A/n: Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed my new fic, "Contagion". I hope you all like this chapter too. :)

B'Elanna shifted uncomfortably, the ripened swell of her abdomen weighing heavily on her thighs as she crouched down beside the charred and bent sheet of metal crumpled on the floor of Engineering. This forlorn fragment was the only salvageable sign, after a long night of searching, of Chakotay and Seven of Nine since their disappearance and as such B'Elanna was willing to tolerate anything if it would help find her missing crewmates, her friends. "Well…" She started with a sigh as she lowered her tricorder, "It's definitely was part of the shuttle."

"Yes." Icheb, who was crouched along the opposite side of the fragment, agreed quietly before wiping away some of the blackened residue along the edge with his hand to reveal a faded section of the shuttle's identification code which normally would run across the starboard side. A grimace ran briefly over Icheb's face at the discovery, mirroring B'Elanna's own, but when he spoke his voice was level. "It appears to have been part of the starboard stabiliser."

"Yeah." B'Elanna confirmed with a nod, "But the fact that it seems to have been sheared off fits with our theory that the main body of the shuttle managed to get through the shield…"

"B'Elanna!" Captain Janeway's strident call echoed through Engineering as she hurried briskly towards them. Her face visibly paled as she saw the half melted segment of metal and her eyes shot to B'Elanna's. "Report Lieutenant?" she asked tightly.

B'Elanna awkwardly began to try to rise to her feet, giving Icheb a grateful look as he automatically reached out his arm to steady her. "As I told you Captain, we managed to find a piece of the shuttle resting on the shield and beam it up for examination…"

The Captain gestured sharply at the metal lying in front of her, "That's all that's left?" she muttered thickly, "Is there really any chance…" She stopped herself as she noticed Icheb, blanching guiltily as she touched his shoulder in concern, "Icheb, I don't think this is a good place for you right now…"

Icheb was normally unfailingly respectful to the Captain, and to everyone else on the ship, but B'Elanna could see that Janeway had touched a painful nerve. He flinched back from the Captain and hot emotion flared in his eyes even as he regarded her stoically, "My place is wherever I can be of most use in assisting the search for Seven and Commander Chakotay." He replied stiffly.

The Captain looked at him sympathetically, "Of course, but…"

B'Elanna decided it was time to intervene. "I need his help here Captain, that's why I let him stay." Taking a deep breath she continued her explanation, "As for whether there's a chance that they're down there on the planet, I'd say it's a big one Captain." She indicated the burn marks along the wreckage, "From what we've been able to tell, this piece was torn away from the shuttle and left resting on the shield…"

Hope filled the Captain's features as she interrupted, "And that would only happen if it got caught by the shield as the shuttle was passing through it, right?"

B'Elanna nodded eagerly, "We think so, the damage certainly doesn't fit with the rest of the shuttle vaporising like the Ledosians argue."

"That still doesn't answer the question of how they could've managed to get through the shield." The Captain mused thoughtfully, "From what our own scans of the shield, as well as what the Ledosians have told us, it's impenetrable."

Icheb shook his head, "Almost but not quite Captain. I suspect this shield was erected by Species 167, and if that is the case, striking it with a particular phaser frequency would disrupt the field long enough for a vessel the size of the shuttle to…" He paused to glance at the broken stabiliser, "…squeeze through."

"Giving Chakotay and Seven enough time to beam to the surface." The Captain concluded with a sigh of relief. "But would Seven know to do that with only the couple of minutes warning they had?"

Hopeful certainty gleamed fervently in Icheb's eyes; his trust in his surrogate mother's capabilities was absolute. "I believe so Captain, Seven's knowledge of the Collective's database is much more extensive and in-depth than my own."

"I think so too Captain." B'Elanna agreed, "There's traces of an intense high frequency phaser burst on the shuttle fragment we recovered, and if anyone is capable of executing a plan like that it's Seven."

