Entering the Delta Flyer as quickly as he could, he knelt down and placed Kathryn on the floor, checking her vital signs before closing the hatch and locking it. Grabbing the med kit, he knelt down and opened it, scanning Kathryn with the medical tricorder.
"Computer, increase oxygen by ten percent," Tom commanded, noticing that Kathryn's oxygen levels were low.
Undoing the front of her uniform, he carefully took it off her, followed by the grey undershirt, leaving her lying there in her grey tank top with her injury now clearly visible. Running the tricorder over the wound, Tom let out a sigh of relief when he realised it was only a flesh wound. Grabbing the dermal regenerator out of the med kit, he ran it over the area, watching as the wound slowly healed itself.
Satisfied with the closing of the wound, he scanned her once more and found a sedative in her system. Furrowing his brow, he wondered how it got there. Going through the different hypospray vials, he found the one he was after and injected into her neck. Knowing it would take a while before Kathryn woke up, Tom picked her up and carried her to the bed, laying her down on it.
Heading to the helm of the Delta Flyer, Tom ran a scan on the caves to see if he could pick up on anything that wasn't supposed to be there. From where he landed he could clearly see the entry into the caves and he kept an eye on it while running more scans around them. He knew that something wasn't right but he needed the sensor readings to back up his gut feeling.
Opening her eyes, Kathryn squinted as the light shone down on her. Yawning, she sat up and looked at her left shoulder, running her finger over the healed wound. Letting a small smile cross her face, she got off the bed and headed to the front of the Delta Flyer, knowing that's where Tom would be.
"How are you feeling?" Tom asked, hearing footsteps getting closer.
"I feel a lot better now, thank you. Are we still on the planet?" Kathryn asked, looking out of the view screen and seeing the sun setting in the distance.
"We are, I was going to head back to Voyager but then my gut told me that something wasn't right about this situation. I think whoever shot you are still on the planet and they're hiding under some kind of cloaking device. I have it narrowed down to the other side of the caves I believe," Tom replied, bringing up the sensor readings and showing them to her.
"I think I may be able to help narrow them down and your gut was right, we don't know if these aliens are friendly or not. They could have followed us back to Voyager and attacked the ship and the way she is right now, she's not up for another fight any time soon," Kathryn said, sitting down at the operations console.
Running different algorithms on the readings in front of her, she calibrated the sensors and brought up her findings on the view screen. "Right there, in the little cloaked ship. From my readings, it's smaller than the Delta Flyer and it only has phasers. It wouldn't stand a chance against us but it may also be a scout ship and their main ship is somewhere close by," Kathryn said, getting up from her spot and walking over to where her uniform lay on the ground.
Excusing herself for a moment, she quickly went into the small room and found her luggage. Pulling out the top half of her other uniform, Kathryn put it on, swapping over her pips and comm. badge to the new uniform. Joining Tom once more, she checked the scanners before turning to the man. "Hail them please, Tom, I think it's time we talked to our friends over there."
"Channel open."
"Hello, I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway from the U.S.S Federation Star ship Voyager, may I ask why you attacked us?"
Seeing an image pop up on the view screen, Kathryn studied the person on the other side. She couldn't tell much as he was dressed in solid black and had a helmet on that also seemed to double as a breathing apparatus.
"I am Runtig, the dilithium in those caves is ours. Return whatever you have stolen from the planet."
Raising an eyebrow, Kathryn pulled her shirt down and addressed the man as calmly as she could. "We haven't stolen anything from the planet. We also came here to look for the dilithium but we couldn't find any. Does your race have any claim to this planet?"
"We saw this planet so it's ours, l insist you leave at once before we are forced to take action."
"We will leave peacefu..." Stopping mid-sentence as the view screen went black then returned to showing the view in front of them, Kathryn let out a long sigh. "I guess we are leaving, start her up Tom."
"Aye aye, Captain," Tom replied, initialising the takeoff procedures.
"Can you believe he cut me off?" Kathryn asked, taking a moment to process the conversation.
"I can, he's adamant that everything is his. He was a jerk," Tom replied as he guided them through the atmosphere of the planet.
"Tom, take us to the moon and hide in its orbit, please. I want to see if our friends follow us out or not." Watching as they slowly manoeuvred into the position she wanted them in, she set the Delta Flyer to run scans on anything and everything exiting or entering the planet's atmosphere or orbit.
"So, what's the plan from here?" Tom asked, turning his chair to face Kathryn.
"The plan is we wait and stay hidden for the next half hour and if our friends still haven't moved we will head back to Voyager. When the repairs are complete on the ship, we'll bring her here and we can harvest those mushrooms and see if we can locate any more dilithium," Kathryn replied, getting up from her seat and stretching her legs.
"Yum, mushrooms for every meal," Tom sarcastically said, rolling his eyes.
"It's better than leola root anything for every meal," Kathryn replied, rolling her shoulder slowly.
"Is your shoulder still sore?" Tom asked, getting up and grabbing the medical tricorder and scanning the area, making sure the wound hadn't reopened.
"It's a little stiff, Tom, nothing to worry about," Kathryn replied, feeling Tom gently poke around the area through her uniform, checking for himself.
"It seems fine on all readings but when we get back to Voyager I'd like for The Doctor to have a look at it just in case I missed something," Tom said, checking the tricorder readings one more time. "Do you need any pain killers?" he added, hoping she wasn't in any sort of discomfort.
"Tom, it's fine, it really is, it's just a little tender and I think I'll be good without and pain relief," Kathryn said, putting a comforting hand on Tom's shoulder.
"I just worry about you and I don't like to see you in pain or discomfort," Tom replied, pulling her in for a hug as he didn't know what else to do. Placing a kiss on her head, he felt her head rest against his chest, just for moment, before she pulled back.
"If anything changes you'll be the first to know," Kathryn said, sitting back down in her chair and checking to see if anything had changed.
Seeing the exact same readings appearing on the console, Kathryn turned her attention away and picked up her PADD which she had left on the floor, leaning up against the wall. Going through the ship updates, she made sure to pay attention to what was fixed and what still needed repairing. Marking off a few things that needed approval, she continued to scroll on the PADD, this time going over some modifications Seven wanted to make to Astrometrics.
Hearing a beep from the console, she put her PADD aside and looked at the readings. "It looks like our friends are leaving the planet."
"Hopefully they don't spot us and want to pick a fight," Tom replied, flying a little closer to the moon.
"They are heading in the opposite direction to us. There is nothing on long range scans which indicate another ship is close by. And they just jumped to warp two," Kathryn said, looking over at Tom.
"Should I get us out of here before they turn back?" Tom asked, looking to Kathryn to see what she wanted to do.
"I think that is a good idea, once we clear the moon go straight to warp four," Kathryn replied, making sure the alien ship hadn't turned back.
Watching what was going on out the view screen, Kathryn was able to see some of the craters on the moon's surface, they were larger than she expected and almost looked like they were caused by an explosion instead of a comet or meteorite. Seeing the vast blackness of space as they headed away from the planet, she felt the Delta Flyer jump into warp as the stars started flying by like little white dots.
Relaxing into her chair, she let a small smile grace her face as she watched Tom fly them back home. Back home to Voyager where she was eager to return to her duties and figure out a way how to get them back here, hopefully without any interference so they could mine some of the dilithium that they desperately needed to make it back to Earth.