Oh, No, Not Another Mutiny!
By: LMR
Chapter 7: Deflecting the Effects of the Sub-neural Techno Babble
Disclaimer: Writing that you don't own the show (or Ghostbusters 2): 5
seconds. Finding something funny to be inspired by: 5 hours. Writing it
into a joke: 20 minutes. Typing it: 3 seconds. A disclaimer that will
make your readers laugh: priceless.
A.N.: If someone could please tell me Crewman Jor's first name, I would be
SO grateful. Thanks.
By the way, Knight of Darkness (a mighty fanficer at the age of thirteen!)
gets the cookie for identifying Sacari as the place where Blood fever (best
episode ever) was set. It was the land where the cave was that T. and B.
ended up in when she had the Pon Farr. So, Knight of Darkness, if you can
ever find me, I promise to give you the cookie. Looking forward to seeing
you someday. Happy hunt.
And I am extremely sorry, doctorwannabe (), but my mention of the sex scene
was an idle threat (or perhaps in this case, promise), because I have to
keep the story all sweet and PG, so I'll give you another treat. As for
your review, ROTFLMAO!
A/N: Sorry about the wait, guys, but I had no idea what I was going to do.
Still don't. I'm playing it by ear, and yes, LMR is a smartass.
***************************************************************
B'Elanna tentatively took the knife. She'd really hoped it wouldn't come
to this. But nothing else was doing the trick. She grasped it. She hated
just holding it, and thinking about using it actually made her sick to her
stomach. It was different with the bat'leth. That was combat, something
they'd both been practicing for a couple of years, ever since those sneaky
aliens tried to take over the ship. They had fought with them regularly
for practice. But a knife just felt wrong. She walked right up to him.
"You can trust me, and I'll prove it," she said again. She put the ring in his palm; tightened his fingers over it. "You'll want this." She held out the knife out, handle first. He looked at her quizzically. "Go ahead, take it." She tilted her head back, knowing she shouldn't be afraid. He couldn't But she was afraid, anyway, and ashamed of it. She closed her eyes, squinting them tightly.
Tom couldn't understand what was happening. Not only was this Maquis completely disloyal, she was also very stupid, or very suicidal, he wasn't sure which.
"If you insist, Torres."
He brought the knife to her throat. It was cold, and now she was very afraid. But she felt it falter and fall away, and felt horrible for ever even thinking that it wouldn't. He nearly choked on the shock and the . . . the horror at what he had almost done. She looked him square in the eye, about ten emotions in her face at once. Her voice was serious and angry. "My name is Paris, and don't you ever forget that again."
"Hey, I thought I was going to change my name?" Tom mock whined.
"It's just a sappy catchphrase, nobody's changing anything," she told him. "The writers have to make sure that there are at least five really bad catch phrases in every episode."
*********************************************
"It's not working, Doctor," Neelix informed him. "They don't remember anything. They really think that they're enemies." He shrugged in a somewhat guilty way, as if he felt like he had failed them. "I just don't know what else I can do."
"Relax, Neelix," the Doctor reassured him. "We've got the anesthetic. It's being pumped through the air vents as we speak. The sickbay is the only place that isn't being gassed. Chakotay and The Captain are both restrained, so that's no trouble, and Mr. Paris as well." He stopped abruptly. "Hey!" he called, seeing Tom, "He needs to be restrained!"
"Relax, Doc, he's fine," B'Elanna informed him. "At least, he is for now, later, I don't know" She glared at him, not joking, but truly angry and hurt.
"I'm sorry," he pleaded. "I don't know-"
"It's not his fault, B'Elanna." Although he acted like he found them appalling, the Doctor hated to see the two fight. "He didn't know what he was doing anymore than what you did when you were trying to kill him." There was a pique in his voice, as he was clearly reminding her of the earlier incident.
B'Elanna looked at the floor, somewhat guilty, conceded. "No, Tom, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have blamed you when I did the exact same thing."
"It's all right," he assured her. He whispered. "And by the way, I love that scar." She laughed a little, trying not to show to anyone around them.
"Be good, and I'll give you another one later."
