Disclaimer: Star Trek Voyager is property of Paramount Pictures and all respective cast, crew, and employees. I am not making a profit off this. This is simply for fanfiction enjoyment.
Summary: An away mission goes terribly wrong for Harry Kim and Tom Paris. One is badly injured and the other's past comes back to haunt him. One will be forever changed and the other may not survive.
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Takes place after the episode Nothing Human and before Thirty Days.
Poisoning
"What happened down there?" Janeway asked as Tuvok returned to the Bridge.
Voyager had cleared weapons range, but the captain was not about to go any further.
Quickly, the Vulcan explained what had happened on the planet.
"They seem to be changelings," Tuvok continued, referring to the aliens on the planet, "In addition to changing into seemingly harmless objects, they also have the ability to mask their life signs. They did not register on our tricorders until they assumed their original forms. We were attacked before I could explain our purpose for being on their planet."
"I'm not sure if that would have made any difference," Janeway replied, "When I explained our purpose of being here, they didn't exactly respond with a warm welcome."
"Given that my team and I discovered the alien pilot that sent the distress signal, it is logical to assume that the life sign Ensign Kim and Lieutenant Paris went to investigate belonged to one of the creatures." Tuvok explained.
"We have to get them out of there."
Tuvok resumed his position at the security station on the Bridge.
"I managed to scan their weapons system before we got out of range," Chakotay said, showing the console's display to the Vulcan.
"Is there any way we can disable it?" the captain asked.
Tuvok tapped a series of commands on his console, bringing up a complete schematic of the weapons system.
"Their weapons system has superior shielding power," Tuvok said, studying the display, "they use multi-phasic shielding that is in constant fluctuation. Without a constant frequency to lock onto, it will be difficult to penetrate their shields."
"Can we disrupt their phase variance?" Janeway asked.
Tuvok typed calculations into his console.
"I believe so. If we target a sustained phaser stream at a particular point in their shields, the shields will focus multi-phasing on that area. Any other area on their shields will keep a constant frequency, making it vulnerable to photon torpedoes. Two or three photon torpedoes targeted elsewhere should disable their shields."
"Do it."
"Captain," Tuvok said as Janeway started to turn back to her chair, "I must warn you that we do not know how long it will take for them to recover their weapons system once it is down."
"Noted."
Janeway tapped her combadge, "Janeway to Engineering."
"Yes, captain?" Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres replied.
"Transfer all available power to shields and weapons."
"Aye, captain."
"Ensign Anders," Janeway instructed, "take us in."
Harry watched as the two large creatures emerge from the cave. He grabbed his phaser and struggled to aim it at the advancing beings. But the pain in his body was so great, his vision blurred, causing him to miss. The creature on the left quickly advanced on him and scratched his arm, tossing the phaser away like a toy from a disobedient child.
Harry again screamed out, this time, cradling his injured right arm. Blood had already begun to ooze from the deep wounds. Finally, his frail human body could not take the pain. He slipped into unconsciousness, his body going limp.
The ground shook and the creatures looked at one another. One blast after another suddenly assaulted their planet, forcing even the seven-foot tall creatures to try and find their footing.
"Fire!" Janeway ordered.
Voyager attacked the planet with full force, assaulting the weapons array with sustained phaser fire.
Voyager rocked violently as the planet returned fire.
"Shields are down to eighty five percent," Tuvok announced as Voyager was hit with return fire.
"Evasive maneuvers! But keep targeting the same spot on their shields," Janeway instructed.
Voyager swayed and rocked as it moved to avoid alien shots. However, its phaser fire never left the same spot, relentlessly pounding the alien shields.
"Their shields are starting to concentrate multi-phasing at our firing point," Tuvok said.
"Get ready with the photon torpedoes."
The Vulcan moved his fingers into position over the touch-screen buttons on his console.
"Transporter room."
"Yes, captain?"
"Get ready to beam Mr. Kim and Mr. Paris up at a moment's notice."
"Acknowledged."
"Ensign, take us in closer." Janeway instructed, knowing at they were currently not within transporter range.
"But any closer, and the shields will take heavy damage," Ensign Anders said.
"I'm aware of that, Ensign! Do as I say."
"Aye, sir."
As Voyager flew in closer, Chakotay tapped a series of buttons on the controls at his chair, scanning for combadge signals.
Voyager rocked again and again as the alien weapons system assaulted the ship. A console at the back of the Bridge exploded in a shower of sparks.
