Chapter Nine - The End Of The Beginning
If the chaos was another piece of Seska-inspired mischief--and it was far more than just that, Be'lanna Torres was ready. She hoped.
"Computer, am I allowed to access a word search?"
*Able To Comply.*
Strike Seska where she would never look, and where she was too arrogant to block, the Chief Engineer began.
"Can you lock this word search and its results to my private account?"
*Able To Comply.*
Of course, thought Torres. Why would Seska, who had likely placed her program in all the major systems, care about something so very harmless? A typical Cardassian error. After all, in Andenoi Three-Card Chitiroin, a Pair of Twos still beat a lone Ace.
"Word searches: The wicked mother in Solomon's fable of the disputed child; General Pyrrhus; Surak's warning of the final ascendancy of The Madness; Stalingrad; Mogh's last recorded cries at Khitomer; the last stand of Kodos' security forces at Tarsus Four. Begin."
Paris smiled lightly, despite the tense situation.
"A variation on the Data maneuver in Stratagema. I'm impressed."
Torres nodded. When Starfleet's famous cybernetic officer had actually forced an arrogant Zakdorn to quit a game of Stratagema, word had spread through the fleet like wildfire.
"If Voyager can't be ours for the moment, it sure as hell won't be Seska's, if I can help it."
Paris looked down, remembering.
"Yeah, but the kids are still hers. If it is her."
Be'lanna shook her head.
"It is. It all fits. Smith being able to overuse the replicator. The holo-tantrums. The Doctor's loose tongue. All indicative of a ghost in the secondary and tertiary memory modules."
Tom asked the question.
"Then how do we get her out, for good this time?"
Torres had no answer.
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Orbiting over the vulnerable ready room, one passenger of the escape shuttle piloted while another suited up. On the one hand, Maureen Robinson had no experience with a Starfleet space suit. But on the other hand, she had far more space walking experience than Kathryn Janeway, and could easily adapt to a suit many times lighter and more sophisticated than ones she'd trained with.
"Maureen--if I don't make it--support Captain Chakotay. And tell him that I kept him out of the loop so that he could have a fresh start, if the worst ever happens. No need for him to be seen lock stepping some hard choices I know the crew doesn't always like."
Maureen upped the ante on Janeway's request.
"Kathryn--if I don't make it--my children need a mother. My husband needs a wife."
Before a stunned Janeway could respond, Maureen finished suiting up, and was in the mini-airlock, waiting to depart.
---------------------------------------------
John looked at the button.
"So--if we press this, the floor panels blow off, and we can escape through a Jeffries tube. But the slight explosion could rupture the windows and the hull, am I right?"
Chakotay nodded.
"Or we could encounter the best and worst variations on either scenario. It seems pretty much either-or."
Robinson felt Smith's hand in all this. He'd found an ally who'd fed him a line. Same as always, damn the man.
"The Lady Or The Tiger?"
Chakotay pressed the button.
"My grandfather hated stories that had no ending."
John gulped, thinking he could have held on without reading the last page just a little longer.
The floor merely shook, and did not fall away. A cracking noise was heard, but not for very long.
Realizing that he could not as yet reach Smith to wring his neck, Don West instead helped the shaking Tuvok, who claimed that he was actually a man named Lon Suder. A dead man named Lon Suder.
"So this Seska brought you back? Is Smith with her? What kind of line did she feed him?"
Suder-Tuvok shook his head.
"No line. He's worse than she is. Something about an alternate personality. He's also obsessed with your young people. Especially the blonde."
Judy.
"I always knew he was a traitor. But why are you trying to help me?"
"I'm-I'm trying to help Voyager. You see, I've been a killer. But I've never been a traitor."
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The fists of the Seska-possessed Neelix struck harder than anyone would have thought. Will Robinson was wheezing, and gasping for breath.
When he fell, Penny rushed to her brother's side, glaring at Neelix, whoever was inside of him.
"Don't do that, little lady. I was just paying him back, is all."
Doctor Zachary Smith smiled, and it was the smile of the hissing cobra.
"Perhaps, Penelope, you should favor young William with a kiss. In fact, I must insist that you do."
Seeing the phaser in his hand, she went to kiss her brother's forehead. Smith fired past her, and snarled.
"Kiss him fully--on the lips---"
He returned to his disturbing smile.
"...as I know you have before. Or do I need to remind you of Marlon Brando's means of negotiating an contract in The Godfather?"
Will opened his eyes, and they both again approached a moment they had alternately dreaded and prayed for, as demons watched. Their lips met, under threat of phaser from a turncoat they had never truly known, and the oddest thing followed.
The dread the two had felt gave way to something else. Sitting up, Will pulled back from Penny--and chuckled. She did the same, actually covering her mouth. Will Robinson looked at his sister. He was beginning to actually laugh as he spoke needed words.
"I can't believe how I've been afraid of you, all these months!"
Almost losing coherence to the joy of the release, Penny actually had to breathe in, while still breaking out in laughter as well.
"You? I've been moving--hurmheh--around you like you were made of pluton-hohahe-ium!"
They hugged, not an untoward thought on their minds. Someday, disaster and loneliness would strike them harder than any of Doctor Smith's schemes. Then, they would have to live with and deal with a radically new situation. But for now, they were just two young adults who slipped up and then moved on. In this, they were hardly unique. Smith looked on, the arisen master schemer completely unsure of what had just occurred.
"Why--why are you two at all happy? You should be humiliated--wholly undone by the open revelation of your transgression!"
Penny shook her head at the viper so long in their midst.
"I guess you really never were one of us, Doctor Smith. Or you'd know that a stupid kiss couldn't make me and Will into monsters. We're brother and sister. We love each other."
The spy and traitor fairly sneered.
"Deww spare me."
Despite his sore ribs, Will sat up further and picked up where his best friend had left off.
"You're the one who wanted to spy, Doctor Smith. Maybe you're not as good at analysis as you might think. Sure, you fooled us all. But then it was never really you, was it? In a way, I'm glad the other Doctor Smith is gone, too. He may have had his good qualities--but at heart, he was just another version of you."
Smith raised his phaser.
"Don't verge into the absurd, young man! That buffoon was to me what Mister Neelix is to a five-star chef. Both of the former have their uses. But they have aught to do with the latter."
Will Robinson got up, and walked within five paces of his betraying captor.
