Star Trek: Babylon
Andrew J. Talon
Edited and revised chapter 7
Kes felt as though she were drowning. Deeper and deeper into an airless void she fell, her arms flailing, attempting to grab onto something, anything, to slow her descent.
There was nothing to grip, nothing to breathe. All was darkness and nothingness. She tried to scream, but no words came. She tried to think, to recall memories, faces, names, but a blanket of darkness covered her mind and rumbled over her thought processes. Without she was surrounded by nothingness, but within she was trapped in a spider's web of unrelenting order. Like the moth caught in such a web she beat her wings frantically, trying to escape, but the threads continued to close in, dividing and splintering her will. Her ability to link thoughts and desires suspended, she could only peer through each barrier to the next, still trying to keep a hold on her identity, and her sanity.
But the will of her captor was all too familiar, and all too powerful, for her to combat. Still she struggled, but without her Ocampan abilities, even her strong will could not keep her mind above the relentless labyrinth. Dimly, she felt herself slipping away, falling apart into nonexistence…
Until abruptly, she opened her eyes. Her senses returned, as though they had never been suspended. She squinted and made out the sight of the medical sensor cluster overhead, with the all-too-familiar support of the surgical bio bed underneath her body. Swimming into view above her face was the craggy visage of—
"D… Doctor?" Kes murmured, blinked slowly. The EMH smiled down at her in a familiar fashion. A light of recognition burst in her eyes.
"Hello, Kes," the holographic doctor said kindly. "Good to see you well." She blinked again, tilting her head slightly to her right. Her eyes widened somewhat, a sudden exhaustion coming upon her.
"Captain…?" Captain Janeway smiled caringly down at her.
"Hello Kes." The blonde blinked lazily again.
"What… Is going on?" She murmured. Janeway sighed.
"I told the Doctor that continuing his temporal experiments would only lead to more trouble," the captain growled, as the doctor blanched. The EMH shook his head rapidly.
"It wasn't a temporal experiment, Captain. The biotemporal chamber was used for a much more ambitious—And I must admit, brilliant—purpose."
"Which would be?" Janeway prompted irritably. The Doctor shrugged, his eyes dipping down at Kes expressively.
"To turn her human, of course." Janeway's jaw dropped. Kes felt like fainting in shock.
"What… Where am I? What year is this?"
"She's very disoriented at the moment. It's a side-effect of the treatment," the Doctor went on. "Essentially, I came up with a way of fostering a trans-species metamorphosis. I used the base nucleotide sequences common to both Ocampan and human DNA, to serve as a foundation. Then, by using advanced gene therapy techniques, I began altering Kes' DNA to become more like a human's, in order to grant her a much longer lifespan." Janeway looked positively furious, but hid the growing firestorm behind her eyes. Kes felt a confusing maelstrom of emotion—Shock, violation, betrayal, anger, sorrow…
"And the temporal chamber?" The Doctor smiled happily.
"That was a particularly brilliant idea of mine. This trans-species metamorphosis would only have been possible through the carefully paced introduction of the new DNA, and the affected areas of her body adapting quickly to the changes. If I were to speed up the process in some areas, but slow them down in others, I would be able to greatly reduce the amount of time overall to complete the transformation." Kes felt close to fainting again. Janeway looked ready to erupt, and Mount Kathryn was not a calm volcano to ignite.
"Did you ask Kes about this procedure?"
"No. That would have ruined the surprise!" The Doctor replied cheerfully. Far too cheerfully. There was something terribly, terribly wrong here. Both were in their uniforms from Voyager's trek through the Delta Quadrant. And only now was she finally noticing the length of her hair…
"Computer, deactivate EMH program until further notice," the captain said flatly. The Doctor vanished, still wearing his odd smile. Janeway hit her commbadge and called B'Elanna and Tom to the sickbay, before she turned to Kes again, looking frustrated and confused.