"Shields down to sixty percent!" Tuvok shouted, reading the screen in front of him. He did not take his hands away from their position.
"Do you find them?" Janeway asked Chakotay
"Not yet," Chakotay replied.
A feeling of dread started to cloud over the captain. They might have to beam down to the surface, but how? There's not telling how long, or short a time the aliens would be able to regain their weap-
"I've found them!" Chakotay suddenly shouted over the blasts, "they're within transporter range!"
"Fire, Mr. Tuvok!"
Immediately, the Vulcan dropped his fingers onto the buttons his hands had hovered over.
Four thick photon torpedoes rushed in succession towards the alien shields, pounding them with full force. After the third, the shields winked out. The last torpedo blasted the alien weapons system, completely disabling them.
"Lower shields! Transport them up!"
The huge aliens that surrounded Tom and Harry dug their claws into the ground as their planet rocked and shook. A loud roar erupted over their heads and they looked towards the sound. A strange ship was flying overhead.
For a few moments, they watched with curiosity, then turned the unconscious beings on the ground… just in time to see the two dematerialize and fade away into seemingly nothingness.
"I've got them!" the transporter chief shouted excitedly as the two senior officers materialized on the transporter pad. His excitement was quickly dashed, however as he saw their condition. Both were lying on the platform unmoving and unconscious. He slapped his combadge.
"Livingston to Sickbay."
"Sickbay here," the Doctor responded in his usual chipper voice.
"I'm transporting Lieutenant Paris and Ensign Kim to you. They need your help."
Harry Kim felt someone, or was it… something, turn him over to his side? Harry snapped into consciousness, the upper half of his body jolting as if touched by an electric shock. His eyes looked wildly around, remembering in an instant what had happened, and in the next, terrified of what was going on.
The Doctor moved to face the ensign.
"It's okay, Mr. Kim," he said, "you're on Voyager, in Sickbay."
It took several moments for Harry to slow his breathing and take in the familiar room he was in. Then, the pain in his body returned and the ensign's labored breathing returned.
"Tom?" he asked weakly.
"He's going to be just fine, thanks to yours truly," the Doctor smiled gesturing to himself, "Just a mild concussion and a gash that was easily repaired. He should regain consciousness in a few minutes."
The pain in Harry's lower body seemed to rise exponentially in a matter of seconds.
"Oh, God," Harry winced.
The Doctor quickly turned to the console next to the biobed, which began to beep rapidly.
"The poison is spreading up your body," the Doctor said as he assessed Harry's body with a hand scanner from his medical tricorder, "I believe it's feeding off the energy in your internal systems."
Suddenly, Harry found it difficult to breathe. His lungs seemed to constrict, making him gasp for air.
"Doct-…" his voice trailed off as the console at his biobed erupted in a cacophony of alarms.
The Doctor studied the readouts. Harry's vitals were failing. Quickly, he grabbed a hypospray and loaded a dosage of medicine.
"I'm going to induce a coma," the Doctor said, looking straight into Harry's eyes, which Harry was struggling to keep open despite his pain, "that will slow down your biological systems, slowing the progress of the poison."
Harry tried to say something, but all that came out was a raspy moan. The Doctor injected the hypospray into Harry's neck. Immediately, the ensign's vitals stabilized, his breathing calmed, and he closed his eyes, falling into this time, a safe unconscious state.
The Doctor leaned against the side of the biobed, breathing a sigh of relief. A part of him wondered whether he was programmed to do so; to breathe sighs of relief, but almost instantly, he knew the answer. The crew on Voyager was having an affect on him. One that he was never programmed to handle, but he didn't regret that fact.
"Doctor?"
The Doctor looked up. His other patient was waking up.
"Ah! Lieutenant Paris," the Doctor strode over the Tom and scanned him with his tricorder, "you suffered a mild concussion, but with a few hours rest, you should be fine. Mind if I ask what happened?"
"Well," Tom said, his thoughts just coming into focus, "Harry and I were .… Harry! Where is he? Is he okay?"
Before the Doctor could answer the Sickbay doors opened and Captain Janeway strode in.
"Mr. Paris," she nodded with a smile to Tom, "how are you feeling?"
"Better," Tom replied, "now that I'm conscious."
The captain managed a small chuckle.
"He should be fit for duty in a few hours," the Doctor said.
"And Harry?"
