Repairs, Goodbyes And Drama
A/N: Just a repost to clear up a few spelling mistakes
"How?" asked Naomi. "How am I in charge of Voyager?" she questioned the computer.
'A commission was given to Naomi Wildman to the rank of Commander by Captain Kathryn Janeway' replied the computer.
"But that was over a year ago" said a confused Icheb.
"Perhaps Captain Janeway forgot to rescind Naomi's commission" suggested Mezoti. "It was a busy time after we rescued you and the crew from the Quagaars. Perhaps in the rush of getting Voyager repaired, this was missed off her list of things to do" she added.
"That is logical" Icheb accepted.
"So what do we do, Commander Wildman?" asked the Doctor.
"We should get a complete damage report, and then work to get communications, shields and propulsion online first. After that, we should determine if we can land the ship. If we can, then we should do it – that way we can reduce power to the SIF" Naomi said. They nodded at this, and they worked at rerouting communications through the ship by using the shuttles. Once they had done this, Icheb contacted the twins and asked Azan and Rebi to bring what they had to the mess hall. This made sense as there was a turbolift nearby, that part of the deck was undamaged and it had supplies of food and potable liquids stored there. Naomi and Mezoti began compiling the extent of the damage whilst the Doctor and Icheb set about making the bridge's engineering station usable.
# # # # #
"This will take forever to fix" Naomi said as she threw the PADD onto the table top in the mess hall. "We'd need a full shipyard to fix this amount of damage" and there was an air of uneasiness.
"Our first priority after getting shields and propulsion back online should be the hull" said Icheb. "I was able to pull up a list of what we are carrying in the cargo bays, and we have enough hull plates to do the outside of the ship. That way we would be able to land at least" and they looked at Naomi.
"I suppose that's what we should do" she agreed. "At least we would have the advantage of turning off the Artificial Gravity. That should save a lot of power" and the Doctor nodded.
"I would like to suggest that we use the shuttles to carry the heavy equipment outside" he said. "Icheb here and myself could fly them, and you four could just screw it into place" and so they made plans to do that – once they found a suitable place to land.
"How long until we can get impulse online?" Mezoti asked.
"At least fifteen hours" said the Doctor. "The trouble is not the damage as such, but we have to test the replacement parts before going to full power" and Icheb said that if he could get to the holodeck, then he could run a simulation at a fast speed – that way they could anticipate things quickly. Rebi shot that idea down when he announced that the holodecks had all blown out.
"We should aim to get the ship manoeuvrable first" said Azan.
"We're not going very far with only one impulse engine" said Naomi. "Lets attempt to get to Engineering and fix stuff from there" so after finishing the first thing they had eaten in hours, they went along corridors, and went through and down the Jefferies tubes all the way down to Deck 10. The only that didn't seem tired was the Doctor due to his hologramatic state.
When they reached engineering, they found more piles of dust and debris scattered all over the deck. Most of the consoles displayed error messages, but the large schematic of Voyager was completely blank. The warp core was online, but they shut this down as they didn't know if the safeties would suddenly go offline with no warning. This was about the only thing they could do with the limited consoles working. A stroke of luck was finding that the small portable repair kits were together, and that cutting torches were where they were supposed to be. This would allow the Doctor to cut through the debris whilst the others began work on other parts of the ship. After three days solid work, with very little rest, they managed to get shields and sensors back online. This enabled them to at least see what was around them, and they discovered an M Class planet a quarter of a light year away. As the main bridge was virtually unusable, they used the Battle Bridge in order to pilot the ship. Everyone took turns at helm, and they all took turns keeping Naomi's mind off the death of her mother and the members of the crew she knew well – which accounted to every one of them.
When they had achieved orbit, they began to replace the hull plates so that they could enter the atmosphere and land on the planets surface. They spent an extra day afterwards checking and rechecking everything as this wasn't something they wanted to miss any cracks on.
# # # # #
"The Doctor reports that the nacelles have been vented of plasma, and that atmospheric controls are online and standing by" Azan said.
"Hull integrity is at 75%" Mezoti said. "It will not be pretty, but at least we will be able to land" she added.
"I guess this is our time" Naomi said. "Can you take the helm please, Icheb?" she requested.
"Aye, Commander" and he crossed the battle bridge and sat at the helm console.
"You can call me Naomi, Icheb" Naomi said with a small smile.
"It would not be proper for a member of the crew to refer to you by your first name" said Icheb, turning round to look back at her.
"Well we're hardly a proper crew" came the reply, "And if everyone keeps doing this 'Commander' stuff, then I'll go crazy" and Icheb nodded and then turned back to his console.
"Helm ready" he said.