"Don't worry, Kes. We're going to figure out just what's wrong with the Doctor… And what he really did to you," the captain murmured, placing a comforting hand on Kes' shoulder. Kes' brain decided that now was a good time to go bye bye and sleep on this mess. The last thing she heard was the captain calling her name urgently, trying to wake her…
"Captain! Hold still!" The Emergency Medical Hologram Mk. II grumbled, waving a dermal regenerator over Lee's exposed stomach. The captain rolled his eyes and willed himself to remain motionless, but the fact that the medical device was making his stomach very sensitive was making things difficult.
"Shouldn't you be tending to someone else?" The captain grunted. The holographic doctor rolled his blue eyes, shaking the golden mops of hair on his head.
"You insisted that I treat everyone before you, captain. At the moment, the other patients are recovering." The EMH continued it's treatment, muttering under it's breath about captains and common sense. Lee grit his teeth, but was finally rewarded with freedom from the treatment a few moments later. He spared no time, grabbing his red command undershirt and pulling it on, while striding rapidly over to the zero-gravity stasis chamber. Within which, the battered form of Commander Twee floated awkwardly. The medic attending the chamber's controls, Nurse Steth, ran her blue fingers over the control board with a practiced ease. She turned at the captain's approach, her antenna twitching slightly.
"Captain."
"Nurse," he nodded, looking solemnly at the silent dolphin. His eyes were closed, and his posture was limp, screaming that something was wrong with their usually exuberant, active first officer. The nurse tentatively put a hand on Lee's elbow.
"He sustained severe internal injuries, captain, but the surgery went well. He'll make a full recovery in a week. He's very resilient," Steth voiced quietly. Lee nodded.
"He is," the captain murmured. He nodded to the nurse, and turned to the biobed in the corner. The prone form of their usual CMO, blonde hair arranged like a halo around her head, slept almost peacefully. Two grim-faced security guards, Zero and Naggins, watched over her, phaser rifles always trained on Kes. Lee frowned. It was procedure, yes, but still…
"Doctor. What's Kes's status?" He asked simply of the hologram. The blond EMH turned around, glanced over at the CMO, and became stone-faced. He approached the captain, and gestured to Kes's office.
"In private, sir?" The EMH asked. Lee nodded, and followed the hologram into the glass-enclosed workplace, shielded from prying ears of any species. Lee crossed his arms and looked at the EMH expectantly.
"Her nervous system has been… Hijacked, for lack of a better term," the hologram began. Lee raised an eyebrow, and the EMH continued.
"Her occipital pole—The part of the brain in the back, responsible for processing visual and other sensory stimuli—is right now running at very high energy levels. Her cerebellum's processes are no longer linked with the rest of her brain—At least, along the normally accepted neural pathways." The EMH called up a holoscreen that floated in mid-air, outlining a sensor-schematic of Kes' brain. Lee gaped openly at the bizarre, criss-crossing pattern of neuro-electric connections firing in rapid, almost chaotic, succession.
"Her consciousness is being linked into an external source of some kind," the EMH went on. "While her occipital nerves are occupied in keeping her in a dreamlike state, the rest of her brain is receiving outside instruction. In essence, her brain has been transformed into a subspace transceiver…"
"Like the Borg," whispered Lee, suddenly feeling sick in dread. He slapped his commbadge. "Lee to bridge! Scan for Borg vessels or transmissions! And then get us hidden and fast!"
"Captain, we're a bit preoccupied now," Wyn reported over the channel. Lee frowned, before the deck shuddered beneath them all. Lee groaned.
"Wait, wait—Let me guess. We're under attack, right?"
"No sir. The Delta Flyer has blasted its way out of our shuttlebay," Wyn said flatly. "And Seven of Nine is no longer in the science lab, working on a way back home."
"Pursuit course! Shields up!" Lee barked, turning and running from the sickbay. At the whine of a transporter beam he skidded to a stop and kicked himself back into the sickbay, only to watch Kes' form vanish from the biobed.
"DAMNIT!"
