She was lost during the Borg's first attack on Earth. They'd developed warp
drive barely a decade ago and had already launched family occupied ships
into space for long-term living. She was one of three of her parents'
children. Belle deLinz, her family was one of two that were sent up into
space. Her brother Alex was only four, and her sister Sara was six, so they
both looked to her for guidance, that was the only reason she didn't show
her fear. Ever.
They'd only been up in space for three months when it happened. One of the internal alert alarms went off on the bridge. It was the afternoon shift, so her whole family was on the bridge and the Johnsons came in a moment later, looking out the main view window to see something more terrifying that death itself.
They raised their primitive shields, but they knew it was no use, whatever this new species happened to be they were obviously technologically superior.
"We are the borg." The rest was cut off as one of the Johnsons two children, Elizabeth, screamed in pure terror. The parents, trying to defend the ship while calming the children, did a quick weapons scan and came to a silent, but unanimous decision.
"All of you get in the escape pods." All five children looked up at Greg deLinz.
"We can help, maybe we can outrun them."
"They're faster than us, they're stronger than us, you guys have to get out of here, we all know the procedure, get into those escape pods."
"Dad we can't just leave you here." She knew pleading wasn't going to work, but she had to make an effort, she couldn't just leave without any protest.
"Don't make us sedate you." Their parents loved them enough to do it.
"Alex, Sara, Ben, Beth, we have to go, I'll load you guys in first, but we need to move now." She was the oldest and as all the little kids trembled she picked up her brother and sister as she led the others to the escape pods.
Each of the children was given a light sedative and loaded into an escape pod. She launched the pods before climbing in one herself and sending a silent prayer for the adults. As she injected herself with the sedative and hit the launch button the action started on the bridge.
The two sets of parents looked at each other and knew what had to be done. "We all know what has to happen for them to make it." The Johnsons nodded. "Let's give them some cover." Fingers flew over various consoles as antimatter bursts were released and detonated outside the now rocking ship. In the middle of all the explosions the Borg never noticed the five life forms drifting the few thousand kilometers to Pluto.
As the sensors detected the last pod drift safely out of range the first of many beamed aboard. As everything went black all they knew was that their children were safe. Nothing else mattered now.
Space had been particularly boring. No shore leave, no depleted supplies, no friendly, or even unfriendly new species, absolutely nothing. As Ensign Kim took over for his shift he knew he was doomed for another eight hours of boredom.
Nearly an hour into the shift a small beeping drew his attention back to his console. "Captain sensors are picking up a …" The young man's eyes widened and he double checked the readings. "Captain you're not going to believe this." He looked at her as she turned in her seat. "I'm picking up a Star Fleet escape pod." His fingers were flying at warp speed. "There's something wrong." A few seconds passed and he looked up again. "It's signature matches the USS Armstrong."
Janeway pushed herself up from the armchair. "Are you sure those readings are correct Ensign?" He pressed a few buttons and a determined look set on his face.
"Yes Captain, I double and triple checked the sensor readings. That's the lost escape pod for the USS Armstrong."
"Tractor it in." With just a slight wave of the hand Chakotay rose from his seat and headed down for the docking bay.
The officer on duty outside the docking bay, Ensign Vorik, closed the doors and restored the atmosphere within moments. As he scanned for any weapons or anything that might be rigged to protect the small pod and noticed several things. The first was that there was some sort of crude phazer, rigged through the life support and temperature control systems to detonate the entire pod if it was opened from the outside.
Transporting the weapon out of the pod he started analyzing the other strange reading. It almost seemed like there was brain activity inside the pod. He ran a complete scan then a quick sensor diagnostic. "Vorik to the Doctor."
In sickbay the doctor looked up from his last medical file. "How can I help you Ensign Vorik?"
"I'm reading brain activity from this escape pod." He closed the med file and stepped quickly over to the surgical bay. "Activating emergency medical transport." The doctor watched as a petite form materialized on the biobed.
He scanned the body several times, completely confounded by what he saw. There was absolutely no sign of decay. This body had been drifting in space for over two hundred years, but there wasn't even one sign of decay. As his scans ran over the torso and head his holographic mouth dropped open in shock. There were indeed noticeable traces of brain activity. What was even more disturbing was that as he scanned more thoroughly he was picking up two very distinct patterns. One was human; the other was some sort of animal, a primitive one at that.
Grabbing a cortical stimulator from the nearest supply cart he barely noticed the doors hiss open.
Commander Chakotay finished a thorough, if not rushed, inspection of the small escape pod. Through all the diagnostics and scanning he couldn't help but notice the slight citrus smell that permeated the interior.
He walked into sickbay just as the doctor placed the small device on her forehead. As the doctor made modifications to the little machine he looked over the girl. It did indeed look like Belle deLinz. All those involved simply assumed that she was assimilated, yet another theory proved wrong by the Voyager crew.
She looked slightly more plump than her pictures showed, but not horribly so, it just seemed like her stomach was a little large. He took his place beside the bed, careful to keep out of the Doc's way as he went about reviving their new guest. If the crew wasn't careful they were going to be overrun with teenagers.
He injected her with 4cc's of inaprovaline and activated a 10-milijule shock. The body convulsed slightly, there was a noticeable increase in neurological activity, and her vital systems were starting to work again, only slightly though.
