STILL NOT IN KANSAS
by Soledad
Author's notes: For disclaimer, rating, etc., see Part One.
Some of the dialogue, as before, is directly taken from the episode "Grey 17 Is Missing". This is a somewhat shorter chapter again, but it seemed a good place to stop. The Grey 17 timeline isn't entirely the same as in the actual episode.
PART FIFTEEN
Red Sector – Fresh Air Restaurant
Lyta had been pleasantly surprised when Tuvok had contacted her via BabCom and suggested a meeting in the Fresh Air Restaurant. She had never expected the stoic Vulcan to choose the most expensive place on the whole station, but on second thought understood the reasoning behind his choice. In the Fresh Air, they were less likely to be crowded, and it was not a noisy place. Besides, they could ask for a privacy screen and thus talk freely, without anyone spying on them.
Tuvok showed himself properly impressed by the privacy screen; apparently, the Federation either didn't have the technology to provide such personal shielding or they didn't see the necessity for it. Lyta rarely used it herself, not since she wasn't a commercial telepath anymore. But right now, she was thankful for its existence, as her communication with the Vulcan was of very personal nature. She didn't want anyone else to listen.
She had never told anyone about the things she had seen, learnt and gone through on the Vorlon homeworld. That sort of knowledge would have been dangerous for anyone. Besides, she couldn't trust anyone – telepath or mundane – with those dark secrets, Meeting Tuvok, sharing some of her memories with him, made her burden more bearable, though. And the Vulcan, using the millennia-old mental techniques of his people, helped her to establish new, stronger shields, so that not even Ulkesh could intrude her thoughts so easily as before.
Right now, however, they were simply talking, discussing things of personal matter. Spending time with someone for whom being a telepath was the norm, not some sort of abomination, was incredibly liberating. And Tuvok, unbelievable as it seemed more than hundred years old, had seen much and had travelled much and turned out a very interesting person to talk to.
They had seen Vir and the Wildmans entering the restaurant, with an unknown Minbari in tail, but paid them little attention. Both felt so relaxed in each other's company as rarely before in the recent years, eating some vegetable dish and sipping herbal tea in quiet understanding. Tuvok seemed intrigued by Minbari culture, and Lyta offered what little information she could provide, not having dealt with Minbari all too frequently.
"Their caste system actually predates Valen by millennia," she explained, "but it's said that Valen was the one who created a lasting peace among the castes. Apparently, there has not been a murderer on Minbar since Valen's time, and…"
She trailed off, staring after the Minbari who was just storming out of the restaurant with a clouded face.
"And what?" Tuvok asked politely.
"And it seems that this might change, soon," Lyta whispered, clearly shaken. Then she collected herself, reactivated the privacy screen and rose. "I must find Mr. Garibaldi."
"He is with my second, I was told," Tuvok touched his comm badge. "Tuvok to Ayala." No reaction. "Mr. Ayala, report immediately." Still nothing. "This is strange. Lieutenant Ayala never goes anywhere without a comm badge, and he is usually quite reliable." He touched his comm badge again. "Tuvok to Voyager."
"Rollins here, sir."
"Mr. Rollins, I have lost contact with Lieutenant Ayala. Can you check out his whereabouts?"
"Just a moment, sir… now, that's strange."
"Please specify, Mr. Rollins."
"We can't trace his comm badge anymore."
Lyta and Tuvok exchanged concerned looks. This was definitely not good.
"Try to contact station security," Tuvok instructed the officer on duty. "And give me the coordinates where his comm badge was located the last time."
"You are going to search for him, sir?"
"Affirmative. I want a security detail here – clear it with station security. Mr. Ayala is not a man to simply vanish voluntarily. We need to find him."
"Aye, sir. Should I alert the captain?"
"Negative. I shall do so myself. But inform Commander Chakotay, and have Transporter Room 2 on alert. We might need that emergency beam-out, after all.
"Aye, sir," the bodiless voice of the Voyager officer answered and the connection was broken.
Lyta looked at Tuvok knowingly. "You are not telling this your captain, are you?"
"Not right away," Tuvok answered calmly. "The captain has been under much pressure lately. I am going to try and find Lieutenant Ayala on my own first."
Voyager – Deck 5
"What do you mean 'disappeared'?" Chakotay looked at Harry with a frown. "One can't just disappear from a closed station like this. Especially not with a functioning comm badge."
"That is the problem, sir," Harry explained. "The computer registered his whereabouts just fine – until an hour ago. Then the signal was cut off somewhere in Grey Sector."
Chakotay's frown deepened. "Have you contacted station security?"
"Lieutenant Rollins has," Harry said. "Mr. Garibaldi's second, a certain Mr. Allen, told him that Ayala's gone with the chief to investigate something in Grey Sector. Neither of them has returned so far… and they can't reach Mr. Garibaldi through his comm link, either."
"Which is really lousy timing, considering the fact that Ambassador Delenn might be assassinated on her own inauguration ceremony, as it seems," B'Elanna added grimly.
Chakotay felt the beginning of a familiar throbbing in his temples, which usually signalled the coming of a monstrous headache.
