Child of Night (Kind der Nacht): Part 7

Author: Christy Anderson

You can contact me at kittyunlimited@go.com.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Paramount minus Ensign Christy Anderson, Tre'kent, and a few selected insignificant characters.

An apology goes out to all for the amount of time it took me to finish this, sorry I left you hanging with the corny phrase Dark Matter. Perhaps this will explain a little bit more.

Child of Night (Kind der Nacht): Part 7

The shuttle that had once been deadly silent now gleamed in brilliant light. B'Elanna moved back and forth from the cargo hold that was filled with salvaged parts from the alien ships that had blown apart. B'Elanna, now covered with grease and slime, began to bring the 'new' sensors back online. "Thank goodness we were able to boost our transporter beams," she said softly. From where I sat in the back and watched the scene before me, I nodded.

Two hours ago, I had discovered in the transcript of the alien ship's database that they were able to manipulate Dark Matter and harness its energy to do work. One of the many jobs listed was capturing other ships. They would disable a ship's propulsion systems and then use Dark Matter to propel it into a singularity. According to their database, the millions of wormholes were in various stages of decay. No matter where they led, all of them at least traveled back in time two hundred years. Some of the larger ones, it noted, went back thousands to millions of years. With a half smile, I thought about how disappointed the Captain would be.

From his console, Tom fervently worked to get the makeshift thrusters back online. "It's just like a spider's web," he commented loud enough for all of us to hear.

Inwardly, I laughed at the comparison, knowing that our predicament was not funny at all. These wormholes would have subspace barriers that obstructed a clear path through. Most large objects, even shuttlecrafts, would be trapped within the middle, unable to go through, and unable to get out. Apparently, the Briikortian owned a technology that retrieved ships from this 'spider's web'. The ships that they retrieved were salvaged for parts, and the crews either ended up as food or slaves. The Briikortian were cannibals.

When I had discovered this, B'Elanna had come up with an idea to divert all of our remaining power to the transporter systems, hoping that there might be something useful left among the debris. Like she suspected, we were able to retrieve valuable and intact components from the two ships that I had 'blown up'. With these parts, B'Elanna and Tom were able to boost our energy reserves, put together a simplified propulsion system, and restore our damaged sensors. We were all hoping that with these additions we could find a way out of the Dark Matter trap before we reached the singularity. A few more minutes, I noticed, and they would both be finished.

Tom clinked away at the propulsion console. "I'm almost ready, B'Elanna," he announced. He walked over to the back of the shuttle and stood beside her. "How are you coming?" he asked.

"A few more minutes should do it," she said without looking up from the console.

Tom shot her an encouraging look as he turned around and walked over to where I sat. He pulled out a medical tricorder and ran it over me a few times. "How are you feeling?" he asked gently.

I tried to give him a weak smile, yet I could barely turn my head to look at him. "How many more hours do I have?" I asked him directly.

Tom gave me a look of fake disbelief. "What are you taking about?" he asked in an attempt to alleviate my fears as well as his own.

"You're a very bad liar, Tom Paris," I said hoarsely.

His face became serious. "I don't know," he whispered. "I don't understand your condition. Just keep holding on until Voyager get here."

I opened my mouth to say something but collapsed back in exhaustion. I felt so helpless and useless. Tom reached out to put a comforting hand on my shoulder. "You're running a fever," he said as he helped me take off my jacket. "Just rest," he whispered.

From where B'Elanna was working, she called back to Tom. "I'm ready to bring everything back online. Let's start with the thrusters," she suggested. Tom hurried back to the front of the shuttle.

He tapped the console a few times. "Thrusters online. Changing course to a heading of 08 mark 45 at three quarters impulse." The shuttle shuddered forward for a few seconds. Suddenly it collided with something and was shoved backwards.