If he continued to shock her it might actually do more harm than good. Programming instructions into the stimulator he created a workable treatment. It was as he slowed in his work with the young girl he noticed the Commander already standing at the bedside and the Captain walking in with a fresh cup of coffee.
"What's her status?"
Taking a moment to bring her neural activity up on the monitor he let her have a look. "The inaprovaline and cortical pulse seemed to have started her vital systems again, but if I do it again immediately I risk shocking them into inactivity, I might not be able to bring her back from that. The only thing I see wrong with her is still unexplained, when I scanned her I picked up another set of brain waves in the exact same condition as her own." He picked up the tricorder again and resumed his scanning. "It's coming from her abdomen." He ran it over again several more times. "I'm not showing signs of pregnancy." It took a moment, but he realized what was wrong.
Both officers watched carefully as he lifted her shirt back. Resting on her stomach was a small kitten. That explained the second set of brain waves he detected. Lifting the small animal off of her abdomen he replaced her shirt and started the revival procedure on the small creature on another bed.
Well that certainly explained the larger stomach; she looked more proportionate without the little kitten. Now her appearance did match the Star Fleet files. Blond hair, pulled back into a high ponytail, and if he remembered correctly blue eyes, slightly tall for her age and time period, around 164 centimeters, she was the spitting image of her father.
As the doctor continued his treatments on both of his new patients, a dose of inaprovaline and a cortical pulse every half hour to bring their systems back to normal, both of them had many visitors. Naomi Wildman came in several times with her mother to pet the little light Siamese kitten and read to the young girl. Curious onlookers came in just to see if they'd really recovered ANOTHER person from the past. Even Mezoti came in once she took a quick look at the girl and petted the kitten somewhat awkwardly under Naomi's instruction.
It was on the fourth day of treatment that the doctor brought her vitals up where they needed to be for consciousness. The kittens eyes fluttered open around two hundred and the Doc injected a set of vitamins to restore all the nutrients lost since the start of treatment and put him in his office behind a low level force field. The tiny thing looked barely weaned. Around seven inches long and four inches high he was still extremely lively.
Having to deal with the little guy running all over his office he set up a sanitized environment, hoping he was ship broken, and left a dish of feline nutritional supplements out for the little thing.
After hours of watching the kitten bounce around and chase nothing he was almost relieved as a soft beeping alerted him to the young woman in the surgical bay's return to consciousness. He stood over her waiting to answer her questions, and return to her that wretched little beast in his office.
Her eyes fluttered open and closed immediately at the bright light. "Computer dim lights." It gave a strange beep in acknowledgment and the lights dimmed. She set up warily, rubbing her eyes, trying to rub away the light.
As the circumstances of her escape from the Armstrong came back to her, both of her eyes flew open and she jumped off the biobed backing up into the closest wall. She spotted the Doctor and tried her best not to be antagonistic. "Who are you?"
"I'm the Chief Medical Officer aboard this vessel." As he mentioned it she looked around at the very different technology and his odd uniform. It almost looked like something from Star Fleet.
"Are you the ship that answered our distress call?"
"We didn't receive a distress call, our scanners picked up your escape pod just drifting."
"Where are we then?"
"We're in--." He was interrupted as the doors slid open and Icheb walked in.
"I'm here to repair--." He trailed off as he saw the formerly inert young woman backed up against the wall completely ready to bolt. "If you're busy I can come back later."
"No that's alright, it's not bothering us, go ahead with the repairs." As Icheb turned to remove the panel covering one of many malfunctioning plasma manifolds she saw the glittering metal of the implant on his nose and gasped. Her hand crept up to cover her open mouth and as pieces began to come together about her reaction for the doctor he opened his mouth to explain, but it was too late. The damage had been done. Grabbing the only thing nearby that could be used as a weapon, a hypospray, she configured it as best she could, she wasn't exactly familiar with the new sprays, and she bolted out the sickbay doors.
"Doctor to Security."
"Yes Doctor?"
"Our guest just fled sickbay, I believe she was startled by Icheb's implants, I don't know where she's headed but she took a hypospray so be careful."
"Understood." Tuvok motioned to Lieutenant Ayala who'd been working on a full diagnostic of the pod with him and they left the docking bay. Belle had been entered into the ship's database as soon as her identity was verified; it was about now that it was going to come in handy. "Computer locate Belle deLinz."
"Belle deLinz is in shuttle bay one." Eyebrows raising both of the men raced toward the shuttle bay. "Security team two meet us in shuttlebay one."
"Acknowledged."
She climbed in one of what looked like the less used, and older shuttles, surprised to see that even the older shuttles were very advanced. She tried to get acquainted with the new controls and managed to program the autopilot. As she scanned her surroundings she didn't recognize anything, but figured that the ship was on some kind of mission, that maybe they'd created a faster way to make it to the Beta quadrant. She scanned for an M- class planet, but found none. The best she could do was a nebula nearby. It had the right gasses to interfere with sensors so she set off at warp seven, the highest possible on that shuttle.
Tuvok ordered the bay's doors closed, but it was too late, the shuttle made it out. "Tuvok to bridge."
