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.
Christy wakes up on Voyager as she's about to discover something dark from her past…
Child of Night (Kind der Nacht): Part 8
The darkness in my mind was ever so gradually beginning to lift. As my mind began to wander in search of answers, I became conscious of the pain that burned through my body. I wanted to free myself from the pain, but in spite of myself, I couldn't. As the darkness began to lift further, I fluttered my eyes open to stare into a bright light. For a moment, I was temporarily blinded, but little by little my eyes adjusted to the intensity of the lights. Slowly I could make out the forms of several people, knowing them all just by their silhouettes- Tom, B'Elanna, the Captain, the Commander, Tuvok, the Doctor, Tre'kent… As the details of their faces began to fill in, I realized with a start that I was alive. Despite the physical protests of the Doctor, I sat straight up to look at everybody that had surrounded me. "We survived…" I whispered with awe and amazement.
Tom gave a light chuckle as he beamed a smile. "You never fail to amaze me with what you can accomplish," he said cheerfully.
My eyes briefly caught his gaze, as I glanced about me. With increasing anxiety, I continued to look about in astonishment. A strong hand on my shoulder gently pushed me back down to the biobed. "Lie down, Ensign, you're not well," a sarcastic voice snapped. The Doctor leaned over me, and ran a medical tricorder up and down. He audibly mused, then stormed off to the other side of Sick Bay.
The hand on my shoulder offered a gentle squeeze. "Well done, Christy, well done…" the Captain murmured softly. I looked up at her to see a small tear in her eye. Behind her stood Tuvok and the Commander, as impassive as always. Looking around at the rest of the group, it looked as if they were attending a funeral rather than coming to visit me. They all looked so strange. My heart began to quicken as I had an awful feeling that something was wrong. Gathering up my courage, I drew in a sharp breath.
"How long have I been out?" I asked hoarsely.
"Nine days," Tom answered quietly, an uncharacteristic melancholy expression on his face. The silence descended as the tension in the room began to thicken.
Finally, Chakotay stepped up from behind the Captain Janeway. "Captain, with all due respect, I think it's time I returned to the Bridge."
Tuvok stepped in beside him. "I'll return with you," he said monotonously as he looked at the Captain.
With a look of dismissal, she gave a slight nod. Chakotay turned towards me. "Get well, Ensign," he said as they both exited Sick Bay.
Suddenly the Doctor flew from his office. "I hate to break up this cheerful party, but it's time everybody got going. My patient is tired," he said flatly. "Captain," he added, "I would like for you to come over here before you leave." He turned around and went back into his office as the Captain followed closely behind.
Picking up on the Doctor's notion, Tom leaned over and gave me a hug. "I think its time I got going," he said swiftly. "I'll come back and see you later, I promise."
As Tom stepped away, B'Elanna came up. She leaned down to give me a hug. "I have to catch up on the work I missed in Engineering. I'll be sure to stop by Sick Bay later." The doors swished behind them as they left.
As the group dispersed, I looked to the one lone figure. From the beginning, Tre'kent had patiently stood a distance away from the group. He now came up to take his turn. He forced a little smile as he planted a kiss on my forehead. "Samantha sends a get well soon, and an apology that she couldn't be here when you woke up," he said gently. I gave a small laugh.
"Tell her I'm all right," I replied.
"I will," he said slowly. "You gave me quite a scare, Christy. I was so worried…"
The Doctor cleared his throat loudly. "When I requested everyone to leave, that included you, Mr. Tre'kent," he interrupted hastily.
Tre'kent's eyes twinkled. "I'll stop by Sick Bay as soon as the Doctor lets me…" he said as he turned and left.
As soon as the doors swished behind him, the Doctor came up to the biobed, Captain Janeway in tow. Both of them wore unpleasant expressions on their faces. I looked at them nervously, my anxiety increasing. "So when can I leave Sick Bay, Doctor?" I asked uneasily.
