I'm so sorry it has taken me so long to update this story! I've had a big bout of writer's block which is finally easing up!
Thank you to Maja, jewlz sheridan, Mithras151, TheVulcanPrincess,Asthore and LynnEGib for the reviewa!!
Part Two - Chapter Three
Chakotay and Harry quickly ran through their pre-flight onboard the Delta Flyer Cuillin.
"Chakotay to the Bridge. De-pressurise the Shuttlebay and open the space doors."
"Aye sir."
"Cuillin to Catalan and Benmore. We'll take the lead and you follow in a standard alpha formation. Try to maintain radio silence but keep an open com channel."
"Aye sir," was the curt response from both Lyssa and Vorik.
"Both the other Flyers are ready to go," Harry informed Chakotay.
Chakotay nodded, taking the Cuillin out of the bay.
"You sure you don't mind giving me a hand?" Naomi said to Megan and Jenny Delaney.
"Not at all Naomi," Megan – or was it Jenny – smiled back at the cadet. "Stellar Cartography's pretty much useless until we can get more data about the area of space we're in, and we need astrometrics to gather the data."
With Celes off the ship, Naomi had been left solely in charge of Astrometrics which, given Voyager's new location, was easily one of the most crucial departments on the ship. Naomi had managed to recruit the help of the "Stellar Cartography Sirens" to help her compile a more detailed map of their sector of the galaxy.
"We've already amassed a huge amount of information about this area of space," Jenny – no, Megan – said enthusiastically. "It seems our captors unwittingly deposited a lot of data into our memory banks."
"They must have done that so they could pre-program the autopilot to take them directly to certain locations." Jenny reasoned.
"Sure looks that way – Wait...there's an encrypted data block."
"Run encryption algorithm fourteen beta kappa to see if you can gain access to it," Naomi advised.
Nodding, Jenny tried to implement the sequence.
"Unable to complete sequence due to pathway incoherence in the secondary astrometric command processors." the computer informed them.
"Damned gel packs." Jenny sighed.
Walking around to the steps up to the raised level, Naomi removed a bulkhead to examine the damaged systems. As she removed the panel, a small EM bolt hit her hand.
"Aah!" she shrieked, clutching at her hand.
"Naomi?! You okay?" Megan rushed up to her.
"I think so," Naomi said, wincing at the sight of her hand, which was badly burned. "My hands hurts pretty bad."
"Megan, take her to sickbay. I'll get a crew down to look at the damage."
Megan nodded, but Naomi shook her head. "We need this map as soon as possible...I'll go myself. It's only a few decks up."
A few minutes later, Naomi arrived in sickbay. She had her eyes screwed shut, trying to block out the painful sensations in her hand.
"Computer, activate the EMH."
"Unable to comply. The EMH system has been disabled."
Naomi opened her eyes, and saw Tom Paris on the floor, slowly blinking back to consciousness.
"Commander?!"
"Wow...uh..." he said, clearly disoriented.
"Wildman to bridge, Admiral Janeway has escaped!"
"It looks like the section where the phaser array is isn't being guarded as heavily as the others," Celes informed Lyssa while scanning beyond the door they were sat at.
"They probably haven't figured out how to work it yet, or they're not sure what it is."
Celes nodded, "There's only three people in this section. We can stun them, set up the transport enhancers and beam it onto the Benmore."
"Only problem with that plan is that we need someone to be on the Benmore to initiate transport," Lyssa sighed.
"We could contact one of the other teams...See if either of them are still onboard their Flyers."
Lyssa nodded. While they'd been told to maintain silence, she knew it was a better idea then physically carrying the phaser bank back to the shuttle.
"Campbell to Vorik."
"Vorik here."
"Commander, are you still in your Flyer?"
"Affirmative. Ensign Teg and I are yet to find a secure dock for our vessel."
"We've located the phaser array. There are only a few people nearby. We could set up the transport enhancers and you could beam it onboard the Catalan. We could then return to the Benmore and do the same for you when you locate the photon torpedoes."
"That would be preferable to both our teams splitting up. We will hold our position until we can transport the phaser array to our vessel."
"Thanks Vorik. Campbell out."
Lyssa turned to Celes, knowing how nervous the young Bajoran could be.
"You up for this?"
"After being tied up by them for the best part of the day? I'm more than ready for a little payback!"
"Set your phaser to stun. I'll go in first. You watch my butt and keep a lookout in case our scans have failed to pick up anyone."
"Yes sir."
Lyssa gave Celes a quick nod, before tapping the panel of the door separating them from the phaser bank.
Celes held back as Lyssa ducked away from the fire from an energy weapon. Doing a ground roll, Lyssa immediately shot one of the guards before spinning round and shooting another. Celes realised the other guard was about to sneak up on Lyssa but she shot him before he got the chance to fire. Both Lyssa and Celes remained still for a minute, before Celes once again checked her tricorder.
Sighing and glaring at one of the disabled reptilian guards, Lyssa got up and quickly made a bee-line for the more than a little conspicuous federation component. At over a metre in height and two metres in width, it was easy to locate.
Celes quickly grabbed the tripodal transport enhancers they'd left at the doorway and set them up.
"Campbell to Vorik. Enhancers are in place."
Standing back, Lyssa and Celes watched the component disappear in the familiar white-blue glow of the transporter.
