CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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"Engineering to Commander Chakotay," Tuvok's voice carried over the intercom. Groggily, Chakotay reached out and slapped the comm panel next to his bed.
"What is it?" he asked, slightly irritated. His alarm hadn't gone off yet, and a quick glance at the clock told him that he'd only slept for about three hours and ten minutes. Too long for a nap, too short for REM sleep. He knew he should have gone to sleep earlier the night before.
"B'Elanna noticed some irregularities in the main computer. Come down here as soon as you can."
"I'll be right there," Chakotay said with a sigh, shutting off the comm. Murphy be damned... they always had problems whenever anything important happened. It was practically the curse of Voyager.
He crawled off the berth and staggered to the sonic shower stall, hastily undressed, and climbed inside. "Shower on," he commanded.
Absolutely nothing happened.
"Shower on," he barked at the computer again, with no response. Finally he reached for the manual controls, and was surprised to discover that they were also dead. "Great, just great," he muttered, stepping out of the stall and walking over to the small sink in his quarters. At least the faucet used physical plumbing, he thought thankfully as a small stream of water came out. He quickly splashed some water on his face and then ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it out, making sure to apply gel to keep it in order.
The morning ritual finally finished, he threw on his uniform and exited into the corridor, where he began walking to the turbolifts.
"The turbolifts are down, Sir," a crewman remarked as he passed about halfway there. "You'll have to use the Jeffries tubes back this way."
"Great," Chakotay sighed as he turned around. "So what else isn't working?"
"Anything that operates on voice commands, Sir."
"Terrific," he grunted. They came to the Jeffries tube entrance moments later and crawled inside. Chakotay briefly recalled the main schematic for the ship; his quarters were about six decks above Engineering and fifty meters forward. But the way the Jeffries tubes ran, it would actually take him about seven decks and closer to seventy meters to reach Engineering. He flexed his arms, stretched his back as much as the cramped space would allow, and started crawling down the ladder.
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He finally arrived in Engineering over half an hour later to find a barely controlled scene of chaos. The senior bridge crew were all standing at the consoles near the entrance, so he walked over to Tuvok. "What's the situation?"
"The main computer is running very erratically," Tuvok explained. "We've had subsystem failures all over the ship. Voice control, authentication, waste management... I would estimate that 48 percent of the subsystems are not presently responding."
What else could possibly go wrong? Chakotay wanted to ask, but refrained from doing so for fear of tempting Murphy. Instead, he looked straight at Tuvok. "I know this is probably a stupid question, but have you tried restarting the main computer?"
"Considering that would temporarily shut down all essential functions on the ship, including life support, we are considering it the option of last resort. B'Elanna is still running diagnostics in an attempt to locate the problem through normal means."
"All right," Chakotay replied. "Seems she's got things pretty much under control then... I'll go wait in the room down the hall. Alert me if anything happens."
"Naturally, Commander."
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"Why do we always get general alerts in Spacedock?" Captain Gail Hancock of the Excelsior-class starship USS Hercules complained, throwing an angry glare at the bridge dome. Naturally, she reflected, whenever some potentially hostile alien vessel showed up by Earth there were almost no Starfleet vessels around to investigate. She sometimes wondered if the universe was out to get the Federation.
Still, a general alert meant that any nearby starship had to respond immediately. This meant that she had no choice-even if her aging Excelsior was only halfway through its long-overdue refitting process. The ship only had about half of its nominal firepower because the photon torpedo launchers were being upgraded to fire quantum torpedoes, and the antiquated and underpowered phaser cannons were being replaced with more capable phaser strips. The warp drive was still offline for maintenance, for goodness' sake!
She turned toward her helm officer. "Well, you know the drill. Get us out of here as fast as possible, thrusters only."
"Aye, Captain," the officer replied.
Gail glanced up at the viewscreen, noticing one other starship, a four-nacelled Cheyenne-class destroyer, begin to slide out of its berth as well. As if two horribly outdated ships would make much difference in the face of a Dominion assault or Borg attack. The Hercules might as well have been re-christened the USS Speedbump.