"All right, you two," he said, forcing himself to patience. "Sit down and tell me everything. In chronological order, if possible."
The Ceremony Chamber
The room selected for the inauguration ceremony of the new Ranger leader was a circular one, with a geometrically patterned mosaic floor. Right now not much could be seen from that pattern, though, as a long, light blue carpet had been laid across it, from the entrance of the room up to the opposite wall. On this carpet the future Entil'zha would walk, turn around and stand in front of the Anla'shok standard and wait for the procession that would bring her the robe of her new office.
Two young Minbari, clad in long, light brown ceremonial robes with very wide, pale purple sleeves, were holding said standard, squatted on the floor, while a third one maneuvered it upwards with the help of a thin rope. Lennier, standing in the middle of the chamber, navigated the standard-bearers with small gestures of his hand, as the banner was rising slowly, inch by inch upwards.
It was made of three pieces of some shiny, sea blue fabric, the middle field a slightly paler shade than the two on the sides. In the middle of the standard was a large picture of the Isil'zha badge of the Anla'shok. It looked as if two stylised figures, a silver Minbari and a golden human, had encircled the sacred stone with their own bodies protectively, holding above it a red banner with five small, white, four-pointed stars.
When the standard was high enough for the Ranger logo to be just about in the height of someone's head, Lennier signalled his satisfaction. The three Minbari fixed the standard in that position, then they bowed and left. Lennier was about to return their bow and turn his attention to the next phase of preparations, when one of his associates hurried into the room. He whispered something in Lennier's ear; Lennier nodded, bowed his thanks, and then closed his eyes for a moment.
They had found Neroon's hiding place. As he had suspected, the warrior was hiding in Down Below. From there, Neroon had only one way to get to this level: the low corridors the maintenance workers used. That was the place where Marcus would have to stop him.
Lennier shook his head in regret – he truly, honestly didn't like to send Marcus into such danger – but he had no choice. Delenn had to be protected, and Marcus volunteered. What was more important, the human Ranger was the only one who could do this.
The young aide sighed and aimed his own quarters. He couldn't deliver this sensitive piece of information through an open channel.
Voyager – Chakotay's quarters
"So, let's see if I understand you correctly. You want to interfere with a purely Minbari matter – one that not even Captain Sheridan is allowed to interfere with, not to mention the fact that our captain has us explicitly forbidden to interfere with local events – and this at a time when half of our own security is over on the station, without the knowledge or permission of either Captain Janeway or myself, looking for Ayala," Chakotay summarized the events in a tightly controlled voice. "Have I forgotten anything?"
"Well, Mr. Tuvok did act within the parameters of his authority," Harry offered apologetically. "And we are not going to interfere. We just want to keep an eye on Marcus, so that we can beam him to Sickbay if necessary, when the… erm… confrontation is over."
Chakotay's brows knitted together. "Correct me if I'm mistaken, Ensign, but didn't the captain forbid any transporter activity, unless there is a life-or-death emergency?"
"She did," Harry admitted. "But Commander, there will be a lethal encounter! It's like… like one of our human security officers trying to stop a seven-foot Klingon berserker. Marcus has no chance against this… this Neroon, Lennier said that clearly enough. Getting medical aid would be crucial for his survival."
"I see," Chakotay remained silent for a moment. "What do you have in mind?"
"Surveillance," Harry replied promptly. Chakotay raised a questioning brow, and B'Elanna grinned.
"Harry slipped Marcus a rubindium microtransponder by the last handshake. It must be firmly embedded in his wrist by now. We can trace him and tap into the SecureCam network to watch him trough the security cameras places all over the station."
Chakotay frowned. "Ensign, do you regularly carry transponder injectors on you to bug unsuspecting people without their consent?"
"Of course not, sir," poor Harry became beet red again. "Actually, B'Elanna and I wanted to test on ourselves whether the transponder would work despite the background radiation of the fusion reactors. That's why we had the injector with us, honestly. Then I… I acted spontaneously, sir."
"Chakotay," B'Elanna leaned forward, "the bottom line is: Marcus is a friend. He didn't hesitate to come to our rescue during that bar fight, although he barely knew us. We owe him our help!"
"During a bar fight which shouldn't have happened in the first place," Chakotay corrected mildly, but he wasn't really opposed to the idea. "All right; watch him if you want, but remember: under no circumstances are you allowed to interfere, until it's over. Our presence disturbs their lives enough as it is."
"Understood, sir," Harry grinned in relief. Chakotay shook his head.
"I hope so. Now, get out, both of you. I need to go to the bridge and coordinate the search for Ayala."
Green Sector – Delenn's quarters
"Thank you for the invitation, Ambassador," Janeway rose from her seat, smiling; Sheridan was surprised how charming that smile looked on her stern face. "It was a very pleasant evening. Hopefully, we'll be able to return the favour aboard Voyager, soon."
"Not before the ceremony, I'm afraid," Delenn replied with honest regret; she'd have liked a visit on the ship very much. "There is so much to do, so much to prepare. Even with Lennier's help, I'll be too busy for anything else for a while."
"When, exactly, is the ceremony?" Janeway asked.
"Tomorrow, at 1800 station time," Delenn smiled at her. "You and your officers are welcome to witness, of course."