"Engineering and Ops ready" said Mezoti. She and the twins had shared out the duties of engineering and Ops between themselves.
"Take us down" said Naomi.
"Affirmative" Icheb said, and he started work at his console to land Voyager. The ship shuddered quite a bit, and parts of the outer hull came flying off, but at least they made it through the entry sequence in more or less piece.
"Report!" ordered Naomi.
"We are holding at 40,000 ft and circling a mountain range which extends for some distance" Icheb said.
"How's the ship doing?"
"We lost some of the hull, and the navigational array is offline" Azan said.
"Are we able to land?" asked Naomi.
"Yes" said Mezoti. "Landing strut controls are passed to helm"
"Acknowledged" said Icheb. There was yet another shudder as the legs locked into place, and he brought the ship lower over the surface.
"I have located a suitable landing area" Rebi announced. "There is nothing around it for several miles" and he passed the coordinates on to Icheb who steered for them. Cutting the engines, he used the thrusters to bring them down as gently as possible.
"Brace for landing" Naomi muttered, and with a heavy bump, Voyager had landed on the planet's surface. "Lock off the exhaust ports, and secure your stations" and Naomi thought that she sounded like Captain Janeway. She hoped that she and her mother were both proud of her.
"Shall we begin repairs?" asked Rebi.
"No…" Icheb said. "We would do well to consume food before getting rest. We can set the computer to alert us to any problems" and so after they had done a few minor tasks, they left the battle bridge and went to the mess hall where they found that the Doctor was already starting to prepare them a meal.
"Congratulations on your first landing" said the hologram as they entered. "After you have eaten and gone for rest, I'll get the repairs started by calling up the holograms of the crew and getting them to deal with it. I will work in the holodeck and sort through what we can salvage" and the children agreed that it would be better for the Doctor to do it as he could operate with a detachment that none of them could ever manage. After he had served them the meal, the Doctor left to start his task. Because of the amount of debris, they had used the holodecks as storage areas to store it all. The Doctor could therefore work there while a different hologram affected repairs to the ship. There two other reasons why this was better. The first was that a hologram could work without a pause, while the second was that if Naomi saw her mother, Seven, Janeway or others, then she would lose the grip on her emotions.
# # # # #
Harry Potter leaned over and kissed Hermione tenderly on the lips. She blushed a bright red as he took her hand and led her out of the room.
"STOP!" shouted Naomi. Mezoti looked up and then tapped a few buttons on her PADD.
"Do you not like the Harry Potter book collection?" she asked.
"I do" replied Naomi, "But I think this is a little bit too adult for us" and Mezoti looked down at the PADD again.
"Perhaps you are right" the girl replied. "Shall we go over the repair estimates again?" and Naomi nodded and the pair began working. The Doctor had forbidden Naomi to work on the repairs as the girl had eaten and slept little for one whole week. She was supposed to relax, but none of the books in audio form had taken her fancy – except the Harry Potter series.
"How long do you think we'll have to spend on here?" asked Naomi.
"Icheb says that we might be ready by the middle of next week" Mezoti said. "He and the Doctor have brought all the sensors, deflectors and shields online. They have also replaced all of the warp coils so we will have warp. Azan and Rebi have been converting the debris into usable metals" and Mezoti paused before going slightly pink.
"What?" asked Naomi.
"I asked them to place the door we cut off in storage" her friend replied. "When we get to Earth, we should have the evidence to give to Starfleet Command" and Naomi laughed for the first time in a while as she remembered what she had said about the door.
"I'll go crazy if I stay in here any longer" she said, and with that the pair of them went up to the newly restored bridge and went over the consoles – checking each station as they went. Naomi was surprised to see three of Voyager's shuttles coming towards the shuttle bay. "What are they doing out there?" but it wasn't Mezoti that replied.
"I sent them out on a mapping mission" said Icheb. "With us staying here for a while longer, I took the chance to send shuttles out on automatic pilot to map the surface for our databanks. They have come up with some interesting highlights" he said.
"Such as?"
"The planet has no other persons on it, and there are large amounts of dilithium in caves which extend for a maximum of one mile below the surface" and this peaked Naomi's interest.
"Have you started to mine it?" she asked. "If we stocked up on the stuff now, then we just have to swap the new crystals for the old ones when they've drained" and Icheb nodded.
"The Doctor is mining it now" he replied. The former drone looked at Naomi oddly. "I was under the impression that the Doctor had said you were not to work"
"Work is helping me to get through this, Icheb" Naomi said.
"That is illogical" he replied. "It was work that was getting you ill" and Naomi shook her head.
"Trust me when I say that it helps. Now about these repairs… we've done everything on the outside, and repaired damage to all the critical systems right?" she asked.
