New Hope
Story by Penny A. Proctor
Written by Penny A. Proctor and Andra Marie Mueller
spoiler: Voyager is down. What hope is there?
AUTHORS NOTE: The clock displayed at the start of each scene indicates time elapsed from the ship's landing.
Prologue
(-00:03)
Colonel Rahl of the Vordai Space Defense Force sat in the command chair of his ship and tried to stay awake. It was a quiet day. They are all quiet days in this parsec, Rahl thought, and wondered how his career had come to be stalled here.
Eleven years ago, this parsec had been the center of activity in the region, the place where the four great powers contended for the right to colonize the only uninhabited planet in the region capable of supporting life without terraforming. This had been the place where promotions came almost weekly and a sapling could demonstrate its strength. Eleven years ago, Rahl himself had gained the attention of the High Command here, protecting the integrity of the Vordai claim against the forces of the Gunrath'u Oligarchy, the Minenne Confederacy and the Grevel-Ash Republic. Back then, he had dreamed of commanding a warship, possibly even the magnificent Arbor Queen herself.
But that was then. Today, Rahl commanded a lowly patrol ship that merely led other patrol ships. Today, the Gunrath'u-imposed peace and the treaty governing access to the Treaty World, as it was now known, made this patrol superfluous. There were no enemy ships, no probes and no surprises - just day after day of monotony.
"Colonel!"
The urgency in the voice of his normally unflappable Subaltern startled Rahl from his thoughts. "What is it, Pahn?"
"A ship just dropped out of transwarp," she said, pointing to the blinking light on the display.
He stiffened. "Is it Borg?"
"No, I think not. The shape is not geometric - not a sphere or a cube. It's not in our records at all."
Rahl bent down and looked at the data more closely. "You're right. No one in this sector has a design like that." By the Great Forest, he thought, this is a new species. And they have transwarp. "Go to level two scanners."
Pahn's delicate fingers flew skillfully over her panel, and the new, more detailed data appeared. "That ship is in trouble," she said. "No engines, environmental systems failing ... Sir –" she looked up at him, her nostrils flaring in the unmistakable reaction to sudden fear -"that ship is heading for the Treaty Planet."
It took less than a second to see that she was right. He hit the communications system. "Attention Alpha Wing. This is Colonel Rahl. A ship of unknown origin is about to crash or land on the Treaty Planet. Follow it but do not engage. I want data, not casualties."
"Going to level one scan," Pahn said. "There are about 150 life signs on board. Several different species, I think. I don't recognize any of them."
Rahl swallowed. Several new species? What was this ship?
Whatever it was, it was going down hard. The screen showed the streak of the ship breaking through the planet's atmosphere. "Alpha leader," Rahl said, "Can you give me visual?"
"Affirmative." Rahl turned as his viewscreen lit up. The alien ship was as big as the Vordai flagship, the Arbor Queen herself, but looked like nothing he had ever seen. There were markings on the hull that were obscured by the heat surrounding the great ship. "Too fast," he said aloud. "It is coming in too fast."
As if the strange ship had heard him, it shuddered and seemed to pause for just a moment, hanging in the troposphere. Then the descent began again, still swift but not fatally so. Someone tried a desperate maneuver and it worked, he thought. At least it's headed for the steppes on the southern continent. They've still got a chance.
In seconds, the ship plowed into the ground, churning dirt and rock meters in every direction. It bounced twice and then stabilized abruptly, shaking visibly. "They must be equipped for landing," Rahl said, more to himself than to Pahn. "Stabilizers of some kind, I think. They must have gotten a grip on the surface."
"Who are they?" Pahn asked.
"I don't know." Rahl found himself smiling. This sector was going to get hot again. There might even be a promotion in it.
ACT ONE
(00:00)
Harry Kim raised himself from the deck slowly. His head and shoulder were throbbing, but his thought processes were working clearly. The ship was down and he was alive. He tested that theory gently, shaking his head slightly. Yes, that hurt. He was definitely alive.
The Bridge was filled with smoky haze and dust, the aftereffects of the automated fire suppression system. The acrid smell of burned circuitry stung his nostrils, and the lighting was strange, as if the heavy particles still swirling in the air were themselves illuminated. Most of all, the ship was quiet. There were no klaxons or alarms sounding, and no one was talking. The only sounds he heard were an occasional electrical crackle and some soft moaning.