"What's going on down there Tuvok?" Janeway'd been expecting the call since she was alerted that a shuttle had been launched.
"Captain our young guest saw Icheb and jumped to the wrong conclusions. She took a hypospray and made her way to the shuttle bay, it managed to launch and is heading for a nearby nebula at warp seven."
"We'll set course to pursue." She motioned to Lieutenant Paris to follow her 'suggestion' as she said it. Voyager set off at Warp 7.5 and caught up to her in just thirty seconds.
"We've just entered the shuttle's sensor range."
As the beeping console alerted her to Voyager approaching she was trying not to panic. She didn't want to fire on them, they would be able to destroy her in seconds, so she didn't want to provoke them, the only other option was to try some last ditch attempt to leave the shuttle, but there was nowhere to go. Still trying to figure out what to do she never noticed the tingling of the transporter beam starting.
When she looked up and saw her surroundings were once again that of the sickbay two small tears ran down her cheeks. She was trapped, there was nowhere to go and no ships nearby to help her.
She looked up to see the Borg still working on the ship and the doctor approaching her with a hypospray. Even though she never told anyone Belle had always wondered what was going to kill her, somehow she never thought it would be a human ship that made alliances with the 'things' that killed her family.
Sliding her back down the wall behind her she put her face to her knees and waited for death. What she got instead was a light sedative and the doctor picking her up and placing her on the biobed. To her surprise there were no restraints, he simply started speaking to her in a comforting voice.
"Don't be afraid, none of us are going to hurt you." He put the hypospray down and picked up one of her hands, physical comfort seemed appropriate for the situation. "You're aboard the starship Voyager and we're in the Delta quadrant." The sedative was doing its job so that even as she absorbed the information she couldn't really bring herself to care. "It's…" he had to think carefully about how to phrase the next part, "the year 2234 and you've been in some kind of accidental stasis since 2103."
He wasn't listening to the conversation really, but his superior hearing was picking up on everything. He was used to a strong reaction from most people because of his implants, but never to that extreme. Of course, he knew about the Armstrong, it was one of the first human ships to be assimilated by the Borg. Four human adults were added to the collective, however he'd never known anything about there being children on that vessel.
As he finished the repairs he replaced the panel and left sickbay without a word.
After the Doctor completely explained the situation he delivered another sedative she was sleeping peacefully in moments. He shook his head and resigned himself to having to deal with her little terror.
The Captain came down to sickbay the next morning and waited as he removed the sedative from her system. She sat up almost immediately and looked around the now familiar environment. After yesterday's explanation she wasn't going to run. These people had no reason to lie to her, she wasn't anything special, so that 'thing' she'd seen yesterday was really a person. A liberated Borg, and she'd insulted him in the worst way possible. At least it hadn't been one of the littler ones, she knew someone younger might not have forgiven her, she wasn't exactly sure that, Icheb, the doctor called him, was going to forgive her either.
Looking at the Captain Janeway, she knew what she had to do. "I'm sorry."
She looked over the young woman that stole one of her shuttlecrafts and tried to run from them and waited for a further explanation. "I thought Icheb was Borg and it scared me, I didn't want to be killed without a chance for survival," like my parents was left out, but it was understood by all those present, "I just … ran."
"I understand." She really did understand, fear could do strange things to people. "Am I to assume you've been informed of the situation and nothing like that will be happening again?"
"Yes ma'am." As she slid off the biobed she heard a slight mewing noise and remembered that she'd run into Caspian on her way to the escape pods, and under the insistent pleas of her siblings brought him in the escape pod. She looked up at the Doctor. "Is that Caspian?"
"Whom?"
"My cat. Is that my cat?" He walked over to the office.
"Yes actually, I've had to deal with the little beast for the past three days." He let the force field down.
"Caspian, come here sweetie." That's all it took to get the little bundle of fur to jump into her hands.
"That's quite a loyal friend you've got there." She nodded.
"I know." She set the little thing up on her shoulder like a parrot and it stayed perfectly balanced. "So when can drop me off on Earth? I should have a few relatives there willing to let me stay."
"Didn't the Doctor tell you we're in the Delta Quadrant?"
"Well, yes ma'am, but if you got here, you can get home. That, and I'm kind of anxious to find out what happened to the rest of the family."
"We were dragged here by an entity known as the caretaker. Even at our highest speed it's going to take seventy years to get home."
"So, no Earth then?" Janeway nodded her head regretfully. "Well, its not like things wouldn't have changed anyway, I guess any M-Class planet will serve the same purpose." That was a bit of a shock.
"You want to be left behind? Here? In the delta quadrant?"
"I don't have much of a choice do I?"
"You could stay aboard Voyager." She looked up from her hands.
"I could?"
"We'd be glad to have you."
"Really?"
"Yes." She smiled slightly at Belle and it was returned three fold.
"GREAT! So, where's the mess hall?" Kathryn laughed. Teenagers had a one- track mind.
It was lunchtime and the mess hall was full of off duty officers. One of the back tables was also full of a certain four children and their guardian; they were all somewhat surprised as the Captain walked in with the young woman that hijacked a shuttle and tried to escape the ship. They walked up to the lunch counter and took two bowls of Neelix's latest soup.
