Rescue Mission
Author's Note: Because the 8472 have several genders, none of which I know the names for, I am arbitrarily calling all of them 'it' in this fanfic. No disrespect is intended!
And their telepathy struck me as rather visual in nature, so I'm going with that idea rather than the traditional 'hearing' of thoughts.
I can't blame Seven of Nine for her mutiny that saved Voyager, but I also could never stand the idea of that 8472 being left to the nonexistent mercy of Hirogen trophy hunters. That's not okay! As Kathryn Janeway said, the alien was only trying to get home. All of us Voyager fans understand that, I think!
Can anyone see my thoughts? It is I, RippleHarmonics.
I fear that you cannot. I know we cannot see each other's minds across the barrier into this alien solid/vacuum space. But I need your help desperately, my fellows! I am so frightened I almost cannot see my own words in my mind.
This place is a nest of horrors. I cannot move my limbs because of the dense netting in which they have suspended me, and everywhere I look I see weapons of slow killing. They are placed that way for show, I know perfectly well. Even now, the thought fills me with disdain. It is an intentional display for the purpose of frightening prisoners like myself.
It works very well.
Easing its bioship SwiftDash across the gateway formed by the quantum singularity, the pilot called QuantumVariance moved with all senses fully alert into solid/vacuum space. It was a routine scanning mission. The mission called for QuantumVariance to be here only a short time, just long enough to check for any new information it might be able to gather about either the Borg or the Starship Voyager's Starfleet culture.
QuantumVariance closed an affectionate, bony hand around an edge of its spidery main console, feeling the living rhythms of the bioship thrumming in answer. Like any pilot of any species, it loved its vessel and felt a sense of companionship with it.
The pilot's face relaxed into an expression of pleased enjoyment, but its star-pupiled eyes remained as focused as a pair of laser beams. Its second hand moved swiftly across the controls of the sensor console. If there was anything that needed to be discovered out here, QuantumVariance knew that it would quickly learn it.
Even though all of you must be too far away for me to reach, I will show you what has been happening to me. The act of projecting the information will help me to maintain my discipline and keep from panicking.
I could kill myself, I know, with the death-poison we all carry locked in our cells. But I cannot, somehow, even though I am terrified and almost without hope.
If I did, it would be my fault I died before making it back home.
Months ago, I was left behind in this alien dimension. The rest of us, my companions on our mission, managed to get back to PatternsOfLight, our home, the place our enemies call 'fluidic space.' I am glad. They are home now.
After I was stranded, the Hirogen murderers chased me across wide reaches of this alien space. So many times, I thought I had eluded them. But then, just as I dared to hope each time, they would appear from the very heart of whatever area I thought was my safe refuge from them. I've come to realize that it was all part of their game all along. Somehow, their minds and emotions manage to derive pleasure from the idea of another being's suffering for suffering's sake.
I wonder where my captors are now... I know they must be leaving me to wait on purpose, making me wonder just how long it will be before their final savagery against me begins. I am scornful of their small-minded cruelty, but I cannot keep my body systems from accelerating as if there could be some way I might either fight or flee! And yet, I still cannot move. Our people can rip apart so many materials, but the Hirogen have fashioned my restraints out of a substance that I can neither break nor phase through.
It seems impossible that such a primitive race could find a way to immobilize one of the PeopleOfLight. Yet perhaps it is because they have devoted almost all of their minds' power to the pursuit of cruelty. Maybe that is why they are so successful at hunting and killing, because they do very little else.
The monstrous beings have not returned. I will continue sending out my tale, and I will try not to give way too completely to the hope that somehow a friendly mind might witness what I say. To someone in my situation, hope can be as dangerous as fear.
The console of QuantumVariance's ship lit up with a pattern of warning flashes, accompanied by a half-audio, half-mental signal of piercing, chiming tones. The pilot's face shifted into a look of inquisitive concern, and its fingers quickly input a further query even as it absorbed the information that was being displayed by the scanning system.
Hirogen vessels! The synthetic alien ships were a great distance away, technically beyond the area that QuantumVariance had been ordered to investigate, but their behavior was unusual. They were moving through this realm's subspace at nearly the maximum speed their ships were capable of, and at the same time maintaining a tight formation. QuantumVariance felt a definite sense of suspicion.
Something is not right, it thought. Their actions are too purposeful. Whatever they intend, I must find out.
The pilot quickly accessed SwiftDash's navigational-information systems. The Hirogen's ships were a considerable distance away as it was measured in solid/vacuum space, but by tracing pathways through their home in PatternsOfLight, QuantumVariance and its bioship would be able to get close to the enemy ships in a very short time.
And it will give me a chance to summon backup. QuantumVariance slipped back into PatternsOfLight and let SwiftDash flow into the nearest of the currents that would carry them to their destination.