Voyager was down. And he, Lieutenant (j.g.) Harry Kim, was still in command.
Struggling, he pulled himself back into the captain's chair. "Report," he said, and coughed.
No one responded immediately, and fear flashed through Harry. Was he the only one who made it? Then he heard someone else cough from the direction of the helm.
"We've landed," he heard Tom say in an unnaturally thick voice.
Relief washed through him; he wasn't alone. "You call that a landing?" he asked dryly, trying to joke but he knew that Tom had done a hell of a job. Barely five minutes earlier, Harry had been convinced they were going to crash. He had seen the surface of the planet seemingly rush up to meet them, and he had resigned himself to imminent death.
"Hey," Tom wheezed. "We're alive, aren't we? That's a landing."
The haze was clearing enough that Harry could make out the silhouette of his friend, still on his knees. "Who else is with us? Sound off."
"Jenkins," came Lora's voice from the same direction as Tom. Harry squinted and thought he saw Tom help her to her feet. "I don't think I'm hurt. That was something, wasn't it?"
"Sometimes I think we have a guardian angel," Tom replied quietly.
"Ayala. I'm okay." Harry swiveled and saw that the big man had been thrown nearly two meters from the Tactical Station. "Can't say the same for this console. It's dead."
"Me, too," Jamie McMinn said from Operations, sounding shaken. "Wait - I don't mean I'm dead, I mean I'm okay, I think. Ow. Maybe not. I think my ankle is broken."
Tom went to the locker to fetch the emergency medkit on the deck as one by one, the rest of the Gamma shift Bridge crew called out. Harry nodded with satisfaction. All were accounted for. At least that was something. "What's working on this ship?" he called. The data monitor built into the command chair was not functional. "Where's the emergency power? We need communications! Can anyone see anything in this haze?"
"I've got a tricorder," Ayala said from somewhere forward on the deck. "The atmosphere is safe." Then Harry heard the sound of a hatch opening and turned to his left. Ayala had opened the emergency hatch that went from the Bridge to the hull and the haze began to drift outside. As it dissipated, the reason for the odd lighting became apparent. The viewscreen, which had been in forward axial view for the descent, was now essentially a large window, revealing a broad grassy plain that ended in a forest, with mountains on the horizon. Sunshine streamed onto Voyager's Bridge.
It felt wrong.
"Emergency power isn't working," Ayala said, stating the obvious, in Harry's opinion. "Security on each deck will initiate the disaster plan. We'll establish communications through runners. It's likely that each deck is getting organized now."
The disaster plan. Yes, this is definitely a disaster, Harry thought, and without even emergency power, how am I supposed to get the data I need to make decisions? "Get someone to Engineering. I need damage reports and to know when we'll have power. And distribute side arms, Lieutenant. As of now, all officers are to be armed until the commanding officer declares the ship secure."
Tom looked up from where he was kneeling beside McMinn with the medical tricorder. Harry saw that there was a trickle of blood on his cheek and his right eye was already blackening. "I'll go to Engineering."
"No, I need you here." Before Tom could protest, he added, "I'm sorry. But you're the most senior officer on the Bridge, even if I'm sitting in this chair. And we've got injured."
"Send me to Engineering." Tom's voice was level but Harry recognized the tone - his mind was made up. Harry understood why; B'Elanna was well into her final trimester and Tom was surely worried about her and the baby. The helmsman stood, folding the tricorder and replacing it in the medkit. "You don't need me here. McMinn's ankle is sprained, not broken. No one else on the Bridge is hurt, and I won't be any good to you here. We won't be needing the helm for a while."
Harry hesitated, then nodded. "All right, go. Go down and find out when they'll have communications up, then go to Deck Five and check on the Doc. If he didn't download himself into his mobile emitter, you're our chief medic. If you have to stay in Sickbay, send someone up with your report."
With a quick nod, Tom picked up a phaser - the disaster plan called for all officers to be armed - and a wrist light from the storage locker and headed for the Jefferies tube and pulled the hatch open. Harry called after him, "And see if you can find the captain, or Chakotay. Or Tuvok." Silently he added, Please find them. Just one of them. He wasn't ready to be the commander of a planet bound starship.