"Please," the Doctor interrupted. "Induced nausia is not a viable cure for what ails they crew." He filled them in on the plan. "We intend to use the nebula's natural mind altering capabilities to send them positive messages about each other, thus counteracting the actions of the aliens."
"I remember being subjected to a similar program of mind tampering," Seven offered.
"By the Borg?" Neelix assumed.
"No, the Hansens. "A positive mind altercation program for children. It consisted of an amorphous purple singing blob. He drilled into the young people's minds that 'I love you, you love me.' It was called a Barney. Perhaps it could come in handy."
The Doctor winced. "It's possible, Seven, but it could also be very damaging. Earth psychologists discovered a long time ago that once over the age of ten, long term exposure to Barney could cause permanent brain damage and antisocial tendencies. I would consider it a last resort. There must be a better way."
Tom spoke up. "I'm a little behind, but if I understand correctly, there's a goo and it's wiping our brains and making us all hate each other, and we need to make the goo make us all happy, right?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Good enough, Mr. Paris. Do you have any ideas?"
"It's just like Ghostbusters 2."
They all sighed at once.
"Seriously, we need something that will inspire the whole crew. Some sign of unity and friendship that will get everyone to forget about killing each other."
"But there are so many different cultures represented on the ship." The Doctor pointed out. "How can we hope to accommodate them all?"
B'Elanna looked thoughtful for a moment. "Not necessarily. Originally, we're all from different cultures, true, but when you think about, Voyager is one big community. We have things in common here, from the past six and a half years, things that can remind people here of what it means to be a . . .Voyagerinian."
"I already tried memories with the Captain and commander, it didn't work."
Doc frowned. "Specific memories didn't work. What we need is an icon. Something that really represents what it means to be a Voyager."
"Any ideas?" Tom wondered.
"What's the one thing that makes us all happy all the time?" B'Elanna prompted. "The holodeck," all but Seven answered immediately.
"There are many programs on the holodeck," she pointed out. "And I sincerely doubt that even the four of us could decide on one program we all like, let alone the entire ship. That is hardly an icon."
"All right, so we find something out of our collective past, and bring it up on the holodeck," Neelix proposed.
The engineer shook her head. "It would take too long to write a program: we need something that's already there."
"Neelix, what about that luau you hosted a few years ago, do you still have the program for that?" Tom wanted to know. "The whole crew was there."
"It should still be in the databanks: I never erased it."
B'Elanna leaned her chin in her hand thoughtfully on the counter. "How are we going to move everybody into the holodeck? They're all knocked senseless, and that many site to site transports would take more time than we have, not to mention putting a real strain on the computer. There's no way we could drag them all there. . . unless." She seemed lost in thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers and suddenly looked attentive. "The Statue of Liberty. Mirrors!" she cried as if she had just invented them. She began to work at a console, completely ignoring the others, who looked to Tom for an explanation.
"I have no idea."
"Those magicians you were watching on TV the other night," she said. "They gave me an idea. That and Ghostbusters 2. I can't believe you get me to watch that stuff. Anyway, I can work out this problem the same way they made the Statue of Liberty disappear."
Tom looked offended. "You said you didn't know how they did it."
"I was humoring you." She focused on the console. "There are just enough holoemitters around the ship that we should be able to reflect the entire party off of each one in succession. Each emitter will show its own picture, plus those of the two on either side, like mirrors. It won't be entirely convincing, but the crew's kind of doped up anyway, I don't think they'll notice."
The Doctor nodded his approval. "Now all we have to do is reprogram the characters in the simulation to convince the crew that they don't hate each other."
Neelix made an observation. "When I ran the luau the first time, none of the characters had any affiliations. Perhaps this time, we should alter the program so that some of the characters are Maquis and some Starfleet. Then we can show them cooperating, and the crew members should play along in kind, I mean, if they're not thinking that well."
"Good idea, Mr. Neelix," the Doctor praised. The little Thailaxian beamed.
"How long will it take to rewrite the program?" Seven wanted to know.
"I can make the alterations to the holoemitters in," B'Elanna thought about it. "Fifteen minutes or so."
