Janeway awoke in the dark lab, not a vidiian in sight as she struggled to sit up. Moving her shoulders she was caught by a metal bar rested over her chest. Moving again she tried to lift her hands only to discover they were restrained as well. Slowly her dark blue eyes surveyed the lab, some instruments were familiar to her, there was a cortical simulator and a device used to collect tissue samples. Most of the rest was a little more advanced but certainly vidiian. Taking in a deep breath she turned her head sideways or as far as a metal brace around the crown of her head would allow her to. On the far wall she noticed something that looked like a door. Looking back a little more she could make no mistake about the control panel just above her. If only she could get out she might be able to figure the controls out and send a message to let Voyager know where she was. Pulling on her arm again she tried slipping it through the metal restraints.
"Mother." The voice spoke up from the other side. That captain turned her attention to the small girl in the starfleet uniform standing beside the medical bed. Her emerald eyes filled with a look of dread. If anything right now the Captain didn't want little Janeway to be here, to witness anything that happened. "Where are we?" The young Janeway asked with a hint of fear in her voice. No, this situation could turn out to be good after all.
"Janeway, don't be afraid alright. I'm going to get us out of here but you need to help me can you do that?" Young Janeway nodded her head and grabbed onto her mothers arm. "Do you see that control panel over there, can you interact with it?"
The child looked over to the controls and back to her mother feeling a little nervous. "I can try." Quickly the girl walked closer to the controls and stood up on her toes to better look down on it. Pressing one of the buttons young Janeway jumped back when it beeped. "Yes, I can. I can interact with it."
Closing her eyes Janeway let out a sigh of relief. She had been nervous about the babies ability to project itself outside the womb but now she was feeling a little more blessed. "Good, now try to find something to release the locks on these restraints. It might be under medical security."
The little girl looked over the controls and sheepishly pushing buttons. Young Janeway couldn't understand anything there, the words didn't make sense to her. In fact written words of any language didn't make much sense to her yet. Still she worked at it, guessing what each alien letter or number stood for. "Mother, I can't find anything." Her voice was starting to tremble more and more, her hands shaking as she stepped away from the controls.
"Calm down Janeway, listen to my voice. Take a deep breath and concentrate. Try to think of something, if you can affect peoples minds with your own like you do with Kes and myself then can you try to make a connection with the computer system itself?"
Young Janeways eyes got wide when her mother made the suggestion. She wouldn't have thought of that, she only tried to contact organic things, computers didn't seem like they would have much to say. "Oh, I can try." She sounded a little more confident now. Focusing her mind at the control she stood quietly, her eyes widening a little more. "I feel something." Young Janeway paused using her mind to flip through the systems like humans used their fingers to flip the pages of a book. "I think I found something." Pulling up one of the 'pages' young Janeway ran over it slowly zooming in on each 'word' or operation within the computers mainframe. The next thing to follow had been the click of the restraints unlocking. The captain let out the breath she had been holding and moved her hands free so she could push the bar away from her chest and sit up. "Mother I did it." Young Janeway screeched happily. At the side of the room the door slid open, two vidiian scientists walking into the lab and followed by an armed guard. Once they saw Janeway sitting up the guard ran at her grabbing her by the throat with his leathery hand. Young Janeway backed away from the controls again letting out a piercing scream, her eyes fixed on the horrid looking humanoids.
"Restrain the female." The lead scientist commanded and started walking closer to young Janeway, his scanner held up as he tried to get a reading on her. "Where did you come from little one?" His voice was menacing, his posture like a stalking cat after a cornered mouse. Interesting, I'm not getting any readings off of this lifeform. As though she isn't really here, no energy reading, no...wait." He continued to move in closer to the child making her back into the wall.
"Leave her alone." the Captain growled, her body forced back onto the table and restrained once more.
Turning his scanner on Janeway his eyes widened again. "The fetus is putting off a massive energy amount, I have never seen readings like this, heightened brain activity, DNA is becoming unstable again as though it's phasing in and out or causing a distortion. Very interesting." Setting his scanner down he pulled out what appeared to be a long needle. "I would like to get a tissue sample to study." As he lowered the needle towards Janeway she struggled to break free again. "Don't move or it will cause harm to the fetus." His attempts to calm her down hadn't worked, it only made Janeway struggle harder to get out of her restraints. "Give her a minor dose, I can't have her unconscious."
