MAY 9, 2387
As the Federation Starship Voyager tore through space, leaving behind a trail of blue fire and particulate metals, Harry Kim reflected on just how commonplace it had become for his home to be shot at.
Ignoring the acrid smoke hanging over the bridge and the seemingly interminable damage report scrolling across his armchair display screen, the first officer of Voyager pulled himself up from the debris-strewn floor of the ship's command center.
The minute he stood, the eyes of all the surviving members of the bridge crew were drawn to him. He did his best to put aside the pain in his left arm and shoulder, which he was almost certain were broken. He took a deep, unsteady breath, and immediately wished he hadn't. The bitter, unforgiving fog of malfunctioning circuitry and superheated bio-neural gel assaulted his throat and lungs with all of the gentleness of an angry Hirogen. His knees buckled as he choked, and he fell back into his chair abruptly rather than attempt to brace himself with his useless arm.
He couldn't help but smile in an almost self-deprecating manner as he surveyed the bruised and sweating faces of his bridge officers.
"Maybe...I'll just stay...right...right here for a little while longer. Enjoy the view.", he said through his attempts to clear the foul taste of chemicals and smoke from his mouth and nose. His tactical officer smirked imperceptibly and tactfully managed to avoid pointing out the first officer's view was likely to be less than spectacular considering the majority of the helm console was, at the moment, embedded in the main viewscreen.
Gripping the arm of the Captain's chair with his right hand and hauling himself to his feet once more, Harry Kim surveyed the condition of Voyager's main bridge. Though pleased to find that no one else currently on the bridge was severely injured (the Captain and helmswoman having been beamed to sickbay mere seconds before the transporter had been disabled), no one was exactly in shape for shore leave either. "Tactical report, Chris?"
Christopher Ayala, Voyager's Tactical Officer and Harry Kim's closest friend, drew a hand across his brow to stem the slow trickle of blood from the painful but superficial cut on his temple.
"Weapons are offline, sir...actually, weapons are gone, sir. Torpedo launchers have been destroyed and the phaser coils have completely fused. Shields are holding at about 15 percent, but the strength is dropping along with power output all over the ship. Transporters are offline, as are sensors, both internal and external. Navigational deflector is barely functioning. Warp drive is offline as well, and the ship is currently at three-quarters impulse. The internal power grid is-" Harry cut him off with a sharp wave of his right hand, then winced as his weight was temporarily shifted again to his injured limb.
"Tell me what is working, Commander. Do we have internal communications?"
"Yes, but only on a limited basis. We can contact those areas of the ship that have independent emergency comm boosters. Engineering, Sickbay, the Shuttlebays...but without internal sensors I can't even be sure if there's anyone there to reach."Ayala could see the grim realization in Harry's eyes, his devotion to duty to ship and crew warring with his fear for the life of his wife and child. Almost always, his friend could call engineering and know for sure that his wife was alive and well, but this was not any other time. Having been injured during an away mission only a week ago, Harry Kim's wife was still on medical leave in their quarters, leave she had vehemently protested until the Doctor had threatened to relieve her of duty for an entire year...Ayala pushed aside that amusing memory and focused on the moment. He knew in the end that Harry Kim would do his job as the Executive Officer of Voyager, no matter the cost to him personally, but it still burned in the pit of his stomach, this surety that without knowing if B'Elanna Torres was alive, Harry Kim wouldn't be able to function.
William Telfer tried not to look at the battered and burned form of the Captain as he stood next to his friend, and as a consequence of this avoidance he nearly forgot why he was in the same room as the Captain's prone body in the first place.
"Coil spanner, now!"
"Coil spanner...coil...spanner...c..uh.."
"Top layer of the emergency kit, right side, come on!" Deputy Astrometrics Chief Mortimer Harren tore the spanner out of William Telfer's hand almost before Telfer had completely removed it from the toolkit.
"Can you reactivate him?"
"Probably, if everyone stops talking for thirty seconds."