"He was you. Because he was also lazy, selfish, and threw in to any scheme that came along, no matter how untrustworthy his ally was. It's always been you, Doctor Smith. Always."
The Seska-possessed Neelix walked over, shaking his/her head.
"Untrustworthy? Me? Caretaker, Mister Jonas. Come here."
The Second Caretaker Entity and the late Mister Jonas, using the forms of Kes and Harry Kim, respectively, answered their benefactor's call. She/he gestured at the Robinsons.
"I want to use a technique the Pagh Wraiths themselves showed me, to shut these two up."
Jonas ground Harry's fist into his palm.
"Sounds good to me. I'm in."
The now vengeance-crazed Caretaker sneered.
"Anything not to have to hear their whiny voices again."
Seska-in-Neelix smiled.
"Good."
Wordlessly, he/she touched her servitors' backs, drawing out energy as she/he did. The two physically screamed, and then a sort of psychic cry was heard. Seska/Neelix held up two balls of energy. She/he looked at Will and Penny as the possessed people collapsed.
"You know what, Will? I really *am* an untrustworthy ally."
The ball that had been Jonas, she hurled out through the hull. A portal began to form in the void of space. Smith looked on, less in horror or fear than curiosity.
"Mizzz Seska? The point of this lightshow is?"
"Well, Doctor. It's like this. See, the Pagh Wraiths themselves feed on innocents. But the portal to them needed to be opened by one of a like nature. Mister Jonas was qualified. Overqualified, really. But I let him keep his job, anyway."
Will and Penny pulled Harry and Kes over to them. The pair had yet to regain consciousness. Smith paid this no mind, as he queried Seska further.
"And what of the equally vapid Caretaker?"
Neelix's face smiled.
"I'm glad you asked that, Doctor."
The energy ball was cast down on the deck, and the holo-emitters sprung to life, shaping and reshaping these powerful sparks, guided by Seska's obsessive will. A body formed from it all, and Neelix fell like the others. His purpose had been served. The new body stood up, briefly nude, then clad in holo-raiment.
"There. Isn't that much better?"
Seska Marlis stood as a thing reborn, aboard the ship that had seen her death. Smith clapped, with whatever passed for sincerity in him.
"Bravo, my dear. Osama himself couldn't have wriggled out of death's grasp any better!"
Seska pointed.
"Now him---I know. Your planet's history had some nearly Cardassian thinkers, Doctor. A pity the small-minded all slammed them down."
A new voice was heard.
"Y-hes. A pity about those small-minded people who didn't want dichtatoers. They do tend to rhuin every-thing."
Seska and Smith looked over. So did Will, Penny, and their awakening companions. A man was scanning the still-unconscious Judy Robinson. Smith shouted.
"You! Just where did you come from?"
The back-up EMH in the form of Charles Emerson Winchester never even turned to look at Smith as he responded.
"Boston, my dear fellow."
Smith shook his head.
"Boston?"
Finding that Judy and her child were in good health for the moment, the temp EMH looked at Smith.
"Boston, Ma-ha-ssachusetts. Zachary, I know you're not too terribly bright. But at least dew try and keep up?"
While Smith prepared to deal with the new EMH, an angry reborn Seska took note of something.
"Be'lanna--what did you do?"
None of the controls were responding to her commands. Or, apparently, any one's commands.
"Torres--you bore me. A stalemate stratagem? We had a Solomon on Cardassia, too. But guess what happened to the disputed baby?"
She initiated a sequence, and then smiled.
"Eat gagh and die, old friend."
The holodeck where the saboteurs were holed up was stable. The same could not be said for the rest of the ship.
With local inertial dampeners negated, the sudden jolt upward threw almost everyone on the deck forward and then back again, in near free-fall. Only Torres and Paris, holding on to the edges of a Jeffries tube entrance, escaped basically unscathed. Be'lanna called Tom by a name she hadn't used in well over a year.
"Starfleet? When we find whatever hole Seska's using--don't get in my way!"
Tom nodded.
"Wouldn't dream of it, Chief."
But Tom decided to silently leaven that assurance, if any of the Robinson children should come to harm.
In the shuttlebay, Don West and the Suder-possessed Tuvok barely boarded the Jupiter 2 in time to seal the hatch.
"Suder? What the hell's going on?"
The dead man looked outside through the eyes of the only real friend he'd ever known. It was like a hurricane.
"It's Seska. She's opened the bay doors and turned off the protective fields. I mean, I was a sociopath, with some kind of brain problem. What's her excuse?"
While Suder worried and Don quietly swore that this wouldn't stop him from finally strangling Doctor Smith, a being with built-in magnet tracks strolled through the storm outside and casually hit the manual override on the bay doors. West smiled as he saw who it was. He opened the Jupiter 2's hatch.
"Robot!"
The voice of the main EMH sounded from the mechanoid, though.
"Not quite, Major. But more on all that later."
Another voice came from the Jupiter 2's speakers.
"Doctor. I am gratified that you have made it back here, as we agreed. I look forward to resuming my mobility."
West turned around, a little stunned.
"Robot? You're in the ship's computers?"
In Tuvok, Suder felt a bit dizzy.
"Isn't anybody in their real bodies, right now?"
Robot's disembodied voice sounded an alert.
"Danger! Yet another rift is forming outside of Voyager. My sensors detect--its danger to all of us is nearly infinite!"
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Outside of Voyager, Captain Janeway watched in horror from the shuttle as a now-unmoored Maureen flew off into space with a helpless John Robinson and Chakotay in tow.
"Oh, My God!"
Kathryn got up, and hit the button that she prayed would not be rotted, attached to the relays she prayed would not be corroded, leading to the power source she prayed would not be depleted, and to a pattern buffer she fervently prayed was not in the worst shape possible.
Earlier that year, the shuttlecraft in question had been recorded as lost and destroyed. It had already happened quite often, since their trip began, so no one thought anything of it. Only Janeway and Chakotay knew that the entire incident had been faked, and only Janeway herself had the access codes. Chakotay had similar locked access to another shuttle, also supposedly destroyed. Locked away and unattended, they were limited safeguards against another total takeover like Seska's.
"Work, damn you!"
This meant that they could not be maintained properly, except by the CO and XO themselves. Not Tuvok. Not Torres. Not Paris. Not Harry. They had to be a surprise, capable of leaving the top two free to act, or at least telling one that the other had been compromised.
