Authors note: Thanks to Holly for the name of the planet. This is something I thought of after having a nightmare about spiders.
It was allwas happening to Voyager it seemed as they entered orbit around Suvian; a planet which was uninhabited in an unknown part of space in the delta Quadrant. After having a disastrous battle with a race of scavengers known as the Glabites, Voyager was left with practically nothing and when Suvian came into range and their sensors detected a rich stream of Dilithium, they immediately entered orbit and began gathering supplies.
This away mission is going as planned thought Commander Chakotay as he stepped up to Lieutenant Paris and asked,
"Is everything ready?" Paris nodded his head towards the bundle of crates and replied,
"Yes, all we need to do is transport up than we can get out of here. These damn bugs are killing me." Chakotay smirked as Paris slapped his right arm in annoyance and tapped his combadge.
"Away team to Voyager; ready for transport." The combadge hissed static for a second before Ensign Harry Kim answered over the link,
"Ready for you commander" there was a pause and then the cargo containers disappeared in a shimmer of blue incandescing light. Chakotay watched with satisfaction as they vanished and walked around lost in thought. Little did he know, a blue spider like bug had crawled into his uniform and had taken residence in his collar. Coming back to Paris he nodded his head and they disappeared into the aura as well.
Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres waited patiently while the transporter hummed and deposited the cargo containers onto the pads below. Walking up she checked them and nodded to her staff, who immediately walked up and took them away to Engineering to be emptied and checked fully. Standing at the edge of the platform, she watched and smirked as two columns of blue light came and deposited the commander and Lieutenant. Her smirk left her face as the console suddenly beeped and the Ensign hurried to fix whatever was wrong. Running towards him, B'Elanna asked,
"What's going on?" the Ensign answered with a harried voice as his fingers danced across the console and looked up at her with a scared face,
"I don't know sir; there is something wrong with the transport. There, I think I got it now, reinitializing transport." He started again and tried transporting them up one by one. Tom materialized two seconds later looking appalled by what he saw, and blanched when he stepped off the pad shaking his head and mumbling something about a spider head. B'Elanna came up to him and took his hand feeling him shaking as he sat down in front of the console and put his head in his hands.
"Tom, what's wrong?" B'Elanna asked softly as she kneeled down beside him and looked at his shaking form. The transporter hummed again as she said that and Tom looked up as it stopped and cringed away from it as B'Elanna turned and saw what he was staring at.
"Captain to Transporter room one" she said softly as she watched Chakotay walk off the pad and look at her concerned. She backed away as he came at her and heard the Ensign moan as he fainted on the spot. Commander Chakotay had the head of a spider with eight eyes which were watching her closely and two antennas moving through the air as he/it tried to speak.
B'Elanna froze as the creature stopped in front of her and touched her shoulder.
"Medical emergency in Transporter room one" she squeaked out in a terrified voice. Captain Janeway walked in at that moment and stopped dead as she took in the scene around her. Tom Paris was shaking like a leaf looking at something to his left; the Ensign was on the ground passed out from fright; B'Elanna was standing stock still as a horribly disfigured Chakotay stood touching her shoulder. Walking up to them, Janeway looked closely at Chakotay and said in her command voice,
"What the heck happened here?" turning to the voice B'Elanna answered looking pale,
"Um, it seems we have a problem sir. The transporter had a malfunction which we thought was fixed, but it seems we were seriously wrong. Chakotay has the head of a spider like bug." Nodding Janeway turned to Chakotay and eyed him closely as she stepped up to him and asked in a sharp tone,
"Commander? Can you hear me?" he tilted his head and blinked his eight eyes at her in confusion and tried to say something, but nothing came out but a high pitched squawk. The doc came in then took one look at Chakotay and walked up with the tricorder scanning him closely as he asked,
"What happened to him?" B'Elanna smiled then and proceeded to tell him everything that happened since transport and watched as he nodded in understanding and went to collect Tom who was standing now and took them away by the site to site transport to Sickbay, leaving B'Elanna and Janeway alone with an unconscious Ensign.
The news spread fast around Voyager that Chakotay was now a hideous creature who ate small bugs that the doc replicated for him. It was three hours after the accident when Janeway came into Sickbay and saw him laying on the bio bed antennas twitching angrily and walked up to Doc, who was in his office making notes.
