Chapter 4 – Picking up the Pieces
"So you saw an alien in the cave, yet you made absolutely no attempt at initiating first contact procedures?"
Slow, deep breath. Calm down, Thomas Eugene. Count to three and take the high road.
"The vital sign readings from my EVA suit and the seismic sensor record will show that approximately 5 to 10 seconds elapsed between the time my heart rate accelerated due to the unexpected appearance of the alien, the explosion and the time the cave started collapsing due to the seismic shock. I would submit that this is insufficient time for first contact procedures even under the most ordinary of circumstances. Sir."
"You say the alien glowed. Why did you not at the very least get any radiation readings off him? Would that not have saved you some time later on?"
"Again, sir, I saw him and the shit hit … sorry, things started to go very badly, very quickly. No, I did not have time to pull out my tricorder. And frankly, at the time I was not thinking about what might or might not happen later on. I was somewhat caught up in the now."
"I see. That seems to be your problem, young man. Not thinking about what might happen later on. And if the members of the jury have any issues with my line of questioning, I would appreciate it if they could voice these out loud. I will not have whispering in my courtroom, not even by the Commissioners."
+o+o+
"Can someone please tell me what the hell happened down there?"
The Captain's voice cut through the blinding pain that was enveloping Tom's brain, but it was indistinct, as if he were hearing it underneath ten feet of water. He wanted to snap to attention, wanted to answer, but he couldn't move and no air seemed available to touch his vocal chords.
Tom felt the cold hypo spray pressing against his neck. Why are medical instruments always cold? Darkness closed in again.
"He's crashing. Nurse, get me another hundred cc's of tri-cortazine, NOW!"
"Tom, stay with me." B'Elanna? What was she doing in the cave?
"You need to stay awake, Tom."
Head hurts. Sleep.
Flashes of light through the red haze.
Light. Pain. Take it away!
"Tom, stay awake. Please."
"Commander Paris, open your eyes. I know the light hurts but it's important. I need to see your eyes."
Why couldn't they leave him alone? Sleep. Please.
"He's slipping again, Doctor."
"Not if I can help it. Nurse, tri-ox mask. NOW!"
The Doc?
Can't breathe. Can't see. Mitchell … Gotta get to Mitchell …
"Nurse, restrain the patient please. He mustn't move. Thank you. Now, we must get him to open his eyes."
"TOM!"
Why was B'Elanna yelling at him? Tom's eyes flew open.
"Good, you're with us, Commander. Now look at the light. Good, good. Severe concussion, but no permanent trauma. Intracranial pressure elevated but inside tolerance limits. Mr. Paris, it looks like your hard head has saved you once again. Your chest, however, is a different matter."
Tom felt a cool hand on his forehead, brushing hair away. Something wet falling on his cheek.
Klingons don't cry.
"M... M… M'tch..?"
"Mitchell is fine, Tom. You saved her. She's here. The rest of the away team is fine too."
"Nurse, osteo-regenerator. Start with the ribs that punctured the lungs. The shoulder and hand can wait. Captain, if you have no business being in this sickbay, please leave. You too, B'Elanna."
"I'm not going anywhere."
His B'Elanna. Stubborn as a mule. Tom tried to smile, weakly, and failed.
Must breathe. Can't breathe.
"Fine. Then make yourself useful and help Ensign Mitchell. I know for a fact that you can handle a dermal regenerator. Nurse, surgical arch. Commander - Tom – you may sleep now."
Darkness.
"I almost lost you today," she whispered, her left hand entwined in his, her right stroking his hair. "Again."
Tom looked at the face he loved, still stained with the tears he had once believed she would never shed. His voice, when it came, was labored, his breathing still shallow and ragged.
"I'm sorry, Bee. Mitchell …"
"I know. I heard. You did what you had to do."
Word that the First Officer had almost died saving the life of the junior geologist had raced through the ship like an ion storm, and B'Elanna knew she should be proud of him. Then why did she feel so angry, wanting to yell at him for almost leaving her and Miral, for the sake of a stranger?
It wasn't rational, and she knew it. She also knew what he would say if she challenged him. Caldik Prime. Pete Durst. Joe Carey. Not on my watch. Not again. Not if I can help it.
So B'Elanna said nothing, continued stroking her mate's soft blond hair, until his eyes closed again in exhausted sleep. What she really wanted to do – craved, with a hunger that frightened her a little - was to touch him everywhere, with hands and lips and tongue, to breathe in his scent, taste his skin, to reassure herself with all her senses that he was still there, still whole, still hers. But this was Sickbay, and she had to content herself with drinking in the sight of his face, looking so ridiculously young and innocent as he slept, listening to his still-rasping, shallow breath.