"They're forming. Don't get lost, people."
They appeared, as three whole people, not one hideous blob or multiple pieces. John Robinson was gasping for breath, obviously having held his breath through the entire three-minute ordeal. His NASA training had come to save his life. Chakotay was still unconscious. Maureen removed her helmet and looked at her rescuer.
"Why didn't you just do that in the first place? And don't tell me it's because it wouldn't have been funny!"
Instead of answering, Captain Janeway lifted the cover-plate of the emergency transporter control. Maureen Robinson winced at the sight of the fused circuit boards. Kathryn nodded.
"I had one shot to catch all of you. And I barely had that."
Tending to her husband before checking on Chakotay, Maureen asked the next big question.
"So how do we get back on board? The garage door, so to speak, is broken."
Kathryn did a quick medi-scan of Chakotay, and then gave both men a tri-ox shot. Only then did she reveal her ace.
"Every garage has a side-door that I remember."
When they had reached the underside of the ship, adjacent to the shuttle bay, that side-door opened. Barely wide enough for the shuttle to work through, the shoehorn-looking opening was also quick to close up.
"Kathryn--is that our cavalry?"
Stunned by the sudden opening, but far enough away to avoid being sucked out, Don West and what appeared to be Tuvok and the Robot went to greet them. Janeway got a taste of the odd situation when she and the other three got off the shuttle. Robot spoke with the voice of her main EMH.
"Mister Suder, I'll need you to be my hands while I revive Commander Chakotay and Doctor Robinson."
Tuvok smiled, and waved at the Captain.
"Hi, Captain. It's good to see you again."
While Janeway figured out how to speak to a formerly living formerly psychotic crewman, Don West spoke to Maureen Robinson, gathering weapons at Kathryn's request.
"Smith has teamed up with someone called Seska. They have the kids, including Judy."
Maureen gripped the phaser rifle she had chosen as her own.
"Not for long they don't!"
A loud thud pulled away all their attentions, as a Jeffries tube opened above them, dumping Torres and Paris in the shuttle-bay. Tom looked at Be'lanna.
"So, you know where every Jeffries tube in this ship leads, huh?"
Be'lanna shrugged.
"Hey, at least I chose a popular spot!"
In his dreams or perhaps visions, Chakotay saw his father.
"My son. You approach the vast wasteland of Minnow that contains the secret name of Seska Marlis. Another spirit will aide you, once you have made your discovery. Be ready. And beware the Funnel-Dweller. For you have not the rocks to repel him."
Chakotay nodded.
"Great phrasing there, Dad."
In the supposedly secure Holodeck Four, the villainous true persona of Doctor Smith tried to find out how the back-up EMH made it into his and Seska's stronghold.
"You, sir. What aaare you doing here?"
The holo-matrix that greatly resembled a 20th Century Terran physician named Charles Winchester turned from his finished scans of the pregnant Judy Robinson. He stood up, smiling at a man who only thought he knew how to be haughty.
"Zachary. Come now. Shuerly you remember us having this discussion already. You can't be that fahgetful--or can you? Far be it from me to impose limitations upon yuir limitations- -eheheh--limitations."
Frowning a bit more each time, Smith tried to regain his footing, never quite realizing what he was losing in the process.
"You dew realize that the dear Robinson children are my hostages?"
Winchester turned and looked at the younger two Robinsons. He appeared nonflustered.
"Why, yhes--it would appeahr that they are. Puts me on best behavior, I suppose. May I examine them?"
Smith held his phaser in a manner that one of the real Winchester's colleagues would have called Freudian.
"Certainhly not! At least, not until you tell me, hologram, how you got in here!"
Seska added in from the background.
"And don't tell us you are an automatic function. Your predecessor as EMH got away with that on me. Once. Just once."
Winchester merely shrugged.
"I am far from being so very automatic, Mizz Seska. I am a backup EMH. I have the skills necessary to perform my appointed tasks, and the overt personality engrams of the man whose name I bear with distinction. But my late predecessor failed to give me a number of subroutines. Among those--I have no limits on my proactive efforts. The Main EMH M1 could only go where he was permitted. I may go wherever there is an emitter. And so forth. In short, I sensed you altering these children's life-signs by means of some force. I sought them out. Now--may I be about my business? Or are you quite as dense as ole' Zacky?"
Seska smiled, then fired her phaser at the neo-EMH. Winchester merely phased directly beside her.
"Well, I suppose that answers that, doesn't it. N-how--my patients!"
Leaning down near Will, the EMH used the advanced medical instruments he had so recently decried to undo at least some of the injuries the young man had sustained while Seska held possession of Neelix's body. Without moving his holo-mouth, he spoke to Will in a low whisper.
"I can get exactly one of you out. Choose."
Will grabbed at his sore ribs, and pointed.
"Doctor, you should really check on my sister Judy. She's pregnant."
Winchester played his part and pulled back a bit.
"Really, young man! Are you the Doc-tor, here? I rather think not! Your eldest sister appears to be resting comfortably. I'll check on her at my own pace, thank you very much."
Smith walked over to the EMH, grinning like a jackal.
"Good show, sir! Long have I awaited someone with the wherewithal to quiet his overeager bleatings."
Winchester casually turned and looked back at the hostage-holder.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry--Zack. Were you saying something?"
While Smith's grin turned to frown, Winchester repeated his disguised query while treating Penny. She too got the message.
"Will can be an annoying brat, but he's right, Doctor. Judy needs your help, more than either of us. Maybe Harry and Kes, too."
Winchester put his hand to his head, and then appeared to slap Penny across the face. In fact, his hand phased through her, but only she and Will could see this. She reacted as she had been bid.
"Owww!"
Will threw in with a sneer.
"Serves you right!"
Winchester pointed with a grand flourish.
"Were the two of you raised in an barn? Have you no manners at all? I will move upon your sister's situation at my leisure--not before!"
Seska now did as Smith had before.
"First do no harm, correct, Doctor? And don't ignore me as you did Smith."
The neo-EMH shrugged.
"You are not Smith, Madam. In any event, yes, I do have routines dealing with the oath of Hippocrates, of course. But social niceties extended to my lessers are a burden my predecessor had no time to place me under. Now--may I see to the Voyager crewmembers? They, and not these mendicant rug rats, are my primary responsibility, after all."
Seska gripped her phaser, fired, and hit Kes, who screamed as she awoke. Will and Penny were warned away from her side by Smith.