"Everyone? We're the only ones in here! Well, the only ones conscious, anyways," Telfer said as his eyes drifted over the immobile bodies on biobeds one, two, and three.
"What's taking so long?", he prodded Harren even as he mentally kicked himself. Relax, Billy, he's a theoretical cosmologist, not a-
"-holographic engineer!" Harren was yelling.
"What?"
"I said", Harren repeated "I'm a theoretical cosmologist, not a holographic engineer, William."
"How many times have I asked you to call me Billy?" Telfer said, shaking his head and smiling despite the situation
"How many times have I asked you not to call me Mortimer?" Harren shot back.
"Oh come on, M, when was the last time Celes or I called-" Telfer's question was interrupted by a high pitched whine that seemed to come from every corner of sickbay at once. Harren stepped back from the wall panel and replaced the final connection, then turned to the center of the room. "That should do it," he said with the faintest trace of relief in his voice. The whining had stopped, replaced by silence as the last of the holographic emitters finally began to function again.
"Here goes nothing...Computer!" Harren was rewarded with an obliging tone, the computer acknowledging that he had spoken and waiting for an inquiry or command. Telfer could have cried with relief. Harren almost smiled, almost, as he instructed the computer, "Activate the EMH".
Instead of the smooth, nearly silent transition from nothingness to photonic life, this time the Doctor appeared haltingly, in pieces. Parts of his form appeared, and disappeared, and appeared again, as the sickbay computer pushed as hard as it could to obey the command despite Voyager's condition.
"Please...Please...Statestatestatethe naaaature please state thenature please..." the pieces of the Doctor, a leg, an arm, a foot, began to fade out once again, and just as Harren and Telfer were about to resign themselves to being locked down in Sickbay with three grievously injured superior officers and no Doctor, the computer seemed to gain a second wind, and the Doctor began once again rematerializing. After a frustrating few seconds, the slim, balding Chief Medical Officer flared fully into existence and said crisply, "Please state the nature of the medical emergency."
"Doctor, am I glad to see you," Telfer was practically sobbing.
"Mr. Telfer...Mr. Harren...are we still-"
"Damaged beyond immediate repair and locked in sickbay? Yes." Harren gestured towards the door. "No one has even tried to get in. Either most of this deck is cut off, or we're the only ones left."
"I prefer to stay on the optimistic side, Lieutenant Harren. I am sure when whatever danger we are in has passed, a rescue operation will be forthcoming. After all, Commander Kim would hardly leave the Captain, Astrometrics Chief, and CMO trapped to fend for themselves, would he?" The dark, sharp eyes of the holographic man seemed to smile and Harren, absurdly, felt momentarily dumb for even having suggested that the ship and it's crew wouldn't be perfectly fine.
"What do we do in the meantime, Doctor?" Telfer asked, his voice having taken on a noticeably stronger timbre since the Doctor, by his presence, took command of the situation. Even going back to when he was looked down on as a mere diagnostic tool, the Doctor had always somehow managed to convince Telfer that everything was going to be alright. Whether through gentle, if mildly sarcastic, reassurance or good old-fashioned browbeating, the EMH could calm the fidgety and (formerly) hypochondriac environmental technician quicker than anyone, save for the woman he loved.
"We wait, Mr. Telfer. We repair what systems we can ourselves, monitor the Captain's condition and the condition of the other patients, and we wait until the inevitable moment when Commanders Kim and Ayala come bursting through those doors like the proverbial bull in a china shop."
Telfer let out a long, deep breath. "Okay. We can do that." He looked nervously around sickbay until his eyes fell once again on the form of the Captain. He had almost managed to forget he was here, but now he never would. As he edged closer to the biobed for the first time since entering sickbay, he realized that the Captain's injuries were far worse than they appeared from the other side of the room. Deep-tissue burns covered the entire left side of his body, from the top of his head to his waist, where the blanket was draped, and presumably beyond. His left eye was gone...whether missing or covered by burned skin, Telfer didn't know. His stomach churning, eyes watering with a weakening mixture of revulsion and sadness, he stepped back and looked at the Doctor. The EMH stood rock-solid, but there was emotion in his simulated eyes, emotion that was never, and could never, be programmed. The feeling, the despair in his eyes, prompted William Telfer to stifle the gorge rising in his throat at the sight of his Captain's nearly-destroyed body and ask quietly, "Will...will he be okay? Will he, you...you know..."
