Guys? Where did you all disappear this week? Not a single review? Well, I do hope you still like this story, and am posting the next chapter now. No pack of thief vessels. You've got to wait for a few more chapters before I try myself at writing interstellar combat. :-)
Chapter VIII. Reaching the vessels
They could not approach the herd of Mirrresh vessels very much, because the hyper-low frequencies were threatening Voyager's structural integrity. From their safe distance, they sent out a message on all channels, but there was no answer. Merrrshika was listening warily to the audio translation of the ships' communication, and she could not do otherwise than notice the change when Voyager sent out his call for survivors and offer for help.
In the primitive but nevertheless intelligent minds of the Mirrresh vessels, wariness and anger rose, and finally overwhelmed fear and distress. A mechanical vessel, not unlike the one that had attacked them, was near.
"They've been underr attack by mechanical vesshels," Merrrshika stated. She could hear them saying it to each other in angry whispers. "They'rre grrowing aggrresshive towarrds ush. Can you put them on shcrreen? I musht shee theirr moves to know when they arre about to attack."
Janeway ordered to put them on screen. There was more or less fifty motherships, flocked behind two huge armour-plated cruisers, undoubtedly males judging by their defensive positions, moving even more slowly than usually.
"They'rre sho shlow, and they'rre losing colorr," Merrrshika noted. "They musht be sherrioushly injurred."
Their near-violet, brilliant colour to Merrrshika's eyes – which was called "violent" in her tongue – was fading to a colour of longer wavelength, less aggressive to the eyes – which was designated by "eclipse" in Merrrshika's mother tongue.
Despite the loss of color that was stating in all clarity their serious condition, they moved bravely in a defensive position before the anxious females. One of the two lurched menacingly.
"He's telling ush to back off and rrun away," Merrrshika said.
"Can't you tell him we're here to help them?", Janeway asked, naively enough in Merrrshika's opinion.
"Can you tell a horrshe to shwallow vinegarr because it can heal him?", she retorted. "Teleporrt me on his boarrd, maybe I will be able to take him underr my contrrol. He sheems tirred and weak. He won't have much rresistanche left."
I just hope it won't kill him, she added in an afterthought.
"This is not very cautious," Kim objected, even if it was clearly the captain's place to formulate objections.
"Harry's right," the captain added.
"I know, Captain," Merrrshika sighed. "But they will attack ush shoonerr orr laterr. They'rre not in top shape, but they shtill have shields twiche shtrrongerr than ourrs. They will both die, we will take sherrioush damage and the females will crry even morre and you will have to back off anyway." She gave a pleading look to Janeway, even as she was thinking to herself that she had not even pleaded to Sherrrim; her long adversary would have been incensed to know that anyone could make her beg this easily. "Let me teleporrt, please, Captain."
Janeway considered in silence for a moment, then decided:
"Permission granted, Merrrshika, but I can't let you go there alone."
"Who will come with me? It'sh not exactly funny for the passhengerrs when the vesshel is doing tunnels, trrying to get the pilot off the shaddle. Sherrioush wounds happen, shometimes."
Then, Chakotay suggested:
"Could you take the doctor with you?"
"Verry good idea!", Merrrshika exclaimed with a smile. "He can't be wounded and he can help to heal the shipsh!" Then, she was suddenly aware of something else. "The ship will prrobably detect jusht two perrshons. But if he detectsh that therre is an hologram on his boarrd, he will prrobably become as mad as hell. They hate mechanical beings."
"That's a risk to take," Janeway declared.
She called the doctor and made him prepare his mobile emitter and his first aid kit. Merrrshika had him add enough of Mirrresh-DNA-compatible sedative to send a flotilla of ships on the shores of unconsciousness.
They gathered in the teleportation room. Merrrshika explained to the doctor what they would have to do, then recommended to the captain to have Voyager ready to beam the doctor back on board if the Mirrresh vessel detected his presence. Merrrshika removed carefully and thoughtfully her sunglasses before she was beamed up.
She rematerialized in the back of the pilot-room with the Doctor. Immediately, the ship started to rear up and roll with panic, accompanying his moves with destabilization of the internal artificial gravity. Two unknown people had just arrived onboard, and not by an airlock or by the teleportation room, but dangerously close to the commands.
The Doctor was knocked over by the shift of gravity as soon as he rematerialized. Merrrshika was more used to this kind of manoeuvre, and lunged for the wall, gripping tightly one of the many handles there. She dragged herself forward, using as much her arms as her feet to walk against the steadily increasing inclination of the ship.
The Doctor was quick to imitate her and grip one of the handles, watching her progress forward. The control room was dark and bathed in violet light, no doubt the only visible part of the possibly stronger illumination by Mirrresh standards and eyes. The place was relatively small and crowded by the pilot seat. It was a saddle shaped between what appeared to be two vertebrae, and there was an organic-looking helmet overheard. Many more consoles crowded the enclosed space. Behind the pilot seat was another chair, smaller and with a hand-viewer, which would probably be the captain's. There were various other consoles around the room, but they were close together and of a strange design, organic-looking. Only one seemed mechanical, and the Doctor guessed it must be the ship's hacker's console.