"Now, children---be good. Or at least be still."
Seska pointed her weapon at the hologram.
"See to Kim. Kes is going away--two months early. Computer--lock onto Kes and activate *Seska Enabran's Hatch*."
Kes was transported away. Her body appeared outside the ship, and entered the rift. As scanners confirmed this, Seska smiled yet again.
"A meal for the Funnel-Dweller. She won't be getting around much, anymore."
Seska turned to give the holo-Doctor further instructions, but saw that he was already attending to Harry Kim. A bit confused, she reasoned that perhaps this EMH really was the disinterested party the deleted previous one had pretended to be.
"Mister Kim--your status?"
The barely-there eternal Ensign looked up.
"Doc? Did you put on weight?"
Winchester smiled at Seska.
"He's as alert as ever!"
Actually stopping to put his instruments away before walking over to the slowly-stirring Judy, the hologram gave every appearance of a man bothered at being away from 18 rounds of holographic golf. At last, perhaps he did this too well. Time had run out. Smith pointed.
"Mizzzz Seska--I believe its time he joined his predecessor."
Seska was a practiced liar. She had even chosen to be remade in her Bajoran disguise, when resurrected, in memory of one of her better lies. So she knew how to spot a liar, as well.
"Too true. Computer--delete backup EMH. Authorization Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy--then Tailor again."
Winchester patted his hand over his mouth, in a yawning motion.
"Madam--no real subroutines means no deletion protocol. I was never meant to be unleashed, you know. It was your ham-handed assassination attempt upon my predecessor that is the root cause of your frustration. Now, onto Mizzzz Robinson and the littler Mizzzz Robinson."
Judy looked up as he continued over to her. She was confused, to say the least.
"Doctor Winchester?"
"There, there child. This will all be over, quite soon."
Seska was now livid, and close to shouting.
"You've got that right. Computer--turn off holo-emitters on this deck!"
Winchester, who had picked up the main EMH's portable emitter where it had fallen, did not fade away. Something else did, though, as Penny's chuckling revealed.
"Well, that was a mistake!"
Will had an evil grin on his face.
"Not from my end--or from hers."
Seska looked down, and realized that while her new body had been made wholly real, her clothes had been entirely holographic. Had been, that is.
"Computer--reinitialize holo-emitters!"
The good people of that room never heard lovelier words than what followed next.
"Unable To Comply."
Despite all her training and a billion other factors, Seska moved to cover herself with her phaser-rifle. For more reasons than one, Will chose this point to rush her.
"Looking to grab something soft, you little pervert?"
Angry that his family had been threatened by this latest ally of the obviously-traitorous Doctor Smith, Will did not grab anything soft, so to speak. He face-butted her.
"If I ever get that desperate, I'll give you a call!"
In the confusion, the holo-Winchester developed a grim look. Shaking, he phased his hand inside Judy's belly.
"Forgive me, dear girl. It will all be made right again."
But all Judy felt was a world of pain. She cried out.
"The baby! He's killed the baby!"
Seska finally punched Will away from her. She too, screamed.
"No! There must be a pure innocent to sacrifice to the Funnel-Dweller, or he can't be controlled!"
Grasping a woman who now hated him, Winchester transported out. Smith looked at the scanners.
"A one-time protocol. He apparently used his own holo-matrix to enable her departure--if I am in fact reading these wretched things correctly. Oh--by the way---"
Smith fired a shot that hit Penny squarely in the shoulder. Harry Kim, now fully awake, and feeling as useless as ever, grabbed her as she fell. Kim glared, and Smith nodded.
"She's simply not as attractive as her sister. Personal taste, don't you know."
"Smith! Hold the boy!"
Her anger and the loss of two valuable pawns overcoming her modesty, Seska handed Will over to her ally. She slapped and then gut-punched the boy.
"Did wrestling with a naked woman turn you on, punk? I have a fate for you I had planned for your sister's child."
She gestured, and a red light, pulsing and twirling, appeared beside her.
"This is a Pagh Wraith--a living god. Take a good look at it--it's about to replace your very soul."
SICKBAY
Judy had stopped shrieking.
"My baby's alive?"
The Winchester-holo nodded.
"I merely transported the fetus here, to a waiting bio-stasis field in Sickbay. That was simple. Child's play."
The scientist in her spoke next.
"What about putting it back inside me?"
The neo-EMH frowned.
"That--is not child's play."
THE SHUTTLEBAY
Janeway shook her head, almost disbelieving, despite the evidence.
"Mister Suder, you're saying that Seska hooked up with some Bajoran devils, who want to unleash an even greater evil?"
Inside Tuvok, Lon Suder shrugged.
"Captain, I was a psychotic, but I was never delusional. Besides, even if Seska is deluded, she's still going to act like she believes it all. I know I never had your trust, when I was alive..."
Kathryn took his hand.
"No. But you earned my gratitude. You got my ship back, then. Help us do so again, now. Plot out an assault on Holodeck Four. Anything to add, anyone?"
Paris spoke.
"Captain, there's something you should all know about Smith. Something historical."
THE FUNNEL
Kes fell, only vaguely wondering why her body hadn't immediately undergone explosive decompression. The cold, she felt. But it was a disquietingly familiar cold. She saw an older flying man in a red and blue suit bat back a screeching fireball, ending a great and nearly infinite crisis. She saw a giant with a scarred throat losing to a much smaller man, and the storm that resulted from his decapitation. She saw a little man who once thought he'd rule the world putting a bullet to his brain in a small bunker. She saw a grinning maniac be put to final death by the justice system he held in contempt, while a dark knight watched in satisfaction. She saw a man Tom had called Khan Singh be literally heckled from power. A young blonde woman mangled every last possession of three murderous but awkward young men, who killed themselves as she at last tore their 'Silver Surfer' image-books apart.
All this fallen evil fell past her, but not into hell as she'd heard it described. No, not hell. Someplace worse. For there were supposedly no innocent bystanders in hell.
"Help me--someone!"
*I can help you*, said a voice in her head. *I am the guardian of this place, though currently I'm fenced in, as it were. But if I send you back, you must keep in the Funnel-Dweller. Will you fight my enemy?*
"I don't have the power!"
It spoke to Kes once more.
