Rumble on Voyager. Written by Enterprise1701_d
Chapter four
Jack left through the Jeffries tubes, and slowly made his way to main engineering. The large two-story room was located on deck ten, and was connected to the Jeffries tube system. Unfortunately for Jack, when he got there, he found that there were ten aliens guarding the room, and more might be hiding outside his view.
Forcing himself to breathe slowly, Jack prepared himself for the fight. Using his advantage, he carefully memorized where each of the aliens were, and tried to come up with the best way of disposing of them. Checking his phaser to see if its shielding was in place, Jack ran over his mental list one more time.
I'll be coming out of the Jeffries tube on the second level of main engineering. Three aliens are near the main entrance. Shoot them. Roll to the right, shoot alien overlooking main engineering. Run down width of the room, shooting the five aliens located in the main work area, two near main reactor console, two at subspace controls, and one as backup for the three near main entrance.
Then wait for three seconds, to check for reinforcements. If reinforcements come, they'll either come out of the chief engineer's office, or through the main door. Using my superior tactical position, they'll be dead when they enter.
Next step: disabling the main reactor. Contrary to what people would think, it's actually pretty simple to get the main reactor of a starship off-line. All reactors are matter/anti-matter reactors, drawing power from combining matter with the antimatter. All someone would have to do is open the anti-matter flows fully by using the manual overrides. The computer would react almost instantaneously, and shut down all anti-matter conduits at the reactor intakes, thus actually prohibiting any fuel from entering the reactor itself.
Too risky. If the system fails, we'll have a fireworks display with a radius of half a light year. I'll just lock out the controls in the 'off' position. By the time they've cracked the fractal encryption program of Section 31, we'll all be sporting a torpedo casing. Since everyone on a starship was buried in an empty torpedo casing, by shooting them into deep space, people tended to euphemize being dead by 'sporting a torpedo casing'.
Jack was sitting in the dark room for how long now? He didn't care. All he knew was that he was firing live ammunition, and that he would be fired upon with life ammunition. Readying his phaser for the umpteenth time, he waited for the door to slide open. When it finally did, Jack reacted by pure instinct. Rolling out of the door, into the arena, he fired at everything that moved. When his eyes finally adjusted to the bright lights, he started firing on sight, not just movements.
He killed 15 Section 31 prisoners that day. "It was a good job," his teachers complimented him. He would graduate on the top of his class. Jack didn't care. He was dead inside. He was cold as ice, and hard as stone ever since… no. he refused to think about what happned.
Jack drew his phaser, readied it, and kicked down the access panel to the Jeffries tube he was hiding in. he dropped precisely in the correct position, and shot the three aliens near the main entrance before any of the aliens knew what was happening. Jack rolled to the right, avoiding fire from the rear alien. Jack shot the alien before even completing his evade-roll. He jumped up, and shot the aliens on the main work area, on the ground floor. He knelt down, level to the main reactor, and counted.
"One on thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand." Jack shot up, and slid down the ladder to the main work level. He used his overrides to dislodge the reactor controls, actually making the computer think that the main reactor had been ejected as a safety measure. Jack then locked down all control with the Section 31 codes.
The moment the reactor went offline, the ship went into 'emergency low power mode', meaning all lights went off, and most systems were discontinued. Red lights provided a ghostly half-light that provided barely enough illumination to see by. Jack's cold demeanor didn't indicate the mental smile he had flashed when he had felt the ship come to a full standstill, its engines disengaged.
Job completed. Next stop, deck six, and field distortion amplifiers. Jack ran out through the main entrance. Twenty-five minus nine means sixteen left. I can take sixteen of those guys in my sleep.
He soon had to prove it as a team of five aliens came racing down the hall. Jack had pressed himself against the wall, counting on the obscurity of the hallways to cover him. three aliens dropped to his phaser fire before the team knew what had happened. Unfortunately, the two remaining aliens knew he was there, and had pressed in a nearby hall, running perpendicular to the hall jack was hiding in.
It was like a scene from an old action movie, the good guy shooting at the bad guys, who are ducking behind a wall, after which the roles reversed, and the good guy ducked while the bad guys were shooting. Jack knew Captain Janeway wouldn't appreciate him shooting up her ship like this, so he decided on using trickery. Throwing his phaser where the aliens could see it, he stuck his hands high into the air, and shouted, "I give up! I surrender!"
