Chapter Eleven – Resurrection
"Paris to bridge, we have all the survivors. Go to maximum warp to the vessel in need of aide, and get me Starfleet command on a secure line in the briefing room."
"Yes sir, I'll have command on the line when you get there."
"Paris out." Tom turned to his friends as they stepped off of the Prometheus transporter pad. Harry and his first officer, Darius Lauren, walked to wall and leaned upon it. Tuvok walked up to Paris.
"Captain Paris, I feel I owe you great thanks." Tuvok said.
"Amen to that." Kim muttered from the wall, having a hard time catching his breath.
"I must warn you of the danger we are approaching. That entity is very hazardous, and we need to find a way to destroy it." Tuvok finished.
"I thought you did…" Tom said, thinking back to the destroyed Terra Nova.
"We almost did," Kim started, "It started to break down and die, but a part of it escaped. It wouldn't have mattered, because our nacelles burned out before enough of the radiation could have been generated." Kim finished.
"You mean you killed part of it?" Tom asked.
"Yes. Part." Darius said, as he stood up straight.
"Well, lets discuss the rest of this with command." Tom said, as he ushered his friends out of the room.
--
"Admiral? Admiral Janeway, wake up." Janeway squinted her eyes, the lights in the room were very bright. She realized that she was laying down on her back looking up at a woman she had never seen before, who was running a tricorder over her body. Janeway shot up.
"Where am I?" She said quickly, trying to get her bearings. The last thing she remembered was a massive explosion and the gas beaming in to the ship.
"Your in Voyagers sickbay, Ma'am. You beamed up from Risa, and lost consciousness on the transporter pad. We had to bring you here and revive you." The woman spoke softly. "I recommend you don't move around very fast, your going to have a headache… something went wrong in transport and caused your endorphin levels to skyrocket, causing you to pass out." Katheryns head started to spin.
"The Doctor?" She asked.
"Who? I am the CMO on Voyager…" The woman replied, with a worried look on her face.
"The Doctor! My Doctor, I was attending a medical symposium on Risa with him… we beamed up together." Janeway fought to remember, her mind was starting to loose focus on the past. Voyagers CMO looked worriedly at her.
"Admiral, I think you need to rest. I'll inform Captain Tracy that you are back with us." The woman said, as she started to walk away to her office. Janeway jumped off the biobed when she heard his name.
"No!" She yelled, then realized how loud she had said it. "I need to go to the bridge anyway, I'll tell him myself." She smiled, and started her way to the door.
"Just take it easy Admiral, your body needs to rest." The Doctor said, as Janeway walked out of the room. The moment the doors shut behind her, she slumped against the wall. Nothing was adding up… she knew the ship had almost been destroyed, the gas had beamed in, the main computer had gone offline, and right before she passed out, all the command holograms disappeared. The Doctor was right next to her when it all happened. "Janeway to Doctor." She said into her comm badge, while looking around the corridor making sure she was alone. Silence was the reply. She sure as hell wasn't going to the bridge, she needed to find the Doctor, and find a way off of this ship.
"Computer, are there any equipment lockers near by? I need a tricorder." She said softly.
-Affirmative. The nearest equipment storage room is on this deck, section twenty-seven beta. The computer responded. Moments later, she walked out of the storage room with a tricorder and phaser in hand. She had her tricorder set on active scan mode, as well as monitoring for life signs- so she could avoid them when possible. "Computer, are there any holographic signatures active on this ship?" She asked, while looking down at her tricorder trying to decide where to start her search.
-Affirmative. Came the response. That could be anything… She stopped and thought hard for a moment, then remembered the poly-deutronic alloy the mobile emitter was constructed from. It was the only form of alloy in this time frame in use. "Computer, scan for a poly-deutronic alloy."
-A poly-deutronic alloy has been detected in Engineering. The computer replied. Janeway nodded, rounded a corner, and entered a turbolift. "Engineering." She stated quickly, hoping she could find the Doctor and get them out of there, and fast.
--
"Bridge." Tom Paris said to the turbolift controller, as the doors shut. Captain Harry Kim, and Captain Tuvok were in the lift with him.