"Vorik to Campbell. We have the aft phaser array secured in our cargo hold."
"Thank you Vorik. We're returning to the Benmore. Hail us when you've located the photon torpedoes."
"I take umbrage to being deactivated with such ease," Doreen huffed as B'Elanna buzzed around her. "How long will it be before I can physically pick up objects again? I cannot do my job if I am unable to hold a tricorder!"
"It won't be long Doreen. Whatever the Admiral did to disable your program destabilised your matrix. You'll be back to normal within an hour or so."
"What happened?" Sekaya asked Tom who was attending to Naomi's hand.
"I'd been talking to her and told her I needed some more samples for Doreen's tests. The minute I pressed the hypospray to her neck she elbowed me. Knocked me out cold."
B'Elanna smirked a little at her husband, "You're slipping flyboy. It's one thing for me, the half-Klingon being able to beat you up a little bit. It's quite another when a five foot five, forty-something can deck you."
"That's if she's even human," Tom sighed, not in the mood for a joke. "She had me convinced she was Kathryn Janeway...Oh who am I kidding, I had myself convinced before I'd even looked at the test results."
"Maybe she had to do what she did?" Naomi remarked. "Maybe there's even more going on here than we think."
B'Elanna looked at Naomi, "Maybe you're right."
"No...No way," said Tom, "There is no way Kathryn Janeway could knock me out...Not a chance!"
"Sure Flyboy," B'Elanna grinned.
Tom leveled a mock glare at his better half.
"Better check up on our guests in the brig just to double-check."
Tom nodded, "Paris to Ayala."
No response.
"Mike, please respond...Computer, locate Lieutenant Michael Ayala."
"Lieutenant Ayala is in the Brig."
"Security. Send a team to cargo bay two."
"Vorik to Campbell. We have located twenty of our missing photon torpedoes."
"Twenty? We had thirty in our complement."
"I am aware of that, but we have been unable to locate the other ten. There is not enough room on our Flyer for all the torpedoes."
"Captain Chakotay doubted we'd get many of the photons back, given how basic their operation is," Celes interjected.
Lyssa nodded, before responding to Vorik.
"Ensign Tal will transport over to the Catalan to assist with the transport."
"Acknowledged. We will divide the torpedoes into two batches and will hail you when we need to request transport. We will be using micro-enhancers, so please change to a higher bandwidth to detect our signal."
"Yes sir."
Lyssa quickly calibrated the transporter sensors.
"You ready to beam over?" She asked Celes who simply nodded.
Lyssa input the commands, and Celes disappeared in the beam.
"Tal to Campbell. I'm onboard the Catalan."
"Vorik to Campbell. Transport enhancers are in place."
"Acknowledged. Initiating transport."
A moment later, the Benmore was seemingly filled with torpedoes.
"Campbell to Vorik. I've got them."
Campbell waited a few moments for Vorik to respond.
"Acknowledged Lieutenant. The remaining photons have been beamed to the Catalan."
Campbell smiled, locking on to Celes to bring her back.
"Why does this always happen to me?" Mike sighed in defeat.
Andrews smirked a little, "So you're always on brig duty during breakouts...You must have friendly and trustworthy face."
"Andrews. I want your team to search this ship deck by deck. Find out where the Kabai went," Tom ordered.
After Andrews and the other officers left, Mike Ayala turned to Tom.
"Tom I'm sorry...I don't know how they managed it."
"Mike it's okay...Janeway...or whoever she really was, managed to escape while I was there, so don't feel guilty. We'll find them."
"Telfer to Paris. A Type Eight Shuttlecraft is missing."
"What? How did we not detect it?"
"Apparently it's launch was concealed using a level twelve security clearance."
"Level twelve. Admirals and above," Tom sighed.
"Danzil. Any luck locating those quantum torpedoes yet?" Kathryn asked the young man.
"Not yet."
"We have to locate them quickly. If we're to make an ally of Voyager," one of the other Kabai, a man named Corval noted.
"I'm not doing this to make Voyager an ally," Kathryn said, "Obviously I'd rather we were allies from the get-go, but after they're here for a few weeks, they won't have much choice."
"Won't you be wanting to rejoin your old crew?" Danzil asked.
"I wish I could...Somehow I don't think there's a place for me there anymore...There's also the fact I assaulted Tom and Mike Ayala...Something I definitely wouldn't have done before my 'reincarnation'."
Sensing the sadness in Kathryn's voice, Danzil turned to her, "We can cut you loose when your workers' contract expires. That's only an econ away."
"I don't know if they'll have me back..."
Their conversation was interrupted by the beeping of the aft console.
"I've located the quantum torpedoes."
"Take us in."
"The Benmore and the Catalan are returning to Voyager," Harry informed Chakotay."But I still can't get a lock on the computer core."
The computer core was far too big a component for Chakotay and Harry to carry off the array. In fact B'Elanna had had to cut out the flyer's mini-medlab in order to make room for the supercomputer.
Harry's console beeped. "What the? A Type Eight shuttlecraft is heading towards the array?"
"Can we hail Voyager?" Chakotay asked.
"No sir."
Harry's console beeped again. "I'm reading a number of Kabai on the shuttle, and one human – Admiral Janeway."
"Get that computer core beamed onboard. Be creative if you have to. I'm charging our weapons. We're going after them."