"What the hell was that?" B'Elanna yelled. "Bringing sensors online…" her voice trailed off. "I don't understand this. I can't get a clear reading. I'm recalibrating now and trying again…" her voice trailed off again. Abruptly she pounded a fist down at the console and cursed under her breath. "The readings are scrambled. I can't tell you what's out there. However, I'm reading massive amounts of graviton energy."

I thought about the readings and called over to B'Elanna. "It's Dark Matter," I managed to say barely above a whisper. She stared at me strangely.

Silently she pondered what I had told her. "It would make sense," she began. "They're surrounding us," she speculated, "cutting off every means of escape."

Tom turned around and caught on to her drift. "If that's the case, if we then modify a photon torpedo to emit tachyon energy every time it collides with something instead of detonating, we should get a clear picture of what the surrounding web looks like."

I nodded. "And if it doesn't hit anything…"

"We follow it out," B'Elanna interrupted. "I'm on it now."

I sat and leaned my head back against the bulkhead. My headache was growing larger and the pain echoed throughout my head. It was becoming increasingly hard to stay conscious, and I had this overwhelming desire to close my eyes- just for a moment. My vision was blurring, again. There were voices in my head, and flashbacks to times and events that I had no recollection of. All in all, I tried to keep my focus on the present, in the shuttlecraft. If my friends ever needed me, it was now. We had to get out of here alive. I silently prayed that this would work.

"Launching the torpedo," B'Elanna broadcasted. I could hear the torpedo as it collided with the surrounding Dark Matter and reflected back off of us. "I'm getting clear readings of the explosions." I looked over at her console that displayed the web of Dark Matter that surrounded us on all sides.

"We've just lost the torpedo! It left at a heading of .09 bearing mark 6.7!" she screamed.

"Laying in the course," Tom announced. "Full power to the thrusters!"

"It's working," B'Elanna cried, her voice saturated with astonishment. "I'm getting clear sensor readings."

An automated alarm went off. Tom spun around, his face full fear. "What's that?" he asked, the panic rising in his voice.

"The singularity is off our port bow. We're being pulled into the event horizon."

I couldn't take it anymore. Slowly I concentrated all of my energy to moving over to my console. I managed to stand up and tumbled onto it. Painfully I forced myself up and activated my console. "I'm reading two Briikortian ships ready for intercept," I stated faintly. I forced myself to work and launched a highly concentrated phasor beam at a large collection of cosmic dust particles. There was an immediate redox reaction and I plunged backwards. My head struck the bulkhead behind me, and B'Elanna rushed over. "What do you think you're doing?" she yelled in disbelief as she helped me back to where I had been sitting. "Just, rest, Christy. We can handle it from here."

"The two ships are disabled, B'Elanna. They're retreating, but I can't get us away from the event horizon. The explosions are pulling us in towards the singularity."

B'Elanna jumped up to my console. "I'm diverting all available power."

Another automated alarm went off, and the klaxons were ringing wildly in my ears. "It's no use. We're being pulled in at a greater rate!" Tom yelled over all of the noise.

The shuttle rocked violently, and my head brutally struck another bulkhead. The pain seared through my body as everything became dark.

I tossed and turned a few times before I was able to open my eyes. The shuttle was dark now and the red lights flashed on and off. I could see Tom sitting beside me, holding my hand tight. B'Elanna was curled up next to him like a small child. A chilling sensation flooded over me as I realized how much this was like my nightmare about the other ship. I shook my head. I am not going to die, I told myself with determination. Tom stirred and glanced over at me. "Christy! Thank God! You've gained consciousness!"

B'Elanna woke up with a jolt. She let out a heavy sigh of relief as she noticed I was awake.

"How long have I been out?" I asked as a wave of pain flamed through my mind.

"Two hours, give or take," Tom said impassively.

"Where are we?" I asked softly.

"Inside the singularity," he answered.

"We're stuck," B'Elanna chimed in. "We've wiped out half of our power reserves trying to get out. The gravity field is too strong… we'll never make it."