The Doctor stepped aside to allow the captain and lieutenant to see the biobed behind him.
"I wish I could say the same for Mr. Kim…"
Tom looked to his right, towards the biobed where the most critical patients were placed. Harry lay on his right side. Deep purple wounds had penetrated his back and his arm was riddled with bloody scratches.
Janeway gasped while Tom let in a shaky breath.
"I can treat the scratches on his arm," the Doctor explained, "like I did with Ensign Walters. But I don't yet know how to treat the rest of him. He's been injected with a poison that I've never seen before. It seems to paralyze the victim before destroying their internal organs. Already, Mr. Kim's organs have been affected. The poison also spreads throughout the body, feeding off the body's internal energy. I have induced a coma in Mr. Kim, to slow the progress of the poison.
"The good news is, once I find a cure for the poison, I believe I can reverse the damage."
"… And the bad news?" Janeway asked, not taking her eyes off Harry.
The Doctor paused, wanting to delay as long as possible what he was going to say next. But they had to know.
"I've managed to slow the progress of the poison, but I can't stop it. If I don't find a cure, at the poison's current rate of progress, Ensign Kim will suffer permanent injury in one week. In two weeks, he will not survive."
The captain let out a small gasp while Tom looked down at the floor, suddenly dizzy; but it had nothing to do with his recent injury.
"What happened?" the captain asked, looking at Tom.
"I'm not sure…," he said slowly, trying to recover from the news the Doctor had delivered and remember what had occurred at the same time, "Harry and I detected a weak life sign. It led us to a cave, but then it died out, so we went separate ways trying to cover more ground. One minute, I'm surveying one of the cave's tunnels, the next, I hear this strange noise, and all of a sudden, this alien forms itself right in front of me. It was disguising itself as a part of the rock wall.
"Before I could react, it chucked a rock at me, and… and that's all I remember. I must've been knocked unconscious then."
"We beamed the both of you up from outside the cave," Janeway said.
"… Then Harry must've pulled me out of there." Tom said, starting to realize the whole picture. He looked off into the distance, the last several hours replaying in his mind.
"Captain," the Doctor said after a brief pause, "I know things sound terrible right now, but there's no time to waste. I need to know as much information as possible about the aliens that injured Mr. Kim. Without knowing who, or what attacked him, it will be difficult to find a cure for the poison."
"Yes Doctor," the captain replied, shaking her head as if to physically clear her mind, "I'll get teams right on it."
"Captain," Tom said, looking at his friend lying on the biobed, "I volunteer to be on an away team back down to the surface."
"No, it's too dangerous… I can't risk any more of my crew down there."
"But you can't get much off just long range scans. Someone needs to be down there to survey the aliens-"
"My decision has been made," the captain replied sternly.
"Aye, sir."
She was about to leave, but turned back around and faced the lieutenant.
"We'll get to the bottom of this."
"Captain, maybe I can help," the Doctor suddenly said, "Mr. Paris is right. We can get more detailed scans from the surface. I can beam down to the surface to scan the aliens. They can't touch me. Literally. With Lieutenant Torres's help, I believe I can modify my mobile emitter so that ninety percent of me remains holographic. The remaining ten percent will be solid so I can hold instruments to conduct scans and perform work. Mr. Paris can watch over Mr. Kim while I am gone."
"But there's still a risk of your being attacked."
"I'm hoping to be off the planet by the time the aliens figure out how to do that. Captain, without scanning the aliens and the planet at close range, I don't believe we'll find the answers we need to heal Mr. Kim."
Janeway looked from the Doctor to Tom.
"Alright," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "stay here with Mr. Paris until he fully recovers and is fit for duty. In the meantime, I'll make one more attempt to contact the aliens. With their weapons system down, maybe they're more willing to talk."
The captain began to turn back around, but Tom spoke up again.
"Captain…"
Janeway looked at Tom, but he didn't continue.
"Yes, Mr. Paris?"
"… Nothing," he said softly, "sorry."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
Janeway left Sickbay, but not before stealing one more look at the lieutenant.
The Doctor finished healing the wounds on Harry Kim's arm, carefully scanning the length of his arm to remove scarring. The Doctor concentrated on his work, but another part of his programming was focused on something else. His programming processing a mixture of emotions; excitement from another away mission tempered by apprehension from the purpose of it. What if the information he gathered from the planet wasn't enough? He attached a small medical device to Ensign Kim's neck which would keep his vitals stable for several days if needed. If needed… the Doctor sincerely hoped it wouldn't come to that.
beep beep beep
The Doctor's thoughts were interrupted when he heard a series of beeps. He looked up to see Lieutenant Paris tapping at a medical display.
