Disclaimer: Paramount,
God...how far apart are they?
Rating: PG, why not?
Dedication:
For all of use who have fallen in love with Voyager, even if
they say she isn't real
Trek.
Resurrection
Chapter
9
Tuvok nearly
sighed, but then checked the reaction. It was saying a great deal for
Klantio
if he was able to almost exasperate the Vulcan. Their
firefight had been going on for over an
hour, and neither party
was any closer to winning or losing. Every time the ship shook from
a
Minatian volley, Tuvok was certain the other group would make a
mistake.
So far, this had not been the case.
Taking a
deep breath, Tuvok focused his thoughts on what was happening in the
surrounding
areas. He heard people running by in the corridor
outside; he heard the ragged breathing of an
injured Minatian
soldier. But he pushed it all away and got control over his emotions
again.
"Are you ready to give up yet, Lieutenant Tuvok?"
Klantio asked the same question during
every break in the battle.
"We will accept your surrender gratefully."
"Surrender is illogical."
Standing up quickly, Tuvok leveled his
phaser at the Minatian soldier and fired three
shots-one to each
shoulder and one to the abdomen. Klantio raised his phaser to fire,
but after
the third shot, the weapon hit the transporter pad with
a resounding clank. One of the other
soldiers seemed prepared to
fire, but another Voyager crewmember shot the phaser out of his
hand.
Klantio fell slowly to his knees, receiving no aid from
his warriors. Weapons still
raised, Tuvok and his security team
came out from behind the console. Klantio looked up at the
Vulcan
and coughed.
"Nice shot."
"Would you like to be taken to Sickbay?" Tuvok asked, strangely polite.
Klantio shook his head and when he looked back at the
Vulcan, his eyes were cloudier than
before. "And have your
imaginary doctor save my life? I will die here."
Tuvok nodded. "Take the rest of these soldiers to the Brig, Ensign."
One of the young men nodded and poked the
Minatian with his gun as they left the
transporter room.
Tuvok tapped his communicator. "Doctor, I have three wounded security members."
"I'm a little busy, Lieutenant Tuvok."
Tuvok raised an eyebrow, even though the Doctor
could not see him. "Very well, Doctor; I
will have them
brought down to you."
Tuvok received no answer from the
Doctor and turned to the remaining security team member.
"Stay
here with the wounded; I will send someone to assist you."
Tuvok had been
watching the senior staff with great interest over the last few
weeks.
Starfleet protocol would suggest that they listen to his
advice and not do anything when it came to this invasion, but with
people like Tom Paris in the group, that wasn't about to happen.
Instead
they were plotting a way to escape and reclaim the
ship.
Their method was most illogical.
They had not
bothered to ask his opinion on any of the matters they were
undertaking. It
was almost surprising, especially considering
Seven of Nine, who often came to the Vulcan when she was confused
about humans.
Neelix interrupted his musing when he stopped in
front of the Vulcan, a huge bulge in his
shirt. Taking a quick
look around, the Talaxian stuck his hand under his shirt and pulled
out a
mask.
"For you, Mr. Vulcan."
Tuvok raised an eyebrow. "What is this for?"
Neelix
lowered his voice. "For when Seven of Nine shuts off life
support. You want to be
able to breathe, don't you Lieutenant
Tuvok?"
"While I can hold my breath for up to ten
minutes, I will take the breathing mask. Just in
case."
"Of course, Mr. Vulcan." Neelix smiled.
The crew was
silent. They'd been sitting inside the cargo bay for ten minutes,
breathing
masks hidden, but easily accessible. They were all
waiting for Seven of Nine to turn off the life
support so their
captors would be incapacitated and they could go about the business
of rescuing
the captain. The senior staff, in an effort to look
less conspicuous, had mixed themselves in with
the rest of the
crew.
So far, it was working.
One of the Minatian
soldiers coughed. A minute later, the other guard coughed and
began
complaining about how tired he was. His companion went off
on a long string of what could only
have been considered curses
and then yawned.
For a brief moment, the intruder alarm
blared. The two guards tried to get up, but the
lack of oxygen in
their lungs made it difficult. Slowly, the crew brought out their
breathing
masks and slipped them over their heads. The alarm had
stopped almost before it began, but that
was all they
needed
B'Elanna, stationed next to her new-found favorite
control panel, crossed two of the wires
and was pleased when she
heard the fizzling out of the force field surrounding them. She gave
the thumbs up to Tom, who began to escort some of the security team
towards the door.
"The weapon's locker at the end of this
corridor should be unlocked," B'Elanna called,
fogging up her
breathing mask. 'Take out whatever is there and then provide back up
for the
unarmed until you reach the next locker."
"Let's
move people; we have a captain to rescue!" Tom's voice sounded
confident and
reassuring, even if they odds were piled painfully
high against the Voyager crew and they had no
idea where the
captain and commander were.
Janeway held
tightly onto her armrests as the ship lurched again. The Minatians
were not
giving up. Smoke was coming from ops, tactical and even
the console between her seat and
Chakotay's seat. Voyager wasn't
going to be able to take much more of this.
"I've got it,
Captain!" B'Elanna exclaimed over the com after what seemed to
have been
hours but was probably only five minutes. "Our tube
of theta radiation is ready."