The two aliens emerged from their cover, one holding his weapon trained on Jack while the other grabbed the phaser. In a flash, jack was on the ducking alien, and twisted him around. His partner's fire hit the alien being used as a shield, while Jack used the second alien's weapon to dispose of the one still shooting at his now dead partner.
Dropping the dead alien, jack retrieved his own weapon, and dashed further down the corridor. With main power off-line, internal sensors were sketchy at best, and Jack counted on the fact that the little skirmish had remained undetected. Ducking in the Jeffries tube not far from the last fight, Jack quickly made his way to deck six. No longer restricted to the now completely dark tubes, Jack ran down the hall to the very front of the ship.
He was using the tubes only as an elevator now, a means of going from one deck to another. Without main power, the turbolifts were out anyway, and Jack couldn't help but think at the aliens who now had to use the tube system on a totally unfamiliar ship. Jack had help from the night-vision contact lenses he had retrieved from his pocket to see in the totally dark tubes, and the agent knew that there was a big chance the aliens hadn't come that prepared. No guards were standing near the controls Jack wanted to sabotage.
Thanking his good luck, Jack hurriedly pulled a couple amplifiers from their sockets, and stuffed them in his backpack.
"I must caution you, Captain. Chances of success are slim. If we execute this tactic, there is a 95% chance we will lose Naomi," Tuvok warned his captain.
"I know, Tuvok. I know. But my first responsibility is to this crew. There are over 130 people in this cargo bay. We have to try something, or we'll end up as salves, with no possible chance of ever getting back to Voyager. At least now we have a chance," Janeway retorted. Her command mask was fully in place, her emotions buried beneath a hard layer of professionalism. On the inside, however, she could feel her heart break. Sacrificing Naomi was a small price to pay by logical standards. Emotionally, however, Janeway knew she would be devastated, as would most of Voyager's crew be.
Slamming a lid on all her emotions, forcing herself not to think of what would happen to the girl, Janeway gave the final nod to Tuvok. The Vulcan Chief of Security in turn nodded at the security force he had gathered around him. They would wait for one of the aliens to come through the door, grab him, and make a break for it, hoping to gain full control over the ship before any message could be transmitted to Voyager.
Waiting came hard for the demoralized Voyager crew, but their patience wasn't tested for long. The doors were rudely thrown open, and fifteen aliens filed through. In their midst, three aliens carried a big cauldron with a smelly and lumpy porridge, that probably tasted worse than it smelled.
The fifteen armed aliens motioned for the crew to stand in line for the 'food'. As the crew did as their captors wanted, Janeway gave a small, almost invisible nod to Tuvok. She never saw him give a sign to his people. The security people jumped their captors, disarming them using the element of surprise at its fullest. Reinforcements piled through the door, as alarms started blaring. The courage of the captured crew sank in their shoes, but they fought on.
When there were no more reinforcements, Tuvok led his people through the open doors, armed with the captured alien weapons. Janeway implored them to focus on the here and now, and worry about the future later. She told them that Voyager was their home, and they should fight for it. Most managed to pull themselves more or less together, and continued the assault.
Jack pressed himself against the wall when his keen hearing picked up the sound of boots hitting the floor. Reaching for his phaser, he listened.
Just one? He thought unbelievingly, leaving the phaser where it was. I'd better be careful with the energy supply on this thing. Wouldn't want to run out of juice in the middle of a fight. Reaching into his pocket, Jack withdrew a small fiber. It was made of duranium, the same metal used for ship's hulls. But, because of its small size, it could be easily plied and manipulated. Jack bent the small fiber more or less straight, and wound the ends of it around his hands.
When the alien ran past him, Jack jumped on his back, slamming the fiber in front of the alien's throat, and jerked backward, as well as upward. A satisfying crunch was audible.
Textbook assassination. Quiet, and fast. Jack could hear the voice of his instructor: Don't choke the subject. Rather, use the fiber to break the neck of the subject, thus shortening the engagement time. Remember, less engagement time means less vulnerability time.
"Next stop, cargo bay two," Jack whispered to himself, rolling up the fiber, and putting it back in his pocket. The victim remained behind, not worthy of a second glance of the retreating operative. Jack disappeared into a nearby Jeffries tube. While crawling through the all-encompassing darkness, Jack thought of the fact that he should disable the communications system before actually recapturing the ship.
