Gretchen hovered in a small duct above Engineering, well ahead of the other Voyager crew members, still lost in the darkness of the Jeffries Tubes. Several of the tubes had been sealed off, or were full of exposed flickering wires, turning the confined spaces into a maze.
"Things tend to work out," said a male voice casually from below her.
"Sure, but not this well," came a female voice, "Max, how on earth did you know Voyager's systems would go down after Rudy's funeral?"
"Obviously I made an opportunity, don't ask how. I'm a magician, we don't tell our tricks. Just think of it as a 21-gun salute to Rudy, our friend. We're doing what he would've wanted, taking Voyager as our own. Maybe we'll even change the name of this ship to the Equinox, that would be a nice tribute, don't you think?"
"I'm an engineer too," came the woman's voice again, this time conversationally, with the beeping of some buttons, "And I used to work on a ship like this. Janeway had Sickbay locked down like we were quarantined. I looked for every hole possible on Rudy's orders. No go, not even the EMH could be used against Voyager. That Klingon girl, the one you used to date? She thought of everything."
"It's not important." More buttons beeped. "Just think of what we need to do to lockdown Engineering and keep the Voyager crew from retaking the ship when they wake up."
"What are you going to do about that?"
"Oh, I have plans. Let the crew sort themselves. They've never known anything but Janeway in the Delta Quadrant. I'm going to let them see the wonders of working the Equinox way… Let them see how much faster we get home with alien assistance. With Janeway locked out of Engineering she'll get more and more desperate and start looking pretty bad. If we're lucky, we'll get a mutiny without really trying…..If not, we start playing dirty. There's always more than one way to skin a cat."
"You mean, you'd kill fellow Starfleet officers? Fellow humans?" came the woman's voice in a high pitch.
"Look Marla, if they get in our way, they're just as much our enemy as any alien. I'm not a cruel guy, I'll give them a chance. If it's a big group, I'll put them off on a planet. But if it's just Janeway, and one or two holdouts, I can arrange an accident. The crew'll be well and happy to be done with her by then."
The voices were silent, but the beeping continued as Gretchen crouched through the last few feet of pipe, taking her from above Engineering, to behind where Maxwell Burke and Marla Gilmore were in one of Engineering's dead-end hallways. If only they weren't looking her way, she would have a chance to jump them. Unfortunately she could still only hear them.
"I figured out how you did it!" came Marla's happy voice, "There's a computer network node that connects directly to the casket ejectors. You put something in Rudy's casket with him, a virus of sorts, that released when he was sent into space. It took a little bit of time to spread through the system and cause the energy pulses. That is fitting, that Rudy helped take over Voyager. I'm sure he'd be proud that you found a way to let him help us, even in death…..But, we saw his body for the last time right after they told us he was dead….how did you know to be prepared?"
"I'm always ready for anything Marla, I've been planning taking over Voyager since we arrived."
"No...NO! Rudy died from an impulse, just like the one that crippled Voyager. You….you killed him!"
Gretchen silently opened the Jeffires Tube panel, knowing their attention would be elsewhere.
"Rudy had taken us as far as he could. It had to be done. And this has to be done too."
Gretchen leaped out of the tube and fired at Maxwell Burke as his side came into view. He fell to the floor, face upturned and clearly dead.
Marla screamed and Gretchen dove for the emergency shield button for the alcove hallway they were in, firing her phaser at one of the glowing tubes near Engineering's center a split-second before punching it. A fairly harmless, but opaque pink gas started to escape as the more distant Equinox crew heard the scream and began to run towards her location.
Gretchen prepared to launch herself back inside the Jeffries Tube, but to her eternal relief, the shield came up around the entrance to the alcove and held. She sagged, but aimed her phaser firmly at Marla Gilmore, the swirling gas hiding the rest of her enemies from sight behind the shield.
She did not speak a word as she fired the phaser directly at the frightened woman's chest.
Gretchen turned to the control panel and imputed buttons quickly, wiping her forehead shaking, as the virus defeated her at every turn.
Minutes passed, Gretchen looking to her side every few seconds nervously, at the shield. She heard a sudden metallic noise, raised her phaser at the trapped gas blocking her view, and screamed as out of the corner of her eye she saw movement behind her.
She turned around quickly, but delayed her fire just long enough to see the dirty face of Harry Kim.
