"Ensign Vorik!"
The young Vulcan male stood up from his station and turned toward his left to see Voyager's Chief Engineer, B'elanna Torres rushing into main engineering as if propelled by rockets. Her shoulder length brown hair bounced and swayed with every quick stride.
Whatever had been discussed in that sudden senior staff meeting had gotten Torres fired up and was about to impact him and possibly the rest of the engineering staff.
"Yes, Lieutenant?" He responded in his deep voice and stepped away from his station so he was more visible to her.
"Ah, there you are! Good. Get an engineering team together quickly. You're not going to believe this, but sensors have picked up a crashed Starfleet shuttlecraft a few light years from here. With any luck, there are survivors, but I want to be prepared to have to cut through some wreckage," she instructed.
Vorik lifted an eyebrow in curiosity. A Starfleet shuttlecraft! All the way out here. But how? And why? So many questions scrolled through his curious mind, but now wasn't the time. It was time to carry out Torres' orders before the Klingon/human hybrid unleashed her formidable temper on him…like the time that would not be spoken of.
"Right away, Lieutenant," he acknowledged.
He grabbed his engineering kit and began gathering the appropriate personnel and equipment.
Sensors had detected the faint life signs of seven people, Torres briefed her team as they hurried to the transporter room. What sensors had failed to determine was the cause for the shuttle's crash landing on this rather large moon orbiting a quite spectacular ringed gas giant.
There was no indication of any other vessels in the area so an attack seemed unlikely nor was there any sign of spatial anomalies nearby. It seemed their biggest leads would be the eye witness accounts of the survivors.
The small group of engineers arrived in transporter room 3 with their individual kits. Any larger equipment that may be needed was on standby for immediate transport.
Vorik noticed the slight smile that pulled at the corners of Torres' full lips when she caught sight of Lieutenant Tom Paris already waiting for them with a medical kit in hand.
The young Vulcan forcefully reminded himself that it was illogical to dwell on the past, but he lacked the years of practice and experience that the much older Tuvok had.
There were times that he felt a twinge of hurt to see the obvious affection between Torres and Paris and realize she would never look at him the way she was looking at the handsome human now.
Even more concerning was the little problem of Vorik's still single status. He now had some years to find another solution by the time of his second Pon Farr; ideally a female among the crew who would be willing, even wished, to spend the rest of her life with him.
He recalled, with some chagrin, how she'd chastised him later for not telling her what the real problem was. She couldn't be part of the solution if she didn't even know there was a problem.
Fortunately, no permanent harm had been done and they'd been able to carry on with their friendship.
Still… despite evidence of multiple interspecies marriages involving Vulcans over the last few centuries, Vorik grew ever more concerned about his ability to find a partner on Voyager.
Stepping onto the transporter pad, Vorik took up a spot in the back as the ship's First Officer and Tactical Officer arrived.
"Good. Everyone is here," Chakotay said approvingly. "Let's get going."
"I gotta say, I'm glad this moon has a breathable atmosphere," Paris quipped as he took a good look at the downed shuttle craft. "Gonna make this a whole lot easier."
Quickly, he and Torres made their way to the back where the hatch would be with Vorik and the other engineers following close behind.
Chakotay and Tuvok lingered a few moments, scouting the immediate vicinity for anything out of the ordinary.
Torres elbowed her way past Paris to the shuttle's exterior control panel and ordered the mechanism to lower the hatch.
The door attempted to obey it's instructions but the latch caught on a bent area in the frame and the panel buzzed its error back to the half Klingon.
"Alright. Percussive maintenance it is," she said with determination.
Whipping out her phaser, Torres stepped back along with a warning for the others to do the same and aimed and fired at the obstruction. The offending piece of metal disintegrated and the door resumed lowering itself to the ground until it was ready to be used as the ramp inside the shuttle.
Without a word, Paris rushed in to triage any survivors that required the holographic doctor's immediate attention. With any luck, it wouldn't be all seven because Voyager did not have a full medical staff.
He found one person fully up, with a phaser in hand and at the ready. Fortunately, he paused long enough to see who his visitors were before firing.
"Hold your fire! We're only here to help!" Paris informed the badly bruised man who nodded when he took Paris' Starfleet uniform.
"You're Starfleet," he squinted. His voice though held relief.
"Yes. We are." Chakotay said reassuringly. "We're from the USS Voyager."
Now the man's dark brown eyes widened with awe and wonder as he took turns looking at the small group that had entered the shuttle.
"Voyager?! You were all declared lost…"
"It's a long story," Chakotay said. "And there will be time for it later, but first we need to get your people to sickbay and try to find out what happened to you."
"Yes, sir," the man nodded. "I'm a nurse. I'm not too banged up so I'd be happy to help your medical staff if they'll let me."
"Let you?!" Paris exclaimed as he hovered his instruments over one of the more bad off patients. "We'd be thrilled. Wait til you meet the rest of our medical staff.. "
He looked up at Chakotay over his rapidly chirping tricorder.
"I'll get this crowd to sickbay so the engineers can have some space."
He tapped his combadge.
"Paris to the Doctor."
"You rang, Mr. Paris?" Came the holographic doctor's disembodied, always faintly amused/sarcastic voice.
"Yup. I've got six injured down here including a Vulcan female with a head injury. I think she's gonna be your priority. In good news, the one that is up and about is a nurse who can help us."
Vorik's head snapped in Paris' direction at the words Vulcan female. He glanced up at Lieutenant Commander Tuvok who also glanced in his direction. One of their own kind.
"Ready as I'll ever be, Mr. Paris. Let's not keep me waiting," the doctor responded.
"Paris to Voyager. 8 to beam directly to sickbay."