Part Fourteen
Assistant Chief Engineer Chano was not happy but he was even more confused.
For the last few hours, he and the male complement of his engineering staff had been effective kept hostage within the confines of the Engineering Deck by the female members of that same group. Things had been strange ever since Julia Pemberton authorized the deactivation of all internal communication on board the Maverick. While he had accepted the need for a complete diagnostic after the recent hostilities with the Dominion, he had not agreed with her decision to shut down the turbo lifts as well. His objection to that course of action had precipitated the astonishing response of having himself and every male inside the room being held hostage at gunpoint. He could not even imagine when they had the opportunity to raid the armory but had to conclude they must have, since he was staring at the point of a gun by Junior Lieutenants Biehn and Moseley.
At first, he had thought this was a joke because these were people he had served with daily. On a starship, bonds formed quickly if not deep friendships. The nature of being the only creatures in a ship so far from home tended to create a sense of community among those who inhabited the Maverick. Thus, Chano felt justified in his astonishment at the whole situation that he had been incapable of putting up a fight until it was too late. However, he soon discovered he was in a deadly situation when she saw the women, having taken control of Engineering, began their move towards the bridge. The throbbing hum of the warp core indicated that the ship was pushing Warp 9 to reach a destination Chano knew was not the resort world of Pacifica.
The jump to Warp 9 had indicated that the taking of the bridge had been successful and now Chano who had more than enough ability to stop this odd insurrection from continuing further found himself helpless by the law of the gun that was now running supreme in Engineering. Moseley, who was armed with a phaser rifle, was watching him carefully, probably aware that if resistance was to come from any of the group, it would most likely find its source with him. Chano still had difficulty getting used to the idea that she would shoot him. Claire Moseley was a pretty thing with blond hair and delicate features. Although he kept his observations well hidden, Chano occasionally found himself admiring that silky gold hair and that sweet smile that adorned her face at happier moments.
"Claire." He tried again to appeal to her. "What's happened to you?"
"Be quiet!" She barked. Chano flinched at the harshness of it. Normally, Claire's voice was soft. It moved across the skin like satin and he had never heard her say a crossword to any one, not even when she was upset. Perhaps it was because she had such a sweet temperament that made him so affronted her behavior at present. Still, instinct told that him that this was not Claire, this was something else occupying her body.
"Claire," Chano tried again, not to be deterred. "I know this isn't you but you must fight this. What you are doing is wrong."
"Shoot him." Lieutenant Biehn snapped angrily.
"No," Claire Moseley turned to her normally superior officer and returned. "We were told not to harm anyone."
"He is troublesome." Biehn pointed out.
"He is meant to be, he's the Assistant Chief Engineer." Moseley stared in his direction, issuing a silent plea for him to remain silent. He did not know that if it was Claire that was so concerned for him or the thing that had inhabited her body. In either case, he knew that it was advice well worth taking.
Chano exchanged a resigned look with another one of his fellow engineers and decided that for the time being, it looked like he was going to have to tolerate this incarceration for a little longer. Although they were being held at bay by Claire and Lieutenant Biehn, the phaser rifles that both women had armed themselves with made for formidable odds and without knowing whether those weapons were set for stun or kill, Chano was not about to do anything stupid. Besides, a part of him was uncertain of what they could do even if they were to rush the duo.
Did they use excessive force and any means necessary to stop Claire and the Lieutenant? Despite their actions clearly defining themselves as enemies of a kind, Chano did not know enough about what was happening to the two women to risk hurting them. Not until he knew more. He was not ashamed to admit that his feelings for Claire had much to do with this hesitation and was more than willing to accept the consequences of that if he was held accountable to it later.
"It should be not much longer." Biehn said to Claire after a few more minutes had crawled past. "We will soon be home."
"If there is anything left of home." Claire responded and Chano saw a sadness filter into her eyes that was not at all appropriate on someone with a sunny disposition as Claire.
"Do not think that way," Biehn responded automatically. "We are finally able to deliver to the Daia our revenge."
"Do you honestly think they even exist any more?" Claire returned skeptically.
"They exist," Biehn looked at her sharply, hating to even consider the idea that after all their suffering, there was to be no retribution. The thought of vengeance was what had allowed so many of them to survive for so long. The idea that they would be robbed of it was almost unthinkable. "I see them no other way."