With the lockouts I placed on the main power supply, those bastards won't have a chance to use the comm. system. But, to be sure…
"Computer, status on main computer core?" Jack asked his special communicator.
Main core is off-line due to power conservation. Secondary cores are on-line and functioning within operational parameters.
"Computer, place communications systems under level-11 clearance, authorization Dupré-Section 31-omega-three."
Confirmed. Communications is now under clearance level eleven.
Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be too much of a problem, but with only the secondary cores online, and with the main power off-line, it would at least provide a precious commodity: time. Not to mention a ship-wide alert if the lockout was broken.
Jack emerged on deck eight, and ran silent as a ghost to cargo bay two. Silently opening the doors, the operative slid inside.
"Naomi? Sweetie? Are you here?" he whispered, flinching at the harshness of his own voice as he whispered the girl's name. His voice softened considerably as the agent forced himself to relax a little.
"Over here!" Naomi said out loud, causing Jack to whisper a harsh "Not so loud!" when he got to her, he could see her tremble, and look up at him with small, teary eyes.
Drawing in the girl for a comfort-hug, he whispered, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so harsh. But they might overhear us, so we need to be careful, ok?" When the girl nodded her head, Jack couldn't suppress a smile. There was something with the girl reached deeper than all the hard training.
"The next thing we're going to do is get to Sickbay, Sweetie," Jack said, still holding on to the small bundle in his arms.
Naomi looked up at him, and whispered back, "Sickbay? Why?"
"We need Anestazine gas. I'm then going to link it to the ship's environmental systems, transfer all emergency power to life-support, and set it 'blowing'. It'll knock out everyone in the entire ship."
"Won't that do the same to us?" Naomi asked. Jack smiled, and rubbed her head affectionately.
"You're a smart girl, you know that?" Jack said, smiling. "But you see, we can transfer Sickbay into a quarantined area, meaning that its life-support systems will run independently from the rest of the ship. So, while everyone takes a nap, we'll be right awake to transport them all into cargo bay one, and seal it. We'll probably be halfway to rescuing the crew before the first of them wakes up."
Naomi smiled as she heard that they were close to going after the rest of Voyager's people. "What about the Doctor?" she asked.
Jack shook his head. "Main power is off-line, so the emergency medical hologram is too," Jack said, referring to the holographic doctor.
"Ah. Okay," Naomi answered.
"So, you ready?" Jack asked. Naomi nodded, and together, they left the relative safety of the dark cargo bay. Very much aware that he was no longer alone, Jack kept his one hand near his phaser all the time. His senses were doing overtime under influence of the adrenalin rushing through his veins.
"In here," Jack whispered as he opened an access panel. "We're going to climb to deck 5, Sweetie," he told the girl purely to put her at ease before he jumped into the total darkness of the Jeffries tube. He stayed at the front of the tube, allowing Naomi to get in next to him before he sealed the hatch once more. The contacts adapted automatically as they detected low light levels. They switched to the infrared spectrum, allowing the two people to see as clearly in the all-encompassing darkness as others saw in normal light.
Jack held up three fingers as the couple reached a vertical access ladder, indicating they would be going up three decks. Periodically throwing a look over his shoulder, Jack climbed the ladders, leading his charge to deck five.
"Deck five," Jack whispered. "A short dash to Sickbay, and we can lock ourselves in."
"Okay," Naomi whispered back. Jack threw her a look, and smiled slightly at her. He had to admit to himself, the six-year-old was keeping herself good, for being under very stressful conditions. His psychology lessons hadn't included the fact that children often anchored themselves to strong adults when under trying conditions.
Making sure to keep his pace low, jack led Naomi to Sickbay, where he led her inside, and immediately tapped the membrane keypad next to the door.
"There. It's sealed. Now, let's find those canisters of Anestazine gas," Jack said, looking around the dimly illuminated room.
"Who is to say that I will let you take them?" a voice asked. The next moment, a bald man dressed in the blue Starfleet uniform that indicated he was of the science department.
"Doctor!" Naomi exclaimed, her smile beaming widely as she found another friendly face.
