridge." She tried to stand and was flooded with dizziness. *A few more minutes*, she thought. She calmed herself, but it took time and careful concentration on methodical breathing. Janeway eventually made herself get up and cross her ready room toward the Bridge. The doors slid open and revealed an empty room. Well, not quite empty. The crew's uniforms were strewn over their chairs as if the crew had been there and stripped down in a hurry to go for a swim. She gingerly extended her hand toward what she assumed was Tom Paris' uniform. It felt no different from the Starfleet uniforms she herself had worn for over twenty years. She held it to her chest and stood, stunned, on her bridge. Then she noticed it. A red uniform on her chair. Dropping Tom's back on his chair, she was drawn to what might be her own uniform. She glanced down quickly and found herself to still be clothed and felt a wave of dizziness pass over her again. *How can this be?* "Computer location of Tom Paris." "Lieutenant Paris is not on board." "Computer, location of Commander Chakotay." "Commander Chakotay is not on board." Janeway picked up the uniform on her chair. It boasted 4 pips. She steeled herself before asking the next question, "Computer, location of Kathryn Janeway." "Captain Janeway is not on board." Janeway tossed 'her' uniform on the floor and sat down. Her thoughts were almost blank, almost numb, almost broken. She felt empty and wronged and abandoned. *Abandoned.* She had never felt so utterly alone before. The alpha quadrant never seemed so foreign. Voyager never felt so alien before. This time, the situation was out of her control. * * * * B'Elanna was still running tests of the bio-neural relays when Chakotay came down to Engineering. "B'Elanna, have you got anything." "Not yet. I'm running out of clever ideas." B'Elanna closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. "I've tried the upper EM band, lower EM band, and wide-spectral analyses." "Have you eaten anything lately?" "What?" Chakotay smiled. "When was the last time you took a break? Look, I know we're all working as quickly as we can, but you have to regenerate your own power supplies occasionally." Chakotay coaxed her. "You want to tell me how much you've eaten lately?" B'Elanna bent over the console. "Not much, but I know when it is time to take a break." They walked together to the mess. It was late and most of the crew had long since had dinner, none-the-less Neelix was still in the kitchen. "Ah, my friends," Neelix greeted them. "Can I get you some Rybalian oxtail soup or some sponge pudding?" "We were just hunting for a snack. Why are you still here? It is late for you." "Well, Commander, I just couldn't face my quarters tonight. I thought it best to buck up the morale of everyone on the ship instead." Neelix came around from behind his flaming pots and untied his yellow apron. "You know, many crewmen have come in here tonight. If a friendly face is here to offer them a tasty morsel, it cheers them up." Neelix beckoned the two officers to sit and brought them coffee and pudding. "I've had several compliments on this dish tonight. Ensign Lane showed me how to make it, well, she gave me the basic recipe but I provided some of my own mature culinary additions. I think the leola root helped spice it up a great deal." B'Elanna and Chakotay rolled their eyes, but they were too tired to complain. "Thank you, Neelix. I'm sure it is wonderful," was all B'Elanna could muster. Neelix went back to his pots and pans and frightening cauldrons. B'Elanna sipped at her coffee and stared out the window. The stars were still, an unusual sight on Voyager. "It is a strangely quiet night." "How so?" asked Chakotay. "The ship feels a empty, somehow." "Well two of her crew are gone. Of course it feels empty." "No, it is more than that. There is an unsettling feel to her." "We did encounter an inexplicable life form, loose Tuvok and Kes to who knows where, and we are stuck with power fluctuations even you can't pin down. I'd call that unsettling." "Yeah, I guess so." B'Elanna fell silent, finished her coffee and bade Chakotay good night. She knew it was pointless to go back to Engineering in her condition, so she went to her quarters. She tossed and turn for a long time, rehashing every test and diagnostic she'd run. At last sleep came to her, but it was far from restful. She dreamed she was back in the badlands, running from the Cardassians. The energy band was on the viewscreen charging for them while Chakotay gave the command for evasive maneuvers. "Warp 23!" called out Chakotay. "Warp 23?" she responded. "Are you crazy, that's not possible." She turned to spit on him, and found that only Chakotay's uniform was in his chair. She looked about the entire bridge: only uniforms! B'Elanna found herself barking to the computer, "Initiate emergency beam out." She was floating, no it was only vaguely like floating because there were no physical sensations. No physical stimuli at all. No gravity, no color, no smell, no sound. She screamed. B'Elanna's own voice awoke her. "Computer, lights." Her quarters came into view. "B'Elanna to Chakotay." A very groggy voice returned her hail. "Chakotay, what is the opposite of physical." "What time is it?" groaned a very sleepy man. "Just tell me, Chakotay. What is the opposite of physical?" "Mental, I guess." "Something relating to the mind. Something that cannot register on our sensors" "Do you have a plan in mind, so to speak?" "Not yet, but I think we should all talk about it, now." "Fine, I'll wake the senior officers and meet you in the Briefing Room in 10 minutes. If we come up with something significant, we'll wake the captain. Chakotay out." B'Elanna sat down next to Harry Kim at the conference table and noticed his messy bed hair. Tom Paris had the glassy eyes of someone awakened from a deep REM sleep. Chakotay, who remarkably looked none-the-worse for wear began "B'Elanna, why don't you tell us why you woke up all of us." "I had a dream that took place in the Badlands just before the Caretaker brought us here to the Delta Quadrant. The Cardassians were chasing us and we were on a course straight for the Caretaker's energy band. I was at the helm and when I turned to say something to Chakotay, only his uniform was there. I asked the computer for an emergency beam out and then I was suspended in some sort of, well it is hard to explain. Suffice it to say it was completely devoid of any physical dimension. It was very creepy. I woke up and I realized that every means of detection we had been trying--either to locate the ship that fired on us or to find Kes and Tuvok--was looking for physical manifestations of material or living beings. So what if they exist completely out of a physical reality." "Then we couldn't see them or detect them with our instruments," said Kim. "Sure and Kes and Tuvok are ghosts now. None of this sounds very plausible, B'Elanna." Tom was particularly sour in the wee hours. "Hear me out, Tom. The ship's bio-neural circuitry exchanges energy through a chemurgic compound which is high in psychoactive properties. The ship itself may be able to detect them." "But how do we design an interface to the psychoactive properties?" Kim was already working on the nuts and bolts. Chakotay interrupted, "I believe we finally have a solid lead to follow. It is time to bring in the captain, I think. Good work, B'Elanna." Chakotay cocked his head toward the ceiling, "Chakotay to Captain Janeway." He waited. "Chakotay to the Captain, sorry to wake you." He waited again and then his voice betrayed a heavy anxiety. "Computer, location of Captain Janeway." "Captain Janeway is not on board." "Oh, shit." B'Elanna was the only one to verbalize her thoughts.