*I can awaken your power. But once awakened, it will be out of control, soon enough.*
Kes winced. She had thought that finding out that her vicious 'future-self' had in fact been the Second Caretaker would free her from the future that had been foretold.
"Do it. Consequences be damned!"
As Kes's consciousness rose, she saw her benefactor--a thirteen-year old Human boy locked in a cryo-chamber, and not for his own good.
*I'll be free one day--now go and protect your friends.*
A dark cloud nanoseconds ahead of her, Kes again made for her second home aboard The USS Voyager. Despite literally having problems of her own, she thought back to the lost boy in the Funnel.
*Take care, kid. I hope your story ends happily.*
HOLODECK FOUR
As Will barely rolled with Seska's kick, she turned once again to the man who was her supposed ally.
"Doctor Smith--I really need to keep that portal open. It remains open through the life-forces of the corrupt. You're elected."
"A decision, Mizzz Seska that I will see to it that you regret!"
Still groggy, Harry Kim whispered to the half-conscious Penny Robinson while the two villains broke apart.
"Did *anybody* not see this coming?"
Seska shook her head at Smith's rather predictable boast.
"I expected better of you, Doctor, though I don't know why. But first things first. Computer, reinitialize holo-emitters."
Seska was perhaps hoping to regain some of her lost dignity, or the appearance of control. But the bikini that appeared on her drew a frustrated frown from her and a hidden grin from Harry Kim.
"Score one for Tom Paris."
Smith took joyful note of the holo-prank that Paris had doubtlessly meant for Be'lanna Torres.
"You, madam, are a fool. You seek to betray your only ally at a time when your advantages are dwindling quicker than Major West's IQ numbers."
"You weren't going to betray me?"
"Well, yes, of course I was. But I choose to do it at this time, when my advantages are at their grand maximum, thanks to you. Your undead allies are now truly dead. Your Pog Rats--or whatever you choose to call them, saw fit not to rebirth you with clothes. Your pure innocent was stolen out from under you by an itinerant video character made flesh. And doubtless Voyager's rather pedantic, drearily predictable crew is on the verge of undoing your many varied doings."
Seska circled around, phaser in hand, as Smith followed her motions and did the same.
"Let's discuss failures of opportunity, Smith. By now, you were to have blackmailed these two children into submission, using their kiss, as it were, to seal their obedience to you."
Smith's shrug was a bit more manufactured than usual, and Seska knew it.
"Events have perhaps...moved beyond such matters. Obviously, the Robinsons are now dead, else they and the execrable Major West would have contacted us, offering both cajolery and carnage to purchase their release. Had we needed them for such, we could have extorted William and Penelope into helping us set up quite the trap."
Seska shook her head.
"No, I don't believe so. You tried to humiliate them with another kiss, and they merely laughed. They're good kids, Doctor- -and I hate good kids. They're so truly hard to predict. For another example, just what happened a few hours back, when you regaled them with the *epic* tale of how you kept your true personality in abeyance, those five years?"
Smith almost gulped, but fought it back.
"They--were stunned, to hear just how easily they'd been duped. How easily they'd all been duped. Why, I daresay that contemplating the very width, length and breadth of my grand deception robbed them of their over-used ability to speak--and then to pontificate."
Seska smiled, and her shrug was not at all forced.
"No. They weren't shocked, or even surprised, 'Zacky'. What you told them merely confirmed what they already knew. After all, your personality switch could hardly erase their memories of your early attempts to kill their family. No, the Robinsons have that second form of innate gullibility, called charity by some. I shame myself for not seeing it sooner. You are not a master spy. You are a master fraud. You knew all your worlds' great beasts. You worked for all the dirty dealmakers, in every government. You manipulated the terrorists who manipulated others. You worked for an organization beyond all of them, to hear you tell it. You spun a good yarn, Doctor. But perhaps now that I'm in a body of my own again, immune from the threat of your brain-shocks, I can see that you knew no one at all of any import. You were a small-time saboteur who made the small-timer's trademark mistake of setting the fuse with not enough time to get away."
Smith's dander had been seen quite often. His temper, on the other hand, had been a rarer thing. Until now.
"Howwww daaaaare yewww, Mad-am?! How dare you speak to Doctor Zachary Smith in such a manner? Especially when one considers your own checkered past. Let's have a look at that, shall we? You traded a secure berth on the most tech-no-logically advanced ship in this quadrant for a concubine's lot with the least advanced space-faring species around. How very Luciferian. You obsessed over two members of its command crew, to your own detriment, rather than seeding some kind of Maquis rebellion from without. Your one and only inside man was treated shabbily, and smoked out rather easily, when the time came. And at last when you took this ship using a lathered fanatic, it was taken back from you by the three least socially apt members of this crew. One of whom has obviously betrayed you, despite his post-revival confusion. Where *is* dear Mister Suder?"
Both traitors pulled back from one another.
"And yet, Doctor Smith, we both have phasers."
"Indeed, Mizzz Seska. That puts the odds at fifty-fifty, I believe."
She smiled anew.
"No. The odds are seventy-five to twenty-five--in my favor."
Helping Will to his feet, Seska then pointed at Smith.
"My Lord of The Pagh. I offer you this fetid soul, to keep well the gates to your true temple!"
Will rubbed his head, from where it had been kicked.
"I liked you better without the bikini."
Impossible, thought Seska. Yet, it was now horribly apparent. The psychic cry she'd heard had not been Will Robinson's. It had belonged to the Pagh Wraith--as it died within the boy. With her free hand, she struck at Will again, shaking in pure rage.
"What Are YOU?!"
Smith pulled back, feeling himself the victor, whatever the reality was.
"Did I fail to mention that William, while under the influence of a gadfly alien who had the most annoying habit of popping his mouth with his hand, showed tre-men-dous psionic potential? Hmmm? Well, I think I must have. So sorry for your Pog Rat, m'dear. As to what he is, he is a bother and a nuisance. While I am..."
Under holo-cloak, Smith vanished, his voice echoing across the room.
"...the little man who isn't there. Thank you oh so much for the perfectly wondrous access, Seska. Ta-ta for now--and for later, should your bikini top come off once more."
Outside the ship, one of the three portals closed. The Pagh Wraiths had followed Smith's lead in abandoning the hapless Seska. Inside, four arches appeared, and a Smith-image darted out through each of them. Seska fired at them, to no avail. As Harry Kim tried to rush her, she fired to stun, needing hostages now more than ever. Pushing a still-groggy Will to the floor, she pointed.
