The next afternoon, Seven and the Captain returned from their meeting. Stepping of the transporter pad, Janeway reached for her communicator.

"Janeway to Chakotay."

"Chakotay here. Welcome back Captain. How were the paintings?" his tone was light and teasing.

"Bright Commander." The reply could've applied either to his comment or the art. "Please call a meeting of senior staff in, say, an hour. We've got some new information that we should discuss."

"Acknowledged."

"Phantoms?" Harry asked incredulously.

"That is the designation given by the Virn," said Seven "but they have no details or proof of the 'phantoms' existence."

"What the Virn have said though," the Captain said "is that quite a few ships have been lost without a trace in the last few years while following the route we propose to take after leaving here."

"Sounds like the Bermuda Triangle." said Tom, after noticing the perplexed glances of everyone around the briefing table he clarified. "A 20th century myth about disappearing airplanes and ships."

"Well," the Captain continued "we don't know if this is a myth or not. How long would it take to go around or use another route?"

Harry looked up from his PADD. "Well, based on the information from the Virn, probably an extra six months."

"Damn. I'm not sure I want this crew to sacrifice another six months on a…a… specter!"

"Well, if we decided to go through the Bermuda Triangle," she smiled at Tom "we could adjust the deflector to make deeper sensor sweeps." B'Elanna suggested.

"How deep?" asked Chakotay "And how would this affect other systems?"

"Perhaps ten to thirty percent more distance we currently use at a slightly reduced resolution but it should be enough to warn us of any anomalies or subspace disturbances. And, now that we're restocked, we should only experience about a five to ten percent reduction in power."

"Sounds good. OK let's do it. Tom, work with Seven to plot our course. Tomorrow. Right now we've got a party to host. Are the holodecks ready Tom?"

"You bet Captain. Chell's done a great job."

"OK, dismissed." The meeting broke up and everyone started moving to the doorway. "Oh, Mr Kim, could I see you for a moment please?"

The Captain waited until they were alone.

"We've missed two practice sessions in a row Harry. Have you managed to get any time in at all?"

"I had an hour before my shift yesterday when they were on the planet." 'They' meant mainly Tom. "I worked on the exercises you gave me. I told him we were working on adjusting and optimizing the isomatic vertion discriminators."

Janeway laughed out loud, shaking her head.

"Lucky he's not as knowledgeable as B'Elanna. Anyway, I hope to join you once we get underway again. We've only got two weeks until the tournament. I've got to tell you Harry, I'm really looking forward to it. I never really noticed before how insufferable Tom is about the pool competition results." she smiled an evil smile. "Thanks for ordering me to go. We're going to kick their butts." She smiled warmly at him.

"It's my command style. I learned from the best."

She laughed. "Well Captain Kim, we'd better join the others before we raise Tom's suspicions."

"Yes, ma'am"

The day of the basketball game was particularly trying for Janeway and indeed, most of the crew.

They'd left Virna three days before, and all day the ship had experienced a series of niggling problems that had necessitated all qualified engineers, of which Janeway was one, to be constantly making repairs from one end of the ship to the other. There had been issues had been the type of problems that required access through Jeffries tubes. She felt like she'd spent the whole day on her hands and knees, crawling, ducking and being cramped. No sooner had one thing been fixed, another issue emerged.

She was tired, stiff, achy, in a really, really bad mood and not looking forward to spending the evening in the cold cargo bay (cold due to a problem with the environmental controls that were low on the priority list of things to fix), watching a sport that she'd hardly heard of. Still, after defending the bringing on board of Tom's chair apparatus, she didn't feel like she could not attend.

When Janeway entered the cargo bay, she discovered just about the whole crew present, with the exception of those required to keep the ship moving. Not that it was doing that at an acceptable speed as far as she was concerned.

But that would all be addressed tomorrow. Right now, the crew needed some entertainment, some release from the tensions of the last few weeks and months.

Janeway smiled and chatted with various people as she made her way to her seat with Harry and B'Elanna. She nodded to Chakotay was sitting with Naomi and Sam Wildman as well as Seven.

The appearance of the two teams was met by cheers of delight by the crew. It turned out that Tom had also managed to convince the Doctor to be some kind of umpire, as he had appeared wearing a striped shirt and sporting a whistle. The teams themselves were dressed in satiny oversized shorts and tank tops.

The game was an enormous success. Perhaps not for the reasons of being among the great sporting moments, but Janeway secretly believed that the chaos that ensued was all part of Tom's master plan.