When she was satisfied that he was resting comfortably, she turned to the EMH who was busily reorganizing the Enterprise's sickbay to his liking, evidently planning to move in for the long haul. He had wasted no time informing anyone who would listen that the place was a shambles, and its current occupant an incompetent fool.
"Doc, I don't know how to thank you."
The Doctor dismissed her with his usual brusqueness. "I'm glad you called when you did. Clearly, this ship needs someone who knows what they are doing. Besides, no one knows the inside of your husband's head like I do. Or, for that matter, any other of the body parts he likes to bend, break and mutilate far too regularly, a pattern he seems to have continued on board this ship. I have no idea how he has managed to stay alive this long without me."
B'Elanna chortled ruefully. "Too true … I also know he wouldn't have wanted anyone else here, if he'd had a choice. But I do want to know one thing. How did you get Fincher to leave sickbay after we transferred you onboard?"
The Doctor gave a snort, into which he injected as much dripping contempt as his vocal subroutines were capable of. "Vulcan measles. The very thing you asked me to come here and look into. I've quarantined him in his quarters for the next three days - him and everyone he has come into contact with in the last 48 hours. I also sterilized this sickbay, something he apparently considered beneath him."
B'Elanna frowned. "That's interesting. Tom said the Vulcan measles don't spread to humans, and only very rarely to non-Vulcans."
"That is correct, but it looks like our Doctor Fincher – I have yet to check whether he in fact has a medical degree - has some Bajoran blood in him that his parents apparently neglected to mention. Once I get this poor excuse for a sickbay into some semblance of order and finish cleaning up after your husband's uncontrollable urge to play the hero, I'll find out why this bacterium has suddenly developed such an interest in apparently unrestricted growth and inter-species propagation. Hopefully I will be able to do so before the entire ship succumbs."
The Doctor's voice softened a little. "But for now, Commander, I would suggest you go and get some rest. You've been through a lot today. Tom will be fine here, and if we keep the regenerators running through the night, he should be able to return to light duty tomorrow. Not that I could stop him, of course. I never could before, and I doubt he has suddenly come to his senses. Him and Captain Janeway – I never could get either of them to respect their bodies."
B'Elanna clapped her hand on the EMH's arm. "Thanks again Doc. I may bring Miral by a bit later. She missed her Daddy at dinner, and now that he is more or less presentable again I'd be happy to let her see him if she's still awake. I'm sure she will also be excited to know you're here, 'Uncle Doc'."
He smiled at hearing his goddaughter's name for him and watched after her until the door swished shut behind her. His face serious again, he turned back to the biobed and his patient.
"Now, Nurse, what did you say your name was? Ogawa? If you would be so kind, please check the progress of the Commander's lung tissue regeneration …"
Will Riker sat back in his chair at the briefing room table, his arms crossed in front of his broad chest. "So, you're telling me that one moment you were getting ready to cut dilithium crystals and the next, some … some alien appears out of nowhere, the cave collapses and I almost lose my First Officer?"
He glared a challenge at the members of the away team who were sitting across from him, squirming uncomfortably. Both Jones and Jansson were acutely aware that their XO's survival was solely the result of Lieutenant Kim's lightning-quick recourse to the transporter, the second he realized that only half the team had emerged from the cave. If he had delayed any longer, the transporter would not have been able to penetrate the dilithium-lined rocks once the cave mouth collapsed.
In their own haste to escape the collapsing cave, the mobile team members had had no time to analyze the cause of the catastrophe, and although no blame attached to their lack of injuries, they both still felt as if they had somehow failed both the mission and their First Officer. Survivors' syndrome, the Counselor had called it during their post-trauma debrief. They would get over it, in time.
As for Harry Kim, he repeated to the full senior staff what he had reported privately to the Captain the night before. "Seismic measurements went from flatline to a 9.0 Richter equivalent spike, very short-lived, without any prior tremblings, then went down to 8.4 Richter, held at that level for a minute, then stopped. No aftershocks at all – total flatline again. Very localized, with the epicenter right in the cave where the away team was located. Causation unknown, but consistent with an explosion precision-set to trigger a substantial but limited seismic reaction."
He added, a bit defiantly as the Captain continued to glower, "And no, we detected no explosive device before, during or after we landed. It may have been cloaked. Nor were there any unknown life signs."