Several minutes later, they passed through the massive doors of Spacedock and were finally able to go to full impulse. The intruder, according to Starfleet Command, was currently holding position near lunar orbit. They'd been very sparing on the details, only saying that multiple unidentified ships had breached the Mars defense perimeter without any warning.
The only question left in her mind was how? The Dominion did not possess cloaking devices, and she'd never heard of the Borg using them. Which left only the Romulans and Klingons, both of which were nominally at peace with the Federation for the time being due to the threat of the Dominion.
"Lieutenant Gordon, can you get me a better view of the intruder?" Gail asked once they had closed to visual range.
A brief moment later, the viewscreen came to life and Gail frowned. The object was certainly massive - the displays were estimating the ship at over a kilometer in length and close to half that in diameter - but what was strange about it was the configuration. The center part of the ship was a fat cigar-shaped cylinder, with a thick framework wrapped around it. Attached to that were five identical ships of a sort she'd never seen before... and what looked like the tip of a saucer?
"Magnify the forward portion."
The computer display zoomed in on the saucer, and she frowned as she noticed some lettering on it. "I think that's Starfleet," she muttered under her breath. "Lieutenant, is the ship broadcasting any IFF?"
"Negative, Captain," Gordon replied.
Well, it was worth asking, she thought. "Helm, bring the ship around. Let's see if we can get a better look. Lieutenant Gordon, has there been any response to hails?"
"Not yet, Captain," the lieutenant reported. "I'll keep trying on different frequencies."
A few minutes later, they had moved into view of the opposite side of the strange ship. Nearly everyone gasped as the battered form of an Intrepid-class primary hull became visible, its once smooth surface marred by scorch marks and pitting. Some of the worst damage was located where the bridge had once been, which now looked like a twisted, mangled mass of wreckage.
"I can't see the registry number," Gail remarked as she squinted at the screen. "Lieutenant, can you get a clearer image?"
After a moment the screen resolved, showing the ship's registry number of NCC-74656.
Gail's jaw dropped slightly. "My God," she muttered. "It's Voyager." She turned toward Lieutenant Gordon. "Get me a reading on their systems. I want to know why they're not responding to hails."
"One moment, Captain," Gordon said, tapping away at his panel. "Main power is out and so are their impulse reactors. I'm getting strange readings from the warp core... ah. Their warp core is completely uncontrolled right now. The reaction could destabilize at any moment."
Her eyes widened. "Helm, take us out to a safe distance. Tactical, shields up. Lieutenant, open a channel to Starfleet Command and get me a readout on the other ships."
The image of Voyager disappeared from the viewscreen an instant later to be replaced by the Starfleet Command logo, before finally showing Admiral Whatley from Starfleet Headquarters.
"Captain, what's the status?"
"Admiral," Gail began, "we have two unidentified ships on a translunar trajectory. One of the ships is connected to USS Voyager, to the best of our knowledge. In addition, Voyager's warp core is unstable. Their power is down and we have not been able to raise anyone yet."
"Voyager?" the Admiral responded incredulously. "Are you sure?"
"She seems to be badly damaged, but yes, I'm sure it's Voyager."
The Admiral had a thoughtful expression for a moment. "Hold your position and keep me informed. I know it's dangerous, but can you beam over a damage control team to stabilize their warp core?"
"Of course, Admiral," Gail replied. "Hercules out." As the screen switched back to show the strange ship and Voyager, she turned around to face the tactical station. "Lieutenant Commander, get an away team ready on the double and beam over if it's still safe to do so."
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"What the hell happened?" Chakotay asked as he ran back into Engineering, trying to not trip in the dim emergency lighting. He rubbed his eyes twice trying to clear up the blurriness, to limited effect.
"I reset the main computer, but after it initialized more subsystems were shut down than before," B'Elanna responded. "Then we tried resetting both the main computer and the backup systems. When the computer came back up, it flooded the warp core with anti-deuterium. Right now we're trying to purge the core but the systems are so screwed up..."
"Core overload in five minutes," the computer pleasantly intoned, as if it were announcing that a cup of coffee was ready.
"And then there's that," she finished. "If the vents don't work, we're going to have to eject it. My only problem is that the eject hatch is pointing right at Outbound Flight's storage core."