It appeared that, except for the Doctor who had downloaded the rules into his program, none of the players actually had a firm grasp of what they were actually supposed to be doing.

From the moment the ball was thrown into the air to start the game and no one from either side attempted to catch it, the cargo bay was filled with laughter of both the participants and the spectators.

Thereafter ensued a series of hilarious episodes involving a lot of throwing of a ball but not a lot of catching, plenty of falling over by the players and players running into each other. Usually their own team mates.

The Doctor kept blowing his whistle and both teams would stop and look to him, completely mystified as to why the game had stopped.

But when Marla Gilmore, the only person from either team that seemed to have a clue about passing the ball, threw the ball to Billy Telfer who wasn't even watching, hitting him on the head and ricocheting into one of the goals, the crowd erupted.

At this point the game had to be halted as one of the spectators, helpless with laughter, fell off the end of the third tier of the stand. The Doctor checked out the crewman, who was unharmed, but diagnosed to be 'incapacitated by mirth'.

At the end of the match, or more correctly, what was deemed to be the end of the match, since no one had remembered to start the timer, the two teams agreed to call it a draw as no one had any idea what the score was. The crew cheered uproariously and the Captain couldn't remember a funnier time during the voyage.

Janeway watched as the crew filed out of the cargo bay, laughing and talking. Finally, only she and Tom remained.

"Well Captain, I think everyone enjoyed the game." He was beaming.

"Tom, I know exactly what you did tonight."

"You do?" he suddenly looked worried.

She motioned him to sit on his grandstand with her.

"Let me summarize…' she began counting on her hand "you organized a game that no one has played in two hundred years, you filled the two teams largely with people who could only be described as 'non-sporting', you made them wear extremely baggy, ill-fitting funny clothing and you put a person in charge who was least likely to twig that it was an enormous leg pull."

Tom smiled and raised an eyebrow.

"My only suggestion for improvement would've been to use a Vulcan as the umpire."

They both laughed, enjoying the thought.

"Tom, you did a very good thing here tonight," Janeway put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze "it was just what the crew needed. Hell, it was just what I needed. It's been a rough couple of months. Thank you."

They both got up and moved towards the door.

"It was a lot of fun Captain and I'm glad you enjoyed it." He looked almost shyly at her. "We're all going to the Mess Hall for the game post mortem – would you like to join us?"

"Actually, I would. Thank you." it wasn't a hard decision for her. Somehow, she just couldn't face returning to her ready room or quarters to read more reports. Alone. She had planned to talk to Chakotay but he had disappeared in the crowd before she'd had a chance to ask him.

He looked delighted. "Are you buying?"

"Don't push your luck Tom." But she laughed when she admonished him.

They left together, with Tom offering her his arm.

"Where did you get to last night Chakotay, I thought I'd see you in the Mess Hall after the game?"

She was leaning across the console between their chairs on the bridge.

"Sorry Captain. I had something else arranged. You were right though, Tom did put on a good show." He smiled and returned to examining his console.

If Janeway thought it was odd that he had something else planned or that he continued to use her title, she didn't have long to ponder as at that moment, as Harry reported from his station.

"Captain, we seem to be approaching some kind of energy field."

"More information please, Harry." she replied.

"Still not sure from this distance but I'd recommend we reduce speed until we can do a full analysis."

"Tuvok?"

"I would agree with Ensign Kim's assessment, Captain."

"Tom, slow to half impulse. Keep scanning Harry. Janeway to Seven."

"Seven here, Captain."

"Seven please come to the bridge, we've encountered…"

Suddenly, the ship lurched and crew was jostled in their seats.

"Report!"

"It seems the field extends further than our initial scans indicated. No major damage reports received." said Tuvok.

"Engineering to the Bridge."

"Go ahead." replied the Captain.

"Captain, we've just had an EPS relay blow and I'm afraid we're going to lose shields and perhaps some other systems soon."

"Tom, all stop." and then to B'Elanna "What's the time estimate?"

"Well, if we can run minimal systems, maybe two hours, but if you want some shields, it'll be longer. That's only a guess though, I'll still have to do a thorough check."

"Can we run sensors?"

"Yes, but I'd recommend default settings."

"OK, we'll get back to you when we've worked something out."

"Acknowledged."

Thirty minutes later, the Captain signaled both Chakotay and Tuvok to join her in the ready room.

"Gentlemen, you've read B'Elanna's report?" as the doors closed behind them, they both nodded, "Suggestions?"