"Mr. Paris, what're you doing? I told you to rest."
Tom continued to tap at the computer, bringing up a display of Harry's vitals.
"I can't," Tom replied, "like you said, we don't have much time. We need to find a way to fight this poison. Two heads are better than one, right?"
"Not if one of those heads has just suffered a concussion," the Doctor countered. He watched as Lieutenant Paris walked the length of Sickbay to a storage case, or at least tried to. Halfway there, he stopped, and began to sway.
The Doctor rushed to catch Mr. Paris before he hit the floor.
"Mr. Paris," he admonished, "you still need three hours to fully recover. You won't be much help in your current condition."
He half dragged, half carried a reluctant Paris back to a biobed.
"Now sit and lie down," the Doctor commanded.
"Yes master," Tom replied, gritting his teeth and not hiding back the annoyance in his voice. But he complied, lying back in the biobed. As soon as he did, his vision cleared and the ship stopped swimming before his eyes.
The Sickbay hissed open, and B'Elanna Torres stepped in.
"Tom," she immediately turned to the lieutenant, "are you okay?"
"He'll be just fine," the Doctor replied, "so long as he doesn't make me force him into restraints."
"I'm okay," Tom assured her.
A wave of relief crashed down on the engineer as she looked at her boyfriend on the biobed, alive and well. She had heard from rumor that he and Harry were in trouble, but as with all rumors, details were sketchy. She wanted to kiss him passionately on the lips, but she looked nervously at the Doctor. Instead, she settled with a peck on the cheek. Tom brushed her cheek with the back of his hand as she pulled away.
"Oh come on," the Doctor said, watching the exchange between the two, "we all know you two can't keep your paws off each other. Don't hold back just because of me." He smiled with a flourish.
Tom jerked his head up at the Doctor. It took all of B'Elanna's strength not to sock him in the nose. She let out a deep, controlled breath.
"Let's just work on your mobile emitter, shall we?" B'Elanna said, "In addition to the modifications you proposed, I think I can create a small forcefield around it in case anyone tries to tamper with it."
"Modify away," the Doctor strode to a console where he kept his mobile emitter. He turned around to gather the instruments he needed.
B'Elanna began probing the mobile emitter with a tool while she went back to Tom. She glanced at Harry, who was still lying on his side, the deep purple wounds to his back exposed.
"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked Tom.
"I'm fine," Tom said a little too quickly
B'Elanna just looked back at him, her human genes trying to decipher the emotion behind Tom's eyes.
"Really, I am." Tom repeated.
As the Doctor returned to help modify his mobile emitter, Tom adjusted his gaze back up at the ceiling.
Somehow, B'Elanna knew that Tom was anything but okay.
"Sensors indicate their weapons system is still inoperable," the Vulcan behind the security station reported.
"Hail them," the captain instructed, standing in the middle of the Bridge.
Tuvok activated controls from his station.
"Channel open,"
"Inhabitants of his planet," the captain said, "this is again Captain Kathryn Janeway of the starship Voyager. You have attacked three of our crewmen and threatened five others. I assured you that we were not on your planet for hostile reasons. We were responding to a distress call. If you assess you weapons system, you will find that I just disabled it. I didn't destroy it. Please, perhaps we can talk."
A moment of silence passed.
"No response."
"Very well," Janeway continued, irritation creeping into her voice, "one of my crew is critically injured. We cannot find a cure for whatever you did to him unless we know more about you. I am sending someone down to your planet to investigate you and your world…. Unless of course, you object."
Tuvok tapped at his console.
"Still no response. In fact, scans show that they are moving away from their weapons array. They are no longer making repairs to it."
"Maybe it's a trick," Chakotay said softly.
"Close the channel," Janeway mouthed to Tuvok.
"Communications channel closed," Tuvok announced.
"Or maybe it's an invite," Janeway said, looking at Chakotay, "for some reason, our universal translators have been unable to decipher what they are saying. Maybe this is their way of communicating. Showing us, instead of verbalizing."
"That is one of many possible logical conclusions," Tuvok replied, "however, it could also mean they are attempting to deceive us."
Janeway paced across the Bridge, deep in thought.