Chatter started up again slowly as she and the Captain walked to take a seat in the back. When she caught sight of the children remorse entered her eyes. Before even taking a bite she set the bowl and spoon on the table. "I have something important to do." Kathryn nodded. She knew exactly what was going to happen.
Belle walked up to the table and everyone looked up from their nutritional supplements. The point of eating in the mess hall was to encourage social interaction, but no one ever approached them, other than Naomi Wildman, and she wasn't exactly up to their intelligence level, despite being a bright girl.
"Hi." None of them said anything so she started to fidget as she continued. "Look I know I screwed up big time, and there's really no excuse for what I did, and I wanted to say I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions." She looked up from the floor. "I would say you could deck me if it would make you feel better, but you could probably break me, so will you settle for I'm sorry?"
He looked in her eyes and finally acknowledged her presence. "No apologies are necessary. There was no harm done." He spoke much differently than her, but even former Borg were still humanoid.
"Maybe not, but that doesn't make it any less stupid of me. If you won't accept my apologies just suffice it to say I owe ya one." She didn't leave him time to protest, just rejoined the captain.
"Very well handled."
"Yeah sure, everything with me is open mouth insert foot." She blew on the soup and took a small sip. "Yummy! What is this stuff?"
"Our chef found a few hidden containers of leola root, this is leola root stew. I surprised you like it, most of the crew replicated their lunch today just because of this."
"I like everything. Mom used to say it's good I like to run or I'd be really pudgy." At the mention of her mom she looked down morosely at her stew. "Does anyone know what happened to my family?"
"The Armstrong was never recovered. After about six hours the Goldenbird picked up the signal from the pods and the other four were recovered." A fleeting smile appeared on her face.
"So they made it out OK?"
"They were fine. Actually young Alex grew up to serve two terms as the president of the Federation of Planets."
"Wow. We always knew Alex would make a good politician, he could lie with the best of them." She grinned, Alex was only four, but he was always getting in trouble for lying.
"So who raised them?"
"Your mother's sister raised them with her daughter."
"Hmm." She went back to sipping her stew and when she polished off the last of it she looked around. "Does everyone on this ship have a job?"
"Everyone serves a duty shift of some kind."
"I could help out here."
"Can you cook?"
"Well I didn't graduate from a culinary school, but no one was ever poisoned from my cooking."
"I'll talk to Neelix and you can start tomorrow."
"OK."
That night in her quarters she scanned over all the information the ships database had on her family. Her dreams were far from peaceful.
The computer woke her at oh four hundred, as requested and she did her normal morning activities, shower, brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and dressed in a clean version of what she was wearing the day before. Navy drawstring pants and a matching long sleeve shirt that fit nicely in all the right places. Socks of the same color but no shoes, she detested shoes, not that they were really necessary on a starship.
She walked into the mess hall at four-thirty exactly. Neelix was already pulling out pans. "We have to get ready for the breakfast rush."
"Geez man, what time do you get here?"
"Four hundred."
"Yuck."
"It's the start of the normal shift for me."
"Pfft… normal people worry me." She hopped over the counter, completely ignoring the small doorway around the other side. "So what're we making?"
"I haven't decided yet, I was thinking something more traditional, I want to ration what's left of the leola root."
"How 'bout pancakes and eggs."
"I don't know if we have the right supplies for pancakes."
"You just leave that to me. The eggs are on you."
"Sounds good."
A half hour later there were six platters full of what tasted like banana almond pancakes. Neelix had two pans full of scrambled eggs and Naomi Wildman walked in the door with her mother just as he turned the burner down enough for everything just to be kept warm.
"What smells good?"
"Pancakes and eggs, special of the morning."
"Did you help cook?"
"Yes, but don't look at it like that, it tastes even better than it smells." Somewhat reluctantly Samantha and Naomi each took a plate of the morning specials and headed over to a table. They both devoured the eggs, than Naomi decided to be brave and took a reluctant bite of the pancakes.
"Mom it's good!" She shoved a huge bite in her mouth and rubbed her stomach. Her mother leaned across the table.
"That's laying it on a bit thick, don't you think?"
"No! Mom they're good!" Samantha took a small bite and smiled in the realization she was right. Eating with a little less enthusiasm than her daughter she still managed to finish them off and pass on a good recommendation to B'Elanna as she came in.
It was three hours later that the last of the breakfast crowd left and Belle grabbed a plate and collapsed onto the nearest chair. She shared a nice meal with Neelix, talking about everything from ship's systems to latest gossip.
She couldn't believe her alcove malfunctioned. As Seven manually ended the children's regeneration cycle she couldn't help but think that the twins tampered with the alcoves. Each of them stepped out of the machines embrace and with her enhanced peripheral vision she saw the twins grin at each other.
Belle looked up as the doors hissed open and everyone that currently resided in Cargo Bay two walked in. Setting her own plate on the counter she saw them head for the replicator to get some of their creepy nutritional supplements. She looked over at Neelix. "You never saw this happen, you don't know anything." Taking the intiative to run ahead she quickly disabled the replicator. The circuitry was now such a mess it would take an hour to repair it.