Janeway grinned. "Good.
Prepare to fire it from torpedo bay one and let me know when
it's
there." The captain tilted her head back to look up at
Seven of Nine. "Can you have that tachyon
beam ready for me
now, Seven?"
"Certainly, Captain."
Janeway's grin got broader. "Let's show these people who they're messing with."
The
transporter room was empty except for two life forms, and only one of
them was alive.
Tuvok looked at the body of Klantio. He was
uncertain of what to do with it. He supposed they
should put it in
a stasis chamber until the battle was over and then return it to the
Minatians.
Deciding that was the most logical course of action, he
dragged the dead soldier to the transporter pad.
Stepping onto
the dais, Tuvok punched in the site-to-site coordinates that would
put
Klantio in Voyager's morgue. The warrior slowly dematerialized
and Tuvok tapped his combadge.
"Tuvok to the Doctor. Please confirm that the body of Klantio is in morgue bay one."
The
Doctor let a sigh out of his holographic lungs. "Yes, Commander
Tuvok, I have one dead
Minatian in my morgue. Now if you don't let
me go back to work, several Voyager crew members are going to
join him."
Tuvok nodded, although it was a useless gesture. "Tuvok out."
Making a mental note to send a
clean up team down to the transporter bay, Tuvok left the
room and
started walking briskly towards a turbolift to get to the Bridge.
Seven of Nine
looked around the Bridge. Four Minatian soldiers were hunched over
their
consoles or on the floor, phaser burns prominent on their
backs. She pushed aside the one at the
ops station, calling up the
location, ship schematics and personnel report in a few
seconds.
Seeing that most of the crew had already begun to roam
about the ship again, she activated
the ship-wide com.
"Seven of Nine to Lieutenant Torres."
"What is it, Seven?" B'Elanna's voice sounded distant through the breathing mask.
"The Bridge is secure. Would you like me to restore life-support to the rest of the ship?"
"Yes, Seven, that would be a very
good idea." B'Elanna's sarcasm was not lost on the Borg
woman,
but the Doctor's social lessons let Seven ignore the comment. "How
many Minatians are there on the ship?"
Seven looked down at her screen again. "Fifty in all."
B'Elanna was
quiet for a moment and Seven could hear the voice of Ensign Kim.
"We've got
thirty-six of them right now; I think we can
handle the renegade twelve when they wake up. Please restore life
support, Seven."
"Done."
The computer's
monotone rang clear throughout the ship. "Life support restored
to all
decks."
The turbolift doors opened and Seven
swung around, phaser in hand. Instead of the Minatian
soldier she
had expected, Tom Paris walked in.
"Easy there, Seven.
I'm here to get this ship pointed in the right direction. Any
idea
where the captain and Chakotay are?"
"I have
not made any preliminary scans, but I would assume they would be at
this location."
The screen in front of Tom lit up to show one
very large Minatian cruiser. Although he
wasn't positive, the
blonde officer thought it was the one that had first attacked
them.
"That is a very good assumption, Seven. Computer,
scan the Minatian ship for human life
signs."
"There are two human life signs on board the Minatian ship."
"Good. Can you lock onto them with a transporter?"
"Negative."
Tom
frowned. He hated it when the computer didn't cooperate. "Seven,
do you know anything
about the way these ships are set up; where
the brig might be?"
Seven blinked slowly, trying to call
to mind a fading Borg memory. Her fingers slid over
the control
panel as she recalled something, and Tom waited anxiously for her to
speak.
"I have routed the asrometrich data on the
Minatian ships to this console. I am calling up
a map of the
ship." In a few seconds, the ship on the screen was superimposed
with a graph-like
picture. The outline of the ship was blue, with
all the rooms indicated by boxes of green. "The
brig is in
the lower left corner of the ship. What do you propose?"
Tom smiled. "Tom to Harry, where are you?"
"I'm on Deck Four by the transporter room. Why?"
"I'm
sending a set of coordinates to the console there. I want you to try
and beam
everything within three meters of these coordinates into
cargo bay one."
Harry's breathing disappeared and then
came back when he reconnected to the com system from
the
transporter room. "Tom you're asking me to beam out a good
portion of Minatian ship. Any
reason why?"
"Seven assumes that's where the captain and Chakotay are."
"Assumes?"
Even if Tom couldn't see his young friend, he knew Harry had both
eyebrows
raised in confusion.
"Just transport anything that isn't bolted down."
"No problem, Tom. I'll see what I can do."
Seven walked over to each of the
Minatians she had shot, moving them away from the stations
that
would soon be occupied by Starfleet personnel. She had only killed
one of the soldiers, and
that had been by mistake. Her aim had
been too high. She had felt rushed, panicky. Human.
Harry's
voice broke into the silence of the Bridge. "I've got them, Tom.
Chakotay's
pretty beat up; I'm transporting them both to Sickbay
now. You should probably get down there as soon as possible."
"On
my way." Tom turned and grinned at the Borg woman. "You've
got the Bridge until Tuvok
gets up here. Just make sure they don't
blow up the ship while I'm gone."
Seven nodded. "I will comply."