"Reopen the channel," she instructed Tuvok after a moment.
The computer beeped in response.
"We are transferring one of our own down to the surface to conduct scans. Do you object? Show us a response."
"They are not moving," Tuvok said, "still no attempt to repair their weapons array."
The Doctor beamed down to the surface of the planet. As soon as he rematerialized, he pulled out his tricorder, scanning the area. There were no aliens in sight. However, that meant nothing. The Doctor turned around, scanning the pieces of alien craft Tom and Harry had been investigating earlier. He scanned and downloaded everything he could; the craft's computer, sensor logs, the molecular structure of the hull, the broken plasma containers on the ground, nothing was left unchecked.
He looked at the internal controls of the shuttle; the internal controls that sat so prominently on the planet. The internal controls were intact, unlike the pieces of the shuttle that sat broken and burned, strewn among the wreckage. The Doctor scanned every inch of the controls. Might as well make use of the console while it was on display.
He looked underneath and found a small circular blue device. The device looked as if it did not belong there. It had different symbols from the console. The Doctor carefully detached it and placed it in a case he carried. He would inspect it in detail later.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of liquid boiling behind him. He turned around to see one of the creatures form into its true self; claws, fangs, and all. His tricorder first detected weak, then strong life signs as the creature solidified.
When the creature returned to its full, original form, it looked at the Doctor and let out an ear splitting screech, loud enough to vibrate the ground.
"Hello to you too," the Doctor greeted casually, his programming completely unfazed by the noise.
"Now that we're face to face, maybe we can talk."
The alien just peered at the Doctor, wondering why it hadn't cringed like the others.
"Or, maybe not," the Doctor muttered.
He began scanning the alien as the alien looked at him.
"It appears we're both… curious about each other."
The alien took a few more seconds to view the Doctor, then swiped at him with its massive claws. But its claws went right through the strange being. The confident creature finally registered shock. Again and again, it swiped at the being, but again and again, its claws struck air. It stood up to its full height and the now familiar purple substance started to seep from its fangs. It gathered and covered its fangs until it dripped onto the ground. The Doctor pulled a container from the case he held in his other hand. Carefully, he placed the container on the ground next to the poison and pressed a button.
The poison around the container dematerialized; then rematerialized in the container.
"Thank you," the Doctor said, looking up at the alien towering over him, "I needed a pure sample."
The alien brought its head down on the human, trying to sink its fangs into him; but instead, it struck its fangs into the ground, having passed right through the being. It took a few moments for the creature to dislodge its fangs from the ground.
"I wouldn't try that again if I were you," the Doctor advised.
Bubbling noises could be heard again, this time, several noises from all around the Doctor. In an instant, five aliens formed themselves around the Doctor. The one to his left eyed the tiny device on his left arm, and jabbed at it. It jerked its head back when it was met with forcefield resistance.
The Doctor continued to scan all aliens, one of which screeched again, seeming to energize the rest. Three of the creatures began jabbing at the mobile emitter, almost as if they were fascinated by the forcefield. The Doctor tried to get away, but he found himself surrounded on all sides by the aliens. He'd be able to resist their attacks, but he wouldn't be able to escape them unless he passed completely through them. All one hundred percent of him had to remain holographic; and that meant leaving all the work he had done behind. Suddenly, the ground shook beneath the Doctor.
"Doctor to Voyager," he said, pressing his combadge, "I think it's time for me to leave."
He quickly put the poison sample in the case he carried along with the rest of the data he downloaded.
"Sorry, Doctor," Chakotay replied from the ship, "we're having a bit of trouble here ourselves. They've repaired their weapons system in seconds and now they're firing at us."
Voyager swerved and banked as it dodged one phaser shot after the other. The captain had ordered shields to be raised just after Voyager was blasted with a phaser stream. The hull had already weakened in one shot. There was no indication of movement from the aliens towards the weapons system. The captain could only guess that they had remote detonators.
"Mr. Tuvok," the captain said, still trying to recover from the surprise attack, "target the shots their weapons system fires on us. Not the weapons system, the bullets. Let's fight fire with fire."
"Captain, two phaser shots coming within contact with one another would produce a considerable explosion."
"I'm counting on it. The explosion should blind the weapons tracking system, enough to allow us to get the Doctor and get the hell out of here.