"Ms. Wildman? Mr. Dupré? What are you doing, dressed in those clothes?"
"Ship's taken over, Doc. Aliens invaded Voyager, kidnapped Naomi, used her as leverage against the captain, and hijacked the crew. We're the only ones left. Say, I thought you wouldn't be functioning without main power?" Jack asked.
"My mobile emitter has a separate power supply," the Doctor informed the duo. "But that hasn't answered my question. Where did those clothes come from, and what is in those backpacks?"
"No time, Doc. Where is the Anestazine? Every second is precious."
"Right…there," the Doctor said, pointing in a certain direction, and not even getting the chance to finish his sentence as Jack shot towards the supply cabinet. Naomi raced after him.
"Can I help?" she asked.
"Open that panel over there," Jack said, pointing to a Jeffries tube access. "We can access environmental systems easily from in there."
"Okay," the girl answered, dashing to the panel in question with a smile on her face. Pulling at the heavy panel, Naomi managed very little until the Doctor came over to lend her a hand. Jack joined them, loaded with four large canisters of the very powerful gas. He disappeared into the dark tubes, with Naomi right on his tail.
"How can they see in there?" the Doctor wondered, peering into the darkness. Deciding to stay here, in case something happened, the Doctor returned to his office, to ponder the strange sight of the man and the girl, dressed in black outfits.
Jack and Naomi returned a couple of minutes later, and Jack sealed the Jeffries tube behind them.
"Doc? You still here?" Jack asked after sealing the tube.
"Right here, Mr. Dupré. Now, would you care to explain to me what you are doing? Or have been doing, for that matter?"
"Very simple. I knocked out the main power supply, locked down communications, and made sure that there is no way to get any type of faster-than-light propulsion. Now we're going to disperse the gas over the ship, knocking out all the alien invaders, after which we're going to beam them to cargo bay on, seal them in, and get the ship back operational, to rescue the crew."
"I see. And where did you learn to do all those things?"
"Later, Doc. Right now, I need you to put Sickbay under level-8 quarantine, switching it to its own life support systems. Then I need to tell the computer there is a bio-hazard, so it'll open the air-flow, and thus spreading the gas."
The holographic doctor looked at the agent, and then decided to do as he asked. Jack did seem to know what he was talking about, and the Doctor wanted to have the ship back too. He wasn't about to waste an opportunity. He typed in a few commands in the computer, which noted the quarantine conditions. Then, alarms sounded as the computer notified the 'crew' of a bio-hazard.
Thankful for the three people in Sickbay, the aliens didn't have time to react as the strong gas flooded the ship. Jack connected his SLCARS to the Sickbay computer, and inquired about the status of the aliens. The computer dutifully informed him that all the unidentified alien life-forms were asleep.
"Good. Come, Naomi. We're going to the bridge after venting the gas from the ship."
"Why?" the girl asked as she went after Jack.
"The lockouts on the reactor core can only be undone form the bridge."
"I'll come along too," the Doctor decided. "You can answer some of my questions along the way." Jack just grunted, and quietly asked which human- or other- diety he had pissed off.
Janeway sunk into the captain's chair on the alien bridge. Her worries were increasing by the minute.
"How far are we?" she asked for what must be the umpteenth time.
"I think I've got it, Captain," Tom Paris answered. He tapped the console in front of him, and the ship lunged. "I may need some more work to get to know the ship, though," he added quietly.
"Any status on Voyager?" she asked over her right shoulder, to the console where Harry Kim was tapping at a console, his back turned to the captain.
"Extreme-range sensors indicate Voyager is adrift, with main power off-line."
Captain Janeway exchanged a look with Tuvok. Could it be… Janeway didn't dare get her hopes up. After all, the alien captors may just as well have been experimenting with Voyager, and blown some relay station, or something similar.
"I think I've got it, Captain," Tom exclaimed. The ship bucked a little, but it entered warp.
"Extreme-range sensors are interfered by the warp drive, Captain. As long as we're at warp, we have minimal sensors only," Harry Kim reported.
"It will have to do," Janeway answered. "Keep going for the last position of Voyager."
"Yes, Captain," Tom Paris answered.
Jack jumped toward the engineered station on the bridge, and started tapping.
"What did you do?" Naomi asked as she stared at his fingers racing the keypad.