"Well, that's simple enough to fix," Chakotay said. "Just release the magnetic clamps on the framework and we'll spin the ship around."
B'Elanna shook her head. "The release mechanism is controlled by the computer. I don't even know if the helm will respond assuming we do manage to detach ourselves."
Chakotay put his palm across his face. "Do we have any sort of backup system for the clamps at least?"
"Outbound Flight does."
"Great. I'll contact Captain Avin and ask him to release us." When he got a look from B'Elanna, he stopped. "Wait... don't tell me that we can't reach them either."
She shook her head and Chakotay leaned his head back to look at the ceiling in frustration. The flickering blue-tinted light of the warp core was casting eerie shadows all over Main Engineering, making the entire deck look like something out of a Frankenstein holoprogram. What a perfect setting for this, he thought.
"Then what else can we do?"
"I've already sent one of the crewmen over to D-1 through the pylons," B'Elanna replied. "He should be there anytime now to let them know what's happening. With any luck, they'll get the message in time to allow us to eject."
"Lately, I'd say we've been pretty short on luck," Chakotay remarked quietly.
They were interrupted by a very familiar whining noise, and Chakotay's hand dropped to his phaser as five figures materialized in front of them. When he saw the Starfleet badges on their uniforms a moment later, he relaxed. "Welcome aboard Voyager. I'm Commander Chakotay."
"Lieutenant Cho, USS Hercules. What's the situation?"
"Core overload in four minutes," the computer intoned.
Chakotay took a step backwards. "I'll let Lieutenant Torres explain."
The glare that Torres gave him could have cut through duranium, but remarkably she managed to refrain from any sudden outbursts. "We had a computer failure two hours ago," she began. "We were having trouble getting the subsystems to respond, so I finally rebooted the main computer and backups. When the computer came up, it flooded the warp core with anti-deuterium because the rest of the management systems weren't running. Right now we're doing everything we can to contain it until we can eject the core."
"What's the status of the magnetic interlocks?" Cho asked.
"Holding for now," Torres replied, "but barely. We're lucky the computer didn't decide to dump an equal amount of deuterium into the core or we'd all be quark soup right now."
Cho swallowed and nodded. "Yeah... it would be pretty terrible to come home from all the way across the galaxy only to be blown up by your own warp core. Well, we're here to help. What can we do?"
B'Elanna gestured to the other side of engineering, where a number of ensigns were huddled around one of the LCARS panels, apparently engaged in vigorous discussion. "You can go make sure they don't screw this up," she said with a wave of her hand. "I've got enough to worry about with the management systems without having the EPS conduits inhale antimatter."
The lieutenant nodded and started to turn away, then turned back and gave Torres an inquisitive look. "You're not who I think you are, are you?"
"And who might that be?" she shot back at him.
"A wanted Maquis operative?"
She shrugged nonchalantly. "Long story. Anyway, I actually like serving on Voyager... although I'm sure Starfleet Command will have more than a few colorful words for me when we all get debriefed. Now will you quit the small talk and help us stop this overgrown garbage scow from blowing up while we're on it?"
"Yes Ma'am," Cho said, his tone suggesting mirth but his facial expression betraying nothing.
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A minute after Cho and the rest of the Hercules away team walked away, Torres' commbadge pinged.
"Torres here," she said as she tapped it.
"Lieutenant, it's Ensign Chell. I'm on D-1 right now with Captain Avin. He's ready to blow the explosive bolts but wants to make sure you have helm control first."
Torres rolled her eyes. "I'll run a diagnostic but we won't know for sure until we're free." She nodded to Chakotay, who stepped over to one of the LCARS panels and accessed the helm subroutine diagnostics.
"It keeps locking up when it checks for impulse power," Chakotay remarked after several unsuccessful attempts.
"Well no shit, the impulse reactors are still offline," Torres snapped, not caring if Chakotay was her superior officer. "Punch in your override and see if that works."
A moment later the maneuvering controls appeared, with the options for impulse and warp power darkened. "I think I've got it," he reported.
Torres tapped her badge. "Chell, tell Captain Avin we're ready."
