Chapter 3 – Enemy Territory
"I am Captain Baikel Arana of the Starship Luminous. We are not your enemy."
"My name is Jabohr of the Kazon Nistram. Lower your shields and surrender or you will be destroyed."
Lt K'Haina terminated the com channel. "I've scrambled his sensors to make him think he lost the channel"
"The Kazon Nistram?" the captain looked quizzically at Harry. "Helmsman, confirm our location."
"We are in the Delta Quadrant, captain." Ensign Marks confirmed.
"Lt Wildman needs medical attention" called one of the junior officers by the ops station as she lifted Samantha Wildman's head. "She's lost consciousness."
"Take her to sickbay." Two officers standing by neatly took the now vacant station. "Captain, I don't know what's going on here but if that is a Kazon ship and we are in the Delta Quadrant, we are in for a battle."
"Lieutenant, raise shields and power weapons. Ok, let's try this again. Open channel" the captain turned toward the viewer.
The young man on the screen was fiddling with his control panel with a frustrated look on his face when he noticed the channel was open. "Federation vessel," he said with arrogance and menace, "surrender your ship!"
"If we have violated your space, we apologize and will be on our way. We don't want a conflict, and if you run a scan of our ship and weapons you won't want one either."
"Unacceptable. Whether or not you want a conflict, a conflict is what you will get." The screen went from a view inside his cockpit to a view of the small spacecraft firing a shot at them.
The starship rocked a lot harder than expected from such a small weapon. Lt K'Haina yelled out above the noise "Shields down to 20. We can't take another shot like that without suffering a hull breech."
"Return fire. Target his weapons array."
"Target locked, firing, his weapons are offline."
"Marks, get us out of here."
"Aye captain, course set in. Warp 9" Ensign Marks replied.
Stardate: 60555.6
The USS Luminous sat in a Class B nebula outside what had been Kazon space according to the last time a Federation vessel, namely Voyager, had been in the area. So far, they hadn't been detected by any Kazon vessels. At least they hadn't been confronted by any vessels. Harry Kim sat in his quarters wondering what the odds were that he would travel 70,000 light years from his home not once but twice in his lifetime. He thought to himself that Tuvok would know precisely what the odds were of being in his predicament. He smiled to himself with the thought. Thinking about how unbelievable the situation might be was not getting him anywhere. He had been sitting at his desk for 2 hours now letting the thoughts twirl around in his mind and he kept coming back to the same question; 'why?' He needed to get out of his quarters and renew his energy, so he got up and headed to the mess hall.
Baikel Arana was sitting at the corner table in the mess hall looking around at her crew. The mood was somber and that did not surprise her, considering what they had been through the last few hours. Samantha Wildman was recovering in her quarters. As soon as she regained consciousness, the doctor gave her a mild sedative and sent her to rest. She had already been down to see when she could resume her duty shift. Arana told her to rest for the night and return to duty tomorrow. She seemed ashamed of her reaction earlier, and wanted to prove herself to the crew. Arana breathed a sigh of relief; she was not sure she would be so rational in Samantha's situation and wondered how young Naomi was doing.
She looked up to see Harry Kim walking toward her across the mess hall. She smiled up at him as he approached. "How's my first officer doing?"
Harry smiled sarcastically as he sat down. "I'm beginning to feel like I'm meant to be in the Delta Quadrant. I mean the odds are astounding, and the thought of getting home is… well… even more astounding. Honestly I am so far in shock I don't know what to think."
Arana sipped her coffee and stared at Harry sitting there. His obvious frustration amused her. Harry was usually so put together and professional, but now he was sitting there with his hair all messed up from running his fingers through it and his demeanor was so casual and natural. She realized how attractive he was and checked herself as soon as the thought crossed her mind. "Samantha seems to have recovered fast," she offered.
"Oh, Samantha and little Naomi. I should go see them tonight. They must be as shaken as I am."
"They might be able to relate better to you knowing you have the same experience. You might be able to give them the support they need right now."
"I think I'll head over there now." He stood up and walked toward the door. Arana made herself look down at the blank PADD in front of her to avoid watching him walk out the door.
Harry rang the alert on the Wildman's quarters and Naomi opened the door. "Hello commander," the pretty, young woman said. "Come on in." She turned into the room and looked at her mother sitting on the couch looking at a picture of her husband. Samantha looked up and saw Harry through tears growing in her eyes.
"Harry" she barely had a voice to say it, she ran to him and buried her face in his shoulder and Naomi joined in. Together they supported each other as victims of the cruelest joke they had known.
Meanwhile in sickbay:
Dr. Greg Marshall sat at his desk examining the data on his computer. Now that he found himself on the other side of the galaxy, he felt the need to study the medical records on his database that refer to the Delta Quadrant. He glanced at the holo-image on his desk. His wife was smiling back at him from the frame. It was an old picture, taken right before the attack on their colony. Cardassians who had no claim on the planet they were on came in the night, killing everyone they saw. Officially, they claimed that their sensors were malfunctioning and they mistook the colony for a takeover in their space. The surviving colonists had their own theories about why they attacked, and it had nothing to do with malfunctioning sensors. After Maylene's funeral, he swore he would make those lizard-headed monsters pay for his grief.
He flipped the screen over and stared at the young man from the Kazon vessel. There is definitely Cardassian blood running in his veins. Those forehead ridges are unmistakable. It really didn't matter that this boy had nothing to do with his wife's death, his prejudice ran deep and right now it was focused on this angry boy in a small ship nearby.