"I transferred the main reactor controls to the tertiary optical interlink processor on deck 12. Then I locked out the interlink processor with a fractal encryption code. That way, the controls aren't only gone, they're also encrypted if you do manage to find them. Right now, I'm transferring controls from the processor back to the main computer core. There, that's done. Now, to get the reactor back online…there. In two minutes, the reactor will be back."
"Why the two minutes?" Naomi asked.
"This type reactor requires two minutes warm-up time. We're lucky it hasn't been offline for very long, or it would have been half an hour."
"I see," Naomi answered. "Won't they wake up?" Naomi asked, looking at a bulky alien lying in front of the captain's chair.
"Not for another two hours," Jack answered the girl.
"I don't think the captain is going to be happy with you hiding your identity from us, Mr. Dupré," the Doctor said, taking advantage of the fact that they had to wait for main power to come back online.
"I did what I had been ordered to do, Doctor. If that creates animosity, that's too bad."
Naomi turned to Jack, and gave him a smile. "You'll always be my friend, Jack."
Jack couldn't help but smile back. "Thanks, Sweetie. You'll always be a friend of mine, too."
"How about your employers, Mr. Dupré? It sounds as if Section 31 is very big on secrecy. Somehow, I doubt they'll be thrilled to know you exposed their organization to the crew of an entire star ship."
Jack looked back at the Doctor, and the look in the operative's eyes said it all. The Doctor hurriedly shut up.
When the main lights came back on, Jack immediately ordered all unidentified alien life-forms to be beamed to cargo bay one. the computer executed his commands without a glitch, and the threesome was relieved when the big alien disappeared in the bluish transporter beam.
Jack sat down at the helm, and started tapping. "I have the ship on sensors… oh, no,"
"What?" the Doctor asked.
"It's flying toward us! They probably know something is wrong!" Jack exclaimed. The weak audible hum of the warp-drive was audible.
Warning. Speed exceeding maximum tolerance. The computer warned them.
Jack jumped up, and ran to the engineering station. The warning discontinued. "I've transferred helm control to this station for the moment. I need to keep this ship going as fast as I can."
"Anything I can do to help?" the Doctor asked.
"Get Sickbay ready. If they know something is amiss…"
"I'm on it," the Doctor said, very gratefully taking the turbolift. Naomi remained behind on the bridge, staring fearfully at the agent working the engineering console. The ship vibrated more than usual, and it was adding to Naomi's anxiety.
"Jack?"
"Hm?" jack asked, barely looking up from the station. "Ten more minutes," he grunted. "Just ten more minutes and we'll be there."
"Everything is going to be alright, is it?" the little girl asked.
Jack looked up this time. "I hope so, Sweetie. I hope so. Do me a favor, and go to that console over there." Jack pointed to Tuvok's normal station: operations-tactical. Naomi nodded, climbed the small stairs, and stood at the station. She had to stand on the tips of her toes to look at all the different lights, buttons, and indicators on the console.
"Now, there must be a communications option there. Look at your left. If you do find it, press it, and select the alien ship. It's on sensors, so it should be listed."
"Okay," Naomi said, looking at the left of the large panel for anything labeled 'communications'.
"Five minutes," Jack read.
"Got it!" Naomi exclaimed happily.
"Great!" Jack said back. "Do audio only."
"Audio only… here it is. Should I press the button labeled video, or the one labeled audio?"
"Are they illuminated?"
"Yes."
"Then press the one labeled video, and the light should dim."
"It's out," Naomi responded, glad everything was working as jack explained it to her.
"Now press 'open frequency'."
"Open," Naomi answered.
"This is the Federation Starship Voyager. You are to surrender the crew. You have …four minutes to respond." Jack made a cutting motion, and Naomi pressed 'close frequency'. A chirp confirmed her closing the frequency.
"Sweetie, I'm now going to teach you how to fire the phasers, ok? In case we need to shop that we're serious."
"Uhm…okay," Naomi answered, smiling widely. She resisted the urge to jump up and down with excitement.
"It's very easy. On the right, you have the weapons section of the console. Press 'phasers', and the targeting sensors should come online. They'll highlight the aline ship automatically. I want you to press 'manual', and aim right next to the ship."
"I see it," Naomi said. "Phasers…targeting sensors…yes! There they are! Is that the ship Mommy is on?"