"Ensign," Janeway continued, addressing the officer at the helm, "get ready to go to warp eight when we fire. Transporter room, get ready to beam the Doctor up once we pass by him. We'll lower shields when we're overhead and raise them the instant he's on board."
"That's an awfully small window of opportunity," Chakotay said warily.
"Then we'll have to make ourselves small enough to fit through it."
The captain nodded to the Bridge crew.
"Aye, ma'am."
"Yes, captain."
The crowd around the Doctor parted, allowing him to see two more creatures several meters away; both armed with long rifles. Without hesitation, they fired at the Doctor, aiming their weapons at his mobile emitter. Almost instantly, the forcefield around the Doctor's mobile emitter winked out.
Finally, the human started to cower away from the aliens. Two resumed poking at the mobile emitter, causing the Doctor to fade in and out. He dropped the case filled with precious data.
"Voyager, get me out of here, now!"
The Doctor tried to shield himself behind a large panel from the alien pilot's craft. But he knew it was only a matter of time before the aliens overwhelmed him.
"Fire!"
Voyager fired a series of phaser bursts aimed directly at the incoming fire. The two opposing phaser shots came in contact with each other, exploding in a fiery plume.
"Head towards the Doctor's location, warp 8!"
The ship speed away, the front of the explosion licking at its stern shielding.
"We'll be in position in five… four… three… two… one…"
"Transporter room, beam him up, now!"
The Doctor huddled over the case as his holographic image fizzled yet again. It seemed the aliens were almost having fun with him. One would toy with his mobile emitter while the other would try and touch him, swiping at his image with its claws. The panel he had been using as crude shielding was easily taken away by one of the aliens.
Just as the alien made yet another attempt at the mobile emitter, the Doctor disappeared, this time, dematerializing with the precious case in hand.
"I've got him."
"Shields up! Get us out of here!"
Voyager rocked as the explosion finally caught up with it, but its fully powered shields greatly dissipated the impact.
Janeway finally sat back in her chair, letting out a sigh of relief as Voyager sped out of the way, clear of any danger.
Hours later, the senior staff assembled in the briefing room, having pored through the data the Doctor had gathered. The Doctor patched a visual through from Sickbay so he could constantly monitor Harry's vitals for any changes.
"The information we gathered is fascinating," the Doctor said, "I've never seen such creatures, let alone ones with their level of intelligence, and cunning. It's interesting, in a twisted, disgusting sort of way."
Before the Doctor could ramble on without explaining, the captain interrupted, "Let's start from the beginning."
"Yes, sorry. Well, first of all, the distress signal we detected from the alien pilot, the Tarran named Yavira Jenners, … it doesn't exist."
"What?" Chakotay asked.
"I downloaded everything I could from the alien's shuttle. There was no such distress signal sent. In fact, there was no distress signal sent at all. Here is the last log entry Yavira made."
The Doctor pressed a series of buttons and his image was replaced with a visual image of the pilot Tuvok and his team discovered dead on the planet.
"Yavira Jenners's log, Tarranian date 471285. I'm following a distress signal someone has sent from a planet filled with vegetation but only five life signs. According to the signal, a small crew of five members of the Darrakaan species is stranded here-"
Suddenly, the craft the Tarren was piloting jolted and a console exploded behind her.
"What the?"
The pilot checked her console.
"I've been hit, from…. the planet?"
Another series of blasts assaulted the shuttle. Yavira groaned as she was thrown out of her seat and another console failed in a plume of sparks. The visual log then became fuzzy before shutting off.
The Doctor's image came back on the screen.
"Yavira's shuttle wasn't failing. It was shot down by our aliens friends."
"… so if she didn't send the distress signal," Tom said as the gravity of the news descended on the senior staff, "who did? It sure sounded like her on the audio log."
"It was her. Every log from species that we have encountered so far, have an encoded timestamp. Yavira's logs were no different. The log she really made was encoded with Tarraninan date 471285; the equivalent of two days ago.
"The fake distress signal had several timestamps. Some groups of words came from a week ago, some were just one word made from a log entry two months ago. The creatures down there created a fake distress signal using words from Yavira's previous logs, piecing them together."
"But if the signal was created piecemeal from the pilot's previous logs," Janeway said slowly, "wouldn't we hear the different tones, the inflections from her voice? Her voice wouldn't flow right. It wouldn't sound like one continuous transmission."
"That's what I thought," the Doctor replied, "but then I looked at a device I found lodged underneath her console."