Neelix shrugged. "Shouldn't take me more than a couple minutes to switch the luau characters. I'll get on it as soon as Lieutenant Torres gets it running."
The Doctor was lost in his own world. "There has never been any problem with hypnosis and its aftereffects on the mind that I know of. But this is a rather different kind of hypnosis. I think it might be beneficial for me to run some diagnostics on you, Mr. Paris, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, just to see exactly how your little lapse affected you. We can get to that while the others work." He glanced at the Captain and Commander Chakotay. "And while they try to outstare each other with dirty looks.
"What exactly do you remember from your little trip into oblivion?" The Doctor wondered.
"Not a whole lot. It's sort of like a weird dream." He rubbed the calf of his leg where the blunt side of the Bat'leth had hit it. "I remember being in pain."
"Hmm. I'll resist making the obvious off color joke here because I'm in a particularly heroic mood today."
"Hmmhp," was Tom's response. "It's all really vague. The first thing I remember clearly. . ." His voice wavered and fell away, not wanting to think it, let alone say it out loud.
"It's quite all right," the Doctor reassured him. "She doesn't harbor any resentment over that."
"She should. I nearly killed her."
"But you didn't. She knew you wouldn't. She purposely put you in that position to make sure you would snap out of it. She wouldn't have done it if she thought she were in any danger."
A thought suddenly occurred to him. "She never lets me use the knives in the kitchen."
"That's a different matter entirely. She doesn't want you to get distracted and cut your hand off. Now sit still so I can do these scans." He stopped short for a moment. "Mr. Paris, you used to be. . . good with women."
"Why does everybody always say it like that?" He said, frustrated. "I dated a lot, yeah."
"What does it mean when a woman says she knows you have romantic feelings for her, and that you shouldn't be embarrassed, but doesn't say anything else?"
Tom was suddenly very attentive. "Who is it? Seven?"
"Shh, shh, not so loud," the Doctor urged.
He lowered his voice. "Well it is, isn't it?"
"She'll hear you," the Doctor practically pouted.
Tom shrugged, smiling. "She already knows," he pointed out.
"Well, it's embarrassing," the Doctor asserted.
"And that's the only reason I dated more than just any old person. I am completely impervious to embarrassment. I am an absolute turkey with women. And do you know what happens to turkeys?"
"They get eaten with stuffing at the Terran holiday of Thanksgiving (also known as Screw Over the Indigenous Americans Day)," the Doctor was quick to answer.
"No, turkeys make women comfortable. If you're always willing to go out on a limb and let someone know you care, they feel special. That's the whole point. Do you think I ended up with B'Elanna by acting dignified? I acted like a fool. It's easier to fall in love with a fool." He looked right at the Doctor. "And it's better to be a turkey than a chicken any day."
"All poultry aside, I think I'll just continue as I have been."
"All right, Doc. Whatever you say. Just don't give up." ********************************************************* Okay, fluffiness over, for now, anyway. Please review. Love you guys, LMR
"You can trust me, and I'll prove it," she said again. She put the ring in his palm; tightened his fingers over it. "You'll want this." She held out the knife out, handle first. He looked at her quizzically. "Go ahead, take it." She tilted her head back, knowing she shouldn't be afraid. He couldn't But she was afraid, anyway, and ashamed of it. She closed her eyes, squinting them tightly.
Tom couldn't understand what was happening. Not only was this Maquis completely disloyal, she was also very stupid, or very suicidal, he wasn't sure which.
"If you insist, Torres."
He brought the knife to her throat. It was cold, and now she was very afraid. But she felt it falter and fall away, and felt horrible for ever even thinking that it wouldn't. He nearly choked on the shock and the . . . the horror at what he had almost done. She looked him square in the eye, about ten emotions in her face at once. Her voice was serious and angry. "My name is Paris, and don't you ever forget that again."
"Hey, I thought I was going to change my name?" Tom mock whined.
"It's just a sappy catchphrase, nobody's changing anything," she told him. "The writers have to make sure that there are at least five really bad catch phrases in every episode."
*********************************************
"It's not working, Doctor," Neelix informed him. "They don't remember anything. They really think that they're enemies." He shrugged in a somewhat guilty way, as if he felt like he had failed them. "I just don't know what else I can do."