"Thank you," Janeway said, surprised. "I think, I will, and some of the others probably too. But we really have to go now. It's getting late."
"Mind if I walk you to your ship?" Sheridan asked. "I didn't have the time to take a closer look earlier, and as things keep stumbling from one crisis into the next one around here, I might not get another chance."
"Be my guest," Janeway smiled again.
"I feel like going for a walk myself," Delenn, too, rose. "I'll have to welcome the freshly arrived Rangers anyway – customs is on the same way."
"How many of them did you say you are calling in?" Sheridan teased. But Delenn's expression remained very serious.
"Quite a few, I'm afraid. It's necessary for the ceremony. Besides, it serves the purpose to meet them again," she added thoughtfully. "There will be so many faces I haven't seen so long… It brings back a lot of memories."
"Pleasant ones, I hope," Janeway said.
Delenn made an uncertain gesture. "Mostly, but not exclusively. Still, I am grateful to meet every single one of them… especially the trainees and the new recruits. There are some I have never seen before. I am supposed to become their leader who might send them to dangerous missions, often to hopeless ones – I need to know them all."
"One never knows the lower decks well enough," Janeway murmured, a little sadly. "And when they are gone, you lie in your bed, awake, and try to remember their faces – only to realize that you can't." She swallowed hard, and Sheridan, formerly captain of a starship himself, nodded in understanding.
"Did you have heavy losses?" he asked.
"I lost almost half of my crew when we landed on the other side of our Galaxy, within minutes," Janeway closed her eyes for a moment. "You have fought an interplanetary war, Captain, you know what superior alien technology can do. Now, imagine a displacement wave strong enough to hurl your ship seventy thousand light years across the Galaxy… I still wonder how Voyager managed to remain in one piece. Granted, she was a brand new ship four years ago, the best Starfleet could offer at the time, but still… she was not meant for this sort of mission."
"And yet, you still want to return, despite the fact that you would be so far from Earth again that you could barely hope to reach home, don't you?" Sheridan asked quietly.
Janeway nodded. "We must. That's home," she replied simply. "Besides, staying here would change your history beyond repair. We can't risk that. Our mere presence here has interrupted your timeline, causing probably changes already, so that the timeline might need decades, if not longer, to right itself again. Getting involved, in any way, would make things a lot worse."
"Or a lot better," Sheridan said, not quite willing to give up the chance to get some more help yet. "The way things are right now, changes could mean a chance for us to win. A chance we might not have otherwise."
But Janeway shook her head. "We are only one ship, Captain – and a rather battered one at that. The risks outweigh the possible benefits in this case. We can't get involved in your war, regardless if we agree with your goals or not."
Voyager – Chakotay's office
In the meantime, aboard Voyager, Janeway's executive officer was just about to become heavily involved in the affairs of Babylon 5, drafting not only Harry and B'Elanna for this involvement, but also Tom Paris, whose hacking skills were required to make the whole action work. Chakotay selected his own office as temporary headquarters for the search for Ayala and the surveillance of Marcus, partly because the office had surveillance monitors by default – the First Officer was supposed to know what happened aboard his ship – partly because this way he could win some time before the captain learned about Ayala's disappearance. Chakotay hoped to solve the problem before Janeway returned. The captain had enough burdens to carry as it was.
Using his recent experience with Babylon 5's computer systems, when thy had downloaded the files containing the history of this alternate Earth, Harry created a few rather… inspired overrides, based on B'Elanna's unorthodox cross-wirings, to enable Tom to hack into Garibaldi's security network. It proved harder than they had expected – apparently, the security chief of Babylon 5 was rather paranoid about hackers and placed clever traps for them – and so they made little headway, and even that only slowly.
"I wish we had Commander Data with us," Tom grumbled, fighting the stubborn system for the password. "He could simply interface with the whole thing and get in in no time."
"Well, we could ask Seven of Nine," Harry offered tentatively. "She could…"
B'Elanna shot him a dirty look. "Yeah, she could assimilate the whole station in minutes, right? Think a little, Harry – do we know whether the Collective exist in this universe at all? And if they do, do you want them to pick up her signal and come for us?"
"You are paranoid, B'Elanna," Harry pointed out mildly. Torres nodded.
"Yep. Kept me alive in the Maquis."
"Patience," Tom said through gritted teeth. "I'll get in sooner or later – it only takes some time."
"Time which we might not have," Harry riposted. Tom stopped working for a moment.
"Look, Harry," he said, forcing himself to patience. "I know you are worried about your friend. And that the Commander is worried about Ayala. I'm doing my best, okay? But if you don't let me concentrate, I might trigger a station-wide security alarm, and then you can forget your little surveillance action. So, be a nice guy and let me do this without any helpful suggestions, will you?"
Harry shut up, a little embarrassed, as Tom was right, of course. There was no way to speed up this kind of work, and Harry knew it. He was just nervous and wanted it done, as soon as possible. In order to distract him, Chakotay asked for a system check of his surveillance monitors, and they all worked in silence for about twenty minutes. After that, Tom turned with his chair and looked at them.
"I'm in," he said simply.
TBC