Seven looked up at her with some interest. "I know what you're thinking. Why'd I do it? Well, if Neelix can't persuade you to try real breakfast food, I'll take away the alternatives." She walked back over to the counter, prepared five trays, and balancing them on her arms and hands she gave one to each person, grinning as she did so. She always got her way.
They'd only been up in space for three months when it happened. One of the internal alert alarms went off on the bridge. It was the afternoon shift, so her whole family was on the bridge and the Johnsons came in a moment later, looking out the main view window to see something more terrifying that death itself.
They raised their primitive shields, but they knew it was no use, whatever this new species happened to be they were obviously technologically superior.
"We are the borg." The rest was cut off as one of the Johnsons two children, Elizabeth, screamed in pure terror. The parents, trying to defend the ship while calming the children, did a quick weapons scan and came to a silent, but unanimous decision.
"All of you get in the escape pods." All five children looked up at Greg deLinz.
"We can help, maybe we can outrun them."
"They're faster than us, they're stronger than us, you guys have to get out of here, we all know the procedure, get into those escape pods."
"Dad we can't just leave you here." She knew pleading wasn't going to work, but she had to make an effort, she couldn't just leave without any protest.
"Don't make us sedate you." Their parents loved them enough to do it.
"Alex, Sara, Ben, Beth, we have to go, I'll load you guys in first, but we need to move now." She was the oldest and as all the little kids trembled she picked up her brother and sister as she led the others to the escape pods.
Each of the children was given a light sedative and loaded into an escape pod. She launched the pods before climbing in one herself and sending a silent prayer for the adults. As she injected herself with the sedative and hit the launch button the action started on the bridge.
The two sets of parents looked at each other and knew what had to be done. "We all know what has to happen for them to make it." The Johnsons nodded. "Let's give them some cover." Fingers flew over various consoles as antimatter bursts were released and detonated outside the now rocking ship. In the middle of all the explosions the Borg never noticed the five life forms drifting the few thousand kilometers to Pluto.
As the sensors detected the last pod drift safely out of range the first of many beamed aboard. As everything went black all they knew was that their children were safe. Nothing else mattered now.
Space had been particularly boring. No shore leave, no depleted supplies, no friendly, or even unfriendly new species, absolutely nothing. As Ensign Kim took over for his shift he knew he was doomed for another eight hours of boredom.
Nearly an hour into the shift a small beeping drew his attention back to his console. "Captain sensors are picking up a …" The young man's eyes widened and he double checked the readings. "Captain you're not going to believe this." He looked at her as she turned in her seat. "I'm picking up a Star Fleet escape pod." His fingers were flying at warp speed. "There's something wrong." A few seconds passed and he looked up again. "It's signature matches the USS Armstrong."
Janeway pushed herself up from the armchair. "Are you sure those readings are correct Ensign?" He pressed a few buttons and a determined look set on his face.
"Yes Captain, I double and triple checked the sensor readings. That's the lost escape pod for the USS Armstrong."
"Tractor it in." With just a slight wave of the hand Chakotay rose from his seat and headed down for the docking bay.
The officer on duty outside the docking bay, Ensign Vorik, closed the doors and restored the atmosphere within moments. As he scanned for any weapons or anything that might be rigged to protect the small pod and noticed several things. The first was that there was some sort of crude phazer, rigged through the life support and temperature control systems to detonate the entire pod if it was opened from the outside.
Transporting the weapon out of the pod he started analyzing the other strange reading. It almost seemed like there was brain activity inside the pod. He ran a complete scan then a quick sensor diagnostic. "Vorik to the Doctor."
In sickbay the doctor looked up from his last medical file. "How can I help you Ensign Vorik?"
"I'm reading brain activity from this escape pod." He closed the med file and stepped quickly over to the surgical bay. "Activating emergency medical transport." The doctor watched as a petite form materialized on the biobed.
He scanned the body several times, completely confounded by what he saw. There was absolutely no sign of decay. This body had been drifting in space for over two hundred years, but there wasn't even one sign of decay. As his scans ran over the torso and head his holographic mouth dropped open in shock. There were indeed noticeable traces of brain activity. What was even more disturbing was that as he scanned more thoroughly he was picking up two very distinct patterns. One was human; the other was some sort of animal, a primitive one at that.
Grabbing a cortical stimulator from the nearest supply cart he barely noticed the doors hiss open.
Commander Chakotay finished a thorough, if not rushed, inspection of the small escape pod. Through all the diagnostics and scanning he couldn't help but notice the slight citrus smell that permeated the interior.
He walked into sickbay just as the doctor placed the small device on her forehead. As the doctor made modifications to the little machine he looked over the girl. It did indeed look like Belle deLinz. All those involved simply assumed that she was assimilated, yet another theory proved wrong by the Voyager crew.
She looked slightly more plump than her pictures showed, but not horribly so, it just seemed like her stomach was a little large. He took his place beside the bed, careful to keep out of the Doc's way as he went about reviving their new guest. If the crew wasn't careful they were going to be overrun with teenagers.
He injected her with 4cc's of inaprovaline and activated a 10-milijule shock. The body convulsed slightly, there was a noticeable increase in neurological activity, and her vital systems were starting to work again, only slightly though.