The Captain smiled in acknowledgement of their hope. "Yes, that's definitely true, and Chakotay would listen to her." She paused and met their gazes seriously, "Could Voyager match the phaser frequency Seven used to temporarily bring the shield down and beam them back?"

Frustration crossed B'Elanna's features, "I've already considered that but the shockwave from phasers as big as Voyager's would create a huge shockwave which might cause us to crash too, as it is, I doubt the shuttle is in great shape down there."

"We just have to believe that the two of them are down there." The Captain told her firmly, "At least I have evidence of their survival to show the Ledosians now so we should get more resources, but either way I don't intend to leave until we have Chakotay and Seven back on board. Keep me informed of your progress down here."

"Yes Captain!" B'Elanna, Icheb, and the whole of the Engineering crew replied with conviction.

While, unbeknownst to her, Voyager intensified their search, Seven was continuing with one of her own. The increasing slant of the sunlight flooding through the trees as well as the internal clock built into her implants told her that it was now long past midday and in the hours since she'd left Chakotay her strong, determined stride through the awkward undergrowth had slowed to a leaden trudge as the wreckage remained frustratingly elusive. Admittedly, her tricorder had offered her a few promising leads but every time the readings would pinpoint a minor component, more fit for Voyager's waste recycling system than for building a pulse generator that would bring down the shield, or at the very least a crude comm. device. She tried to rein in the human impulse to "get her hopes up" but after consistently the heady rush of anticipation and relief only to have such thoughts completely dashed was gradually affecting her outlook on the situation. Earlier, she hadn't fully admitted to herself, let alone to Chakotay, how slight the odds really were of finding enough relatively intact wreckage to assist them at all. Now though, with disappointments feeding her doubts, her merciless Borg logic nagged her that it was most likely that the entire shuttle had been ripped into tiny, unusable pieces as it fell to the planet's surface. She stopped, suddenly frozen by the idea that her efforts were pointless, but her natural resilience, or perhaps stubbornness, soon reasserted itself enough to push her feet forward with renewed vigour. As she did so, the shrill beep of her tricorder, eerie in this undisturbed haven of nature, demanded her attention. A glance down at the readings was enough to get the destructive cycle of rising hopes started again, these energy readings were the largest she'd seen so far and indicative the shuttle's main cabin, or at least a large field of debris. Feeling a smile tug tentatively at her lips for the first time since she'd left Chakotay at the camp, her steps lengthened to an eager sprint. However, before she'd travelled a metre her unsuspecting foot was caught by a protruding tree root and, unbalanced, her body slammed flat against the rough forest floor.

"Ugh…" She choked out breathlessly as she struggled onto her knees, irritably yanking her foot free from the offending root as she did so and sighing as she rubbed her now aching ankle. Next time she went on an away mission she'd request appropriate walking boots and attire, her heeled ankle boots and tight, sweat inducing biosuit were certainly not suitable for a long trek. Forcing herself up on shaky legs, she tested her ankle, relief flooding her when it only stung slight in complaint as it bore her weight. She and Chakotay had no chance of getting themselves free from here if they both broke an ankle! As she dusted herself off she realised that her tricorder was nowhere to be seen. Scanning the ground anxiously, she spotted the telltale gleam of metal down a hole where layers of interlacing tree roots had degraded the soil. Desperately, she plunged her hand into the hole, but it was far out of her reach, and after a few minutes of digging at the dirt, the hole caved in and the tricorder disappeared completely. "No!" she cried out in frustration, her muddied hands curling into fists as she felt the noose of panic begin to tighten around her. Without the reliable guidance of the tricorder she had no way of finding where those power signatures originated from, but her mind was truly focusing on that as she looked around her, suddenly fearful. The canopy of trees above her, once benign in offering shade, now seemed threatening, giving her no route of easy escape, and the rustles and flutters of movement around her could no longer be dismissed as harmless with a wave of her tricorder. The crew of Voyager believed Seven to be anti-social, and she couldn't blame them, her apprehensions of doing something wrong had for years led her to avoid unnecessary interaction, but in reality her true fear was being alone. Having the tricorder with its stream of scientific data to cling to had pushed the phobia to the back of her mind but without it her irrational feelings of abandonment and vulnerability returned with a vengeance. In those few moments of kneeling on the ground, chest heaving as she tried to calm her racing heart, she longed for Chakotay, for anyone, and even desperately wished that she'd listened to his fears and remained with him at the camp. She'd probably be unable to even find her way back there…