His assistant pushed a hypo spray into her neck, her body paralyzed and unable to move she laid there on the table. Her mind struggling to but her body unresponsive. Slowly the needle drove through her abdomen, her eyes flickering over to young Janeway as she stood there, a look of complete horror on her face. Janeway wanted to tell the little girl to do something, to do anything, run, hide, look away but the child just watched with a tear stained face, her mouth open as though she was trying to scream. In an instant young Janeway let out a scream and collapsed to the ground shaking in pain. Her body writhing about as she clawed at the ground and cried out. "It hurts, it hurts, stop it hurts" Young Janeway curled up into a ball before blinking away in a flash of light. Again Janeway tried to speak but was unable to move her mouth, her eyes shifting to the vidiian scientist. If only her eyes were capable of inflicting injury to him, more than he had inflicted on her daughter.
Q awoke in the sickbay laying on one of the beds, his head throbbing as he sat back up and catching himself wincing in pain. "You might want to refrain from moving, you had three broken ribs and internal bleeding." The doctor ordered. Kes rested her hands on the begins shoulders trying to make him lay back down but instead Q pushed her away and got off the bed.
"Where is Kathy?"
"Please Q you need to rest." Kes tried to usher him back down on the bed.
"No, I need to find Kathy." Q pushed back and broke free from the woman's grip.
Looking over to the door Chakotay walked in, that look on his face he got when Q would pester Janeway until she just gave up and paid attention to him if only so he would leave her alone. He crossed the sickbay quickly closing the space between himself and Q. Once he was close enough the fiery Indian struck Q hard in the face with his fist. Turning around Q grabbed his nose and groaned in pain. "That's for what you did to Kathryn." Chakotay growled. Q tried to turn back around and say something back but was struck on the other side of the face. "And that is for Voyager."
Q caught himself on the bed again and let out another groan while the commander composed himself. "I think you broke my nose." The doctor was scanning him again and using one of his tools to repair the new break. "Do you feel better now?" Q asked facing the Indian again and flinching when the man crossed his arms.
"Yes." Chakotay admitted.
"Good, then can you do me a favor. Can you tell Tweddle Dee and Tweddle Dumb to let me out of here so I can go get Kathy back?"
"No, I will tell the doctor to let you out of here so you can help 'us' get Captain Janeway back." Uncrossing his arms he looked a little disappointed. "Since you seem to be, mortal I assume you don't have your powers anymore."
Q groaned not wanting to be reminded of that. "It would seem so, I guess things didn't go in my favor back at the continuum. They picked a bad time to make me human but I can worry about that later. I still have a higher IQ than you Chuckles so don't think you can go acting superior. I know this ship is hardly limping but if you get me to the bridge I'll have it ready to hunt down that Vidiian research vessel. They won't be escaping me, I made them a promise." Chakotay didn't have to like Q but he could like how Q was thinking. With a little smile Chakotay patted him on the back and started walking him to the bridge.
They had left her alone for a while now, the pain still shooting in her side as they went over their findings. Side by side the two scientists talked among themselves in hushed voices glancing back to Janeway from time to time. "The tissue seems to not only be fighting off the infection but creating new steam cells to repair any damaged tissue. I have never seen this in another species."
"Does it extend into the mothers immune system as well?"
"I'm afraid not, if we were to infect the female she would certainly die and take the fetus with her."
"So we will have to remove the fetus in order to run the tests." The two seemed to be in agreement as they turned back to Janeway, still unable to move.
The leader of the team walked up beside her holding the tool they had once used to remove Neelix's lungs. "This procedure may hurt but when we have finished we will return you to your ship. You will no longer be required and I do not wish to harm you. Yet I am afraid to inform you that your child can not return with you. I can promise you the child shall not be killed, we will take good care of it. You can live knowing that your sacrifice will have saved a species from their extinction." As much as she wanted to yell at them she couldn't, her mouth still felt as though it had been wired shut. "I will do this as quickly as possible." He raised his device moving it over her body. Inside Janeway was trying to fight against her own body again, to just pull one hand free, to move away.
A sharp pain hit her, at first she thought it had been from the scan until she realized the pain came from her head. A pressure, a will not her own forcing down on her mind. Almost instantly the device in the researchers hand malfunctioned dispersing energy beams around the lab and ripping through the degrading flesh of the vidiians. Janeway was able to turn her head and look away as the bolts whipped around blowing out the controls and releasing the locks on her wrists. No sooner had the locks come undone again she sat up pushing the bar from her chest and jumping off the table. It would have been easy to just run now aside from the pain in her abdomen, a sharp sting as if the needle was still there. Slowly the cramp subsided allowing Janeway to walk over to the door. When the controls had blown the door seemed to have become deactivated, she couldn't open it. "Just what I needed." No sooner had the words left her mouth she felt strange, fuzzy almost. Her whole body felt like tiny bubbles were running through it, a cold numbing sensation following closely behind. For a brief second she could see her hands becoming transparent. Grabbing her stomach she felt a little light headed, her core feeling like a flock of birds were flapping their wings inside her and just like that the sensation's were all gone when the captain went up in a blink of light.