The place truly was used to a maximum, the space calculated so that there was just enough place for a lithe feline Mirrresh to slide between the pilot seat and the chair of a sitting fellow officer at the station next to it. Everything was coloured with the strange un-blue that the Doctor guessed was ultra-violet, and the lines were irregularly angular or smooth curves, probably the constraints of a biological vessel showing in the design of the internal environment.
But no mechanical vessel had ever sloped the gravity so, and the Doctor failed to see, as of yet, what was the advantage of biological vessels; surely biology, even if aided by genetic or proteomic manipulations, could not be upgraded as quickly as all the engineering devices of a vessel like the Voyager.
Merrrshika had reached her destination, and hoisted herself in the pilot saddle with a supple torsion of her body. She lost no time in pushing forcefully her hands down into the cylindrical holes on each side of the saddle, about twenty centimetres deep, at the bottom of which were the fine-tuning controls for direction. She gently gripped the bundles of nerve-ending-enriched conjunctive tissue that served as fine controls for speed, acceleration and direction. The walls of the holes for the hands, the saddle itself and the stirrups were also of sensible flesh, and allowed the ship to sense every movement of the pilot: hand, arms, hips, legs, feet, and the weight of the shoulders could easily be guessed by the contact with the saddle or the hand-controls. Those indications, collectively designed by Mirrresh pilots as body-controls, served as general heading, switch from thrusters to warp or back, and also for emergency evasion moves that did not necessitate the fine tuning of the hand-controls.
Just before she pushed her head into the pilot helmet, which the ship tried to hold as high as possible to refuse to surrender to her, Merrrshika said to the Doctor:
"If he unsheaths me, shedate him. Trry to go to the shickbay, I'm afrraid the crrew had a biovirrush. Deck five, parrt thrree, you acchessh it by the main shtairrway, behind you at yourr left."
"Very well."
"Be carreful, there might be… shome rrocking and rrolling."
Then, she turned and dived into the pilot helmet. Immediately, a symphony of alarms started to resound and flash all around her in the pilot helmet. It was a device that covered her face and ears, transmitting a tactical view of the space ahead of them, which she could rotate at will by specific moves of the eyes, and a 3-D sound environment, whether that of tactical reports from the situation outside the ship, or anything on internal sensors, as she ordered by another set of eye and face movements. She rapidly surveyed the internal sensors, already being aware of the scared flock of females outside, and noticed grimly that almost none of the ship was free of alarms; some warnings were less violent, flashing dully in near-X-ray, others were of the eclipse or violent colors, displaying a greater state of emergency for the ship. All this flashing within her range of vision was ready to dizzy Merrrshika, and she expanded to a maximum the pilot room area, as it was the less abundant in alarms, being protected by the strongest part of the shield, two arms and a whip-like appendage over it.
At least, the ship was answering basic requests, recognizing a Mirrresh in the saddle. She asked for a vision of the exterior, and the hundreds of flashing alarms were replaced by a thousand shooting stars, evidence of the ship rocking furiously. Merrrshika started, and the ship had a triumphant jump, slanting into the beginning of a flip no doubt aiming at getting the arrogant Mirrresh he didn't know off the saddle.
Onboard Voyager, everyone observed the ample, disorganized moves of the war vessel, the herd edging away from him carefully, and the other male that surveyed the situation from a distance, looking undecided.
"My God," Kathryn said.
"This is what she calls "not much resistance left"?", Chakotay wondered, completing Janeway's unspoken thought.
Kim had his eyes on the view screen instead of on the sensors as was his duty. But as everyone was roughly doing the same, there was no one to call him to order.
Merrrshika strengthened her grip on the controls, almost brutally, and the ship shied. This reminded her of a ship she had piloted once, long ago, as she was visiting different space stations raising shuttles, before she found and bought her shuttle. So, she let go of the "reins", relaxed her arms, pushing the ship with her legs and slanting it left-hand with her hips and shoulders. The ship rushed forward with his heavy gait, at times making a few shakes and jumps out of line, but circling the group of females in a loose control by the pilot.
Merrrshika took three turns around the herd to calm and slow him down, and finally he obeyed her and stopped; he was exhausted and not in shape for much more fighting anyway. She affectedly scratched the saddle side and asked for his name. The name displayed itself in the pilot's helmet, and she told him by a strange mix of words and body language that she would help him to heal, and that he had to contact Voyager, the mechanical vessel that was there to help them.
"Merrrshika to captain Janeway," she tried by the ship's channels.
"Go ahead! We're glad to hear from you."
"His name is Pshi. He's underr my contrrol. Of courrshe it'sh not frriendship yet, but he underrshtands who's the bossh. If you agrree, I would like to heal the violent alarrms of thish vesshel, then take contrrol of the otherr one. Afterr that, I will prrobably be able to calm the female enough to lower theirr hyperr bassh frrequencies trranshmissions, sho you can come closerr."
"Agreed," Janeway approved. "Is there something we can do to help you?"
"Not yet. I'll go check the Doctorr now."
The communication closed, without even a polite "Merrrshika out". Janeway lifted a slightly displeased eyebrow; the hacker still had to be schooled about Starfleet protocol. Tuvok, as a good security officer, remarked:
"A captain should not let a member of the crew decide of the right course of action."
"I am aware of that, Tuvok, but she is not yet familiar with all our regulations. Moreover, her current course of action appears correct and effective."
Tuvok acknowledged quietly; after all, he also thought that there was not much for them to do now but wait for Merrrshika to tell them what they could do next.