Chapter Two: You Mean She's Not With You?
-=/\=-
She slowly became aware of something being pressed up against her lips. The sensation of a cool sweet liquid filled her mouth, she subconsciously swallowed; the rational part of her brain saying that she shouldn't. The cool liquid was very much welcome in her dry parched mouth. Her subconscious mind told her she should open her eyes and see what was going on.
The pain that radiated through her body subsided. A new sensation overcame her; it was the sensation of being lifted. She felt herself moving through the air an unknown presence hands upon her. Her chest became heavy and she found it was hard to breathe. She felt her body shudder as she coughed.
Whoever had her, lowered her to the ground once more. She became aware that her jacket was being removed. Somewhere deep inside were her instincts lie; she knew that something wasn't right she knew that she should be in pain but she wasn't. Whoever had her should not be there, she felt the sensation of liquid being poured into her mouth again. She knew she shouldn't drink it; she should spit out. But, the sweet velvety texture, of the nectar was so sensual, tantalizing, and seductive that she couldn't help herself. She was even disappointed when whatever it was that was feeding her the nectar was removed from her mouth.
Every sensation she felt became more intense, the feeling of being lifted through the air felt almost as if she were flying. The last sensation she felt was a rush of disorientation and a warming of her skin, then there was nothing.
– =/\= –
Tom had his tricorder out and he was scanning the area. Something had happened to his captain and he wanted to know what. There was no way she could have gotten up and wondered off on her own. Her injuries were too severe, he walked through the middle of the cave looking for signs of animal tracks; unfortunately the ground offered nothing it was solid rock. There were no tracks of any kind that could be found.
Upon not finding any evidence inside the cave he looked around the outside. There were lots of animal tracks. However, he didn't see any that would have been large enough to carry off the captain. He wandered down a trail looking for any evidence as to where the captain had gone. Around an hour past and he heard something, he pointed his tricorder into the direction of where the sound came from; he had his hand on his phaser.
He sighed when he spied B'Elanna and Neelix coming out of a wooded area. He removed his hand from his phaser and walked up to them. "Boy am I ever glad to see you" he said.
"We've been looking for you for hours" she said. "We saw some smoke coming from the cave earlier, Chakotay and Tuvok checked the cave and then headed back to the Sacajawea, Neelix and I went looking for you."
Tom smiled; perhaps the reason why the captain was gone was because Chakotay and Tuvok had gotten to her first. He wasn't in the cave at the time that B'Elanna said Chakotay and Tuvok had been in there perhaps they took the captain back to the shuttle being that she was in such bad condition. He walked with the other two people; he looked at B'Elanna, "why didn't you just signal me" he asked.
B'Elanna was quick to respond, "For some reason our communicators aren't functional on this planet, that's why we split up and had a rendezvous time."
Tom nodded that would explain the reason why he was unable to get any communications out. He was finding it more and more difficult to walk his injuries were finally catching up to him.
Neelix took notice, "Tom are you alright" he asked? He reached out and took his friend by the shoulders to help him balance himself.
Tom looked at the man, "I'll be fine once we get back to Voyager nothing our EMH can't handle." He joked.
Once they were back at the Sacajawea B'Elanna and Neelix helped him inside. He could see Chakotay and Tuvok sitting at the controls. Chakotay looked at Neelix and B'Elanna "any luck finding the captain?"
Tom's eyes grew wide as he realized that the captain was not with them. "You mean you didn't find her in the cave earlier?" he asked, he now was in a near panic.
Chakotay looked at the young man. "Tom you mean she wasn't with you"
"No, I left her in the cave when I went to go back to the flyer, she was badly injured and I knew I needed to get more supplies. I also wanted to attempt to contact Voyager by using the Flyer's communication device. I was only gone about an hour and a half; I came back she was gone." He informed the other four individuals.
A look of horror crossed everyone's face at the realization that their captain was gone. Chakotay started issuing out orders, "Neelix, B'Elanna, Tuvok, I want you to go back to the cave and set up a search perimeter. I'm going to take Tom back to the ship for treatment. I will back for you in two hours."
B'Elanna looked at Chakotay, "right away" she said.
Neelix, Tuvok, and B'Elanna made their way out of the shuttle. They set their course back to the cave that Tom and Kathryn had been in earlier. They were hoping to find evidence of where the captain was. They stopped momentarily to watch the Sacajawea lift off from the planet. They then made their way to the cave and began looking for her.
