Chapter 6

Tuvok raced towards the Shuttle Bay. Usually, he disliked racing anywhere, but he knew that the results of current events would all come down to the next minute. He resisted the urge to call the bridge and ask what was happening. The acceleration he felt just beyond the effects of the inertial dampeners, the shudder from phasers firing, the little shakes from projectile impacts on the ship, all of this told Tuvok that they were in the final moments of this game.

It was time to offer his own contribution.

He drew his phaser and entered the Shuttle-bay

Do not make any assumptions, Tuvok thought to himself. If you wish to be ultimately correct and properly understand the situation.

His gaze quickly shifted from left to right and back again as he entered the expansive room. He saw nothing. As he drew closer to the destroyed shuttle-bay doors, his eyes barely registered a small ship moving rapidly away from Voyager.

On the other hand, sometimes things are as bad as you surmised.

The ship vanished from site into an asteroid even as he watched, so taking a shuttle after them would likely be pointless. In any case- Voyager was likely already pursuing. As the asteroid field suddenly began to grow larger through the shield, Tuvok immediately knew this to be the case.

How I can help best, is to see if anything was left behind by the kidnappers, any piece of information that could prove useful. He calmed his internal frustrations of his initial failure and let then pass through him as Surak taught.

This fight wasn't over.

They were merely in another round.

That was a remarkably small craft, Tuvok thought. At least, from what he could see of it. That likely had aided in its lack of detection by Voyager as it had approached the asteroid field.

In fact, Tuvok thought. The small ship appears to be a recent event. How was Seven kidnapped? She is no easy subject to subdue. This would likely require more than one subject. Or, perhaps, one very well prepared one?

Either way, how did they get on board originally?

Logically, they must have already been here. However, how did they gain entry? Perhaps it had something to do with the computer errors they've been seeing?

Or, Tuvok thought, while he pulled out his tricorder and began methodically scanning the bay, were the perpetrators here earlier? How had they evaded detection? How long had they been here? Days, weeks?

Were they still here?

Tuvok stopped at the forward corner of the Bay. He frowned and looked down. For a moment, he'd had the strangest sensation that his foot had bumped into something, that offered resistance, but he didn't see anything-

Most peculiar.

He began scanning the area, and for a moment, thought he heard what sounded like the wheel of a squeaky cart. He began to investigate more thoroughly when his tricorder suddenly emitted a loud beep with a climbing red line showing a massive power surge.

The lights in the bay flickered.

Tuvok's comm suddenly went off.

"Janeway to Tuvok," Her voice said from his badge.

He tapped it immediately.

"Tuvok here,"

"There's been a surge in your area near the shuttle-bay B'elana is saying that it was bad enough that systems may be shutting down. Can you check it out to see how bad it is before repair teams arrive to see if we've lost containment? Sensors appear to be malfunctioning up here. I would love for someone to tell me what's going on!"

"On my way Captain," He said.

A strange coincidence, Tuvok thought as he turned to leave. He frowned in suspicion. Then he put away his tricorder, lowered the setting on his phaser, and fired into the corner on a wide burst.

It hit nothing and he heard nothing.

Nevertheless, I will come right back, he promised himself.

In fact, he could do better than that.

"Tuvok to Security Team 2," He said as he exited the Shuttle-bay.

"Possible intruder. Perform a thorough investigation to Shuttle-bay 1."

Better, he thought.

His tricorder showed serious problems occurring a few hallways down, so he ran in that direction.

Neelix had barely stopped his ranting when he saw Tuvok enter the Shuttle-bay Neelix instantly rolled into his cart and activated the cloaking, making the whole thing disappear altogether. The power was already a bit drained, so he could only stay in this mode so long. Fortunately, at least he was completely hidden this way. Not even a tricorder should pick him up. He could peak out the corner and not be seen, but this was safety. Neelix simply used his connection to the Voyager's live feed to keep an eye on what was happening.

It was also fortunate that Seven creature was no longer here to take up the space he needed.

Neelix tried to remain calm as Tuvok slowly scanned the room, moving ever closer to where Neelix and his cart sat in the top corner of the bay, next to the doors.

You should have had my nice poison salad, Mr. Vulcan, Neelix thought. He had to really restrain himself to not hit the button in his coat that would immediately kill Seven. They thought they could rip off him? Him? Absurd.

Neelix took a deep breath. No, he knew how they thought. The Vidiians didn't try to tip people off. They were a people under plague. They were already a step behind as it was. They simply thought a certain way, and just assumed you should think that way too, regardless of evidence to the contrary. He would get his money.

If he could get out of this alive.

Closer and closer Tuvok came.

At some point, Neelix realized he was going to need a distraction to get out of this. He was going to have to burn the last of his computer advantage. Go for broke. Otherwise Tuvok was like one of those Earth animals. How did it go again?