Claire shook her head in disapproval and turned back to her prisoners. However, Chano was no longer paying attention to her. Instead, he was trying no to give himself away as he stared through the corner of his eye, the slim barrel of something metallic inching past the doorway. At first, Chano was not certain what it was but made no move that would call attention to it. Neither Claire nor Biehn had seen it, neither had any of his engineering staff. It was only until a good length of it was visible that Chano recognized it for what it was.
A tranquillizer gun used by the ship's zoologist.
The weapon pivoted in the direction of Claire, still unseen and while Chano felt inclined to warn her, he forced himself to remain silent because it was not Claire who was standing before him and his people with a gun, it was a stranger. When it discharged, the non-lethal instrument made little or no sound, the only indication it gave of its use was a slight hiss that was eclipsed by the sound of the warp core throbbing rhythmically.
"Oh!" Claire reacted automatically as the tiny dark struck the base of her neck. She slapped the skin instinctively, trying to rid herself of the sliver of pain that had caught her with such surprise.
Lieutenant Biehn was a littler more animated than that. As soon as the cry had been uttered from Claire, she had jumped to her feet, searching. She caught sight of the barrel just as it fired again, sending its tiny projectile towards her. She raised her phaser to shoot as the tiny dark struck her skin in mid torso. She reached for it immediately, not realizing that in the second it took for her to accomplish the dark of removing it from her skin and tossing it away, it had already oozed its payload into her body. At first, she did not know what was this was meant to accomplish until she heard the clatter of something against the floor. Claire's gun had slipped from her fingers and tumbled to the space near her feet.
"What is wrong?" Biehn demanded as she felt the warmth that was enveloping her limbs. This sensation was soon accompanied by an intense feeling of vertigo as she realized what was happening to her.
"Drugged…." Claire managed to mouth just before she dropped to her knees.
Chano saw the opening and did not waste much time. Before both women had even fell completely unconscious, he and his fellow engineers leapt into action. They grabbed the phasers that had been abandoned to the floor and swept them up into their own hands in fluid, graceful movements. In a matter of seconds, the former hostages were once again in control of the Engineering Deck.
"Is everyone alright?" Josiah Sanchez asked as he stepped out from behind the shadows of the corner where he had fired his darts. Thanks to the Magnificent Seven holodeck program that the Captain enjoyed so much, he was able to aim at his targets with a far amount of accuracy.
"We're fine." Chano said with a smile. "Good shooting Counselor."
"Did it work?" Nathan Jackson stepped into the room behind the psychiatrist and saw the two women lying on the floor, which answered his question. Without saying another word, he quickly hurried to their side to make a quick examination.
"Are they going to be alright?" Chano asked as he stood next to Nathan, concern over Claire still foremost in his mind even though a dangerous situation had been diffused.
"They're out cold," Nathan responded with approval that the sedative he had selected to render the two women unconscious had worked so effectively. Their pulse was throbbing steadily beneath his fingertips as he examined their vitals and knew that it would remain the same way for the next ten hours, during their unconscious state. "But they'll wake up in a few hours without any side effects. Hopefully, by then we'll get this situation under control."
With all that out of the way, Chano took the next logical step. "Now that we've got that cleared up, can you please tell me what the hell is going on?"
"What is going is that we are under attack." Nathan said firmly, turning to the Chief Engineer. Technically, Nathan was ranked at Lieutenant Commander and thus held a position of superiority over Chano who was merely a lieutenant. "An alien influence has taken over almost every woman on this ship. I'm assuming the order to terminate communications and disable turbo lifts and transporters came from here?"
"Yes," Chano nodded, still reeling from the news that the scope of the problem was this bad. He had hoped that their situation was isolated but then supposed it was always an unrealistic expectation. "Chief Engineer Pemberton said we needed to run a diagnostic," Chano explained. "I didn't question it until she ordered the turbo lifts and transporters shut down."
"Look, how things got shut down isn't important," Josiah spoke up, sensing the Engineer was feeling a little defensive. "We have a plan to retake the ship."
Chano turned to Nathan in surprise, not expecting such a revelation to come from the doctor or the Counselor but was not about to argue the point. Both men were senior staff officers, which meant he was at their disposal.
Turning to Nathan, Chano leaned forward and asked. "What do you have in mind?"