"Relax, Neelix," the Doctor reassured him. "We've got the anesthetic. It's being pumped through the air vents as we speak. The sickbay is the only place that isn't being gassed. Chakotay and The Captain are both restrained, so that's no trouble, and Mr. Paris as well." He stopped abruptly. "Hey!" he called, seeing Tom, "He needs to be restrained!"
"Relax, Doc, he's fine," B'Elanna informed him. "At least, he is for now, later, I don't know" She glared at him, not joking, but truly angry and hurt.
"I'm sorry," he pleaded. "I don't know-"
"It's not his fault, B'Elanna." Although he acted like he found them appalling, the Doctor hated to see the two fight. "He didn't know what he was doing anymore than what you did when you were trying to kill him." There was a pique in his voice, as he was clearly reminding her of the earlier incident.
B'Elanna looked at the floor, somewhat guilty, conceded. "No, Tom, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have blamed you when I did the exact same thing."
"It's all right," he assured her. He whispered. "And by the way, I love that scar." She laughed a little, trying not to show to anyone around them.
"Be good, and I'll give you another one later."
"Please," the Doctor interrupted. "Induced nausia is not a viable cure for what ails they crew." He filled them in on the plan. "We intend to use the nebula's natural mind altering capabilities to send them positive messages about each other, thus counteracting the actions of the aliens."
"I remember being subjected to a similar program of mind tampering," Seven offered.
"By the Borg?" Neelix assumed.
"No, the Hansens. "A positive mind altercation program for children. It consisted of an amorphous purple singing blob. He drilled into the young people's minds that 'I love you, you love me.' It was called a Barney. Perhaps it could come in handy."
The Doctor winced. "It's possible, Seven, but it could also be very damaging. Earth psychologists discovered a long time ago that once over the age of ten, long term exposure to Barney could cause permanent brain damage and antisocial tendencies. I would consider it a last resort. There must be a better way."
Tom spoke up. "I'm a little behind, but if I understand correctly, there's a goo and it's wiping our brains and making us all hate each other, and we need to make the goo make us all happy, right?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Good enough, Mr. Paris. Do you have any ideas?"
"It's just like Ghostbusters 2."
They all sighed at once.
"Seriously, we need something that will inspire the whole crew. Some sign of unity and friendship that will get everyone to forget about killing each other."
"But there are so many different cultures represented on the ship." The Doctor pointed out. "How can we hope to accommodate them all?"
B'Elanna looked thoughtful for a moment. "Not necessarily. Originally, we're all from different cultures, true, but when you think about, Voyager is one big community. We have things in common here, from the past six and a half years, things that can remind people here of what it means to be a . . .Voyagerinian."
"I already tried memories with the Captain and commander, it didn't work."
Doc frowned. "Specific memories didn't work. What we need is an icon. Something that really represents what it means to be a Voyager."
"Any ideas?" Tom wondered.
"What's the one thing that makes us all happy all the time?" B'Elanna prompted. "The holodeck," all but Seven answered immediately.
"There are many programs on the holodeck," she pointed out. "And I sincerely doubt that even the four of us could decide on one program we all like, let alone the entire ship. That is hardly an icon."
"All right, so we find something out of our collective past, and bring it up on the holodeck," Neelix proposed.
The engineer shook her head. "It would take too long to write a program: we need something that's already there."
"Neelix, what about that luau you hosted a few years ago, do you still have the program for that?" Tom wanted to know. "The whole crew was there."
"It should still be in the databanks: I never erased it."
B'Elanna leaned her chin in her hand thoughtfully on the counter. "How are we going to move everybody into the holodeck? They're all knocked senseless, and that many site to site transports would take more time than we have, not to mention putting a real strain on the computer. There's no way we could drag them all there. . . unless." She seemed lost in thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers and suddenly looked attentive. "The Statue of Liberty. Mirrors!" she cried as if she had just invented them. She began to work at a console, completely ignoring the others, who looked to Tom for an explanation.
"I have no idea."