FractalPower, the pilot broadcast, sending out the name-image of the pilot it knew was assigned nearest to this location. I am going to investigate the peculiar actions of some Hirogen ships in solid/vacuum space. Briefly it transmitted the image of what the Hirogen vessels were doing. Soon it saw the burst of colors that signaled FractalPower's understanding and agreement to the request. That was quickly followed by the actual words of the other pilot's reply.
I will meet you there.
QuantumVariance and FractalPower flew along swiftly converging paths towards the agreed-on point along the Hirogen's flight path where they hoped to intercept the hunters' ships. Neither pilot was aware yet of the desperate telepathic messages that RippleHarmonics was continuing to broadcast.
Very recently, though my memories of this part are unclear through the haze of severe injury and exhaustion in which I experienced it, I found myself aboard the Starship Voyager itself, the spearhead of the Federation's planned invasion fleet. Or so I thought... Somehow, Voyager's crew seemed to feel compassion for me in spite of the war that lay between us. Perhaps they do not wish harm to the PeopleOfLight any longer.
I was able to speak to the Vulcan called Tuvok; his mind is well-ordered and disciplined in comparison to the other Starfleet people's. I told him how weary I am after being hunted so long, and that I only wanted to return to PatternsOfLight. His mind knew that mine displayed only the truth. Minds cannot lie to minds.
Their captain - they have so many people aboard their lifeless ships, so many to do the task of one pilot! - said that she would help me to return home, but there was a problem. Voyager had a Borg drone on board. I understood the look in her eyes as she stared at me. That drone wanted murder.
I believed Captain Janeway, whose eyes and mind both showed such a radiating sincerity. I believed the rational-minded Tuvok. But I did not dare to trust the vicious-eyed Borg drone they called Seven of Nine. And the Hirogen were starting to attack Voyager in their efforts to get to me.
At first, I had little choice. I was too weakened by my injuries to do anything but lie on their starship's inert gray flooring. Soon, though, I began to recover. I interfaced with one of their control panels and tried to open a singularity through which I could return home.
I almost succeeded, but then one of the Hirogen hunters arrived. I fought him, filled with hatred of my own for him because of his brutality. I was about to destroy him when the Borg drone took advantage of my distraction to transport both me and my enemy to one of the Hirogen ships.
You would be proud, my friends, if you knew how I fought then! I killed three of them within the first few seconds I was aboard their ship. Then fifteen more descended around me. Some struck me with energy-discharge weapons that paralyzed the areas of my body they touched. Other Hirogen wrapped me with tangles and masses of the same cursed netting I am now imprisoned by. In the last second of my partial freedom, I clawed a fourth Hirogen and released my immune cells into his body. He must have died within minutes, but the other Hirogen only laughed as they finished binding me.
Perhaps I should release my toxins into my own body after all... No! I will not be responsible for my own death. I know self-killing in such a plight is no shame to our people, but I feel unable to let go of hope even though I fear it is only a kind of madness that lets me still hope at all now.
They are returning! The hunter who is dominant over his fellow Hirogen is in the lead. He has stopped just inside the doorway. His eyes look up, staring into mine. I know that he is aware of my fear, because he is smiling cruelly at me now.
The Hirogen laughed harshly. "I believe it is time to collect my trophy." He began to walk slowly towards the tightly bound prisoner who hung suspended from the ceiling of the small chamber. "This has been a good hunt, and I will enjoy its ending."
He knows I am afraid, but I will not display my pain to him when he begins to inflict it! I will not struggle, I will not allow my face to twist in pain, I will not even let myself produce sounds of suffering!
And yet, how can I help it? I am in so much pain already. Now he is moving towards me, and he is holding a cutting tool in his hand...
Oh, PeopleOfLight, help me! I do not want this death!
FractalPower's spirit reeled at the riot of horrifying images that struck its mind as its bioship CauseAndEffect dropped into solid/vacuum space. Its well-trained mind and body maintained control, however. Competently and swiftly, FractalPower implemented the actions needed to deal with this unexpected emergency.
QuantumVariance, prepare to disrupt their warp field! FractalPower directed. It took an effort to force that simple message to appear in front of the images in the terrified sending, so that QuantumVariance would be able to understand the vital instructions. Technically, one pilot had no authority over another, but FractalPower had more experience in dealing with the Hirogen hunters and it was only natural to assume command.
I understand, QuantumVariance replied with equally determined force. The thought came with clear images of grief, horror, and rage that matched the current appearance of FractalPower's own mind perfectly.
Quickly scanning the Hirogen ships to pinpoint the one that held the prisoner, FractalPower sent a thought at the same time to the mind that was projecting the blinding visions of terror. We will help you! Stay strong!
A wave of bright relief swept through the other's thoughts, alongside the continuing panic. Hurry! He is ready to make me into his trophy -
With a sudden feeling of shock, FractalPower realized that this person must be RippleHarmonics, the pilot who had been lost months earlier in this alien space. It was the only logical answer.