If he continued to shock her it might actually do more harm than good. Programming instructions into the stimulator he created a workable treatment. It was as he slowed in his work with the young girl he noticed the Commander already standing at the bedside and the Captain walking in with a fresh cup of coffee.
"What's her status?"
Taking a moment to bring her neural activity up on the monitor he let her have a look. "The inaprovaline and cortical pulse seemed to have started her vital systems again, but if I do it again immediately I risk shocking them into inactivity, I might not be able to bring her back from that. The only thing I see wrong with her is still unexplained, when I scanned her I picked up another set of brain waves in the exact same condition as her own." He picked up the tricorder again and resumed his scanning. "It's coming from her abdomen." He ran it over again several more times. "I'm not showing signs of pregnancy." It took a moment, but he realized what was wrong.
Both officers watched carefully as he lifted her shirt back. Resting on her stomach was a small kitten. That explained the second set of brain waves he detected. Lifting the small animal off of her abdomen he replaced her shirt and started the revival procedure on the small creature on another bed.
Well that certainly explained the larger stomach; she looked more proportionate without the little kitten. Now her appearance did match the Star Fleet files. Blond hair, pulled back into a high ponytail, and if he remembered correctly blue eyes, slightly tall for her age and time period, around 164 centimeters, she was the spitting image of her father.
As the doctor continued his treatments on both of his new patients, a dose of inaprovaline and a cortical pulse every half hour to bring their systems back to normal, both of them had many visitors. Naomi Wildman came in several times with her mother to pet the little light Siamese kitten and read to the young girl. Curious onlookers came in just to see if they'd really recovered ANOTHER person from the past. Even Mezoti came in once she took a quick look at the girl and petted the kitten somewhat awkwardly under Naomi's instruction.
It was on the fourth day of treatment that the doctor brought her vitals up where they needed to be for consciousness. The kittens eyes fluttered open around two hundred and the Doc injected a set of vitamins to restore all the nutrients lost since the start of treatment and put him in his office behind a low level force field. The tiny thing looked barely weaned. Around seven inches long and four inches high he was still extremely lively.
Having to deal with the little guy running all over his office he set up a sanitized environment, hoping he was ship broken, and left a dish of feline nutritional supplements out for the little thing.
After hours of watching the kitten bounce around and chase nothing he was almost relieved as a soft beeping alerted him to the young woman in the surgical bay's return to consciousness. He stood over her waiting to answer her questions, and return to her that wretched little beast in his office.
Her eyes fluttered open and closed immediately at the bright light. "Computer dim lights." It gave a strange beep in acknowledgment and the lights dimmed. She set up warily, rubbing her eyes, trying to rub away the light.
As the circumstances of her escape from the Armstrong came back to her, both of her eyes flew open and she jumped off the biobed backing up into the closest wall. She spotted the Doctor and tried her best not to be antagonistic. "Who are you?"
"I'm the Chief Medical Officer aboard this vessel." As he mentioned it she looked around at the very different technology and his odd uniform. It almost looked like something from Star Fleet.
"Are you the ship that answered our distress call?"
"We didn't receive a distress call, our scanners picked up your escape pod just drifting."
"Where are we then?"
"We're in--." He was interrupted as the doors slid open and Icheb walked in.
"I'm here to repair--." He trailed off as he saw the formerly inert young woman backed up against the wall completely ready to bolt. "If you're busy I can come back later."
"No that's alright, it's not bothering us, go ahead with the repairs." As Icheb turned to remove the panel covering one of many malfunctioning plasma manifolds she saw the glittering metal of the implant on his nose and gasped. Her hand crept up to cover her open mouth and as pieces began to come together about her reaction for the doctor he opened his mouth to explain, but it was too late. The damage had been done. Grabbing the only thing nearby that could be used as a weapon, a hypospray, she configured it as best she could, she wasn't exactly familiar with the new sprays, and she bolted out the sickbay doors.
"Doctor to Security."
"Yes Doctor?"
"Our guest just fled sickbay, I believe she was startled by Icheb's implants, I don't know where she's headed but she took a hypospray so be careful."
"Understood." Tuvok motioned to Lieutenant Ayala who'd been working on a full diagnostic of the pod with him and they left the docking bay. Belle had been entered into the ship's database as soon as her identity was verified; it was about now that it was going to come in handy. "Computer locate Belle deLinz."
"Belle deLinz is in shuttle bay one." Eyebrows raising both of the men raced toward the shuttle bay. "Security team two meet us in shuttlebay one."
"Acknowledged."
She climbed in one of what looked like the less used, and older shuttles, surprised to see that even the older shuttles were very advanced. She tried to get acquainted with the new controls and managed to program the autopilot. As she scanned her surroundings she didn't recognize anything, but figured that the ship was on some kind of mission, that maybe they'd created a faster way to make it to the Beta quadrant. She scanned for an M- class planet, but found none. The best she could do was a nebula nearby. It had the right gasses to interfere with sensors so she set off at warp seven, the highest possible on that shuttle.
Tuvok ordered the bay's doors closed, but it was too late, the shuttle made it out. "Tuvok to bridge."
"What's going on down there Tuvok?" Janeway'd been expecting the call since she was alerted that a shuttle had been launched.