Ah yes- a dog with a bone.

He keyed up something juicy, something that could actually kill people, suck them right into space, and got it ready on Vidiian device. It would likely be better if he didn't use it, because if he was caught at this point, hoo boy. He wouldn't be able to cook anything to get out of it. He smiled at that.

Let's see what Mr. Vulcan does, shall we?

This had to work because he had no great weapons left that he could access without it being obvious.

The Vulcan moved so close to him that he caught his breath. Neelix could see the man thinking for a moment, looking down at his tricorder, his phaser still out. Neelix's hand hovered over the button to essentially blow a hole in power consoles a few hallways away.

The Vulcan turned to walk in a new direction, and his foot kicked the cart. Neelix felt the cart shake and watched the whole thing in horror. He opened the car on the other side away from the Vulcan and immediately pushed against the ground, sending the car as far away as he could, but the terrible Vidiian wheels squeaked.

Oh god no- Neelix thought while Mr. Vulcan looked down at his leg and frowned, kicking at the empty air.

Neelix immediately keyed the disaster.

It wasn't more than a second later that the Vulcan's comm went off as the bridge must have detected it immediately.

With a sigh of relief, Neelix watched as Mr. Vulcan walked away and headed for the emergency.

That's right, get out of here, Neelix thought. He would have to move so fast to get back to his room, delete all logs of the feed there, then scrub everything and burn his connection to the channel From there, he would need to get out of here as fast as-

Suddenly and without warning, the Vulcan whirled right on where Neelix was, and leveled his phaser.

He said something about it being convenient and then that red beam fired barely a foot over the top of the cart in a wide arc, lightly scoring the wall behind him.

Fortunately for him, Neelix didn't even have time to cry out before it was over. He began breathing hard, but Tuvok was already leaving the room. Neelix followed him on the internal feeds, and checked the passage to his quarters. They were clear.

After activating his privacy device again, he practically leapt out of the cart, changing it to cart mode from stealth, and raced out of the shuttle bar, pushing the cart ahead of him. It was one hallway after the next, barely having time to glance down at his feed to make sure no one was there, but everyone else was busy. Right at the end, he barely managed to swing the car into his quarters ahead of a security team running down the hallway passed him.

Right. That security team Tuvok had called. There to look for him.

That was way too close. He had to get out of here.

Come to think of it, maybe the Vidiians were trying to rip him off.

How dare they change the plans on him! He would get his due or they would find nothing in their disgusting bag but a burnt corpse!

Frantically he erased the logs of all the places he had been just in case, deleted his access, and hit the preprogrammed command to destroy as much evidence of his intrusion into the computer as possible.

Then he allowed himself a full five minutes of hyperventilating on his bed.

"It's so strange, Doctor." Kes said. "They are telling me that the woman I saw earlier, who I haven't met yet, just left the ship-kidnapped, but I still feel like she's here."

The EMH nodded.

"To be quite frank, Kes, the readings I'm getting from you would flummox any doctor I suspect, in this quadrant or any other. I've never seen anything like it. I don't know what to tell you, except that I do know something is happening up there. Something unlike what anyone else can do. Oh, and that I don't think it's dangerous. What you are doing is odd to be sure, but you aren't causing accidents, just, well-a light show."

Two distinct windows were popping up and closing again. One looked almost like a Voyager quarters, aimed at the floor. The other just looked like it was looking out on a field of stars.

"I think I can close the inside one," She said. "It feels almost like my brain is trying to tell me something. So, I thought I'd leave it open for a second to see. But, I guess I better close it."

It winked out of existence, leaving just one vertical rectangle in sickbay.

The Doctor scrutinized the screen more.

"OK,well upon closer inspection, I can tell you that your bio rhythms don't seem to fully match this particular window. In other words, there's some other data at play. So, I think that it isn't being fully generated by only you.

Kes nodded and smiled a bit. She appreciated how hard the Doctor was trying to be helpful. She took a breath and clamped down in her head, and that one winked out too.

"Ah. You see! You have more control then you give yourself credit for! Don't worry Kes, we will figure out what is happening. It actually is quite interesting! Feel free to come back any time this happens! Or if you figure anything else out! I'd be very interested to know!

Kes left sickbay, but wasn't ready to tell the Doctor yet that she'd looked it up, and some of the markings around the window looking out at the star-field looked like what the computer had on Vidiians. Voyager hadn't met them very often, but still.

It's so strange, she thought. It's like I can feel some part of what she's feeling. And like, she's trying to tell me something in her dreams. How do I know she's unconscious? Or asking me a question in some language I can't speak. Or can't speak yet? It's starting to sound more familiar though.

She felt the other woman trying to open a connection again.

"I'm sorry!" Kes said to the empty room. "I can't let you do it until I understand what's happening! I swear I'll figure it out soon. How to help you I mean. I promise!"