"Will he live?" The Doctor asked, without moving. Telfer nodded shortly.
"Yes. I can heal most of the damage, but...he'll need an ocular implant...an artificial leg, joint replacements. It's not going to be easy, or painless. But yes, he will live. I wish I could say he would be the same, but I just don't know."
After a long silence, Telfer leaned against the wall between the biobeds and slid to the floor next to Harren, who had, exhausted, chosen that spot to rest soon after the Doctor began comforting the easily distraught Telfer.
"The Captain...he's so strong, M. Look at him...if this can happen to him, what about h-the rest of us?"
Harren realized what it was that Telfer was truly worried about. Who he was truly considering as he sat here in this hospital-turned-prison.
"William." He stopped. Again, Mortimer Harren almost smiled, remembering suddenly a time many years ago when William Telfer and the woman who loved William Telfer had finally convinced him that friendship transcended even the infinity of the universe. "Billy. Celes will be fine. She's on the bridge with Commander Kim and Commander Ayala."
"I know, M. At least, some part of me knows that. The rational part. The rest-"
"The rest thinks you've got Terellian Death Syndrome?" Harren asked politely.
Telfer smiled incredulously. "Did you just make a joke, Mortimer Harren?"
"I'm a theoretical cosmologist, not a Vulcan."
"And I'm a Doctor, not an audience. This comedy routine is over. Both of you, get some sleep. We may be here a while." Despite the rebuke, the Doctor smiled slightly as he considered the two men, so different from the quivering neurotic and antisocial misanthrope he had known only a few years earlier.
Both men, one in gold, the other in blue, nodded and exchanged firm grips on the shoulder.
"Good night, M"
"Good night...Billy"
And there, five feet from the sleeping, injured form of Captain Tuvok, two friends slept, and one dreamt of his love, standing proud and strong on the damaged bridge of Voyager and coming to rescue him.
Two decks away, Tal Celes lay dying in a darkened turbolift, the beautiful and very terrified daughter of Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres curled in a ball next to her.
I can think of worse ways to wake up, thought Voyager's Chief Engineer, but not many. B'Elanna Torres braced herself against the wall and with a full-throated scream, heaved a duranium fragment the size of her bed off of her legs. There. One problem down. She took the next few moments to take stock of her situation. Definite headache. At least three...no, four, broken ribs. Legs working fine, at least, she thought with relief as she slowly stood up. She kicked over broken furniture and pieces of hull metal until she found what she was looking for: Her duty uniform, wrapped around what was left of the living room chair. She pulled it free and fingered the commbadge.
"Torres to Bridge"
Silence.
"Torres to Kim. Harry...Harry, are you there? Torres to Celes. Torres to Sickbay. Damn it, Torres to anyone!"
She slapped the commbadge again and again, but was rewarded each time with the dull click indicating that it was unable to connect to any other commbadge on the ship.
"Computer, locate Commander Kim"
"Unable to comply. Internal sensors are off-" More silence.
"Computer, respond."
Nothing. She threw the commbadge as hard as she could. It made her feel a little better. Not much, but better than nothing.
"Okay," she said, talking out loud to herself. "Engineering." She couldn't allow herself to think that she would find anything there except her daughter, healthy and safe, under the watchful eye of Tal Celes and the entire Engineering staff. She grabbed a tricorder and a phaser from the emergency locker Harry had insisted on installing in their quarters. I knew I loved him for a reason. She jogged across the room towards her door, and almost broke her nose when it failed to open at her approach. Muttering curses in Klingon, Romulan, English, and Talaxian, she tore open the manual override panel and twisted the handle. The doors opened slowly, an inch at a time, until there was just enough space for her to squeeze through.