"You monster. You've ruined everything. But I'll still feed you to the Funnel-Dweller."
She gave him a kick to the stomach. She did not see the glare and determination building in an enraged Penny Robinson.
Kes saw the hull of her home, amazed more at this sight than the fact that she was moving unaided through the void. But a great task lay ahead of her. Alighting on the left nacelle, she saw the darker energy cloud begin to form in the distance.
"That poor boy said that you shouldn't be permitted to emerge. That sounds like some very good advice to me."
Three rings of colored energy appeared, now. One red, one green, and one golden. From these emerged long, tube-like shapes, kilometers in length and width. Topping these off in turn were the shapes of heads, one horned with spikes, one horned with protrusions that looked like the raised ears of a wolf, and one with a single, blunted middle-head horn.
"Maybe the best advice I've ever gotten."
By instinct as much as by the implanted thoughts from that time-lost Prince, Kes held her hands in front of her waist, open-palmed and cupped, just inches apart from one another. She felt the fantastic energies begin to build.
"They're too much. No one can handle this kind of power!"
Perhaps the boy had implanted more thoughts than just instructions in Kes, for she saw another realm, also the Delta Quadrant. But it was neither hers nor the one the Robinsons had accidentally entered into. In this, The Borg that the Captain so feared fell away to nothing. The Krenim she had seen in her life-vision fared no better. Her own people died in an underground hell, the Caretakers no match at all for what came. Till at last, only one survivor remained, his sole company an abusive Borg-altered Terran probe that nevertheless grieved when the survivor died. He had gone by a different name, and been born centuries earlier, to live a vastly different life. Yet his true identity was unmistakable.
"Neelix."
Then, she saw her own Neelix, heart broken by how quickly she turned away, after an incident where he failed to prove a swashbuckling hero. Kes saw his love turn to hate, providing one of three roads Seska had needed to make her comeback.
"It was me. I helped cause all this."
But she did not let the rage distract her. Rather, she let it focus her energies, and these she released in a gold tidal wave of power, to drive the funnel-dweller back--just as his hateful image fully coalesced.
"A dragon?"
Whatever it was, it now went back where it belonged, and to a destined final battle with the forces that prince would gather to him.
"Now for you, Seska."
Placing her hand to her forehead, she teleported into Seska's stronghold on Holodeck Four. The spy's attentions were elsewhere, but quickly saw the returnee.
"You!"
"Me. Your Funnel-Dweller is gone, Seska. Give it..."
Then, Kes saw her own body. Energy was leaking like a sieve. She had gained the power to save a universe, but lost something vital in the process.
"No! I can remain on Voyager."
By sheer will, she forced her form back to full corporeality. Nauseous and weary, she fainted, and Seska turned ever more of her frustration on Will Robinson. This was to prove a huge mistake, as proved when an angry voice rang out.
"Don't-You Touch HIM!"
With his attention wandering from the recent visions he'd had, Chakotay didn't catch what Paris had told them about Doctor Smith. He only heard the reactions to it. But these would prove pivotal.
"John, just what did we bring on board with us?"
"Someone we never wanted, never knew, and were right to be suspicious of, darling."
"Yeah, well I say, our personal evil Gilligan gets booted. Captain Janeway is CO of Voyager, not Skipper of The Minnow."
Chakotay felt a chill, and pointed at Don West.
"Major, tell me everything about The Minnow. And I mean--everything."
Kathryn Janeway looked at her First Officer.
"Chakotay, I think they were referring to some sort of video fiction."
The XO nodded, in free concession of his request's bizarre nature. He couldn't define why the word 'Minnow' had set him off, but it had.
"Captain, please. This information may provide the key to ridding us of Seska, for good this time."
Janeway raised a finger.
"For even a real hint of that possibility, I will allow this. But people--make it fast."
Don did just that.
"The show was called Gilligan's Island. Kind of a take-off on Robinson Crusoe, and the lead character would always mess up their rescue attempts. Oh, and the name Minnow? It was an in-joke. See, Minow--with one N--was the FCC Commissioner at that time, and he called television 'a vast wasteland'. Chakotay, no offense--but what does this have to do with Seska or Smith?"
Chakotay smiled.
"Victory. Give me access to all your TV files. Kathryn--I'll join you soon."
As the others left to begin an assault on Holodeck Four, Chakotay entered the Jupiter 2. His chance to finally close an old chapter in his life weighed upon him.
"Robot? You up for a file search?"
Within the Jupiter 2's computer banks, the voice of B-9 responded.
"Affirmative, Commander Chakotay. I am at your disposal."
Even with a guiding mind like Robot's, Chakotay knew only the right questions would be of any real use in his search.
"How many of these television programs dealt with Cardassians?"
"There are over one hundred entries, both in fully accessible and in summary form."
Chakotay frowned, briefly.
"That many? But weren't such programs proprietary to a few individuals?"
"That is correct. However, very often, the copyright-holders would allow parodies and satires to go unchallenged. One such show was called 'NBC's Saturday Night', and in 1995 featured a 'Family Feud' between Cardassians and a similar-looking race from a show called Babylon 5..."
Chakotay felt more on-track now.
"Robot, exclude parodies, satires, and er, discussion groups from your search."
"There are seventeen entries, Commander."
Chakotay knew that Janeway's patience would soon run out. This quest had to seem ridiculous to her. It seemed barely tenable to him.
"Include only those shows that actually feature Cardassians."
"There are four. The Cardassians were introduced in 1981 on the Star Trek Series, Phase Two. They were more fully explored in The Next Generation. They played a pivotal role in Deep Space Nine. They were part of an initial premise, later largely abandoned, for Voyager."
Chakotay said words he once would have never thought to even contemplate.
"Show me the Cardassian-based episodes of Voyager."
"I cannot. Will and Penny Robinson deleted all episodes of the later two shows of the Star Trek series. But through episode summaries, Tom Paris has determined that these adventures precisely coincide with events already familiar to you and the crew of Voyager."
Chakotay nodded. He was closer than ever.
"Exclude Voyager, and also exclude any episodes that do not deal with altered Cardassian spies."
"There are two entries, both episodes of Deep Space Nine, and they are thematically linked."
Target acquired.
"Read me as detailed a synopsis as possible of the earlier of those two episodes."