I fell back into silence, slowly processing the information they had given me. A threatening thought popped into my mind. "What about the Briikortian?" I asked breathlessly.

Tom shrugged. "We can't get any clear readings from the sensors inside here."

I gulped as I worked up the courage to ask my remaining question. "How long…?" I began.

"Six hours before our hull breaches," Tom answered knowingly. Even in the dim lit cabin, I could see the lone tear slip down B'Elanna's cheek as he said that.

I could feel my own tears welling up behind my eyes. It was times like this when people realized that there were so many more years to live, things to discover and accomplish, so many more things to do. My guard slipped, and I let out a small sob. My entire chest began to shudder with my oncoming sobs. One after the other, the hot tears fell down my cheeks. Tom put his arms around me and gave me a hug. "There's no need to cry," he whispered.

My chest began to ache, and my labored breathing grew worse. The pain stopped the tears cold in their tracks. Tom back away and tilted my face up to his. He gave me a questioning look. "How's the pain?" he asked as he pulled out the tricorder. His face was grim as he read the readings.

"What's wrong?" I asked without hesitation.

"There's severe stress building up along your primary nerve. It's almost reached critical."

"And when it does?" I asked quietly.

"It'll kill you," he answered in precisely measured words. The air became thick with the silence and tension. Two more tears slipped down B'Elanna's cheek.

"We're all going to die," she whispered hauntingly. I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my back. The air in the shuttle was uncomfortably warm and humid.

No one spoke a word. We all continued to shift our gazes around to different points on the floor, and on the ceiling. The shuttle intermittently rocked powerfully. "Turbulence," Tom muttered.

O how I wished it was turbulence! All I could imagine was the forces of gravity slowly crushing us. We had all been through the worst of times just to come to an agonizing end. The cynicism of that statement thrashed through me like a knife. Why couldn't I pull off a miraculous escape now? None of my life's work was worth anything to me if I couldn't save myself. Tre'kent, Naomi, Samantha, my father… so many people to live for. There were too many things that I could have done. If only, … if only, … if only.

From beside me, Tom exhaled a large sigh. "So what do you plan to do if we get back B'Elanna?" he asked softly.

"I would to finish the warp core diagnostics," she said slowly.

Tom shot her an irritated look. "Really, B'Elanna. If you can't be honest at your death, you have nothing to live for."

"What's that supposed to mean?" B'Elanna shot back defensively.

"You've been avoiding me since the day we met. Don't you even regret that we haven't even become friends?" he asked angrily.

"The day I regret that, Paris, I'll be dead," she said seriously.

Tom laughed. "Well at least it was worth a try." The shuttle dramatically shifted again. "So what about you, Christy?"

I thought about it silently for a while before I opened my mouth to speak. "I'd appreciate all that life has offered me. I'd get home to tell my Father and my Mother that I loved them. I'd tell Tre'kent how much he's meant to me. I'd… I'd…" the words came tumbling out one after the other with great speed. A few more tears ran down my cheeks.

I fell silent and shut my eyes. "What about you, Tom?" I asked hoarsely as I tried to calm my increasing anxiety.

"I guess… that…I'd reconcile my differences with my Dad," he said hesitantly.

His words helped seal the quiet atmosphere. Occasionally the sound of B'Elanna's muffled sobs would reach my ears, and my heart broke for all of us.

"No one will ever know how we died," she whispered.

I scoffed silently. I should have been prepared for this. I had dreamed about these moments every night for weeks. Still there was something left in the back of my mind, stubborn determination. I could not give up. I was not going to end it all right here, right now. I struggled to my feet, but fell backwards because I did not have any more strength left. Stubbornly I tried again and again. I was going to make it. Tom stared at my strange actions with curiosity.

"What are you doing?" he asked finally.

"I'm not sure," I admitted roughly as I pushed myself up with the last ounce of my strength. This time, I was rewarded by tumbling forward onto my knees and having my face slap the ground hard. Tom and B'Elanna rushed over and helped me to my feet.

