Part 4
Only training kept Katie Thompson from tackling the Lieutenant at ops. As it was she was not sure she would not have to get involved in what was happening. Just moments ago Lesman had appeared to quietly doing her job when her head had pitched forward. Before her head could even hit the console she began to flail out at everything near her. She clawed at her seat before anyone had gotten to her. Ligdon had been manning tactical since she had taken the bridge in the absence of the upper command staff. By the time he had tried to subdue her shed had managed to claw through the fabric on her chair, as well as taking off most of the skin on her hands from trying to rip through the framing of the chair. When Ligdon tried to grab her she tossed him away from her with less effort than it took Katie to throw trash away.
The next person to try had been Lt. Marks. He tried to use her distraction to grab her from behind, that only resulted in Quenten being flipped over and landing on his back against the helm. Carlotta began to try again to rip the controls out of their housing. Katie drew her phaser and fired. Carlotta fell to the ground. She should have been unconscious, but in her state the stun merely flattened her long enough to secure the area. She was still whimpering. With a calm that had only come from too many fights she called sickbay. "Bridge to sickbay. We have a medical emergency. Lt. Lesman has apparently had a seizure."
"On our way."
Will was staring at his meal, trying to make sense of everything. From where he sat nothing made any sense. He had four people how had experienced the same type of nightmare, all of them telepaths. Three of them had to be awakened from the nightmare by rather extreme measures. He had exactly five telepaths on board. The fifth was his ops officer. As far as he knew Carli hadn't had any trouble with this thing yet. Never in his career did he have to deal with something that was just making one part of his crew drop while the others remained healthy. Even the other times when Deanna had experienced telepathic communion with others at her own expense he never had any other people just dropping for no apparent reason. Deanna had taken his plate away from him without him noticing. She sat in the corner, watching Julie sleep. She seemed as lost in thought as he did.
What's wrong Imzadi?
Will, what's happening, and why are we the ones who have to do this?
I don't know love. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if Q set this up. Right now all we know is that there is an unknown threat jeopardizing two ships out there. It could be something along the lines of the fact that Tom is on that ship. I don't like to admit it but he shares the same bond with you that I have.
That's not it. If it were I would have had things like this a lot more often than I could explain. No, even though he and I are technically Imzadi I haven't experienced the bond with him the way I do with you. Anyway if it had anything to do with me and him why would you, Julie, and Tina be involved. She switched to verbal speech. "I think we are dealing with something like what happened on Gemworld or during the Genesis Waves. I think whatever is doing this to us is from another universe and we are picking up either an attempt to communicate that is getting jumbled or we are overhearing there plans."
"Captain Riker report to Sickbay."
By the time the captain had returned to sickbay Alyssa had managed to get Carli restrained. She was still fighting and was not responding to any of the treatments that had been tried to this point. Ogawa was at the point of wanting to sedate her even father when she saw the captain walk into the room.
"Well that is the last one, it's official. Every telepath on board has dealt with this phenomenon." The doctor looked at the man, frustration growing in her eyes.
"Let me guess, she is having the worst of it. You never mentioned any of the rest of us fighting like she is. So what happened?"
"I had just finished my reports on LeBeau and was about to go relieve Thompson on the bridge when she called the medical emergency. According to her, the lieutenant was working and pitched forward in her chair. From there she started to try to destroy the ops board. It took three people and a phaser on heavy stun to bring her down enough to get her here.'
"Anything different?"
"Other than the violence I assume." Will nodded his head to indicate she had been correct. "Actually yes. Deanna and her are reacting in completely opposite ways to the contact. Instead of her neurotransmitter level dropping, it is elevated, so much so that if the rate of change remains the same she will have fatal levels in her system within the day if we can't wake her up. I already tried the same combination of drugs that worked before, without any success. About the only thing that might work is either risking another rapport between the telepaths or putting her into medical stasis. I can tell you that from her brainwave patterns she is having a more interactive dream than any of the rest of you had."
Decision made Will hit his combadge. "Commander Troi report to sickbay." He sat down rather abruptly. "I wish I knew what was going on." Now all he had to do was shove to the back of his mind the fact that he was about to endanger his pregnant wife to try to figure out how to save at least two full ship's crews, and possibly a fair portion of the populated worlds in this region. He could do this, he had before and he would most likely do it again. That was the downside to having your spouse serving with you. "Commander, I want you to prepare whatever you need to for Commander Troi to initiate a telepathic link with Lieutenant Lesman."
"I would believe that is my call, Captain. You are on restricted duty. I agree with you sir, but I am the one who has to take responsibility for this action, you are only allowed to give advice at the moment." She softened as the Doctor and friend returned to replace the command officer that had just been speaking. "Will, I know you need to get to the bottom of this, and we will. What I am going to have to do though is put my foot down when it comes to the health of my crew. If it weren't for the fact that we are fairly sure that if we don't find out why theses attacks are happening both the Trident and Excalibur will be destroyed, I would not even begin to allow Counselor Troi to do this. But I am going to. However I am going to set up a few ground rules. First, all three of you will participate. That means you will wait for Tina to wake up the rest of the way. She was starting to show signs of waking when Carli was brought in. So you won't have to wait too long. Second, I am giving you one hour. If you don't come out of it on your own in that time I am going to wake you. Third, I think I want Julie here to monitor you. She very well might be able to tell if you are in distress before I could. Take it or leave it."
"I haven't got much of a choice. I would rather not have the squirt in on this but she might just be the best to do it. She has been in and out of these dreams on her own, and hasn't had to have any help coming out of them other than shaking her."
Deanna walked into the room as he was speaking. "What happened?" She had been purposely keeping her mind as closed as she could. So she did not feel what had happened to Carli. "How is she?" Deanna motioned to the biobed where Lesman had been restrained.
"In the same state you were a few hours ago. Except that she is having the opposite reaction to the state physiologically. I've tried the therapy that I did on the three of you, no success. The only thing I can think of is another link like Tina and Julie did with you and the Captain. That's why we called. You are going to have to be the one to lead it."
"Lead, you mean I am not the only one doing this?" She looked at her husband in a manner, which said that she thought he was trying to keep her from doing something.
"Not my idea. Alyssa is the one that laid the rules down. She is technically the one in charge at the moment remember? She wants all of us to go in after her. I tend to agree. Not on just the safety issue, but in that one of us might be able to figure out how this relates to the real world. If we can do that, maybe that will be the end of it. Once we get the information to Shelby and Calhoun, they will be able to do something about it. Now, she also wants Julie here. Not in the link but as an anchor. I want your opinion on that. It is the one thing that we can say no on."
"I have the funny feeling that if we say no she would try to do it anyway. At least if she is here in sickbay and something goes wrong she is monitored. Everyone on our baby-sitting list, except for her teachers is on duty at the moment, and Tina is here. So bring her too." Deanna tried not to shake. She could definitely handle putting herself into this situation; she had a number of times over the years. What she did not want to do was lead a pair of people into this who had never done anything like this before, and have a five year old monitor them. She would do it, but that did not mean she was at all in her element.