"Kelinesium radiation is the key." Kim was saying. "When generated within the nacelles, it starts a decomposition effect of everything it touches. We were lucky enough to generate a large portion in our nacelles before they burned out, but it was not enough to stop the entity." He finished, crossing his arms.
"This phenomenon destroyed my ship, the Vision, as well, Captain Paris. We were very unfortunate because of the quick strike it had on us… I was the only survivor of my ships destruction." Tuvok added. Paris thought for a moment.
"It seems like we need a new method of delivering the kelinesium. You said that you opened the ramscoop, and directly infused it that way?" Tom directed his question to Kim.
"That's how we did it, but it ended up blowing the nacelles right off of the pylons." Kim replied.
"I wonder if we can create a burst of kelinesium using a warp field."
"How?" Tuvok questioned. The turbolift slowed to a halt, revealing the bridge of the Prometheus.
"The Prometheus has an advantage over your ships. We have multi-vector assault mode… which means I can separate my ship into three parts. If we created a triangle around the gas, generate a warp field around it, then start kelinesium bursts within the field using the nacelles of all three segments- we might be able to destroy it with minimum damage to my ship." Tom finished as they walked through the bridge, to his ready room.
"Well that plan definitely has great merit, do we want to attempt this without backup?" Kim said, as he and Tuvok sat down in the two chairs in front of Toms desk.
"It has already destroyed two ships this week, and we don't know about the one we are going to provide aide to. We must attempt to stop it at all costs," Tuvok started, "besides, command just told us the nearest ship is the Enterprise, and they are a day away at maximum warp."
"Well, at least they are on their way if we fail. But I agree with you, Tuvok, we need to try to stop this thing before it claims any more lives."
--
"Computer, halt turbolift." Janeway quickly said, causing the turbolift to abruptly apply its antigrav brakes, slowing it to a stop. She started remembering back to what seemed another life ago.
"Send a covariant distress call to any federation ship in range, maximum signal gain."
Marcus had yelled those words in his dying breath before the computer went offline. A ship would be on its way! How long ago was that? Thirty minutes? An hour?
--
"Bridge to Pairs." The comm system cracked to life, breaking the dead silence in the ready room. Tom looked up from his computer terminal, Kim woke up, and Tuvok raised an eyebrow.
"Paris here."
"We are approaching the distress call site." Tom stood up.
"Raise shields, and slow to one third. Paris out." He turned to his friends. "Maybe we can get some answers here." They walked out of the ready room, and onto the bridge. "On screen." Tom said, as he sat down in his chair. Tuvok and Kim stood behind him. Tom immediately stood back up after the image came up on the viewer. "My God, they made another Voyager?" He stuttered, as Kim and Tuvok stepped closer to the viewer. Tom pointed to his tactical officer. "Verify that ship."
His Tactical officer keyed in a few commands, and replied.
"Its registry number is NCC-74656-A, USS Voyager. I'm getting a Starfleet warp signature. It's one of ours, sir." He said, as his panel beeped. "And they are hailing."
"On screen." Tom said, as he kept his eyes fixed on the main viewer. The mans face that came upon the screen nearly knocked Tom down. His steel eyes were frightening, at best.
"I am Captain Brian Tracy, of the USS Voyager. Can I help you?" He said calmly. Tom narrowed his eyes.
"I'm Captain Tom Paris, USS Prometheus. We were responding to your distress signal… are you in need of aide?" Tracy glanced at someone off the screen, and looked back at Tom.
"That was an accident, I apologize for any trouble we caused you. We were having momentary problems with our communications systems, but we have the problem under control. You can be on your way, and thanks again. Voyager out." The blue federation logo momentarily flashed up on the screen, to be replaced by the outside view of Voyager A. Tom raised his eyebrows, and turned back to Kim and Tuvok.
"That was strange." He looked up at his tactical officer. "Scan their ship for anything unusual." The man at tactical pressed a few buttons, then looked back at Tom.
"I'm not getting anything, our scans are being deflected back from their ship."
"That is strange as well." Tuvok said.
"Well, they obviously don't want us around. Lets get out of their scanning range and contact Starfleet. Helm, take us out of here, warp two. Engage." Tom sat down in his chair, and felt the engines powering up.