"It might be a few days, Christy," the Captain answered as she moved to the other side of the biobed.
"I have to run a few tests," the Doctor added, "and you need your rest," he continued.
"Tests?" I squeaked. "Why?"
"You were hit with a bionuclear pulse, Ensign…"
"I know," I interjected.
The Doctor gave me an impatient look before he continued. "It rewrote your entire DNA," he resumed.
"I know," I said again emphatically.
The Doctor's anger began to visibly build; thankfully, the Captain stepped in just in time. "Christy, the new DNA sequence was stable…" her voice trailed off as she let me take the information in.
"Stable?" I repeated questioningly. "That's an astronomical impossibility." She nodded.
"However, the Doctor has restored your original DNA," she added.
I furrowed my eyebrows, dangerously unsure of where this conversation was going.
The Doctor came up from behind me with his medical tricorder beeping. His face looked smug, but he soon enough replaced the ridiculous expression with a scowl. "Thanks to Mister Paris, of course. I wouldn't have known where to start if he hadn't downloaded both base sequences into this medical tricorder," the Doctor said placidly. He ran the medical tricorder up and down as he reached for a hypospray.
"Christy," the Captain continued, "the Doctor still wants to run some tests. He found traces of the new DNA sequence in some of your old tissue cells."
"Callous tissue, brainstem cells, and your hemoglobin proteins to be exact," the Doctor interrupted. "I find the situation puzzling, and I'm hoping that some deep tissue tests will shed some light on the matter."
I was completely befuddled. "Callous tissue, brainstem cells and hemoglobin proteins? What are you saying, Doctor?" I asked as I put a hand on his arm to get his attention.
For a brief moment, his face betrayed a very concerned expression that gave way to my fears and doubts. Swiftly, his subroutines replaced it with an empty expression. "Those cells are very old, and I don't know how they have traces of the other sequence, your genetics may have been altered in some way before. I'm not certain, and I won't be certain of anything until I run some tests," he said vaguely as if he were trying to hold damaging information back.
I turned and looked at the Captain in confusion, hoping that she would enlighten me as to what was going on. She paused for a moment before cautiously speaking her carefully chosen words. "We found a Briikortian spy device aboard the shuttlecraft," she filled in. "Tom thinks that this might be why the Briikortian knew so much about all of you. And B'Elanna has been running extensive test on it in Engineering to see if it could have sent scanner readings to the ship or possibly have put out some sort of radiation. Until then, the scans will help us to determine what happened."
"What happened?" I asked softly as I looked from one to the other to see who was going to field my next question. But as they both remained silent, I nodded gravely, knowing that they would tell me when they thought the time was right. "How long will these tests take, Doctor?" I asked in a desperate attempt to keep my mind off their peculiar behavior.
The Doctor gave me a curious expression. "Two days," he said impassively, "and you'll have to be sedated."
I almost gagged, and immediately opened my mouth to defend myself.
"These scans and tests are sensitive, Ensign," he said before I could even find the words.
I nodded as he injected the hypospray into my neck. I allowed myself to be laid back onto the biobed. The Captain gave me an encouraging smile. "Compared to the mission, this should be fairly simple," she said matter-of-factly.
Sleepily, I nodded. "I'm sorry we didn't find a way home," I murmured throatily.
Her smile widened. "Not this time, Ensign, but we'll make it home the next time," she said as I dropped off to sleep.
My eyes fluttered open to find that Sick Bay was much more dimly lit than before. My head was pounding as I forced myself to sit up. I looked around to find that Sick Bay was deserted. "Computer," I commanded, "activate Emergency Medical Hologram."
The Doctor suddenly shimmered into view. "Ah, Ensign, you're up," he said sardonically. He pulled a hypospray off of a medical tray and injected it into my neck. "How do you feel?" he asked.
"As well as can be expected, I suppose," I said scratchily.
"This should counteract any pain you might be in this morning."
