Lt.
Alister Maxwell, Meeting hall of the One
As Alex and Dr.
Coleridge started talking to each other not far from him he rubed his
neck where he´d just had a shot from the hypospray. He turned
towards the captain and Solkar or that´s at least what he
thought. Instead it was the Tracy probe he turned to. She looked at
him in a wondering sort of way and asked "The Tracy has some
kind of bond you. Why?" Surprised at the question his eyes
widened. "Tracy was someone whom I taught knowledge about the
Pretoria to. Her training was going to be extensive and she was a
good cadet, a good student. She already was and would have become an
even better part of the crew." What am I babbling about.
Solkar, the captain or someone else should be doing this.
"Upgrade? What is the bond between you and the Tracy. What is
the bond between you and her. She pointed at Alex. "What is the
bond between her and her." She pointed at the two women talking
to each other but their attention turned to the Tracy.
Someone please help He thought.
Lt Solkar son of Tolrec
The One is possibly Voyager One. Or is it one of the
inhabitants of the planet on the other side of the wormhole Voyager
entered. Is it the only inhabitant. The upgrader of V´ger. But
not the creator. The telepathic link between us made me understand
one thing. Perfect, logical thought patterns... All the knowledge in
the universe collected. Perhaps somehow shared between the One and
V´ger. A perfect being? No, it must evolve. perhaps as
illogical as it may seem. It must try to experience emotion to
understand the carbon units. Is that why it did´nt answer my
question. It does not know the answer to it and ... or may it chose
not to answer.
He sat down on his knees at the side of his captain. Just after the doctor left. Captain are you all right?
Stryker felled down of exhaustion. Liz screamed " No.." and reached Stryker before he hits the ground. Liz left Stryker with Karen.
She had enough of all of this nonsense; she approached the One and says telepathically to her best ability. "The One, read my mind. Understand through me, understand our 'propose', our humanity through my eyes and through my memories. I am offering you a glimpse, an understanding through my experience."
A strip of light came from the One and surrounded Liz and left her floating in the air a few meters up. She could feel the One sharing her memories and thoughts. It was the strangest feeling she ever had sensed. But there was someone else, someone's else memories and thoughts. She realised it was the new counsellors thoughts and memories, Kathryn Delores. Liz felt suddenly awkwardness and embarrassment. And then there was another memory and thought, and then another one and another.. She stopped keeping track and she had no longer any idea of whose memory or thought it was. She realised that the One, somehow had decided to read the crew's memories and thoughts to understand our humanity and purpose as carbon units. When she offered herself to open herself and share her memory and thoughts she didn't meant the whole crew, but obviously the creature interpreted it like that. She was little worried who the crew would experience this.
Suddenly, Liz was released from the strain and sat down on the floor a bit dizzy. The one was quiet for a minute, during this time Karen was by her side and whispering. "Are you all right?"
Liz nodded and asked to make sure that she wasn't crazy. "Did you sense it?" The look she got from Karen told her the answer. Her attention turned to the One, it said.
I understand!
Alien Meeting Hall
"Apart from a little radiation, I'm fine." Alex paused, swallowed hard. "Can I talk to you for a second?"
"Of course," Karen replied. "We'll take a walk over this way, that way we'll at least have some privacy from the rest of the team." She paused, more to try and get her pounding heartbeat under control than out of any need to gather her thoughts. "What is it?"
Alex hesitated and cleared her throat, her eyes shifting from side to side as she sat on the floor, back against the wall. "Uh, well..."
"Alex, what's going on?"
"I'm trying to figure out how to say this," the engineer replied hesitantly. "I never was any good with apologies. But I owe you one." She swallowed hard again, and Karen could see the shame and anguish in her eyes. "I'm sorry that I acted like an ass earlier, in your office. I didn't mean to, but I was so upset about everything that was going on, and I guess I was being cruel. When I walked out of there, I felt so awful about it, I just wanted to curl up somewhere and cry."
Karen nodded, remembering her own reactions to that moment when the doors closed: fighting to keep her emotions in check, pacing around the office before wheeling around and smashing an "enhanced" haymaker into the bulkhead, the pain in her shattered right hand a distant ache compared to the pain in her heart as tears streamed down her face.
Instead, she simply said, "I know. I'm sorry too. I never should have teed off on you the way I did."
"So, I guess this is the point where you tell me you can't do this anymore, and it's not my fault but it's really best if we don't--"
"Stop," she interrupted. "If by that you mean I'm leaving, then no. I'm here for the long haul. I'm not leaving you."
Alex replied with a little shrug, looking down at her boots. "I was just afraid that, well, you know--you've got a tough job and a lot on your plate, and you don't need someone close to you giving you more grief, making you angry all the time..."
Truthfully, Karen was quite angry, but not at Alex, who had now curled herself into a little ball against the wall. Instead, she made a silent vow that she was going to find out who had hurt her so badly that she was scared to death of a relatively minor argument.
And beat the miserable SOB senseless.
"Alex, you know me better than that," she said quietly, pulling the young woman into her arms, feeling utterly sick inside as she realized that Alex had gone rigid, as though afraid of being touched. "Have you ever known me to hesitate telling someone off if I'm upset over something they've done?" When the engineer slowly nodded 'no,' Karen continued speaking. "And if I really don't have any use for a person, I'm pretty upfront about it, right?" Another nod. "Then if I haven't told you to leave, doesn't it stand to reason that I don't want you to?"
That finally earned a weak smile. "You're wonderful, you know that?"
"I know you're giving me too much credit... but that's sweet of you." She reached out and gently brushed a lock of hair away from Alex's eyes. "You sure you're okay?"
"Emotionally, I'm better. Physically, I feel like garbage," Alex admitted. "My head is splitting and I'm a little sick to my stomach. I feel cold, too. And I'm really thirsty."
Karen nodded, dropping back into her clinical demeanor to cover her dismay. "All right, then. I think you might have gotten a little more radiation than the others. I don't think it's a good idea to give you a second hyronalin shot right now because I don't want to overdose you, but how about this: we'll give you fluids and something to stop the headache and settle your stomach, and see where you're at in a few hours. Does that sound all right?"
Five minutes later, with a hefty dose of painkillers and anti-nausea meds on board and an IV in her wrist, Alex curled up with one of the thermal blankets out of the medkit, using a rolled-up uniform jacket as a pillow. On the verge of drifting off, she murmured sleepily, "Hey, Karen?"
"Hmm?"
"Stay with me? Just for a little bit?"
"Of course," Karen replied, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat as she reached over to tuck the blanket in, lingering over the gesture just a bit longer than she needed to. "I'm not going anywhere."
She sat there watching Alex sleep for a long time.