Ensign Mitchell, her skin still rosy in places where the dermal regenerator had healed a number of lacerations and bruises, swallowed hard. "Sir, if I may say something?" Riker nodded encouragingly. He knew the young woman had spent half the night in Deanna's care, sobbing uncontrollably about the panic attack that had caused her to freeze and almost kill the Commander. Deanna was sitting beside her now, rather than in her usual seat to his right, leaning slightly into the young woman as if to infuse her with her own strength.
"Just before … the shaking started, I saw the Commander shine his flashlight into a corner. And I thought I saw something move." The last word was uttered almost defiantly, as if she needed to convince herself. "Then there was a glow, and it did not come from the Commander's wrist light. It was more like a radiance that got stronger and stronger, and I heard him shout something over the comm link, about us not being alone. After that … there was a blast and then the shaking started." She faltered and looked to Deanna Troi, who patted her arm in a comforting gesture.
"She's right." The voice came from the briefing room door, which had opened to admit Tom Paris, pale and obviously a bit shaky on his feet, but with a look of grim determination on his face. B'Elanna half rose from her chair in indignation at seeing him out of sickbay, but sank back when he said, in a conciliatory tone meant for her alone, "The Doc cleared me for light duty, and this can't wait."
Tom dropped into the chair at the Captain's right with something rather less than his customary grace, wincing as he maneuvered his shoulder to rest his hands on the table. When Mitchell gave an audible sniff at the sight, he quickly compensated by giving her one of his lopsided grins and a wink. Turning to the Captain, he explained what he had seen.
"A face, a figure. Small, almost like a humanoid child. Of course it's hard to know when you haven't seen a species before, but it seemed terrified when I flashed my light into the corner where it was hiding. … Let me see if I can show you what it looked like."
He looked up, addressing himself to the ceiling above the briefing room table. "Computer, create a holographic image, humanoid-shaped skull, skin tone between Bolian and Andorian … no, lighter, three shades."
With a few concise verbal directions and deft finger movements across the holographic image, Tom sketched out a small figure, focusing on the head since the alien's limbs had been mostly in shadow in the split second he had seen it. He stretched and compacted the skull in appropriated places, smoothed out the area where most humanoid races had external ears and nostrils. Finally, Tom had the computer add the multifaceted rainbow-coloured eye indentations he remembered so clearly. When he was done, he set the image to rotate slowly in the middle of the table before ordering the computer to light it gradually from within, until it glowed nearly white.
"There. That's what I saw in that cave. When the explosion happened, the alien was flung against the wall, and its … light … dimmed, then went out. I was knocked off my feet as well. What happened to it afterwards I have no idea; from this point on I was focusing on … other things."
Everybody spoke at once. "But there were no life signs!'
"We scanned a dozen times …"
"Of course the Commander is right, I saw it too, just before …"
"When I locked on for transport, there was only you and Mitchell, Tom."
Finally, Captain Riker held up his hand to stem the cacophony. Silence fell immediately. He turned to his wife. "Deanna?"
She looked at Tom apologetically; he smiled at her and nodded, giving her the silent go-ahead to delve into and publicly report on his state of mind. Looking him in the eye as she spoke, she said, "He's reporting what he saw. It's clearly a memory, I don't sense the incoherence or gaps you get from an illusion."
She hesitated before continuing, "Besides, the fear Tom thinks he saw in the alien's face is consistent with the feelings I sensed before the away team deployed. I also sensed a sudden spike in that feeling just before … the away team was beamed out. I thought I was imagining something because it was so short, but it's consistent with Tom's report. I believe it's fair to assume that the fear I felt throughout was probably projected by that creature. It must have been very strong to reach this far, or else they are a telepathic race with considerable capacity."
Silence fell over the briefing room as the officers present digested this information. They looked at each other, uncertain what to do with it, where to turn next for answers, or even just more questions. More pieces were needed for the puzzle to resolve into anything worth guessing at.
Breaking the lengthening silence, Jorak turned to Jansson. "Lieutenant, did your team tractor in some of the asteroid fragments, as I had suggested, and examine them? Was there any evidence of bio matter present?"
Jansson cleared his throat, glad finally to be able to report something useful. "No bio matter, but traces of dilithium. Similar composition to the crystals in the cave. It looks like the fragments are the remnants of asteroids similar to the one the away team landed on."
He paused, not so much for effect as for reflection, as if he still couldn't believe what his team had found. "We also discovered evidence of explosion dispersal patterns, both on the boulders I examined on the asteroid and on some of the sheared-off rock faces we brought in. Wherever those pieces originally came from, they did not break up due to natural causes. Something or someone has been laying mines in these asteroids. They're booby trapped."
Harry whistled softly. "Looks like Tom's bright little friend may have had reason to be afraid."