The Doctor held the blue circular device up to the screen for the senior staff to see.
"I scanned this little baby, and found that it's a frequency modulator. I believe the aliens used this to smooth out the different tones and inflections in the pilot's voice. Thus, creating, to the naked eye, a perfectly valid distress signal. Visual images are much harder to modulate. You have to smooth out every inch of the image so the movements of the person doesn't jump around. It was easier for the aliens to create a fake audio signal."
The senior staff leaned forward in their chairs
"But, why?" Chakotay asked, "Why lure us to the planet when they don't even want us there?"
"They most certainly do want us there," the Doctor explained, "…as food. I scanned the aliens and discovered their brains possess far more neurons than humans. They are highly intelligent with a complex language, which explains why our universal translators can't interpret their language.
"The poison they inject into their prey slowly breaks down the internal system and organs until the prey dies. At which point, they… eat their prey. I believe the poison is designed to break down the internal structure of their prey, making them more digestible."
The senior staff exchanged disgusted looks. Tom let out a slow deep breath.
"There's more," the Doctor said. He turned to look at B'Elanna Torres.
"My team and I studied the shuttle's wreckage," Torres explained, "the Doctor explained how the main console of the shuttle was left intact. That wasn't by accident. We believe the shuttle was shot down by the same weapons system that attacked us; only they used a much weaker phaser shots, just enough to bring the shuttle down, but not destroy its main computer.
"Now I know why. The creatures down there needed the main computer to create the false distress signal that brought us here in the first place."
Torres stood up from her chair and walked to the display console.
"Excuse me, Doctor," she pressed the controls next to the screen and the image of the Doctor was replaced with a skeletal image of a shuttle, "this is what the shuttle looks like in one piece. With the computer's help, we were able to extract the shuttle's schematics from the data we gathered. Even though Harry and the Doctor discovered two plasma containers, we believe the shuttle had four plasma containers."
"A shuttle of that size can't possibly be powered by just two plasma containers," Tom, who helped B'Elanna's team, explained, "When Harry scanned the two containers in the wreckage, he thought there was something suspicious about them, and he was right.
"One of the containers was completely depleted of plasma, the other was leaking. We think the aliens must've stolen the plasma."
"But why?" Chakotay asked.
B'Elanna tapped the controls and the image switched to a detailed schematic of the alien weapon system. It then focused on a plasma conduit on the left side, enlarging it to make it easier to see.
"This is one of the plasma conduits from the craft's shuttle."
She tapped another button and the image swerved around to the right and focused on another plasma conduit.
"This is the other, with twice as much plasma in it. The same plasma that should have been in the empty container Harry found. The creatures down there use stolen technology to bring down other ships. How much of their weapons system is stolen and how much is actually theirs, it's hard to tell. But there's no doubt about it. Their weapons array has no consistent look to it, no consistent technology. Some parts are made of plasma, others of electrical conduits, and still other parts are made of technology we have yet to figure out. But somehow, they've been able to make the different technologies work together to make one hell of a weapon."
The Doctor's image returned to the screen.
"These creatures also have the ability to control whether they give off life signs, even the strength of them," he said, "I could only gather one fact from the scans Mr. Tuvok took of the alien pilot before he and his team were attacked. The alien pilot had been dead for over twenty-four hours before the away team found her.
"Which could only mean one thing. The weak life sign Mr. Tuvok and his security team detected wasn't from the alien pilot. It was from the creatures. Their life signs didn't register until they showed themselves to me. No point in hiding life signs once I'm staring them in the face."
Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, who had been sitting so silently finally spoke, "We had an original away team of eight. It is logical to assume that the creatures sent two different life signs to separate us, making us easier prey."
The senior staff leaned back in their chairs, absorbing the impact of the information. Tom looked off into the distance, deep in thought.
"If they can understand our language, why don't they talk to us?" Chakotay asked.
"I can only assume," the Doctor replied, "that they refuse to speak to, excuse the term, lower life forms. Why communicate with your prey when you're about to devour them?"
"No wonder they fired on us," Chakotay surmised, "once they detected our ship, they must've seen us as a large food source."
"Exactly," the Doctor said, "they didn't try to attack me until they realized what I was doing. They probably thought I didn't pose a threat until I took their voice modulator. It was then when they realized that I might find out who they are, and what they are doing."
"An alien species that preys upon humanity," Janeway said, breathlessly.
To be continued...
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