"It's us," said Tom Paris, wiping hands on his torn pants, "What the hell happened here?"
"I'm in a stand-off," said Gretchen hurriedly, "I can't break the virus. Any second they could break that shield."
'That's why I'm the Chief Engineer on this ship," hissed B'Elanna angrily, starring at the Jeffries Tube in hatred, as she crawled out of the confined space, covered in grime.
B'Elanna strode to the console, hitting buttons aggressively, and very quickly.
"And maybe why you shouldn't have run off," said Harry evenly.
"I'm sorry," said Gretchen almost inaudibly, turning towards the swirling fog with her phaser aimed. Tom Paris reached down to take the phaser from Maxwell Burke's lifeless body, and both the men moved to stand to Gretchen's right, ready to hold off the Equinox crew if the shield failed.
B'Elanna had the shield reinforced, and Engineering's doors sealed off within minutes, "The rest of this is going to take a long time," said B'Elanna with frustration, "Engineering, the turbolifts, and Sickbay were left alone from the pulses. They were essentially just hacked. Undoing the hacking is easy, but the pulses, a lot of that is manual damage, to equipment and people."
"Can we bring the Doctor online?" asked Harry, "He could start to see to the wounded."
"I think so," said B'Elanna, tapping more buttons, "Yes, done. But our combadges are still out. We can't tell him what happened."
"He'll figure it out." said Tom, "I would go help, but we're still trapped in here until security recovers and rescues us. We can't drop that shield and take on over 10 people alone."
"We could take the Jeffries Tubes back," said Harry, "I'm not looking forward to going through that…..garbage section again, but I will."
"And then we'd be trapped in the holodeck," said Tom sarcastically.
"We could probably reach Sickbay if we take a different route," said Harry.
"I'm not leaving B'Elanna unless I know I can be helpful," said Tom, "Likely or not, the Equinox crew could have another hacker that could break that shield."
"No one's a better engineer than me, Tom," said B'Elanna, not even sparing him a glance.
"See, that's the kind of arrogance that could get you killed," he returned, starring through the shield at the finally visible Equinox crew, their own phasers pinned on Voyager's crewmen.
"I'll go," said Gretchen.
"See, that's the kind of arrogance that could get you killed," repeated Tom.
"What's the danger?"
"Well for one, I only see eleven Equinox crew. There were 17, minus Ransom, and the two bodies on the floor, that makes three unaccounted for. Sure, they could be behind some equipment, but there was definitely a lull between your arrival and B'Elanna sealing in Engineering. Now, they don't know this ship as well as we do, but I'm sure they can take a guess as to how we arrived."
"You think they're going to reach us through the Jeffries Tubes? Or lay a trap?"
"I'd say both are good guesses," said Tom, strolling over to the Jeffires Tube and manually closing it, "We could short it out."
"But then we'd be stuck in here," said Harry.
"I say we do it," said Gretchen, "It's better than being vulnerable on both sides and splitting our attention. If the shield fails there's no way we could all escape anyway. I say we make our stand with our backs to the wall."
"Dear Lord, you are Klingon," said Tom, shaking his head, "Fair enough, but is there a third way?"
"B'Elanna," said all three of them in unison.
"Yeah, yeah," said B'Elanna impatiently, "I had the same thought."
"Well Max," she said, starring at the unseeing eyes of his upturned body with a strange expression, "We were always rivals, I learned so much from you, and now I've learned one last thing."
A pulse went through Engineering, and suddenly all eleven Equinox crew members and their phasers were on the floor.
"Shield down," said B'Elanna opening the room up an instant later.
Tom, Harry, Gretchen, and B'Elanna approached, stepping cautiously over the Equinox crew members and were quickly faced with their own fallen comrades.
"They're still alive," said Harry, seeing the rise and fall of two of their chests.
"Thank goodness," said Tom, checking two pulses in a row, both steady.
B'Elanna and Gretchen checked four more, all alive.
B'Elanna moved towards the main engineering console, "I'm going to try to contact anyone who will answer. This console has video and the best communications ability on the ship to the Bridge. I'll try Command first, and then Sickbay.
B'Elanna fiddled with the console, it flickered, and they all saw Voyager's Captain's seat, and Noah Lessing, of the Equinox, sitting in it.