– =/\= –
Once on board Voyager Tom was taken to sickbay. His injuries were moderately severe, and like he told Neelix it was nothing the EMH couldn't handle. Tom was resting, he felt incredibly guilty for what had happened, he only hoped that they would be able to find the captain and she'd be alive.
Chakotay made his way to the bridge, he issued orders for Harry to try and establish communications with those on the surface. He also gave orders for him to search for the captain's combadge and life signs. The rational part of his brain saying that if she was as injured as Tom said she was, there was no way that if an animal had gotten to her, that she'd have survived. From the injuries that he'd described to the Doctor, it was a miracle that she'd even survived the night.
-=/\=-
On the surface B'Elanna had made her way towards the back of the cave, Tuvok was searching around the perimeter of the cave, and Neelix the animal trails that lead between the different entrances. Her tricorder began to beep as she picked up a faint mechanical signal. She followed it, upon entering a small tunnel, she stopped. Kneeling down and placing her hand just inside of what appeared to be a din, she pulled out the item the signal was emanating from.
A look of horror crossed her Klingon features; there in her hand were the bloody remains of the captain's jacket, her combadge still attached. "Tuvok, Neelix" she called out her voice carrying a very unusual edge of fright.
She looked up as she heard the footsteps of the men. She tuned and offered up what she'd found. Neelix paled, and Tuvok merely raised an eyebrow. Her words were shaky when she spoke, "something must've gotten her" she stated.
Tuvok with his Vulcan wisdom suggested another possibility, "perhaps something has only gotten her jacket."
B'Elanna wasn't convinced, "it's bloody and chewed up Tuvok."
"Perhaps but the Capt. was injured severely and had been bleeding. Maybe an animal got a hold of the jacket and carried it off to here." He took the tattered garment from the Klingon woman.
"I sure hope you're right Mr. Vulcan," was Neelix's reply.
"Indeed" the Vulcan man stated.
-=/\=-
The sound of whispering could be heard, it was slowly getting louder and louder. Opening her eyes she was assaulted by a very bright white light. She blinked several times trying to clear her eyesight. When her eyes finally focused she looked around. The room she was in was white and sterile medical equipment everywhere, she was obviously in some medical facility but for what reason. She sat up, the silver blanket that was a on her body slowly fell down, pooling at her waist exposing her bare upper body.
She could see out of her right eye, had she always been blind in this eye? She noticed some people looking at her from across the room. A woman unrecognizable to her approached her; a rush of fear ran through her body she attempted to get off the bed and move away from her. But as soon as her feet hit the floor but her legs gave out. She found herself lying on the ground with the woman approaching her at a much faster pace. She managed to use her arms to push herself back until she hit a wall. She found herself in a corner with nowhere to go her unclothed body arched away from the woman as she knelt down and pressed something into her upper right arm.
The other individuals that were in the room watched as the redheaded woman slowly relaxed and drifted back to sleep. Once the woman was sedated, one of them grabbed the blanket that had fallen from her body. Wrapping her back up their lifted her and placed her back on the bed. There were a lot of questions that needed to be answered as well a lot of work to do to finish repairing the injuries she'd suffered. Where did this woman come from, why was she alone in a cave with such severe injuries, how did she get these injuries, and who was she? For the moment these questions were going to need to wait.
-=/\=-
The away team had been retrieved, and now all the senior staff with the exception of Tom the Doctor and the captain, were seated around the briefing room table. The news that the away team had to give Chakotay was not good. B'Elanna was holding Kathryn jacket, her eyes were misty as she told Chakotay that this was all they could find of her.
Chakotay couldn't accept this, there had to be more. People didn't just disappear and he would not accept that an animal had gotten and eaten her that quickly. He decided that perhaps there was some anomaly that had opened up in the cave and whisked her away. It wouldn't be the first time that an event like that had happened on Voyager or on the surface of a planet.
He looked around at all the sad faces in the briefing room, "we are not going to stop until we find her or find out what happened to her. I want to get communications up and running to where we can talk to people on the surface, I want to look for any kind of subspace abnormalities; I also what to scan for the possibility of any other ships in the area that might have picked her up, something happened down there and we need to find out what that is. We will find her, we just have to keep looking." His words were meant to calm the crew down as much as to calm himself down as well. "We also need to collect the Flyer, find out exactly what caused it to go down in the first place."
There was a course of aye ayes and then the briefing room emptied, everyone having a task to do. Chakotay stayed behind for a bit, he looked out of the window in the briefing room down toward the planet's surface. 'Where are you?' he thought. He then said a silent prayer that she would be found safe and sound, and that the crew would see her once more.