"Are you feeling all right?" Tom asked.

I nodded and lifted my arm to point over to my console. "Take me over there," I commanded feebly.

Tom and B'Elanna hobbled me over to my console. I put my arms out in front to brace myself. Slowly they backed away and allowed me to balance myself on the console. I activated the console with the tap of a button and surveyed the remnants of our arsenal. Not finding anything of value, I sifted through the list of damaged shuttle systems. Still, everything seemed to be on its last leg. I searched my mind for anything that I could use to get us out of here. Inaudibly, I muttered under my breath. Nothing was coming to my rescue. A wave of pain went through my brain, and unconsciously I almost lifted my hand to grab the side of my head.

Inwardly I winced and tried to hold back the tears of pain. Suddenly a piece of text caught my eye- three multispatial probes. I began to tap the console to prepare one for launch. Tom, who was watching me over my shoulder, finally spoke up. "What are you doing, Christy?" he asked.

"Launching a probe," I informed him.

Tom's face showed genuine concern. "Christy, it's no use. The gravity field is too strong. The probe will be crushed within minutes."

"I know," I gritted through my teeth, "but it's small enough to go through to the other side of the wormhole."

B'Elanna came over and grabbed my arm. "Christy, there's nobody on the other side to help. When you were still unconscious, we scanned the singularity. It leads to the Beta Quadrant… seven hundred years before Voyager was ever launched."

"All the more reason to launch it," I replied as I thought about the Captain's overpowering desire to get us home.

B'Elanna squeezed her hand tighter around my arm. "And what do you plan to do?" she asked downheartedly.

"I'm sending out a warning to Starfleet. Telling them to never launch Voyager. In a few moments, we can all wake up in our beds at home. None of this would have ever happened," I responded, frantically trying to force back the tears that were welling up behind my eyes.

B'Elanna gave me a long intense stare. "Do you believe that I want to wake up as a Maquis tomorrow?" she whispered hauntingly. She paused until she was certain that her words had sunk in. Silently she turned her face away. "I don't care if I die here, Christy, but I've had it better on Voyager than I would have ever had it in the Alpha Quadrant."

Tom came up from behind her and put an arm on my shoulder to stop me from hitting the last button. "I don't wish to wake up in jail either, Christy. I was given a second chance, and all that might change as soon as you hit this button… I've become a different person, and I do not ever want to see that other Tom Paris again…" his voice trailed off as the hand on my arm became heavier. Their words were tormenting and insentience I inched my hand away from the button. "Just think about how far you have come, Christy. You are not the same person you were when you came onto Voyager. You've discovered what you can achieve; you've seen the other side of Starfleet. You would be erasing all of that as well. Think about the others, Tre'kent…, and Kes …, and Neelix… You would dramatically change all of their lives. Are you sure you want to do that?"

I withdrew my hand farther away from the button in disgust. I couldn't do it… I couldn't bring myself to hurt so many innocents. All I could think of were the countless number of lives I would change as soon as I hit that button. I felt nauseated and collapsed down in a heap of misery. The tears poured from my eyes and I started to scream in German. Why did it all have to end this way? Ich bin nicht evincißle, dort bin immer ein Punkt des Todes, von an überschreiten. Weil zu allen Sachen, gibt es ein Ende… I am not invincible; there will always be a point of death, of passing on. Because to all things, there is an end…

B'Elanna came over to help sit me up and to comfort me. I could see the tearstains that ran down her cheeks. "Voyager will come," she promised.

We all sat back in a circle in silence. By now, the pain in my head was fading away, but that fact frightened me all the more. I could see almost see Tuvok in the corner of the shuttle advising me. "In accepting the inevitable, we find peace." Yet this situation was different, and I was not able to accept the fact that my life ended here. Ich möchte nicht sterben… I do not want to die…

The shuttle seemed to be more dimly lit, and B'Elanna had tried her best to adjust the atmospheric controls to keep us comfortable. Yet as I looked around we were still all sweating. Finally B'Elanna spoke up. "If we get out of this, Christy," she began, " I want you on my Engineering team."