"Captain our young guest saw Icheb and jumped to the wrong conclusions. She took a hypospray and made her way to the shuttle bay, it managed to launch and is heading for a nearby nebula at warp seven."
"We'll set course to pursue." She motioned to Lieutenant Paris to follow her 'suggestion' as she said it. Voyager set off at Warp 7.5 and caught up to her in just thirty seconds.
"We've just entered the shuttle's sensor range."
As the beeping console alerted her to Voyager approaching she was trying not to panic. She didn't want to fire on them, they would be able to destroy her in seconds, so she didn't want to provoke them, the only other option was to try some last ditch attempt to leave the shuttle, but there was nowhere to go. Still trying to figure out what to do she never noticed the tingling of the transporter beam starting.
When she looked up and saw her surroundings were once again that of the sickbay two small tears ran down her cheeks. She was trapped, there was nowhere to go and no ships nearby to help her.
She looked up to see the Borg still working on the ship and the doctor approaching her with a hypospray. Even though she never told anyone Belle had always wondered what was going to kill her, somehow she never thought it would be a human ship that made alliances with the 'things' that killed her family.
Sliding her back down the wall behind her she put her face to her knees and waited for death. What she got instead was a light sedative and the doctor picking her up and placing her on the biobed. To her surprise there were no restraints, he simply started speaking to her in a comforting voice.
"Don't be afraid, none of us are going to hurt you." He put the hypospray down and picked up one of her hands, physical comfort seemed appropriate for the situation. "You're aboard the starship Voyager and we're in the Delta quadrant." The sedative was doing its job so that even as she absorbed the information she couldn't really bring herself to care. "It's…" he had to think carefully about how to phrase the next part, "the year 2234 and you've been in some kind of accidental stasis since 2103."
He wasn't listening to the conversation really, but his superior hearing was picking up on everything. He was used to a strong reaction from most people because of his implants, but never to that extreme. Of course, he knew about the Armstrong, it was one of the first human ships to be assimilated by the Borg. Four human adults were added to the collective, however he'd never known anything about there being children on that vessel.
As he finished the repairs he replaced the panel and left sickbay without a word.
After the Doctor completely explained the situation he delivered another sedative she was sleeping peacefully in moments. He shook his head and resigned himself to having to deal with her little terror.
The Captain came down to sickbay the next morning and waited as he removed the sedative from her system. She sat up almost immediately and looked around the now familiar environment. After yesterday's explanation she wasn't going to run. These people had no reason to lie to her, she wasn't anything special, so that 'thing' she'd seen yesterday was really a person. A liberated Borg, and she'd insulted him in the worst way possible. At least it hadn't been one of the littler ones, she knew someone younger might not have forgiven her, she wasn't exactly sure that, Icheb, the doctor called him, was going to forgive her either.
Looking at the Captain Janeway, she knew what she had to do. "I'm sorry."
She looked over the young woman that stole one of her shuttlecrafts and tried to run from them and waited for a further explanation. "I thought Icheb was Borg and it scared me, I didn't want to be killed without a chance for survival," like my parents was left out, but it was understood by all those present, "I just … ran."
"I understand." She really did understand, fear could do strange things to people. "Am I to assume you've been informed of the situation and nothing like that will be happening again?"
"Yes ma'am." As she slid off the biobed she heard a slight mewing noise and remembered that she'd run into Caspian on her way to the escape pods, and under the insistent pleas of her siblings brought him in the escape pod. She looked up at the Doctor. "Is that Caspian?"
"Whom?"
"My cat. Is that my cat?" He walked over to the office.
"Yes actually, I've had to deal with the little beast for the past three days." He let the force field down.
"Caspian, come here sweetie." That's all it took to get the little bundle of fur to jump into her hands.
"That's quite a loyal friend you've got there." She nodded.
"I know." She set the little thing up on her shoulder like a parrot and it stayed perfectly balanced. "So when can drop me off on Earth? I should have a few relatives there willing to let me stay."
"Didn't the Doctor tell you we're in the Delta Quadrant?"
"Well, yes ma'am, but if you got here, you can get home. That, and I'm kind of anxious to find out what happened to the rest of the family."
"We were dragged here by an entity known as the caretaker. Even at our highest speed it's going to take seventy years to get home."
"So, no Earth then?" Janeway nodded her head regretfully. "Well, its not like things wouldn't have changed anyway, I guess any M-Class planet will serve the same purpose." That was a bit of a shock.
"You want to be left behind? Here? In the delta quadrant?"
"I don't have much of a choice do I?"
"You could stay aboard Voyager." She looked up from her hands.
"I could?"
"We'd be glad to have you."
"Really?"
"Yes." She smiled slightly at Belle and it was returned three fold.
"GREAT! So, where's the mess hall?" Kathryn laughed. Teenagers had a one- track mind.
It was lunchtime and the mess hall was full of off duty officers. One of the back tables was also full of a certain four children and their guardian; they were all somewhat surprised as the Captain walked in with the young woman that hijacked a shuttle and tried to escape the ship. They walked up to the lunch counter and took two bowls of Neelix's latest soup.
Chatter started up again slowly as she and the Captain walked to take a seat in the back. When she caught sight of the children remorse entered her eyes. Before even taking a bite she set the bowl and spoon on the table. "I have something important to do." Kathryn nodded. She knew exactly what was going to happen.