The sudden appearance of two bright dark eyes staring into her face inquisitively brought Seven back to reality with a jump and a startled gasp before she belatedly recognised the young girl from the camp. "What…What are you doing here?" she asked in bemusement, trying and failing to hide the relief in her voice at finding a friendly presence.

The girl watched her lips move in fascination, her head cocking slightly at the sound of her voice, but she of course didn't answer. Seven sighed heavily as she remembered that this species were not vocal and tried to recall what she'd seen in the camp of their sign language as well as talking, hoping that her face could express meaning. "Do you know where we are?"

The girl's friendly smile widened and she began to move forward further into the forest, effusively gesturing for Seven to follow. "Are you directing me back to the camp or…" Seven stopped the rest of that irrelevant question leaving her lips as she watched the girl move through the almost impassable undergrowth with the ease of a bird through the air, she really had no choice but to follow. The only feasible alternative was to wander around by herself, lost and alone, and she was far from ready to face that.

Chakotay felt the nervous churning in his stomach intensify as he scanned the tree line around the camp for Seven's return, something he'd been doing semi-unconsciously since she'd left hours ago. The rational, detached part of his brain continued to remind him that it was bound to take her a while to find anything, and if she did she'd probably get so wrapped up in trying to salvage something useful from it to come back in a hurry, but at the moment his emotional side was definitely dominating his thoughts. He was responsible for Seven and no amount of rationalising would change that. What if she'd been injured? What if there were people living in this area who were more hostile than these kind people? Most of the camp's inhabitants seemed to have left for the time being, so he didn't even have the distraction of watching them to stop him from fretting and brooding…

Just as that thought ran through his mind, a large group of men and women trooped back in to the centre of the camp, their excitement evident in their visually descriptive language. When he saw some of them move towards him, the idea of asking them for help reoccurred to him, not in finding the shuttle this time but locating Seven. Maybe the young girl who he'd sent after Seven was staying in contact somehow. Making a decision, he drummed his walking into the ground to get their attention and then began to scrawl a representation of his crewmate on the ground. For a light-hearted, wistful moment, he considered what Seven might have made of his attempt to draw her, but he soon became serious again as recognition and then understanding crossed the faces of the people around him. "I need to find her." He told them, directing the sign for something like "want" or "need" at the picture. "My friend. I need to find my friend!"

One of the men who'd been watching him most intently hurried off and returned with one of the females, pushing her towards Chakotay. She had bits of metal hung around her eye on a string and her hand had been similarly decorated. Chakotay felt his jaw clench as he struggled to stand upright and saw that the men were copying his tattoo by having a clay mixture dabbed onto their foreheads. "Damn it, Seven was right…" He groaned in frustration. Their presence here was disrupting these people's lives, affecting their ways. Still, it was too late to completely erase his presence here now, and he still needed their help. He rammed his stick down on the drawing, "My friend! My friend!" A few different women, all accessorised to ape Seven's implants, were now thrust towards him but he shook his head in frustration, "No…" He started angrily but froze as he noted what they were using to mimic Seven's appearance. Metal, refined metal, and they could only have got a hold of that from the shuttle!

A/n: This chapter was a difficult one, I've had to type it in lots of little sections because I've been so busy with preparing to leave for university. I hope you all still enjoyed reading though! PLEASE REVIEW! :D