Tuvok spoke first.

"I would not recommend any reduction in shields. Especially after the warning we received from the Virn."

"Spooked Tuvok?" Chakotay teased.

"Not at all," Tuvok replied stoically "I believe it would be prudent to keep our defenses at the ready."

"I tend to agree with Tuvok." the Captain looked worried "Have we got any updates on estimates from B'Elanna about repair times with shields up?"

Chakotay checked the PADD in his hand "She's just sent this through…about three hours longer with maximum shields." he replied "Doesn't seem to be too much of an imposition, only a few extra hours."

"OK, we go with shields up. I want whatever we can manage with the scans to continue until we can get moving again. Get Seven to help B'Elanna. And let Engineering know, Tuvok." Janeway watched him as he left the ready room "Still, I can't help thinking I'd rather get out of this part of space as soon as possible." she said to Chakotay.

"Now I'm worried. Kathryn Janeway is spooked." he smiled at her.

"Yeah, doesn't sound like me, does it? I have a bad feeling about being here. Intuition is supposed to be your department, Commander." she looked accusingly at him, poking him in the chest.

"It's only intuition if it comes true. But really it's more likely to be Chell's 'Warp Core Chili'"

"At least it's not leola root withdrawal." she was smiling now.

They both returned to the bridge and resumed their seats. Tuvok confirmed that repairs were now estimated to take just under six hours, which caused a raised eyebrow in Tuvok's direction from the Captain.

"Lieutenant Torres has apparently discovered some other critical issues." Tuvok explained.

"Right. Harry how are the scans going?"

"We've managed to get normal scanning up. No further anomalous readings to report."

Over the next forty-eight hours they experienced problem after problem. It seemed that everything that could go wrong, had.

The energy field that they had encountered initially now seemed to completely surround the ship. The field wasn't the only source of concern, as it seemed that other phenomena were influencing most of the ships systems. There had been even more cascading failures all over the vessel and no sooner had work begun on one thing, when another incident occurred, each becoming more serious than the one before.

The atmosphere at the senior staff meeting was somber. Voyager was now in its third day since entering the energy field and the problems not only persisted but were becoming dangerous.

"Seven and I have been doing analysis when we can on the field and we've come up with some strange results." Harry began his report "We don't think the field is naturally occurring."

A murmur went around the table with only Tuvok and the Captain remaining impassive, her chin lightly resting upon her steepled fingers.

Harry and Seven moved to the display panel and began to demonstrate their findings.

"We have recorded three instances of a pulse or emission that coincides with malfunctions on the ship." explained Seven.

"That could be just coincidence, they've been a lot more than three problems. And we haven't detected anything that could be the source." remarked Torres.

"Yes, but you see here on the analysis," Harry was pointing to the screen "that there's more 'data' for want of a better term, riding on the pulse."

"But what's the other signal or whatever doing, and how is it affecting our systems?" Chakotay was peering intently at the screen.

"We're not sure." The other meeting participants moved restlessly "but we do think that somehow that there's something causing some, if not all, of our problems." Harry wished he could feel as confident as Seven looked.

"We are currently trying to devise a method to disrupt or neutralize the signal." Stated Seven calmly.

B'Elanna shifted again in her chair "How long before you think you'll figure it out?"

"A day, perhaps less if we can capture more information."

"Keep on it." Janeway looked at Harry and Seven. "If someone or something is trying to disable my ship, we need to come up with some defenses." She turned to Tuvok and Torres "At this point, we should keep our shields our major priority. After the cryptic warning of the Virn and all these problems, I believe we should be as alert as possible." Turning to her first officer, "Chakotay, I want as many people as we can spare helping Engineering. OK, people, let's get moving. Dismissed."

The next morning on the bridge, the mood was serious. More unexplained problems had struck the ship overnight and there were many systems failures.

"Captain, I've just registered another energy pulse and it could be.."

As soon as the words were out of Ensign Kim's mouth, a shower of sparks and a loud bang issued from his console.

"Harry, are you OK?" Chakotay asked as he hurried over to the Ensign.

"Yes, sir but I think my station is fried." He looked at the console disgustedly and waving the last of the smoke away started peering at it. "I'm pretty sure there was another signal on that pulse."

"OK Harry," sighed the Captain, her hand massaging her temple, "get down to Astrometrics and check it out with Seven. I want to know what's going on. Contact Engineering and see if they can spare someone to work on your console too."