Seven smiled cheerfully, piloting the knock-off of the Delta Flyer away at Warp 6. With her meddling, the warp engines wouldn't be operational for hours, at best. She set the controls to autopilot, before standing and turning around. The statuesque former-Borg strode to the aft bay of the large, sleek, Borg-enhanced shuttle, and descended down the ladder to the biobed now extended from the bulkhead.
Lying peacefully on this biobed was Kes, still in her blue patient garb. She ran a few scans with her cortical implant, before switching to a medical tricorder. Her smile stayed the same, as she gently ran her fingers through Kes' long hair.
"Don't worry…" she murmured quietly.Seven had never met this woman,until back in the Alpha Quadrant, and yet, she felt a deep connection to her already. Taking a hypospray, she injected the sleeping woman with something, before tucking her in with a blanket. She turned and walked smartly over to a nearby console, and began inputting commands—
"What?" She murmured, feeling the deck rattle beneath her. She remotely accessed the shuttle's controls and frowned. The Sojourner, instead of being disabled, was in hot pursuit.
"Efficient," she noted coolly, "but futile."
Lieutenant Kim tripled-checked his xao staff, it's green projection crystal glowing as it should. He turned to the troop of Imperial Marines waiting behind him in the debarkation chamber.
"Allright. We are looking for survivors, and checking their computers for relevant data. If any man here makes any inappropriate action towards the crew of the ship, I will nail your balls to the main reactor and let you jump at them," the leftenant snarled, his steely gaze running over a few of the more slovenly Warriors of His Majesty's Domain. The officer then turned, confident that his men were silent in focus towards their duties.
"What about looting, sir?" Asked one of the Marines. Kim rolled his eyes.
"Fine. We'll allow that. Kim to forecastle? Launch."
"Confirmed." At once, Kim and his men were surrounded in a pink bubble, which gently and silently launched out into space. Kim, along with the other men, held their staves tightly in front of them, the internal powercells of the multi-purpose tools maintaining the transport bubble. The Zhukov loomed closer, as Kim guided the transport towards the center of the saucer section. Growing larger and larger, finally the Zhukov's hull parted before them, as the bubble phased through the layers of duranium, tritanium, and other advanced alloys and composites. Kim shifted the bubble sideways, and released it, leaving the leftenant and his eight Marines standing on a dark, smoldering bridge. Kim knelt to check the pulse of a body on the carpeted floor, and upon finding one, slapped a pink pin onto his back.
A pink mini-transport bubble formed, and ascended, taking the unconscious crewmember up through the bulkhead, towards the Ral'nai'HAO, with its hospital section already prepped to receive the injured. More and more unconscious survivors ascended back to the Raii Imperial cruiser, as Leftenant Kim began to tap into one of the few intact control consoles on the bridge. He frowned, before holding his staff up to the console. His frown deepened.
"Curious. I can't decrypt their computer database. It's not in a binary code…" A fellow Marine, Private Naoh, came to his side.
"Leftenant? There is a dedication plaque…" He held up the artifact, which the leftenant scrutinized in the dim light of the Zhukov's emergency lighting.
"Ambassador-class starship… USS Zhukov… Commissioned Stardate 00000.5, Utopia Planitia Yards, 2323…" Kim frowned.
"The Federation stardate system," Naoh whispered. "Only in this case, it seems to have 1,000 time units for a year of slightly over 365.245 Earth days." Kim nodded.
"According to my history, originally, the Federation stardate system reset to 0000.0 every five and a half Terran years. But it looks as though this ship has been using a revised time system—One that resets to zero every 400 years instead. Accordingly, their current stardate would be… 58600.3. The Gregorian year 2381."
"But all former Federation worlds now use the Imperial Standard Lunar Calendar," Naoh protested. "This should be year Unjaii 79! This system must be a fraud or fabrication of some kind." Kim's eyes narrowed.
"We won't know what this ship really is, until we decrypt this database. Call the technicians over. We have work to do."
To be continued…