"Okay, so that's the glitch I was trying to tell you about," N'Taka said. "Because you weren't attuned to the Device and just happened to get caught up in it…"
"The loop keeps repeating and so do I," the first Janeway said.
"What loop? What's going on?" the second Janeway asked, her eyes darting between her counterpart and N'Taka.
N'Taka face-palmed.
"We're ghosts because there's a time loop and to stop it we need to get our material self and Chakotay away from here to safety," the first Janeway said.
"That's… the essential part of it," N'Taka affirmed.
"Okay, so what do we do?" the second Janeway asked.
"I have some plans," N'Taka said, "and it will be so much easier with both of your help."
=/\=
Kathryn – or rather, one of the Kathryns – ran through the streets as fast as she could. She phased through dozens of people as she dashed towards the café where she knew Chakotay would be waiting. She rounded the corners, passing shop-front after shop-front until she skidded to a stop in front of the right place. Through the window, she saw Chakotay waiting inside.
She ran through the open doorway and stopped at Chakotay's table. "Chakotay! Chakotay, we need to get out of here! There's a bomb coming and you're going to die and you need to leave, come on!" She tried to grab his arm but her hands phased right through him. "Dammit!" She slammed her hands down on the table in frustration.
The table shook and Chakotay jumped.
I can't interact with people but I can interact with objects, she realized. She tossed the table over in one swift motion. Chakotay jumped up and stepped back.
A server came running over. "Is everything alright, sir?" they asked.
"Yeah, I… guess I just accidentally knocked the table over," Chakotay said.
"No, I did! Me! It was me!" Kathryn was practically jumping up and down in front of him, willing him to see her.
He did not see her. He sat back down as the server righted the table and left.
Kathryn sighed and felt her shoulders slump.
=/\=
With N'Taka's help, Kathryn's – the other Kathryn's – consciousness materialized on the Bridge of Voyager. She immediately strode up to the Ops console and began to get to work.
"Sir?" Harry said. "Someone seems to have tapped into my console. They're trying to open a comm channel."
"Who is it?"
"Unknown."
"Lock them out."
Harry locked out the comm lines and Janeway immediately unlocked it again.
"Uh, Tuvok?" Harry said. "Someone just used the Captain's command codes to unlock the comm lines."
"Was it the Captain?"
"I don't know."
"Where is the source of the uplink to your console?"
"I can't find it." Harry tapped around frustratedly. "It seems to be coming from right here, but I'm not doing it."
"Lock out the entire console and go to Engineering to run a diagnostic on it," Tuvok ordered.
Janeway sighed as Harry left the Bridge. So much for that plan. She walked up to the crewman who was manning Tactical and tapped their commbadge. It chirped obligingly, and the crewman looked down at it in confusion.
"Janeway to Chakotay," she said. "Can you hear me?"
There was no response.
"Dammit."
She wandered towards the console behind the command chairs, thinking hard. Maybe she could tap into the transporters and beam them out directly. She set to work calling up the transporter subroutines.
Tuvok, sitting in the Captain's chair, heard the beeping behind him and stood up to investigate.
"No, Tuvok, not now," Janeway groaned. She tried to convince the targeting scanners to lock on, but something was blocking the sensors from getting a clear reading of their bio signs.
"Ensign," Tuvok said, coming up to stand beside her console, "did you activate this console?"
"No, sir," said the crewman at Tactical.
"The transporter's targeting scanners have been activated," Tuvok said. "Someone is attempting to beam the Captain and Chakotay back to the ship."
"'Attempting' being the operative word there." Janeway frowned and scanned the atmosphere more carefully. Some kind of radiation had permeated the upper atmosphere, disrupting their sensors. Why hadn't anyone noticed it before now?
Tuvok tapped at the console and deactivated it, then returned to his seat.
Wait a minute, the bombs hadn't gone off yet, Janeway realized. Why was there radiation in the atmosphere already? Radiation that looked as though it wasn't doing any harm to the environment or the people below. Radiation in so small a quantity as to remain undetected unless someone were looking for it, but just enough of it to disrupt their targeting scanners.
It all seemed very convenient.
=/\=
Kathryn – the other, other Kathryn – was trying everything she could think of to get Chakotay to leave. She knocked over tables and lamps and pulled his chair out from under him but still he remained. Every now and then he would pull a little velvet box from his pocket and caress it gently, then pocket it again and go back to staring out the windows, watching for her arrival. She didn't dare think what the servers were making of the chaos she was creating around them.
Finally, in exasperation, Kathryn leaned her head against the front window and sighed. It seemed like nothing would get this man to budge.
Behind her, she heard the scraping of a chair and then footsteps coming towards her. She looked up and saw Chakotay moving to the door.
"Finally!" she exclaimed.
But he stopped in the doorway and looked around, puzzled. Then he returned to his seat, clearly disappointed.
Kathryn frowned. What was he looking at? She turned back to the window, gazing outside for anything that might have caught his attention.
Then the footsteps were back and Chakotay went back to the doorway and looked around. He stepped outside and stopped on the other side of the window and touched the glass.
The glass right where her face was reflected in front of her.
He couldn't see her but he could see her reflection.
Chakotay walked back inside and looked back at the glass. Kathryn tapped on it.
"Chakotay! Chakotay, I'm here! You need to leave. Go. Go!" She motioned at the glass, frantically waving for him to get out of there.
"Chakotay to Janeway," he tapped his commbadge.
"I'm here. I'm on my way to you now," came the reply.
"Okay. No hurry." He went back to his table and sat down.
"Your mind is playing tricks on you," he said quietly, shaking his head.
"No!" Kathryn yelled. In a moment of desperation she turned and swung her fist at the window.
The glass shattered, and the world around them shook as the first bomb went off.