"Yes Captain." He quickly disappeared into the turbo lift.

"Actually, I might have a look at it myself. It'll stop me brooding." She whispered to her first officer who had returned to his seat.

She got up and moved towards Harry's console, rolling up her sleeves. About ten minutes later the turbo lift doors opened and Noah Lessing emerged.

"Ensign Kim said I might be able to help up here," he reported to Commander Tuvok.

"The operations console has suffered some type of overload. You will find the Captain trying to repair it." Tuvok replied.

Lessing walked over to the side of the bridge from which murmurings could just be heard from beneath one of the panels.

"Captain, are you cussing out the equipment again?" Lessing quietly enquired.

"Noah. It seems the problems with my replicator are spreading to Harry's station." she replied. "And Starfleet Captains do not cuss."

"No ma'am. Maybe I'll just take a look." he smiled at her.

"Sure, don't mind me." She got up to make room for him under the console, wiping her hands on her trousers. "I've disconnected that line there," she said pointing "but I think that the relays here and over there are going to need replacements. Also, that whole line up to the left is dead. You might need some extra parts & tools."

"Yes, you're quite right. And that's only a start by the looks of it."

"I agree."

Harry, Icheb and Seven were still working on the problem some time later when they were joined in Astrometrics by Voyager's youngest crewmember.

"Icheb, you said you'd help me with my science project." Naomi looked reproachfully at the young man.

"Naomi Wildman." Seven looked at her sternly. "Ensign Kim and I require Icheb's assistance on a project of great importance to the Captain and to Voyager. He will not be available for some time. I suggest another activity."

"For the Captain?" breathed Naomi "Can I help?" Naomi worshipped her Captain. "Everyone else is busy, even Mom, and I'm on my own." she wheedled.

Seven was about to respond when Icheb interrupted. "Perhaps Naomi could help with gathering all the logs and restarting some of the analysis."

It was a necessary but tedious task, but not beyond the child. It also allowed them to eliminate parameters to the data that they suspected could be eliminated but didn't want to allocate the time.

"Agreed. Please demonstrate what is required and begin the task."

Naomi's smile was dazzling.

The ship shook suddenly. Lights flickered and went to emergency status.

"What the hell was that Tuvok?" Janeway's head popped up from under the console.

"A ship has just decloaked and fired on us. We have sustained damage to the remaining shields we had. We've lost main power and are now on auxiliary."

"Can we return fire?"

"Unfortunately, no. Phasers are part of the malfunction and we are too close for torpedoes."

"Tom, can you.."

At that moment another explosion rocked the ship and they knew no more.

Janeway awoke with a start. And with a headache. Damn. Her hand went to her forehead which she guessed from the large lump, she'd hit on the console somehow.

Just as she was getting her bearings a strong hand pulled her roughly to her feet. Her head swam as she tried to make sense of what was happening around her.

There were two aliens with weapons that resembled phaser rifles on the bridge. One was guarding the bridge crew, the other dealing with herself and Lessing.

Chakotay, Tuvok and Tom were on their knees, with their hands on their heads, in front of the conn while she and Lessing were near Harry's station a couple of meters apart.

She spoke quietly, but with real anger showing through.

"What the hell is going in here? I'm the captain of this vessel. I want you off..."

Before she could complete the sentence, the alien who had just wrenched her to her feet whipped the butt of his rifle viciously into her stomach. "Quiet" was all he said. She doubled over before slumping to the floor.

The horrified crew looking on reacted instantly, with Lessing shouting an oath before making a move towards the alien.

The alien shot him before he'd taken two steps and he dropped to the deck.

Again Janeway was pulled to her feet. She groaned with pain and was horrified as she saw body of Lessing. She was turned around and pushed face first into Harry's station.

"Leader, we have four more of the crew. Their Captain is among them." said the invader, while still holding Janeway down on the console.

A voice came over the comm system.

"Good work, take them to the containment area. You may then proceed with the asset evaluations."

The aliens motioned the groups towards the turbo lift. As the doors opened, they pushed their prisoners into the lift, moving the Captain in first.

"All of you, on your knees facing the back. One move from anyone and someone dies." came their instructions. "Deck Four." They certainly knew their way around. Janeway wondered how long they'd been unconscious.

The noise, whatever it was, stunned Chell and he thought he may have blacked out for a minute or two. He found himself on his knees behind the counter in the mess hall and he realized he had a very, very bad headache.