"Yes. That's why I want you to aim right next to it. we don't want to hurt anybody, now do we?" Jack told the girl, throwing her a quick smile over his shoulder.
"Look at the main screen, Sweetie."
Naomi looked up from her station, and stared at the big oval screen at the front of the bridge. The small alien ship was visible.
"I'm coming to a stop. They haven't answered," Jack said, leaving the engineering station. He jumped right next to Naomi. He opened the communications once more.
"This is Voyager. We have retaken our ship, and now request our crew back. If not, we will disable your ship and take them back anyway."
There was no answer. Jack checked the targeting sensors, saw that the phasers were indeed misaligned with the alien ship, and pressed the 'fire' button. Orange-red beams of energy lashed out from the USS Voyager to the boxy alien craft. The shot missed, but Jack was sure the message had come across.
"This is your final warning. Release the crew of Voyager."
Then, the screen lit up with the face of Captain Janeway. "Stand down, Ensign. We've captured the alien ship. We just didn't know how to work its communications equipment," Captain Janeway said, throwing a pointy look at someone off-screen. Jack felt sorry for whoever had failed to figure out the system in question.
"I see you managed to free Naomi as well," the Captain said, looking at the child. Naomi smiled at the captain.
"I have, Captain," Jack answered. "We're standing by to beam you all back on board."
"Good work, Ensign," the Captain said before the screen turned back to the external view of the boxy alien ship.
"Naomi, You have the bridge," Jack said, winking at her. Then, at a conspiratorial tone, he whispered, "You know, I'll try to make a few arrangements, so you can transfer command back to Captain Janeway herself. Would you like that?"
"Sure!" the girl exclaimed, smiling widely.
"I'm sure your mother's pride will know no limits if you tell her you were in command of Voyager."
Smiling even wider, Naomi nodded. "There's your seat, Acting Captain," Jack said, motioning for the captain's chair. Laughing, Naomi jumped off the chairs, and stared at the center seat.
"Are you sure…"
"Hey, you're in charge," Jack said, raising his hands. "But I sure wouldn't pass up an opportunity like that," he added, before disappearing in the turbolift. Naomi sat down, her pride knowing no limits. Actually sitting in the captain's chair, and in charge of the bridge, no less! Naomi did realize that it was only for a couple of minutes, and that she didn't actually have to do anything but wait for the captain, but still, she felt proud of herself.
Jack beamed the last group on board. Of course, Janeway was among the last to leave the alien ship.
"The Doctor ahs asked everyone to go to Sickbay first, to treat any wounds, or diseases that might have been contracted on the ship," Jack told the group. As he had expected, Captain Janeway started to protest.
"Captain, I arranged for you and ensign Wildman to be checked last, so you can check up on the bridge until everyone has settled in, and Sam can check up on Naomi."
"Thank you," Captain Janeway said, eyeing his uniform strangely. "I'll expect a full report as soon as possible…ensign," she added the last part a little later. Something about the clothes made her sixth sense tingle.
Jack almost couldn't keep himself from smiling as he joined the Captain in her ride to the bridge. When they got there, ensign Samantha Wildman was still hugging Naomi, crying her eyes out.
"Captain," both said as the captain emerged from the turbolift. Naomi winked slightly at Jack, who smiled at the girl. Since he was still behind Janeway's back, his head made an almost undetectable motion towards the captain.
"Captain Janeway, I hereby transfer command of Voyager back to you," Naomi said. Samantha Wildman stared at her daughter just as hard as Captain Janeway was. Jack smiled, and lifted both his thumbs.
"Thank you, Ms. Wildman," the captain said, composing herself quickly. Naomi and her mother soon cleared the bridge. When they walked past jack, both Naomi and her mother couldn't resist but give Jack a hug before clearing the bridge. Captain Janeway sat down in her chair.
"I hope I wasn't presumptuous, Captain. But, Naomi behaved admirably, and I thought it would do no harm to reward her," Jack said.
"No, of course not," the Captain said. "You did well, ensign Dupré. Now, I would be most interesting to hear how you managed to retake Voyager, and where those clothes came from."
"Of course, Captain," Jack said, and disappeared in the same lift that delivered Commander Chakotay and Lieutenant-commander Tuvok to the bridge.