"Sir, I think we are getting a message." His ops officer rapidly said.
"What? All stop!" Tom said quickly. His helm officer slapped a button, canceling the warp command. The ship halted. "What kind of message?" Tom said, and all eyes shifted to the ops officer.
"It's simple text, hold on its encrypted." He pressed in a few buttons, and looked up. "Here, I'll put it on the main viewscreen." The viewer flashed, then the text appeared: JANEWAY PIE ONE ONE ZERO. CORD: 169/3321/45w3a. Tom turned white, and pointed at the viewer.
"Admiral Janeway is on that ship! Lock onto those coordinates, and energize!" Tom yelled, quickly. His ops officer started keying in commands.
"Sir, the ship is initiating a scattering beam! I can't get a clear lock… wait, I have a partial lock. Should I go ahead and try it?" He looked up at Tom, waiting orders.
--
The turbolift Janeway was standing in suddenly started to move again, except this time, it was going up. She muttered an obscene word, and pointed her phaser towards the door. When it opened, she fired directly at the man standing in her way, Captain Tracy. The beam went straight through him, and sizziled the wall behind him.
"Clever, Admiral, to reroute your message through our shield emitters. I almost did not catch it, but did you really think you could fool me long enough to get off of this ship?" He smirked. Janeway felt a warm tingle inside her body, and grinned.
"I just did." She said, as the Prometheus transporter system pulled her out of the turbolift, and set her down on Tom Paris's bridge. The transport drained her energy, for she realized she had just been pulled her through two different shield grids. "Go, now!" She whispered, as Harry and Tuvok caught her from falling down. Tom turned to his helm officer.
"Get us out of here, maximum warp! Computer, start rotating our shield harmonics every second." He turned to Janeway. "Admiral, are you ok?" Janeway sat down in Toms chair, holding her head.
"For the moment, Tom. We need to destroy that ship, and everything on it, and we need to do it now." She shot her head back up, looking at the viewscreen. "The Doctor!"
--
One of the engineers on the fourth story of engineering was sitting down, facing his computer terminal. To any one average person, he appeared he was repairing a spent phaser power cell. In reality, it was the Doctor incognito.
Right after Janeway had passed out on the bridge, he had noticed some strange things happening. The holographic crew disappeared from deletion, and the room went dark. He had crawled to the back of the ops panel to find a medkit in case Janeway had been hurt, when main power came back online. He grabbed the kit, and stood up. The lights in the room flickered back on, with a green eerie tint to them. The helm panel, that had been destroyed from a power surge, started to come back together. He stared at it for a moment, and watched it put itself back together. He knew there was no kind of technology like this developed by Starfleet, and that it must be the technology of an alien race. The green gas was now on the ship, and he knew it must be effecting the ship in ways he could not imagine. The panel came back together completely, and all the rubble on the floor disappeared. The bridge suddenly looked normal again. His mobile emitter suddenly spewed sparks for a moment, and his program flickered. He knew he was damaged and needed to get to Engineering to fix himself. He had crouched down near the Captain, to make sure she was fine, only to have her transported right out from underneath him. He started to run to the turbolift, when he tripped on a step and fell. He crashed onto the floor, facing a bio-neural gel pack. It was blue, as normal… until suddenly it turned green. He shuttered, and ran into the turbolift.
When he had gotten to engineering, he repaired his emitter, and changed his uniform to match those of a field engineer. As he was starting to work his way out of the room, he noticed a bright light started to light up. He turned around, and saw the dual warp cores light up.
-Warning, matter/antimatter interlock integrity field has been compromised.
The Doctor distinctly remembered the computer announcing there was a major problem with the warp cores, and yet they just powered up. Something was very wrong on this ship. Suddenly, he heard voices. He looked around, and the entire engineering staff was busy going about their jobs. He jumped slightly, wondering where they all came from… so, trying not to be discovered, he went to the top level to try to formulate a plan for escape.
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I liked this chapter. What does everyone think? What shall the outcome be? Will the Doctor make it out alive? Or will he sacrifice himself to save the Prometheus?