I almost gagged. "B'Elanna?" I questioned as I raised my eyebrows.

She smiled peacefully. "You disabled four Briikortian ships, helped design a stable shield matrix, and downloaded the alien database… You've help pull us through most of this mission. And maybe, you don't know it, but you'd make a great engineer."

"Thanks," I whispered gratefully.

B'Elanna turned her head to Tom, her eyes glistening with tears. "And if we get out of this, Paris, I promise I'll spend more time getting to know you," B'Elanna said as she placed her head on his shoulder. Her vulnerability shone through her hard exterior, just like it was in my dream… my dream…

I thought back to the PADD that still sat in my quarters, the PADD that Harry had carried across the bridge between the two ships before the other Voyager had exploded. It was all that I had left of the other Christy's short-lived life, yet it was a small piece of evidence. What would be left to prove that I had once lived beside the memories that other people would carry with them? A small seed of a brilliant idea began to grow in my mind. "Our last words," I murmured.

B'Elanna shot straight up. "What?" she asked in puzzlement.

"I'm launching that probe," I said as I made an attempt to get on my feet.

"What?" Tom repeated in disbelief.

"We should have some record of our lives…" I said softly.

B'Elanna shook her head. "We can't send out a warning, Christy," she cautioned.

"You're right," I quipped, "but we can send our a quote, our last words."

My two companions were silent for a while. "A quote?" Tom asked.

"What would we say?" B'Elanna asked curiously.

We discussed the idea for a few minutes, weighing the pros and cons. Tom checked the database to confirm that it was most likely that no one would discover the probe until forty years before Voyager was launched. However, it was practical to assume that whenever Voyager was able to enter the nebula and the quantum foam, they would pick up the automated distress call from the other side of the wormhole. If only for this very purpose, they could download our last words and match our initials to our face. We could offer a befitting end to our careers.

Each of us was strangely comforted by the fact that even if we did die, we would have left a legacy behind us. The idea, that most normally would have seemed absurd, was now the most inviting option. An open debate arose to decide what we should say. Finally, together, we wrote what seemed like a positive and inspiring quote. One that could help our friends and dear ones left on Earth move on with their lives. It was an anonymous vote that I should be the one to record the message.

From the corner of my eye, I saw B'Elanna tapping away at her console, signaling me with an acute nod. I cleared my throat and wiped the tears from my eyes, trying to be brave. With a quiver in my voice I started uncertainly. "To seek out new worlds, to investigate new cultures, to explore the expanse of space, to be led by the stars in search of home— the deep conviction of true Voyagers. L.T.P., L.B.T., E.C.A."

B'Elanna hit a button to stop recording. "Launching probe," she informed us all faintly. Tom helped me back down to sitting on the floor and pulled out his medical tricorder. "Feeling better?" he asked.

I nodded. "I can't feel the pain anymore," I admitted. "I'm so scared."

"It'll be all right. Even Einstein couldn't get us out of this one," Tom offered.

Something in my mind snapped. "What did you say?" I asked swiftly.

Tom furrowed his eyebrows. "Even Einstein couldn't get us out of this one," he repeated in puzzlement.

"Get my bag over there!" I commanded breathlessly. Tom obeyed and placed the bag in my lap. I recklessly searched through the bag for the PADD that I had used to download all sorts of information from Voyager's database. I found the PADD and began to scroll down to a selection on the Theory of Relativity by Albert Einstein.

B'Elanna came over to see what the fuss was all about. "The Theory of Relativity," she read over my shoulders. "What's this?" she asked.