"That is correct" said Icheb.
"Then we should begin preparations to get under way" said Naomi. "But after we have had the funeral service though" and everyone agreed to that. As there was a few hours to go, Naomi took a shuttle and she went off to a place on the western continent which Icheb had said was like the forest in the Flotter stories. How he knew what it looked liked was a secret he guarded closely, but the girl was certain she had seen and heard Flotter on a PADD he was reading one day. She giggled at the thought of Icheb reading something 'irrelevant'. Perhaps living and knowing Naomi had started to rub off on him. She spent some time exploring the forest, and then returned to Voyager with some samples of soil, flora and fauna. She stored them in one of the science labs and then went to her newly restored quarters to dress for later on. When she entered, Naomi kept seeing her mother, but the Doctor had assured her that this was only natural to happen for some time.
# # # # #
They gathered in Holodeck 1 for the service, and the Doctor stood in front of them next to a pile of silver canisters. They stood in respectful silence as the Federation anthem was played, before sitting down for the Doctor to start. Whilst they could have used the mess hall, the group decided that it wasn't respectful to the memories of the dead to hold a funeral service in the kitchen of your home.
"We are gathered here today to pay our respects to our honoured dead" began the Doctor. Rebi had thoughtfully called up a dress uniform for him to wear, and had added it to his program. "They were killed in the line of duty by an unknown enemy, and we shall remember that they died doing exactly what they wanted to do" and the Doctor paused as he tapped a holographic button.
'Attention On Deck' intoned the computer.
"We remember those people in a time honoured way. Crewman Chell" and the computer rang an old sailing ship's bell. "Crewman Telsia Murphy, Crewman Rick Berman, Crewman Austin Chang, Crewman…" as the Doctor said each name, the corresponding canister was transported to a grave a few hundred metres from the ship. When the Doctor finished, a small number of canisters remained and he looked to the watching group. "I invite anyone who knew these people to come and say a few words" and there was a pause before Icheb broke away and spoke about Seven of Nine. He spoke of how she had helped him and the others to gain their individuality as she had once done so herself. He also spoke about Tuvok, saying that he had helped him a great deal with his work to enter Starfleet Academy. When he had finished, he tapped the console and the bell tolled again as the three canisters were beamed away. Azan talked about Chakotay and Neelix and what he had done for them all, and Rebi talked about B'lanna Torres and Tom Paris. Mezoti was next, and spoke about Harry Kim. She told of the time that he had given her the hair that she now owned, saying that it belonged to a friend of his who wouldn't be that upset about it being used by someone with pretty hair. When she was done, the Doctor spoke about Captain Janeway and how she had dedicated herself to getting her crew home. He promised that wherever she was now, she could easy in the knowledge that some of the people on board would continue her mission and that he would look over them as she had with the crew. As the canister containing most of her mortal remains vanished, the computer tolled the bell eight times in a programmed deference to her position as Captain. Then it was Naomi's turn, and she took a deep breath before beginning.
"My mother was the nicest person you could meet. Even if she was very busy with work, she would always take a few moments to come down and speak to me. Sometimes we would braid each other's hair in silly patterns and sometimes we went to the holodecks to play the Flotter programs or she would show me things from when she was a little girl… I want her to know that I miss her, and I hope that she is proud of me. I promise to get my friends to Earth safely" she put out a hand and tapped the console. As it the canister was bathed in the blue light of the transporter, the computer played a boson's whistle.
'Attention on deck' it said. 'Ensign Samantha Wildman, departing' and Naomi looked from the Doctor to the ex-borg. It was clear that they had programmed the computer to do that.
"May the Great Bird Of The Galaxy watch over us" said the Doctor, and with that the service was over.
"What are your plans for the rest of the day?" asked Mezoti as the group filed out of the holodeck.
"I plan to eat something and then sleep for a little while" Naomi said.
"I intend to complete a few repairs to Sickbay" said the Doctor. "Some of the medical scanners are out of alignment"
"Would you like some assistance?" asked Icheb.
"Thank you" said the Doctor. He and Icheb went off as the twins went off to regenerate. Naomi went down to her quarters whilst Mezoti went up to engage the artificial gravity generators as it would take a few hours to bring them up to full power. After she had done that, Mezoti went down to one of the science labs and began working on analysing the samples that Naomi had collected earlier. As she had said before, she liked bugs a lot.
# # # # #
"Computer, locations of everyone on Voyager apart from me" Naomi said.
'Mezoti is in Science Lab 2, Azan and Rebi are in Cargo Bay 2, Icheb and the EMH are in Sickbay' it said promptly, and the girl had a thought.