"Pablo?" he called out. He was sure that Ensign Baytart was having something to eat just before the noise hit. "Pab-" as his head emerged over the counter top he could see Baytart and five other crewmembers unconscious on the floor and at their tables.

He made his way unsteadily over to the closest person and attempted to rouse her without success.

"Chell to Sickbay" He was disturbed by the silence that answered his hail. He tried the Bridge, Engineering and even Astrometrics without success.

"Oh dear." he said to himself. Chell didn't like the uncertainty and he was very uncertain.

He tried again to wake each of the crewmembers but couldn't seem to get any response, although he didn't look injured, apart from not being able to be awakened.

After turning off the stove, he decided to make his way to the nearest computer console.

After finding two more unconscious crewmen in the corridor he found a terminal and attempted to find out what was going on. It took several attempts to get any meaningful information and he was just about to try another when the computer informed him that the Doctor was off line and unauthorized persons were boarding through the shuttle bay and then fizzled into black. Maybe he'd been out for a bit longer than he first thought.

"Oh dear."

Ensign Golwat had been doing minor repairs to the replicators in the Delta Flyer in the shuttle bay when the explosion had rocked Voyager.

She had been quite disoriented when she regained consciousness and had looked out the window of the Flyer in time to see a number of, it appeared heavily armed, aliens alighting from a strange craft which was docked just inside the bay.

She watched aghast as two of the aliens lead away three of the crew who had been working outside the Flyer. Spurred by concern for her crewmates, she quickly jumped to her feet, managing to stay upright for less than a second her head swum, her vision darkened and she slumped to the deck, passing out before she even realized it was happening.

When Golwat opened her eyes again she was still in the Flyer. She was surprised, but was sure this was not a good thing.

Judging by the time that had passed, if Voyager's crew were in control of the vessel, someone would have come looking for her by now. Carefully she made her way to the computer and was horrified to determine the majority of the crew were now in the cargo bay. There were, counting herself, only about half a dozen crew not held there. She hoped that whoever they were, they were able to get the crew free.

Feeling dizzy, she closed her eyes and leant against the computer, furiously trying to think of something she could do to aid her crew.

Although there were some hand held weapons on the Flyer, she doubted she could walk to the hatch, let alone fight hand to hand with aliens of unknown strengths.

Again she managed to get to the computer, Voyager's shields were down, warp and weapons were off-line and the communications system was also not functioning even if she wanted to risk hailing someone. But the Flyer's systems were at optimal levels. Not that shields and weapons could help, but she did have transporters. Now she just needed to figure out what to do with them.

She attempted to move towards where the first aid kits were stored just as another wave of pain hit her and again she lost consciousness and slumped to the floor.

Ayala removed the helmet of his environmental suit. He looked around the main deflector area where he, Gerron and Tal were working and could see them getting to their feet slowly.

"Are you OK?" he asked as he helped Tal to her feet.

"Yes sir," she managed, leaning against the bulkhead with one hand "did I cause that, er, whatever it was?" Whenever she heard any explosion on the ship, she assumed she'd done something wrong.

"I'm not sure what that was," said Ayala as he examined the computer panel "it looks like it was something external, we could be under attack or.." he paused as he tried to scroll through the available information, concentrating on reading.

Meanwhile, Tal had opened the first aid kit and she was scanning Gerron. She could tell without using the tricorder that Gerron had a serious headache. So did she.

She loaded the hypospray with an analgesic and gave both herself and Gerron a dose. The relief was almost instant.

Ayala was concentrating on the console so hard that he almost didn't notice Tal administer the hypospray to his neck, although it was easier to think without the feeling like his head would explode.

"We're in trouble," Ayala turned to the others, "it looks as though the we're under attack and have been boarded. I can't reach anyone else on the ship, including the Bridge."

"OK," said Gerron "first thing is we should find ourselves some weapons. We also need to find out what we're up against."

"It's probably best if we stay out of sight where possible until we get a better handle on what's going on. Tal, keep the first aid kit with you. Hopefully, we'll find more crew along the way." He looked back to the panel "it looks like they're coming through the shuttle bays, we'd better get going."

"Where to?"

"We have to stay concealed, so we'd better stick to the Jeffries tubes. We should use our tricorders to emit a scattering pattern to mask our biosignatures, in case they look for them. Engineering is only a deck away, and we need to get to somewhere where we can get some information about whoever is boarding Voyager as well as be able to do something about it. Engineering is definitely our best bet."

The three entered the Jefferies tube and started making their way to the next deck.