A team of security officers stormed the Bridge from every door only to find everyone on it unconscious. They quickly broke out the medkits and began assessing everyone's situations. Most of them were easily roused with a simple hypospray, but the Captain not so much. The tricorders indicated that she was in a coma and her vital signs were fluctuating wildly. Even the Doctor, smug as he usually was, had no idea what was happening to her.
In a dark, empty place inside her mind, Kathryn's consciousness was fighting for survival. The little lizard who had helped her endure thus far had vanished, leaving her alone to face the dastardly serpent who was threatening her life, her ship, and her friends.
"I'm in control now," it hissed.
"Not for long." Janeway circled the serpent, waiting for her chance to strike. "My crew is doing everything they can to loosen your hold on my ship and I'll do everything in my power to rid my body of you too."
"Your best is not good enough for that," the snake laughed.
Take it easy, the lizard's words rang in her mind. Just keep breathing.
Janeway took a deep breath and faced the snake. "What do you want? It has to be more than just minions to serve you. Do you want the ship? Our technology?"
"Nothing is worth more than minions to serve me!" the snake hissed. "Worshippers are everything to me."
"My crew will never worship someone as insidious as you."
"And yet they follow you." The snake flicked its tail. "Interesting."
"I'm nothing like you!"
"Aren't you?" The snake slithered closer. "You seem to think you are a match for me and that would require you to possess a certain—" Its words were cut off by the angry redhead launching herself at it. They rolled on the ground, Janeway trying to keep her grip on the slippery snake, until it sank its teeth into her arm and refused to let go.
Janeway leaped up and began shaking her arm furiously. "Go back to whatever hell you came from!" she screamed, punctuating each word with a shake of the arm.
The snake refused to budge.
She grabbed its tail and yanked it off, leaving ugly red gashes under the torn fabric of her uniform. She hauled back and threw the snake as far as she could into the blackness.
"You're not having my ship! You're not having my body!" She marched towards where she had hurled the snake. "You're not getting worshippers, or anything else you might be after! All you're getting is a one-way ticket back to hell, you demon!" She spotted movement and pounced on it, then stood up with the struggling snake in her grasp. Is it just me, or does it seem smaller than before? She wondered.
"My poison is flooding your system as we speak," the serpent hissed. "You will soon pester me no longer!"
"You're just an ugly caricature of the evil mastermind you seem to think you are," Janeway said. "Doctor Chaotica is a better villain that you, you rotting basket of seaweed."
She held the snake's head securely in one hand and its middle in the other hand and bit down on it, shaking it in her grip like a dog with a rabbit.
"No!" she heard the snake shriek as blood spurted from its throat.
She held it down on the floor and stomped her boot on its injury repeatedly until finally it stopped squirming. Then, wiping blood from her mouth, she stepped back and heaved a sigh of relief.
Then she heard a deep, rumbling laughter. "You think a little thing like a pesky mortal injury will stop me?" hissed the voice of the snake. "You fool."
The shadows swirled around the body of the serpent and it rose up from the ground and grew bigger and bigger until it stood before her, a full four meters tall with a flared neck like a cobra and burning embers for eyes.
It hissed menacingly.
"I don't understand it." The Doctor around to his patient's bedside again and ran his tricorder over her a third time. "Her body is going into toxic shock, but I can't isolate the toxin that's doing this. It's like her entire system is screaming 'intruder alert', but I can't find the intruders."
"Could it have something to do with that bracelet that we can't remove?" Chakotay asked.
"I think so. The worst of the reaction seems to be centered around the point where it's making contact with her skin. It might be the cause somehow."
"Just keep fighting it, Kathryn," Chakotay whispered into her ear.
Suddenly, the alarms on the display above the biobed started blaring. The Doctor was there in an instant, tapping the screen. "I don't believe this. It's getting worse. The… whatever it is… it seems to be growing stronger somehow."
"Just fight it a little longer, Kathryn."
You must fight. Keep fighting. Chakotay's words echoed in her mind as she faced the foe before her. The now giant snake laughed down at her, the shadow it cast looming long and dark over her.
"You cannot fight me now, when I'm so big and you're so small," the snake gloated.
"Maybe I don't have to," Kathryn retorted. "Have you ever tried to sleep in a room with a mosquito? Nasty little things. They have the power… to annoy."
She ran at the snake and threw herself on it with all her weight, sinking her teeth deep into its scaly hide. It screamed and thrashed and she hit the ground hard. Taking only a moment to catch her breath, Kathryn ran at it again and again – scratching, biting, kicking, tackling. Doing everything she could to wear the creature down. It twisted and turned, wriggled and writhed, trying to keep her off it, but she was too quick. She darted in and out, leaping around and over the snake's enormous form with a dancer's finesse and a wrestler's strength.
Then, she realized something. You have the power of your mind, the lizard had said.
Hey, wait a minute. This is all taking place in my mind.
She grinned, and a huge phaser rifle appeared in her hands.
This is going to be good.
She set the imaginary phaser to maximum and fired. The snake shrieked as the glowing orange beam pierced its hide. "How are you doing that?" the snake screamed.
"The power of the imagination," she replied. She fired another shot at the enormous creature and watched in satisfaction as it curled back in on itself in pain. "You are no longer in control here." Shot after shot impacted with the shadowy creature and it shrieked and shrank down with each blow. Before long, it was back to its regular size, laying motionless on the floor.
"Your reign of terror over me has ended," Janeway snarled at the creature.
The serpent slowly raised its head and grinned at her. "On the contrary. I've only just begun."
Janeway hauled back her phaser rifle and smashed the butt of it into the serpent's head. Its head flopped back down to the ground and smoke rose up to encircle its form. It vanished in a swirl of blackness.
"I don't believe it," the Doctor said, scanning the Captain's prone form. "The… thing is retreating back into the bracelet. It's letting go of the Captain."
Chakotay rolled up her sleeve and yanked on the bracelet. With two tugs, it slid off her wrist and into his hand. He quickly tossed it away and began rubbing circulation back into her arm.
"Commander, I think she's waking up."
Kathryn's hand twitched. She breathed deeply. Then she opened her eyes.
The Doctor was looming over her and she reflexively pushed him away. "Please don't crowd me," she said. "I've just had quite the ordeal. I'd like some room to breathe."
Chakotay gave her a hand as she tried to push herself up to a sitting position. "What do you mean 'quite the ordeal'? What happened?"
She looked down at her wrist, swollen and bruised but now bare of all ornamentation. She lifted the hand and placed it on his shoulder. "I'll tell you all about it… over a big pot of coffee."