"Okay, how do we change him back to his normal head?" Janeway asked as she leaned against his desk and gave the Doctor her full attention. He stood up and looked out the window staring at Chakotay as he replied with annoyance,
"I can not say at this moment Captain; I found the reason for the mishap though." Her eyebrows quirked up at the word 'mishap' and he continued,
"It seems from what I gathered from Mr. Paris once he calmed down enough for him to speak that there were alien bugs on the planet which looked familiar to Commander Chakotay's head. From what I figured out, Commander Chakotay had a bug hidden in his uniform somewhere and when they transported up to Voyager, the alien DNA mixed with his, causing this mutation." Janeway nodded thoughtfully, thinking about the repercussions of the mutation and possible solutions to fix it. Staring at her commander, she said
"Can we return him to normal?" Doc was quiet for a second and she knew it wasn't good as she turned around and saw his expression. Sitting down again, he turned on his computer screen and accessed Chakotay's current medical logs. Janeway could see how the aliens DNA had coalesced with his, nixing perfectly and knew it would take a scientific miracle to fix it. She turned back to Doc, and said in a serious voice,
"Could the other half of the alien be around the planet somewhere? If we find it, maybe we could put Chakotay together again. Would it be possible?" he looked thoughtfully at the wall for a minute, his holographic brain processing the information and nodded when he came to the same conclusion. Standing up suddenly, he moved out of his office and scanned Chakotay again. Janeway followed watching as his eyebrows rose fully and exclaimed,
"Yes, that could work; he only has half the DNA. According to the readings, his head should be on the alien's body, but that would be scientifically impossible." He rambled on as he ran further tests on Chakotay, who looked at Janeway with his eyes and squawked again. Taking his hand in hers, she leaned up close to Chakotay and whispered,
"Don't worry Chakotay, we'll get you back. Just hang in there okay?" touching her combadge, she called the senior staff and made a meeting to discuss the situation. Walking out of Sickbay, she turned her head and called over her shoulder,
"Keep me informed Doctor."
Twenty minutes later, the senior staff was gathered in the briefing room, listening to Janeway as she got everyone up to speed on what was happening. Tom looked pale as he explained the situation on the planet, with all the bugs and insects.
"There was this insect which looked like a Terran spider down there Captain, its blue and looks almost identical to Chakotay's head." Janeway nodded and replied,
"Where did you see them?" Tom shook his head and answered,
"There everywhere Captain; there was so many different insects down there, we got bit almost every second. I don't know Captain I'm sorry." He hung his head and shuddered thinking of Chakotay's head; he was terrified of spiders, any bugs really and this hit way to close to him. B'Elanna put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently, comforting him as Seven began her speech, which was boring to everyone.
"The Borg was on this planet twenty five years ago, searching for a group of drones who crashed there. They discovered nothing of value, but assimilated information about the planet from a freighter two light years away. It was known that the planet was populated by insects which were sentient. I believe if we find their language then we can ask where the insect in question is and get Commander Chakotay back to normal." Everyone looked at her in shock; there was no way an insect could be sentient. Janeway stood up and looked around at her crew feeling like she was about to shout to everyone to think and not speak, but she just answered,
"How could an insect be sentient? I mean, sure we have some races in the Alpha quadrant which are insectoid but no, we don't have any insects that are sentient. No, let's think of another thing, like how do we find this one spider and catch him? I want answers." She turned and looked out the viewport, trying to think of something that would work, but she could only think of one thing. Turning back, she got a sudden idea, but it was stolen by Tuvok, who spoke up and stated,
"I believe the only possible solution to this problem would be to scan the area where Lieutenant Paris and Commander Chakotay were last and see if the spider is near by. The only thing that would cause a problem is catching the insect; they are fast." Nodding, Janeway sat back down and thought of everyone running around with nets, trying to catch a spider among thousands others and laughed. Everyone turned their heads towards her and she waved away the confused expressions and stated,
"Never mind. Okay everyone, let's get started. We'll beam down in shifts, starting from the beam out point and working our way from there. Take care now not to get any insects in your uniforms; check everyone before beaming up and check your equipment too. I want no more accidents like Chakotay's dismissed." Everyone nodded and moved out to begin searching for the 'missing link'.
To be continued