An eerie silence stole over Voyager suddenly and the pain in Kathryn's head gradually subsided. She slowly looked up to see that the rest of the crew on the bridge had clearly also experienced the same pain and were now cautiously lifting their heads and looking about themselves in bewilderment.
"Tuvok, what happened to the Devore ships?" Janeway asked, swinging around to face him and feeling quite lightheaded with the movement.
"They are retreating captain."
They needed to assess the damage and re-establish security however Janeway was forced to take a moment to catch her breath. She grasped the arms of the chair and waited for a wave of nausea to pass.
"What was that?" Tom asked. "Was it just me or did anyone else feel as if their head was about to explode?" he said, rubbing his temples.
There were quiet mumblings and groans among the crew on the bridge before Tuvok spoke out.
"Captain, I believe that members of the crew have experienced some kind of anomaly which could have also been experienced by the Devore, accounting for their sudden retreat."
Janeway stood and glanced around the deck at the crew. "Is anyone here still experiencing pain?" she asked.
The general consensus was that they were not. The captain gave a satisfied nod. "We will get the doctor to check you all out and you can cover duties one by one but in the meantime, we need to assess damages and security. Tuvok, are we still protected by shields?"
"Negative captain, the shields have failed."
"Perform a magneton scan immediately; we don't know what caused the crew's temporary illness and if shields are down we need to scan for an alien presence."
Tuvok operated the sensor and checked the data.
"B'Elanna," Janeway spoke into her combadge, "How is voyager holding up?"
"We have structural integrity but there's a lot of repairs to be done down here," she replied. "Oh and captain, Harry and some of the others have experienced severe head pains. They seem to have passed now but I thought you should know."
"Yes, thank you B'Elanna. We have experienced the same up here. How are you feeling now?" Janeway asked. The safety of everyone on board was largely reliant on B'Elanna being able to work at her best to repair the ship, and they still needed to free Voyager from the magnetic field.
" I'm fine captain. I felt no pain," she informed Janeway.
Janeway looked surprised for a second but then wondered if B'Elanna was simply putting on a brave 'Klingon' face.
"Captain," Tuvok interrupted, "scans indicate no alien presence and I'd like to point out that I too experienced no pain."
Janeway slowly turned to Tuvok with a quizzical look. Tuvok looked momentarily intrigued with the situation himself.
"B'Elanna, begin work on repairs but I want to know the minute someone down there starts to experience any illness," Janeway stressed before turning to Seven. "Seven, assist B'Elanna in engineering," she ordered. "B'Elanna, I'm sending Seven to you and bear in mind that the deflector is still a priority. We could do with getting out of here pronto."
"Yes captain."
Janeway turned once more to Tuvok. "Take a team and report back on security."
Tuvok made haste to leave the bridge but Janeway halted him before he passed through the door.
"Oh and Tuvok, send a few of the crew to sickbay and get the doctor to perform a brain scan," she added.
Tuvok nodded and left.
After receiving reports on security, scans and repairs, Janeway left the bridge in Chakotay's hands and headed for sickbay to be informed about some interesting findings the doctor had uncovered during brain scans of the crew.
"Ah captain," the doctor smiled when Janeway entered sickbay, ushering her over to show her the results of the brain scans. "I think you'll find this quite fascinating."
Janeway smiled but was always somewhat agitated by the doctor's over enthusiasm for new findings when the health of her crew was causing her such anxiety. However, from past experience she found it easier in the long run to get information out of him more quickly by tolerating his overly pompous ramblings.
"I hope you haven't found anything that is going to cause me too much concern," she said, taking a look at the screen.
"I took the liberty of performing a brain scan immediately on one of my patients who was in sickbay when the anomaly occurred. Subsequent scans of crew have uncovered no abnormal brain activity but thanks to my quick thinking," he said proudly, "we may be able to come up with some answers."
Janeway nodded and stared impatiently at the screen, waiting for the doctor to get to the point and tell her about his findings.
"What am I looking at here?" she asked, gesturing to the screen.
The doctor pointed to the image displayed. "This shows the pattern of electrical activity in the brain of the patient when the pain had subsided."
The screen showed a series of flashing pulses of differing colours across what looked to be an image of the patient's brain.
"I've modified a series of these scans by applying a key of colours for the different brain wave frequencies as the patient experienced varying degrees of pain. In this way, I could compare the change in brain activity," he grinned at her, "An ingenious and completely unique method of analysis." The doctor looked smugly at Janeway and paused as if expecting some praise.
"Your forethought amazes me Doctor," she smiled. "And now the results?" she prompted him.
"Ah yes, these pulses," he traced a blue stream of intermittent light across the screen with one finger, from the back of the brain to the front, "show an increased level of beta waves, indicating that the patient was experiencing heightened feelings of anxiety and stress," he turned to glance at Janeway, "Quite normal considering the situation: Voyager trapped in a strong magnetic force field, an alien attack, fear of being taken prisoner or impending death..."
Janeway could do without the reminder at that point. "Yes, yes, okay I get the picture."
"Yes." The doctor cleared his throat and went on. "Notice the almost nonexistent level of these electrical waves," he said, pointing to a few white pulses which could just be seen among the blue. "These are alpha waves, occurring during times of peace and calm; and often during sleep when a person is dreaming."
"Okay, so this is normal then," Janeway sighed, wondering what colour waves were produced at times of frustration when other people failed to get to the point!
"Yes, but here comes the interesting bit," he went on, changing the image on the screen. "This is a scan of the brain at the time when the pain was at its strongest."
Janeway glanced at the screen and her head moved backwards at the shock of what she saw. Almost the entire image of the brain was flashing with white pulses of light. She frowned and turned to the doctor for an explanation.
"Alpha waves? But surely if the patient was in such pain there would be an abundance of beta waves, not alpha waves," she pointed out.
"The alpha waves undoubtedly shouldn't be there, and certainly not to that degree. But this does explain the patient's pain. Beta waves occurring in times of stress and danger normally inhibit the formation of calming alpha waves, but with an abnormal influx of alpha waves the two are quite literally battling inside the patient's head, causing much discomfort."
"So what could trigger such an influx of alpha waves?" Janeway pondered.
"I asked myself the same question," the doctor responded. "And this," he said, changing the image once more, "got me thinking."
Janeway was presented with another image of the brain which this time looked as if there were equal amounts of alpha and beta waves.
"What's this?" she asked, now quite intrigued.
"This shows the brain only seconds after the last image but it caught my eye simply because the patient was still experiencing pain, and the next series of scans show huge influxes of alpha waves, but this one doesn't." The doctor looked excited at his findings and the expression of growing interest on the captain's face. "Therefore, I examined the brainwaves more closely..." the captain felt sure that the doctor was on the verge of uncovering something remarkable, "... and was quite astounded by what I found..." the captain held her breath and the doctor turned to the screen, "...I found that..."
"Captain, the shields are restored to full efficiency," came the loud interruption from B'Elanna, making Janeway almost jump out of her skin.
She put a hand over her racing heart and answered her. "Thank you B'Elanna. Continue work on the main systems and the deflector." Janeway then turned back to the doctor. "You found that?" she prompted eagerly.
"I found that these few alpha waves are not the patient's," he finally informed her.
"Not the patient's?" she said with surprise.
"No, which explains the influx of alpha waves because they also open the mind to more... unusual brain functions," he explained.
Realisation lit up Janeway's face. "The Devore officer said that they had detected more than 130 telepaths on Voyager. Are we talking about an alien species trying to telepathically communicate with us?" she asked.
The doctor nodded excitedly. "I think we are."
Janeway looked around the room as if to find them. "Then where the devil are they?"