"Lock on to my comm badge and initiate a site to site transport to the secondary sickbay. Authorisation: Flotter T Water III" and her quarters winked out and replaced with the darkness of the back up sickbay. It had never been used much, as far as Naomi knew, but she knew where everything was in it. It had been designed to be used as a kind of back up to the main one, if the main sickbay reached capacity, but after the death of all the medical personal it had not been used much – except to treat a few burned crewmen from engineering. "Computer, increase lighting to 30%" and the room became a bit more brighter. She went over to where the hyposprays were kept. Whilst the standard ones were present, Naomi had made a number of special ones for her use kept behind the wheeled trolley in an access port. She had made a dozen of them and had mixed Animazine, Dalaphaline, Formazine and Impedrezene together. The last of these was a poison, but it allowed her to forget, and the stimulents made sure she was always awake when she wanted to be. It helped to take away the pain of her mother's death. When she felt the sadness and the grief, she would sneak down and inject herself. She took one of them from its hiding place and placed it against her neck, pressing down on the button as she did so. It stung a little bit and it hissed as it delivered the drugs into her body. A wave of dizzyness hit her for a moment, and she kept still until it was almost over. She put the hypospray into the replicator to be placed back into the common pool of solid material for the general use of the entire ship. She had the computer transport her to the bridge. The waves of dizzyness hit her again – more strongly as it had ever done before. As she went to Ops, she felt a sharp pain in her chest and with one last disorintating spell of dizzyness, the bridge went black and Naomi fell face first into the deck.
# # # # #
"I will see you later" said Mezoti, and she left Sickbay to take up her four hours on the bridge. She took the turbolift to the bridge, and found she couldn't see her friend anywhere. As she stepped out onto the bridge fully, she looked to her left and saw Naomi on the deck and not moving. "NAOMI!" she shouted, and rushed over and turned her on to her back. Her face was as white as snow, and Mezoti tapped her comm badge. "Mezoti to the Doctor" she said.
"Doctor here" came the reply. "Is there something I can do for you?" he asked.
"Medical Emergency. I've found Naomi face down on the deck. I don't know what to do" Mezoti said in a panic.
"I'm on my way" he said, and he closed the channel. He appeared moments later on the bridge via transporter beam – using the medical override. He pulled out his tricorder and waved it over the motionless Naomi. "She has a few odd things in her blood" he muttered. "And her brain has a few…" he trailed off. "Transport me and Naomi to Sickbay at once" the Doctor ordered. Mezoti did so and then called up Icheb and asked him to take her place – she would do his hours instead. She rushed down to Sickbay where the Doctor whirled various instrements around and over Naomi's still form.
"How is she?" asked the girl.
"She is lucky that you found her when you did" said the Doctor. "According to my scans, she has been taking a cocktail of different drugs from the medical supplies" and Mezoti stood and watched as the Doctor did his work.
"Will she be alrght?" the girl asked.
"Yes, but from the amount in her blood stream, I can only conclude she has been taking the injections from the time of the attack" and he did his work for so long, that Mezoti had to leave as she didn't want to get in the Doctor's way – or least that's what she was telling herself. She went up to the bridge and found that it was 4 hours since she had found Naomi on the deck of the bridge.
"You were on time" said Icheb, rising out of the First Officer's seat.
"I am sorry if I disturbed your planned activities, but Naomi needed medical attention" Mezoti said. "According to the Doctor, she has been taking a number of drugs via hypospray since the evening after the attack. If I had not found her when I did, she would most likely have died" and Icheb looked thoughtful.
"This would explain why her eyes were red sometimes" he said, and he excused himself before heading down to Sickbay. Mezoti began her four hour shift on the bridge, and checked sensors for the latest information on the planet. Whilst they waited to depart she had thought it best to gather as much information as possible. After she set the sensors to automatic scanning, she did a complete survey of the remaining damage that needed to be repaired. After that, she sat in the First Officer's chair and worked on a few things on the main screen. As the time ticked on, Mezoti's thoughts drifted down four decks to where Naomi was undergoing treatment. All this could have been avoided if Voyagerhad never been attacked. She used the science station to go over the sensor logs of the battle, and the weapons signatures from the damaged hull plates, to look for any clues as to the attackers. That way, they could develop some new shield modulations and a few tactics for the event they met their attackers again. Azan was just taking over when Mezoti's comm badge twittered.
"Doctor to Mezoti"
"Go ahead"
"Please report to Sickbay"
"I'm on my way"
A/N:
Another chapter for your enjoyment.
This one done in less then 14 hours of non stop work!
There are a few references inside this chapter, so note them in your reviews. To make it harder, I am not saying where they are from!
Hope to get more then 4 reviews this time around
Regards
Pixel