As she flicked open her tricorder and headed towards the only place she could do anything to save her daughter and her ship, the first thing she saw was a corpse.
The first thing she heard was the crying. She thought it was her, but then she remembered. Kathryn. What a day for a tour, Celes thought, and for no reason she could explain, a laugh bubbled up her throat and escaped her mouth, along with flecks of something red. Oh. Blood, she realized, in a distant sort of way.
"Celes?"
That was Kathryn. The girl was still crying, but she managed to speak through what had to be tears of sheer terror.
"Celes, are we going to die?"
Celes would have liked to say no, with absolute certainty. Unfortunately, her brief hesitation was interpreted as a negative answer by the eight-year old. She began crying louder.
"Shhh...shhh, it'll be okay. Your mom will get us out of here."
"What if she can't? What if, what if the turbolift is broken?"
Despite the burning pain in her chest, Celes felt another laugh well up inside her. Who knew death made you this giddy?. "I think your mother would tear through the bulkheads with her teeth before she left you here. I was supposed to help you work in Engineering, remember? She won't let you miss that."
"Can you call for help?"
"I already tried, honey. It doesnt' work. We'll have to wait."
The girl had stopped crying, her eyes still puffy and frightened but her jaw set with determination.
"Then we have to go find someone!"
Celes smiled weakly. "I'm not going anywhere." She gestured vaguely at her torso, covered with burns and bruises, and one very conspicuous hole. "But you might have to climb out of here. I think one of the support struts is broken."
"I can't go alone." Kathryn's determined mien had been again replaced by fear.
"Give me a few minutes, okay? I'll try to see if I can get us out of here without crashing us."
"Do you think...do you think my dad is okay?" Kathryn looked pleadingly at Celes.
"I'm sure...he's...your dad is...I..."
"Celes!"
Kathryn screamed her name louder, but Tal Celes was unconscious, and Kathryn Torres-Kim had no idea if she would ever wake up again.
"Try it now"
"Bridge to Sickbay. Bridge to Engineering. Bridge to...Harry, it's not working"
Harry Kim sighed and with some difficulty, pulled himself out of the electronic guts of the Operations console. "Okay, first priority-"
"First priority, we find out who attacked us"
Kim sighed again, this time quietly. "No, first priority is fixing communications, weapons, shields, and propulsion. Second priority is making sure the crew is alive. Third priority is getting the hell out of here. Finding out the name of the people who attacked us, at this point, is probably in the high twenties."
"All due respect, sir-"
"Ayala...Chris, if they attack us again, we're dead. It's as simple as that. It won't do us a damned bit of good to know who they are if we can't defend ourselves."
Harry paused and looked at Ayala meaningfully. "I know you want to nail these bastards to the wall, but right now our focus has to be Voyager and it's crew. We need to be able to defend ourselves. We can't even scan for these people. How do you suggest we figure out who they are? Mail them a letter?"
"Point taken. I-" Ayala was interrupted by a loud signal from his control board. "Harry! Incoming signal from Engineering!"
Harry didn't bother asking how the Engineering staff had managed to punch a signal through the demolished communications system. You didn't ask how the small miracles were performed. You just accepted them. Engineers hated explaining things during a crisis.
"Engineering, this is Kim! Celes? B'Elanna?"
"I regret that I am neither." came the cool, measured voice of Lieutenant Vorik.
"Vorik! Report?"
"Four dead in Engineering, Commander, including Deputy Chief Carey and Lieutenant Baytart. We have several severe injuries and have been unable to contact sickbay. Almost every critical system has been destroyed or damaged, and..." Vorik hesitated, unusual for a Vulcan, even under extreme stress.
After a second or two, Harry lost patience. "Out with it, Vorik!"
"The warp core has been ejected. I believe, given the amount of damage, it was likely destroyed."