Belle walked up to the table and everyone looked up from their nutritional supplements. The point of eating in the mess hall was to encourage social interaction, but no one ever approached them, other than Naomi Wildman, and she wasn't exactly up to their intelligence level, despite being a bright girl.
"Hi." None of them said anything so she started to fidget as she continued. "Look I know I screwed up big time, and there's really no excuse for what I did, and I wanted to say I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions." She looked up from the floor. "I would say you could deck me if it would make you feel better, but you could probably break me, so will you settle for I'm sorry?"
He looked in her eyes and finally acknowledged her presence. "No apologies are necessary. There was no harm done." He spoke much differently than her, but even former Borg were still humanoid.
"Maybe not, but that doesn't make it any less stupid of me. If you won't accept my apologies just suffice it to say I owe ya one." She didn't leave him time to protest, just rejoined the captain.
"Very well handled."
"Yeah sure, everything with me is open mouth insert foot." She blew on the soup and took a small sip. "Yummy! What is this stuff?"
"Our chef found a few hidden containers of leola root, this is leola root stew. I surprised you like it, most of the crew replicated their lunch today just because of this."
"I like everything. Mom used to say it's good I like to run or I'd be really pudgy." At the mention of her mom she looked down morosely at her stew. "Does anyone know what happened to my family?"
"The Armstrong was never recovered. After about six hours the Goldenbird picked up the signal from the pods and the other four were recovered." A fleeting smile appeared on her face.
"So they made it out OK?"
"They were fine. Actually young Alex grew up to serve two terms as the president of the Federation of Planets."
"Wow. We always knew Alex would make a good politician, he could lie with the best of them." She grinned, Alex was only four, but he was always getting in trouble for lying.
"So who raised them?"
"Your mother's sister raised them with her daughter."
"Hmm." She went back to sipping her stew and when she polished off the last of it she looked around. "Does everyone on this ship have a job?"
"Everyone serves a duty shift of some kind."
"I could help out here."
"Can you cook?"
"Well I didn't graduate from a culinary school, but no one was ever poisoned from my cooking."
"I'll talk to Neelix and you can start tomorrow."
"OK."
That night in her quarters she scanned over all the information the ships database had on her family. Her dreams were far from peaceful.
The computer woke her at oh four hundred, as requested and she did her normal morning activities, shower, brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and dressed in a clean version of what she was wearing the day before. Navy drawstring pants and a matching long sleeve shirt that fit nicely in all the right places. Socks of the same color but no shoes, she detested shoes, not that they were really necessary on a starship.
She walked into the mess hall at four-thirty exactly. Neelix was already pulling out pans. "We have to get ready for the breakfast rush."
"Geez man, what time do you get here?"
"Four hundred."
"Yuck."
"It's the start of the normal shift for me."
"Pfft… normal people worry me." She hopped over the counter, completely ignoring the small doorway around the other side. "So what're we making?"
"I haven't decided yet, I was thinking something more traditional, I want to ration what's left of the leola root."
"How 'bout pancakes and eggs."
"I don't know if we have the right supplies for pancakes."
"You just leave that to me. The eggs are on you."
"Sounds good."
A half hour later there were six platters full of what tasted like banana almond pancakes. Neelix had two pans full of scrambled eggs and Naomi Wildman walked in the door with her mother just as he turned the burner down enough for everything just to be kept warm.
"What smells good?"
"Pancakes and eggs, special of the morning."
"Did you help cook?"
"Yes, but don't look at it like that, it tastes even better than it smells." Somewhat reluctantly Samantha and Naomi each took a plate of the morning specials and headed over to a table. They both devoured the eggs, than Naomi decided to be brave and took a reluctant bite of the pancakes.
"Mom it's good!" She shoved a huge bite in her mouth and rubbed her stomach. Her mother leaned across the table.
"That's laying it on a bit thick, don't you think?"
"No! Mom they're good!" Samantha took a small bite and smiled in the realization she was right. Eating with a little less enthusiasm than her daughter she still managed to finish them off and pass on a good recommendation to B'Elanna as she came in.
It was three hours later that the last of the breakfast crowd left and Belle grabbed a plate and collapsed onto the nearest chair. She shared a nice meal with Neelix, talking about everything from ship's systems to latest gossip.
She couldn't believe her alcove malfunctioned. As Seven manually ended the children's regeneration cycle she couldn't help but think that the twins tampered with the alcoves. Each of them stepped out of the machines embrace and with her enhanced peripheral vision she saw the twins grin at each other.
Belle looked up as the doors hissed open and everyone that currently resided in Cargo Bay two walked in. Setting her own plate on the counter she saw them head for the replicator to get some of their creepy nutritional supplements. She looked over at Neelix. "You never saw this happen, you don't know anything." Taking the intiative to run ahead she quickly disabled the replicator. The circuitry was now such a mess it would take an hour to repair it.
Seven looked up at her with some interest. "I know what you're thinking. Why'd I do it? Well, if Neelix can't persuade you to try real breakfast food, I'll take away the alternatives." She walked back over to the counter, prepared five trays, and balancing them on her arms and hands she gave one to each person, grinning as she did so. She always got her way.