"October 24, 1994, Airdate. Third Season. Episode Title: Second Skin. Taken captive, Major Kira Nerys is told by Cardassian intelligence that she was in fact a deep-cover spy for the Obsidian Order, and that her true name was..."
A minute later, Chakotay ran through the decks to join the others. Noting that the ship was a great deal more stable than before, he hit his commbadge.
"Chakotay to Torres. Is the ship ours again?"
The Chief Engineer responded quickly to her old captain.
"For the moment, Commander. Seska's countering efforts must have hit a snag. I've almost cleared out all her commands. At least those I can find right now. Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Yes, Be'lanna. I did."
For true names contain power. When he met with the others just outside Holodeck Four, Janeway looked at him.
"Commander, we have either a problem or an opportunity. Someone has undone Seska's magno-seal on the arch doors. I don't tend to trust such blind luck."
"You think it's a trap? Well, Kathryn, the Maquis had a policy about traps. It wasn't always wise, but it got results."
Maureen and John stared numbly at the door. Maureen finally spoke.
"Let's trip it, then. Those lunatics have my children!"
A voice came over Janeway's commbadge.
"Not so, Dhactor Robinson. Judy is hahr in Sickbay with me. Mother and child are doing as w-hell as can be expected, given the circahmstances. She could use company. As---could I."
The holo-Winchester sounded nervous and tired, but he gave welcome news. John looked at Major West.
"Don--go to her. Tell Judy we will be back soon, with her brother and sister."
"I'm gonna hold you to that, John. So will she."
Yet as Don left their company, some shouts among passing crew gave him a different priority.
"Who was that lunatic?"
"One of the guests. He was firing that phaser like it had a hair-trigger. I think he was headed for their ship in the shuttlebay."
Don stopped, and thought of his love for Judy, their child, and all the Robinsons. But this was savagely overwhelmed by the hate he felt embodied in one spat-out word.
"Smith."
In a decision he would come to regret, he made not for the Sickbay, but for the shuttlebay.
Inside the holodeck rendered quite vulnerable by Smith's departure, Seska registered Penny Robinson coming at her. But though she moved to raise her phaser rifle, the spy found it batted out of her hands, sliding well away from her grasp. An enraged Penny backhanded her with power belying her frame and size.
"Don't You Touch Him!"
While planning her counterattack, Seska tried an old tack.
"So you *do* fancy him for your..."
But a sock to the jaw stopped her in mid-taunt. Penny meant deadly serious business. The teenager's opened palm shoved the Cardassian back into the deck wall, and again the refrain was heard.
"Don't You Touch Him!"
The spy learned an old lesson anew that day. Allies and schemes are of little help against fists and kicks and rage. Penny's every blow landed square. Seska's every blow was blocked without effort. There was a tearing sound as Penny ripped off her bikini top.
"Wait! What are you doing?"
If Seska worried that Penny now had a prurient interest in her, she was wrong. For the stretchy top had a far more utilitarian purpose--and one that was far grimmer, as well.
"Don't You Touch Him!!!!"
There would be many psychological reasons why Penny was doing all this, some healthier than others. But as the assembled crews burst in, they saw only that Penny was strangling Seska Marlis with her own top. Her voice was a screech of anger. Her eyes and face did not seem merely that of an angry older sister. John and Maureen would not ever forget the sight.
"Penny, don't!"
"Penny, darling, she's not worth it!"
But she kept right on, only answering her parents briefly.
"She hurt Will. She has to pay."
A stun-set phaser blast whizzed by Penny's ear, and she dropped a gasping Seska. Captain Janeway lowered her phaser.
"She will pay, Penny. That much I guarantee. But we are not like her. We are not murderers."
From out of B-9's circuits re-emerged the standard EMH. He sent Robot's body to reunite with his essence in the Jupiter 2's memory banks. He ran for Seska.
"She was dying anyway, Captain. With her benefactors gone, her rebirth is being undone as we speak."
Yet oddly, Seska merely laughed.
"I won't pay, Captain. All of you will. I found three psychic inroads with which to make my return. Neelix's misery over Kes's abrupt ending of their relationship, Chakotay's endless fear of my persistence, and my own undying hate. I am still a part of Voyager. Perhaps next time I'll take you over, Be'lanna. Wouldn't that please you, Mister Paris? Three species added to your ledger in one bold stroke. You'll never be rid of me. Never."
Chakotay chose then to play his ace.
"No, we will be rid of you. Forever."
Seska was expiring quickly, but her grin only broadened.
"I'm a spirit of the dead, my love. You don't have the POWER to get rid of me. And if you somehow did, you'd lack the will to use it. Janeway's seen to that."
Chakotay threw down a single feather, replicated as he ran to join the others. His voice grew deadly serious.
"You are wrong on both counts, Seska Marlis of Bajor, whose true name is Illeana Ghemor of Cardassia, daughter of Legate Tekeny Ghemor, now also deceased. By the invocation of your true name, dead thing, I banish you from our ship for all times to come! This place is become our home, and you are not welcome here!"
Seska's face twisted in agony as her spirit left her new body, which crumbled at last to ash. For a moment, her spirit was actually visible. Tuvok shuddered as Lon Suder, also briefly visible, walked out of his body. Suder looked around.
"Well, it was nice seeing you all again. I don't have a secret name, or anything. So I'll just be moving on."
But now, a spirit burst out of Chakotay. It was an elderly Cardassian male. Seska, or Illeana, gasped.
"Father?"
The ghost of Legate Tekeny Ghemor looked out at his child's spirit.
"You are free of this place, Illeana. I have found you at last. Reject the path you have walked on, my daughter. Come dwell with me."
The lost soul spoke some fatal words.
"But Father--what of power?"
A portal opened behind her, and the Funnel reclaimed its own. Painfully, Tekeny saw his daughter reborn as the top aide to a Starfleet Admiral who was a chronic abuser of children. Her next death would erase her entirely.
"She was lost to me many years ago. Lon Suder--will you keep an old man company?"
Suder gulped.
"Sir--I'd like to. But I'm a murderer. And I've been told that I was never much of a son to begin with."
Ghemor touched his non-shoulder.
"You have earned a form of redemption. And I will judge the second part, myself."
Suder looked at a weary Tuvok, and the Vulcan smiled inwardly as both ghosts vanished. For Lon Suder now truly knew peace.