There was a dull thud that momentarily vibrated through the deck plates below them, and a quick look at the helm controls told Chakotay that they were free. "Here goes nothing... thrusters to half power."
"Well?" the engineer asked expectantly.
Chakotay frowned. "The system says the thrusters are operating normally... but it also says we're not moving. That can't be right."
"Hmph." B'Elanna pulled out her PADD and began punching data into it. "If I did the math right, we should be accelerating at a rate of 3 meters per second under emergency thrusters. How long have the they been engaged?"
"Fifteen seconds."
She punched the information into the PADD and frowned. "Not enough. We need to have at least one hundred meters clearance before we attempt to rotate."
"Core overload in two minutes," the computer chimed.
Chakotay squinted, trying to do the math in his head. "I'll run the thrusters up to full power for another thirty seconds," he finally said. "That should be enough to get us clear. Can you ask Chell to find out if we're really moving?"
B'Elanna relayed the question, and Chell answered "Yes" a moment later.
"Distance?"
"Fifty meters and increasing," the response came back.
"Let me know when we hit one hundred," B'Elanna ordered.
There was silence as the seconds ticked by, then finally her commbadge beeped. "Range one hundred meters."
"Executing rotation," Chakotay said, tapping the controls again. "Damn it, I can't even tell how fast we're spinning around!"
"Chell?" B'Elanna asked. "A little help here?"
"You've only turned about fifteen degrees," he replied.
B'Elanna sighed theatrically. "Let me know when we hit one hundred thirty so we can stop rotation."
"Core overload in sixty seconds."
She shook her fist at the air. "Damn it, I know! Shut up already!" Then she turned to where Lieutenant Cho was working with the other crewmen from Voyager. "Lieutenant, can you restart the impulse reactors and divert all power to shields? We're getting really close to the wire here and if that core cooks off after we eject it..."
"I know," Cho replied. "I think we have one up and running, but the others aren't responding to commands."
"That's only about 10% of nominal shield power," Torres muttered, then spoke up. "Keep me updated."
"Core overload in forty five seconds."
"Chell!" B'Elanna shouted unnecessarily. "Are we clear yet?"
"Only one hundred twenty degrees, Lieutenant."
"Damn it, that's close enough. I'm going to start the ejection sequence."
"Stopping thrusters," Chakotay replied as the doors to Engineering hissed open and Paris walked in.
Chakotay opened his mouth, closed it, then finally spoke. "I thought I confined you to the brig until we reached Earth?"
Tom shrugged. "Well, we're here, aren't we?"
He sighed. "That's not what I meant. How did you get out?"
"Well, first the lights started flickering, then went out along with everything else, including the forcefields. That didn't seem right, so I tried to go to the Bridge except that it was sealed off three decks down. I figured if something was happening, this was the place to be."
"How nice of you to join us," B'Elanna sarcastically remarked. "Don't expect to get all the credit this time."
"Credit for what?" Paris asked with a confused expression.
"Nevermind," B'Elanna cut him short as a new message appeared on the screen of the LCARS station. "Oh come on! Now is NOT the time to jam on us!"
"Core eject sequence aborted. Core overload in thirty seconds and counting."
B'Elanna spun to face Tom, and his face went white. "You're not going to ask me what I think..."
"Damn right," the half-Klingon replied. "I don't care if you have to pound on that hatch with a sledgehammer to open it. Just make sure it opens!"
"Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a phaser set to a cutting beam..." Tom replied as he started running toward the ladder.
"Are you trying to kill us all?" B'Elanna half-screamed.
"I was joking!" his voice echoed up from the deck below.
"You'd better be!"
"Core overload in twenty seconds and counting."
"Cho!" B'Elanna shouted over the ever-increasing racket in Engineering. "How are you coming on those shields?"
"I think we have three reactors," he replied. "Will that be enough?"
"How the hell should I know?" Torres snapped. "I've never had a warp core cook off next to my ship before! Overload the reactors if you have to... just dump all the power you possibly can into the shields!"
"Warnniing. Huull breach on on deck 8. Warning. Warning. Structural integrity system failure. Warning. Life support failure in fifteen minutes. Warning. Core overload in ten seconds. Nine."