"It might be our salvation…" I replied as I scrolled down to the calculations. Quickly I read it over again, to make sure that I had missed not even one single character of information. Satisfied, I looked up into their questioning faces and began to explain. "Einstein stated that a person on earth never returned to the same point in space from year to year. He could return to the same coordinates, but it would be exactly one year later. He then began to explain time as the fourth dimension. He speculated on the possibility of time travel, and in theory, it worked."

B'Elanna leaned in closer, completely engrossed in what I was saying. I shook my head as I looked over the calculations. This had to get us out of here. I took a deep breath and delivered the bad news. "The mathematics was flawless, only there was an unknown variable that Einstein could never define. To make time travel work, you had to add in an extra variable. As our knowledge about space and black holes grew, people added onto his theory. One of the most well known additions was the antigravity field. A scientist speculated, that if a person wanted to live going through a wormhole, he needed an antigravity field to prevent being crushed. But all these additions were added around the extra variable! Eventually they were discarded and Starfleet came up with high powered thrusters, impulse engines, and warp drives to survive going through wormholes."

"But we don't have that now!" Tom interrupted.

"Which leaves us back at square one with only antigravity to save us!" B'Elanna piped in. "If we could successfully create an antigravity field around the ship, the we could propel ourselves out of here."

"But we need to define the extra variable," I reminded her.

"That should be easy," Tom volunteered, "we have thousands of more elements than they had in their day."

B'Elanna's eyes lit up at the challenge. "Let me see the calculations," she requested. I handed her the PADD and watched her face as she studied it. "As I understand it, X wasn't one thing, but many things that behaved in different ways," she said. I nodded.

"It seems that way," I replied.

"Let's see…" her voice trailed off. "As we add the uranium and the plutonium together, we create a compound that doubles the attraction of gravity. If we add dilithium as the X, we can create a field that doubles the disattraction of gravity. Now, if we add in the helium, we've counteracted all of the other calculations, and we've repelled all gravity up to 80%." Tom grabbed the PADD from her hands.

"If we constantly add small quantities of beryllium from our shield matrix, then we should boost the percentage up to 100 and be able to propel ourselves out!" he yelled. "Let's get started…"

The two of them sprang up and began to work. From the front of the shuttle Tom boosted the illumination of the cabin to full. "Our power reserves are almost gone, B'Elanna," he announced. "If this is going to work, we're going to have to give it every last ounce of power we have, even life support."

B'Elanna's face barely flinched as she nodded. "Let's hope Voyager is in the vicinity," she said wistfully.

I blinked my eyes a few times, the desire to rest more overpowering than ever. I had to keep awake for a few more minutes, just a few more. I knew that falling asleep could be fatal, but I was very unsure of how long I could maintain my self-discipline. Frantically concerned that I wouldn't be conscious in a few moments, I motioned B'Elanna over. "The beryllium will make our shield configuration unstable," I divulged. "You'll have to control it manually."

I looked up at her in desperation. She gave me a confident nod before she silently went back to work. Without anything left to do I rested my head back and shut my eyes. The voices and frightening events that had played through my mind before weren't there anymore. I couldn't feel the pain, and I couldn't move. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. My thoughts were chaotic and my heart was beating faster and faster. And then there was peace, a very soothing peace.

I let myself fall into that peace faster and faster until there was the calming silence. So this was what it was like to die…, I mused. Christy? a voice called. I pulled back from the peace. I knew that voice; it was Tre'kent. Hold on… the voice encouraged. We're coming for you. His voice pulled me from the oncoming envelope of peace. I pulled away harder and harder. I had to get to the surface… I was suffocating… I couldn't breathe! I was being smothered! Just hold on… the voice coaxed. I rebuked myself and pulled away harder and harder from the oncoming peace. I needed air! Finally my instincts kicked in.

The shield modulation is 9.72193! I screamed. 9.72193… 9.72193… 9.72193… 9.72193…9.72193…

I couldn't breathe anymore. I couldn't think. Everything was slowing down, slowing down, growing darker, and darker. What lied at the end? There was nothing…

To be continued…