The Doctor ran about, getting the injured and unconscious up and around till he could get back to Sickbay. Penny Robinson was sobbing, and being held by her mother, who would later hear quite shocking news about her and Will. Janeway tried to digest it all, while Chakotay found that his final victory over Seska was a bittersweet one, yet again. John Robinson looked around.
"Has Don called from Sickbay, yet?"
As quietly as he knew how, Don West stalked the shuttlebay, phaser in hand. But as something blunt struck him across the back of the head, he knew he'd been found out.
"Reaaallly, Ma-jor. The idea that you could ever outsmart Doctor Zachary Smith. Sadly, your death, while it would delight me to no small end, would put legs on their inevitable pursuit. So I merely choose to place myself and my shuttle behind a Level-ten force field as I make my final preparations. Who knows? Perhaps I'll even seek out Mizzz Seska's Kazon. Keep them rolling along, as it were."
As Smith chuckled at his own horrible joke from behind the imagined safety of his force-field, Don West slowly got up, prepared to end five years of waiting to do what he felt he should have been allowed to do to begin with.
"Funniest thing, ya know Smith? Tom Paris found this historical reference about a man named Zachary Smith, from his universe. Seems he was a lot like you, working for everybody and everything, from Adam to Saddam. A terrorist's terrorist, a spy's spy."
Never looking at his nemesis, Smith kept on with his work.
"What izzz your pointless point, Major? I am a busy man."
Don shrugged.
"Well, that is what this Zachary Smith claimed when he was captured. But two centuries later, they dug up evidence that told the truth. He had never worked even semi-officially for anyone. He was a gadfly for bad guys, so to speak. A hanger-on to evil, and a lousy, stinking braggart!"
"Deww finish your jealous grunting, Major. Whoever I truly am, is it not also at long last obvious, even to you, that I am your fundamental superiohr?"
Don smiled broadly, and shook his head.
"Oh, I'm not trying to start in, Smith. I just wanted a sense of closure between us. I just wanted--"
West put his hand near a large, red, ominous button.
"---to clear the air."
Smith saw what the button did. He looked in stark terror at his mortal adversary.
"You--you wouldn't!"
Don slapped the button hard, a sneer on his face.
"My kid is going to have to ask just who Doctor Smith was!"
The bay doors opened, the outer force-fields not yet back on line. Smith began to be pulled back to oblivion, his bravado all spent. The cold and wind tore at his flesh.
"The Pain!!!!"
And Don smiled, because for once, he knew that Smith wasn't faking it. The saboteur
fell ever back, striking his head hard as he went. Safe behind the field meant to keep him back, Don saw the bay doors suddenly close. A metal pincer had struck the button once more.
Doctor Smith's comatose form was beamed directly to Sickbay. Don looked at B-9.
"Robot, why did you save him?"
The Robot's turret shook.
"Major West, it was not Doctor Smith that I was saving. Now go. Judy Robinson needs you."
Feeling taken aback that he had let Judy be alone while trying to kill another human being, Don indeed walked away from a scene that made him question a lot of things about himself. He liked very few of the answers he got.
In Sickbay, Neelix was still badly dazed. Harry and Penny were being treated for phaser burns. Tuvok actually consented to medication to aid his recovery of his usual Vulcan calm. Kes sat in meditation, afraid that she would again begin to discorporate if she dared to relax. Will was hurt but conscious, and very sore. Maureen and Kathryn were nearly exhausted. John and Chakotay had light exposure and oxygenation problems. The EMH kept rechecking his program to see if he was de-rezzing, and Judy sat back, amazed at both the fragility and the resilience of the life once again inside of her. Yet when Don finally arrived, he saw almost all of them concentrating not on themselves--but on one who was soon to die, if this was an apt term.
"Ahhh--Ma-Mayhajor West. Your chiiiild is well. She is quiiiite welll. I'm glad I was--was --was avble to helpmeet."
The Winchester hologram, which Don still thought had been based on a fictional, and not a real person, was sitting dejectedly in a corner, slowly decompiling. It was also stammering.
"It was alll so close. We alhmost l-host the child. A colloeaghue of mine once had a breakdown, watching a child die. I never truly understood his tor-homent, till just now. I'm terribly sorry, everyone. I shan't bee with you, much longer. Computer--delete backup EMH. Ladies. Ge-hentleme--"
The crying man faded forever from sight, and his tears became the tears of so many there. Captain Janeway looked at her fully restored EMH Mark One.
"Doctor--what just happened?"
The EMH was not beyond feeling pain at what had occurred.
"He was one of my engrams that I had decided to delete. I hardly need 20th Century thoracic surgery skills, after all. Plus, he was contributing to my aloofness. But then I found his love of music, and made it mine. I tinkered around a bit with his very basic program, and made an ad-hoc backup. I never intended to really use him, till Seska and Smith tried to kill me, as it were. Well, since they had attacked my other masses of engrams, I deflected their attack to one who was already an individual engram, minus an external deletion protocol. I hid in Robot till I rebooted, and the rest you know. I'm sorry, Captain. It was all done so quickly, there was no time to make you all aware of what had transpired."
Janeway looked at where the other EMH had once been.
"He didn't have emotion limiters, did he?"
The Doctor nodded, grimly.
"Some call it Rayna Kapec Syndrome, some call it Lal's Complaint. But there is a valid reason why cybernetically-dependent beings aren't just given full emotions from day one. Almost losing Miss Robinson's child was too much for him to take."
Janeway smiled.
"Well, it's good to have you back, Doctor. But your backup served with distinction--and a one hell of a lot of class!"
The Captain then hit her commbadge.
"Mister Paris? How stands the Bridge?"
Tom answered.
"We're talking four days, minimum, Captain. It's a mess."
Torres had given her similar word on the ship overall. Kathryn knew that there were about a billion other issues to be settled. But they would not be settled, then and there.
"For the next week, we will get ourselves and this ship back together. Then, we will throw a real party to celebrate our victory and to welcome our newest crew members."
Chakotay walked out of Sickbay, intending to hit his own bed for however much time he could. A crewman stopped him, the odd one he'd earlier queried about Seska.
"Commander--you're not going to believe this--but I think during the recent chaos, Voyager became lost in the Delta Quadrant!"
Chakotay began to chuckle, and just walked off laughing. The man yelled after him.
"Hey, I have scans! I can prove this! The crew deserves to know the truth!"
Some things never change, after all. Until that is, they change forever.