I looked at him curiously. "What were the results of the test?" I asked hesitantly as the lump began to form in the back of my throat.
Caught off guard, he stared at me and became flustered. "I'm not sure, yet, I'm still evaluating the results. You'll be the first to hear from me when I do."
I painfully raised my arm to rub my eyes. All of my muscles were stiff and sore.
"By the way," the Doctor said too cheerfully as he worked to prepare a second hypospray, "I took the liberty to administer the second treatment."
I raised my eyebrows. "The second treatment?"
"Yes, to counteract the telepathic link…" his voice trailed off as he looked up to see if I had caught his drift.
"Oh," I said when it finally occurred to me what he was talking about.
"I had already administered the second treatment to Tre'kent. You should have come into Sick Bay to receive yours before you went on that mission," he babbled away, under the spell of his own voice. "As far as…"
"Doctor," I interrupted sternly, "Am I dismissed from Sick Bay?"
"I suppose, but I'd rather you'd have someone to take you to your quarters."
I glared irately. "I can get myself to Deck three," I growled as I tried to boost myself off the biobed. Without warning, my uncooperative arms collapsed beneath me and I smacked back down on the biobed hard.
Shaking his head, he turned away from me and took a few steps into the center of the room. "Doctor to Mr. Tre'kent," he said as he hit his Comm badge.
"Tre'kent here, Doctor," Tre'kent replied pleasantly.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Your 'girlfriend' has been cleared to leave Sick Bay," he intoned, the sarcasm spilling out of his tone.
"I'm on my way," Tre'kent replied.
The Doctor turned back around and injected a second hypospray into my neck. "This should help you with sleeping, Ensign. Keep in mind that I have no intention of clearing you for duty shits for a couple of days. You need to rest."
I glared daggers at him as I struggled to prop myself up. "I should be getting back to work," I insisted.
He gave me an emotionless and innocent face. "You have to go through me to be cleared, and I promised you I won't clear you until I'm satisfied that you've had enough sleep," he said as he walked off into his office and deactivated himself
The doors swished open and Tre'kent walked in. He came up and planted a kiss on my forehead. "How are you feeling?" he asked quietly.
"I'll be feeling a great deal better the sooner I leave here."
He laughed as he helped me off the biobed to see if I could get my bearing. The moment my legs touched the floor, on the other hand, they crumpled beneath me. Quickly Tre'kent swooped down and picked me up.
I shook my head in disgust at my own helplessness as Tre'kent carried me out the door and up to my quarters.
When we reached my dim lit quarters, the drug the Doctor had given me had already begun to set in. Submissively, I let Tre'kent put me down on my bed and tuck me in as if I were a small child. As my head hit the pillow, I realized just how tired I was. Tre'kent kissed me on the cheek before he turned around to go. "Stay," I whispered drowsily.
Tre'kent gave me an omniscient look. "Only if you promise you'll sleep."
Giving a small yawn I nodded as I watched him sit down at the table in the darkened corner and pull out a PADD. "What are you doing?" I asked as I heard the small beeps.
"Studying," he answered, "now sleep."
I forced my arms to prop myself up. "Studying what? Maybe I can help," I offered.
"I thought you were sleeping," Tre'kent hissed, "I'll wake you up if the Doctor calls."
With a heavy sigh, I dropped back down into the bed, and closed my eyes, the constant sounds of the PADD lulling me to sleep as I took one last small look at the stars.
"Doctor to Ensign Anderson," the Comm system interrupted nearly three hours later. I shot up out of bed fully alert.
"Tre'kent here," a close voice answered as I went to hit my Comm badge.
"Would you please have Ensign Anderson report to Sick Bay immediately, I need to speak with her right away. It's extremely urgent," the Doctor's panicked voice informed us over the Comm system.
Immediately, I hit my Comm badge, beating Tre'kent to the draw. "I'm on my way."
To be continued…