RippleHarmonics tried to keep its eyes as narrowed as possible in order to hide as much pain as it could from the Hirogen hunter. The sudden arrival of the two bioship pilots was nothing but a miracle, but it seemed almost too late.
His eyes glittering with cold enjoyment, the murderous hunter began to inflict a long, deep cut across the left side of RippleHarmonics' back. The stranded pilot's already-wounded body jerked suddenly at the sharp new pain.
For a split second, FractalPower's mind was bombarded with images of a cruel, savage attack along with the sensation of terrible cutting pain. Then a shifting, opaque blur of white appeared in front of the images, nearly hiding them.
RippleHarmonics is trying to shield us from the full horror of what it is feeling! the pilot realized.
The knowledge made FractalPower's hands fly even faster across the console's webbing. Within seconds it had completed the necessary modifications for the rescue.
Now! FractalPower commanded. At once, QuantumVariance's bioship released an energy pulse that shattered the warp bubble around the Hirogen ships and forced them back into the physical part of solid/vacuum space. A feeling of rocking turbulence came from RippleHarmonics' mind, and an abrupt lessening of its pain. There was a crystal-clear image of its Hirogen tormentor being flung back across the room, a vicious curved blade flying out of his hand.
Before the savage alien could recover and attack again, FractalPower finished inputting its commands to CauseAndEffect's propulsion system. Power rippled outward from the bioship, arrowing towards the very spot where RippleHarmonics was imprisoned.
What is happening? RippleHarmonics felt the familiar warm glow of a quantum singularity, more intense than usual because there was no bioship surrounding its body to soften the effect.
The feeling was not painful, merely extraordinarily vivid. RippleHarmonics' body tingled as the singularity formed completely. With a feeling of triumph, the weary, still tightly-bound pilot saw the enraged Hirogen shimmer and disappear.
QuantumVariance wasted no time in piloting SwiftDash up to within inches of where RippleHarmonics drifted helplessly in the soft currents of PatternsOfLight's space.
Despite the joy of having found and rescued the missing pilot, the sight was horrifying. RippleHarmonics' body was wrapped all about with some kind of dark, evil-looking netting. Its arms were pinned behind its back - one arm must be broken in at least two places to be twisted back that far - and its three legs were crushed viciously up beneath its body. Far too many old and new wounds could be seen, including the deep, dry gash along RippleHarmonics' left side from the torment that the Hirogen had inflicted moments earlier.
QuantumVariance physically felt it when SwiftDash's soft, smooth hull brushed up against RippleHarmonics' floating body. Its eyes shining with the same look of compassion that was universal to all living species that had eyes at all, and its face softening with relief, QuantumVariance instructed its bioship to open a doorway and admit RippleHarmonics to the inside.
No thoughts had passed between any of the three PeopleOfLight since they returned to their own space, but now QuantumVariance spoke. Welcome aboard.
RippleHarmonics looked up with absolute dignity from its undignified position in a netted heap on the floor. Thank you for rescuing me, it sent to both of the other pilots, as QuantumVariance picked up a small handheld energy weapon and crouched down to examine the material that bound the rescued prisoner. My family will be very grateful as well.
It was my joy, FractalPower replied from the other bioship, the thought visible to both RippleHarmonics and QuantumVariance. Then the colors and patterns of its thoughts turned professional. I must report to my grandparent FractalInfinity, it said. It will need to know about this, as it is soon to take on the role of Groundskeeper Boothby in one of the Starfleet-simulation biospheres. RippleHarmonics, please contact me when you have recovered. I expect FractalInfinity and the other high leaders will want to know details of the time since you were lost.
The sleek bioship CauseAndEffect turned and flew shimmering away through the ever-shifting colors of PatternsOfLight's fluid space.
Meanwhile, QuantumVariance was starting to cut through the Hirogen netting with its energy weapon. Soon RippleHarmonics was free, the cruel bonds lying useless and ruined on the floor around it. The wounded pilot stood up, strong and steady in spite of its many injuries.
QuantumVariance took a step forward, reached out to take hold of both of RippleHarmonics' hands, and rested its forehead against the other pilot's. It was the PeopleOfLight's very deepest physical gesture of affection between friends or comrades. Somehow, though they had never met, it seemed fitting. Nothing else could express the personal joy that QuantumVariance felt at RippleHarmonics' safety.
Welcome home, RippleHarmonics. Welcome back to PatternsOfLight.
Author's Note: All the nifty things I didn't already know about Species 8472 and their bioships, I learned from the awesome Star Trek fan-wiki website called Memory Alpha. It is THE most incredible database of information I have ever found for any setting! I've put a link to their article about the 8472 at the very bottom of my author bio, just above where the list of my posted fanfics shows up. If you're interested, go check out the link! You can easily get to the rest of Memory Alpha from there, too. :)