"Those magicians you were watching on TV the other night," she said. "They gave me an idea. That and Ghostbusters 2. I can't believe you get me to watch that stuff. Anyway, I can work out this problem the same way they made the Statue of Liberty disappear."
Tom looked offended. "You said you didn't know how they did it."
"I was humoring you." She focused on the console. "There are just enough holoemitters around the ship that we should be able to reflect the entire party off of each one in succession. Each emitter will show its own picture, plus those of the two on either side, like mirrors. It won't be entirely convincing, but the crew's kind of doped up anyway, I don't think they'll notice."
The Doctor nodded his approval. "Now all we have to do is reprogram the characters in the simulation to convince the crew that they don't hate each other."
Neelix made an observation. "When I ran the luau the first time, none of the characters had any affiliations. Perhaps this time, we should alter the program so that some of the characters are Maquis and some Starfleet. Then we can show them cooperating, and the crew members should play along in kind, I mean, if they're not thinking that well."
"Good idea, Mr. Neelix," the Doctor praised. The little Thailaxian beamed.
"How long will it take to rewrite the program?" Seven wanted to know.
"I can make the alterations to the holoemitters in," B'Elanna thought about it. "Fifteen minutes or so."
Neelix shrugged. "Shouldn't take me more than a couple minutes to switch the luau characters. I'll get on it as soon as Lieutenant Torres gets it running."
The Doctor was lost in his own world. "There has never been any problem with hypnosis and its aftereffects on the mind that I know of. But this is a rather different kind of hypnosis. I think it might be beneficial for me to run some diagnostics on you, Mr. Paris, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, just to see exactly how your little lapse affected you. We can get to that while the others work." He glanced at the Captain and Commander Chakotay. "And while they try to outstare each other with dirty looks.
"What exactly do you remember from your little trip into oblivion?" The Doctor wondered.
"Not a whole lot. It's sort of like a weird dream." He rubbed the calf of his leg where the blunt side of the Bat'leth had hit it. "I remember being in pain."
"Hmm. I'll resist making the obvious off color joke here because I'm in a particularly heroic mood today."
"Hmmhp," was Tom's response. "It's all really vague. The first thing I remember clearly. . ." His voice wavered and fell away, not wanting to think it, let alone say it out loud.
"It's quite all right," the Doctor reassured him. "She doesn't harbor any resentment over that."
"She should. I nearly killed her."
"But you didn't. She knew you wouldn't. She purposely put you in that position to make sure you would snap out of it. She wouldn't have done it if she thought she were in any danger."
A thought suddenly occurred to him. "She never lets me use the knives in the kitchen."
"That's a different matter entirely. She doesn't want you to get distracted and cut your hand off. Now sit still so I can do these scans." He stopped short for a moment. "Mr. Paris, you used to be. . . good with women."
"Why does everybody always say it like that?" He said, frustrated. "I dated a lot, yeah."
"What does it mean when a woman says she knows you have romantic feelings for her, and that you shouldn't be embarrassed, but doesn't say anything else?"
Tom was suddenly very attentive. "Who is it? Seven?"
"Shh, shh, not so loud," the Doctor urged.
He lowered his voice. "Well it is, isn't it?"
"She'll hear you," the Doctor practically pouted.
Tom shrugged, smiling. "She already knows," he pointed out.
"Well, it's embarrassing," the Doctor asserted.
"And that's the only reason I dated more than just any old person. I am completely impervious to embarrassment. I am an absolute turkey with women. And do you know what happens to turkeys?"
"They get eaten with stuffing at the Terran holiday of Thanksgiving (also known as Screw Over the Indigenous Americans Day)," the Doctor was quick to answer.
"No, turkeys make women comfortable. If you're always willing to go out on a limb and let someone know you care, they feel special. That's the whole point. Do you think I ended up with B'Elanna by acting dignified? I acted like a fool. It's easier to fall in love with a fool." He looked right at the Doctor. "And it's better to be a turkey than a chicken any day."
"All poultry aside, I think I'll just continue as I have been."
"All right, Doc. Whatever you say. Just don't give up." ********************************************************* Okay, fluffiness over, for now, anyway. Please review. Love you guys, LMR