"What went wrong?" N'Taka asked, throwing her hands up in the air. "Why are we back here again?" She paced the monitor room of the Capital Building furiously.
"It's your device. You tell me," one of the Kathryns replied.
"We default back here because the Device was programmed to send my consciousness to these temporal and spatial coordinates," N'Taka ground out. "But my question is, why did the loop start over? You tried two different options and both of you failed?!"
"I'd say you didn't have any luck either or we wouldn't be back here," one of the Kathryns pointed out.
"True," N'Taka admitted. "My plans to fix this are difficult to execute while I'm effectively a ghost. But I'm not giving up. And neither should you." She pointed at one of the Kathryns. "You stay here and help me to succeed this time around. Maybe you'll have better luck with their technology." She pointed at a second Kathryn and said, "You go back to your ship and try again to get yourself and your Commander off the planet." To the third Kathryn she said, "I'm sending you back to my base. Your technology is more advanced than ours, so maybe you'll be able to find a way that we haven't to reprogram the missiles or divert them or… something."
Each Kathryn nodded in turn and N'Taka closed her eyes and vanished before them, then one by one, two of the Kathryns disappeared as well.
=/\=
Kathryn materialized in a small building filled with people, all wearing the same uniform as N'Taka. Most of the crowd was gathered by a large computer terminal, watching the screen intently. Multiple windows on the screen showed scrolling readouts and countdown timers. Others milled about, manning smaller terminals with data scrolling down the screen in the aliens' distinctive language.
It seemed that the missiles had already been launched.
She walked around for a minute, familiarizing herself with the setup. The main terminal seemed to show the path of the missiles as they flew towards the capital city. The timers counted relentlessly downward, counting down, so she felt, to her doom.
Suddenly, a voice behind her shouted, "Leader! We have a problem."
A man pushed his way out of the group and approached the speaker. "What is it?"
"The alien captain hasn't left the city yet. And what's more, apparently at least one of her crew transported down to join her."
"I was sure the radiation cloud would prevent any more from transporting down." The leader ran his hands through his short, white hair. "We can't risk involving the aliens in our dispute with the government." He clapped his hands twice and everyone turned to look at him expectantly. "I need all of you to look for a way to stop the missiles before they reach their target. There are alien lives in danger. Sergeant, get me a communication line with the Capital Building; maybe they can call the aliens to safety. Who here is the most familiar with how to use the Device?"
"Operative N'Taka, sir."
"Tell her to be ready to use it in case this all goes to hell."
Kathryn began to look over the control panels, searching for any way to prevent the missiles from reaching their target, but it did not look good.
=/\=
N'Taka sighed and punched the monitor before her. It shattered under her fist, causing several people around her to startle and come to investigate.
"This is hopeless," she groaned. "I can't get into any of the communication systems, I can't trigger a citywide evacuation, I can't even reprogram these sensors to detect the missiles."
"I'm having no luck either," Kathryn admitted. "These transporter systems are entirely unfamiliar to me and they're locked behind too many authorization codes."
"Is there any other way to get your crewman out of that part of the city from here?"
"I'm thinking, I'm thinking." Kathryn closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "There's only one more thing I can think of."
She approached the nearest console and pressed the big red icon at the top of the screen. An alarm immediately went off in the room.
"Who did that?" someone shouted.
"It's my console but I didn't activate the alarm," a worker said, confusing creasing their face.
Another alarm went off as Kathryn tapped another button. She went to another console and set off yet another alarm.
"What's going on?" someone yelled.
"System malfunction," the supervisor said. "Shut everything down and reinitialize."
All the screens went black, then began lighting up again one by one. The alarms shut off.
Kathryn threw her hands up and turned back to N'Taka. "Is there no way to get their attention?"
"Doesn't seem like it." N'Taka leaned back against an unmanned console and crossed her arms. "I'm sorry it's come to this."
"We can't give up yet."
"I've tried everything! If they had assigned someone else this task, maybe they would have more luck. But I can't think of any way to prevent this tragedy from occurring." She closed her eyes and bowed her head. "I'm sorry for all the hurt we've caused you, but maybe there's nothing we can do to fix it."
"I won't accept that." Kathryn marched over to her new friend and grasped her shoulders. "I'm not giving up and neither should you."
"All we wanted was to be seen," N'Taka said sadly. "We wanted the same rights and privileges that everyone else has, but instead we've caused all this havoc and chaos and… This was never how it was supposed to be. I'm truly sorry for everything we've caused you today. We never meant to involve you."
"Like it or not, I'm involved now, and together we'll find a way out of this mess." On impulse, Kathryn leaned forward and hugged N'Taka quickly and gave her an encouraging smile. "Now come on. Let's find a way to get these idiots to listen to us."
=/\=
The third Kathryn materialized on Voyager's Bridge and went immediately to the unmanned science console. She began scanning for the radiation field. It was faint, but it was there. She searched for the highest concentration of the radiation and tried to lock the sensors onto it. She was certain there was something there emitting the radiation, but the sensors were having trouble penetrating the field to find out. She recalibrated them again and again, trying to get a glimpse inside the cloud.
Why would someone deliberately create a cloud of radiation to disrupt their sensors? Were the resistance fighters trying to keep them from beaming down to the planet, or was this caused by someone else? How could she get around the scattering effect it was having on the sensors to get the transporters to function enough to beam Chakotay out of harm's way?
Suddenly, the sensors began to beep at her.
"I'm reading an explosion on the surface of the planet," Harry said.
"Dammit!" Kathryn slapped the console. She was running out of time.
"Where?" Tuvok inquired.
"The capital city, where the captain is," Harry replied.
"No more loops," Kathryn said grimly. Pushing away from the console, she jumped up and dashed towards the turbolift. "This ends now, one way or another."