B'Elanna spat out a string of nasty-sounding Klingon phrases that Chakotay quite frankly was glad he didn't understand. "At least we still have life support," he remarked with the sort of fatalistic humor that develops in stressful situations.
"Eight."
"TOM!" B'Elanna screamed.
"Almost there!" his voice echoed up.
"Seven."
"Work faster!"
"Six."
"I'm trying!"
"Five."
"GO!"
B'Elanna slammed her hand down on the panel, causing the entire row of consoles to shake.
"Ejection sequence started. Four."
Everyone in engineering turned to watch as the warp core began sliding down. Then, the scene was replaced by the shimmer of a transporter beam and they all found themselves standing in a cargo bay.
"What the hell is it now?" Torres snarled.
Lieutenant Cho breathed a sigh of relief. "Relax, I requested an emergency beamout for everyone."
B'Elanna charged over to where the lieutenant stood and stopped scarcely one centimeter from his face. "You IDIOT! There's only thirty or so of us here, which leaves another seventy aboard Voyager! You'd better pray those shields hold or..."
"Lieutenant," Chakotay said calmly, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Not now. Let's just go to the bridge and find out what happened."
She let out a long breath, turning around and surveying the cargo bay. Then she stopped and looked around a second time before swearing under her breath. "Where the QI'yaH is Tom?"
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By the time the computer countdown had reached two seconds, Tom Paris had come to the sudden realization that there was no way it was going to finish its ejection sequence in time. He also was quite aware that standing next to the ejection hatch of a warp core about to overload, it would make no difference whether he tried to run or not.
"Computer, emergency beamout, authorization Paris Seven Three One Alpha," he said, tapping his commbadge.
"Transporters offline," the computer responded. "One."
The light from the warp core, which so far had been consistently pulsating, suddenly dimmed.
"Core breach imminent. All personnel evacuate immediately."
"Thanks a lot, you piece of shit," Paris swore. The light from the warp core suddenly doubled in brightness, and for the briefest of milliseconds Paris thought he saw some sort of pattern form in the flickering light.
Then his world went white.
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From his vantage point aboard D-1, Captain Avin watched in sheer dumbfoundedness as the underside of Voyager, for a brief moment, became bright enough to rival the system's primary star. When Chell had rushed to the bridge to warn him, he hadn't quite believed the lieutenant. Surely a spacefaring civilization would have more failsafes in place on something as dangerous as an antimatter annihilation reactor?
Still, he had activated the charges and jettisoned Voyager, then watched as they slowly drifted away. Once they were completely clear of the framework, he had ordered the helm to run the main engines up to maximum thrust and put as much distance between them and Voyager as possible. In this case, that worked out to about six thousand kilometers, enough distance that the shields had been easily able to handle the weak radiative effects of the uncontrolled antimatter annihilation. He was sure they could have handled it even had Voyager been closer, but with over ten thousand colonists aboard he hadn't been about to risk it.
He looked over to where Ensign Chell and several other members of Voyager's crew were working with the comm-scan techs to enable communication. "Ready, Captain," one of the techs finally reported. "Incoming transmission."
"Put it on the holo," Avin quietly ordered.
The holoprojector flashed to life, although instead of displaying the three-dimensional image he was expecting, it only projected a two-dimensional box into the air.
"Outbound Flight, this is Captain Gail Hancock of the USS Hercules. Are you in need of any assistance?"
"No, our shields held. What happened to Voyager? Did anyone survive that?"
Gail sighed. "We're not sure. The residual radiation is interfering with our scans. We did manage to beam out about thirty of the crew in the engineering section, but that was our maximum capacity for an emergency beamout in the time we had. Another twenty were beamed over to the USS Nogales, so I'm told that would leave about fifty people aboard."
Avin turned to face C'baoth, who so far had stood on the bridge and watched the entire event unfold without moving an inch. "Did anyone survive?"
The Jedi Master closed his eyes for a moment before they snapped back open. "Yes, although they are in much pain. Some will not make it."
Captain Avin shook his head. What an end to a long journey for these people. To cross half the galaxy after spending years struggling to return, only to have your ship blow up?
Idly, he wondered what they'd done to incur such misfortune.