Vin did not know how he knew.
In space, there was no sound. No medium in which it could travel but when he felt the tingle of steel underfoot as they made their way to the bridge, he could feel its coming. It reverberated through the thick hull of the ship, found release on the full and continued its journey, albeit briefly through his bones before dissipating entirely. Ezra and Rain did not notice it and Vin was hardly surprised by this. They were not pilots.
Vin was a born flyer. In his mind, he liked to call himself an aviator like those who use to fly airplanes at the turn of the 20th century. Of course, what he flew in comparison to those flying machines made of wood and canvas was the difference between a horse drawn cart and the space shuttle. Still, the essence of it was the same. It was a special kind that took the skies and felt in perfect control in such an alien environment. Since piloting his first shuttle, Vin had been on intimate terms with every ship he had ever flown. Only Julia Pemberton could understand what he was talking about. He knew the sounds the Maverick made when she had a damaged relay while flying at low impulse, he knew the slight shimmy that developed in the bulkheads whenever they were flying into intense gravimetric eddies and he knew when the ship was about to drop out of warp.
"Grappling hooks now!" Vin suddenly shouted into his helmet.
His two companions were trained professionals who knew that when an order was issued with that amount of vehemence, it was not to be questioned. Ezra and Rain immediately aimed their gauntlets at the hull of the ship and fired. The magnetic grappling hook did not have a short distance to go, striking the metal in less than a second, causing a slight shudder of vibration through the floor upon impact. Vin carried out the same procedure and then braced himself.
"Hold on," he instructed. "We're about to come out of warp!"
"And the fun keeps coming." Rain grumbled.
"I think I would have preferred to stay in bed today." Ezra remarked with typical sarcasm but the line of tension running through all their voices ensured that they were all completely aware of the danger. If they were not properly secured when the ship drops out of warp, they would fly off the hull at such speeds that not even an environmental suit was going to keep their flesh from being torn of their bones when they were thrown off.
A minute or two passed and suddenly, the stars that had been speeding past them during the long trek to the bridge, which they were almost on top of, suddenly came to a halt abruptly. It looked as if the space had suddenly contracted around them and for a brief instant, a man might be mistaken into believing that he was indeed the centre of the universe as those stars paused and surrounded him. The sudden stop did exactly what Vin thought it would. It threw them forward but fortunately, they traveled as far as it took for the slack to run out and then the tension snapped them back towards the hull once again.
Vin felt his stomach lunge into his stomach as he landed on the hull, using his hands to brace his landing and to keep his helmet from impacting against the metal and damaging his faceplate. He heard the other swearing as they made their rough landing and could appreciate how they felt as he took a few seconds to recover after this latest in what was becoming one roller coaster ride after another.
"Are we all in one piece?" Ezra inquired as he looked up and saw Vin and Rain starting to pick themselves off the side of the ship. He was reminded of an insect caught against the plexiglass of his hover car and shook the image out of his head because now, the notion was just a little too close to home.
"More or less." Vin replied as he straightened up.
"You boys always have this much fun?" Rain asked as she pushed herself upright and dusted herself off. She had no idea why she was doing this, since there was no dust to speak of anyway and the reaction was mostly reflexive.
"This is nothing." Vin turned to her and chuckled slightly, admitting to himself that he liked the dry humor of the Transporter Chief. "You should see it when we really get into trouble."
"If you could suspend your charming repertoire," Ezra suddenly interrupted. "You might look at where we are."
The security chief gestured to the space before them and in the nearby distance, they were treated to sight of a planet with one moon. It should have been a breathtaking sight with the stars in the backdrop and the luminous color of a living world radiating for all to see. What lay before them was none of these things, neither alive or beautiful. There was only one word that could adequately describe it and it pained them all to say it because the state of the planetary system was not the natural decay of a world in the tertiary stage of it existence but rather one caused by the sinister hand of technology.
The planet itself was dark and charred, as evidenced when it continued its revolution around the sun that temporarily illuminated the destruction hidden in the dark. The weapon that had created this obscene waste was unknown but it had left great rips in the surface and large craters of black that covered much of the planet. A ring of debris had formed around the world. Because it was formed artificially most likely in the wake of what was certain to be the destruction of another spacial body; the planet was routinely subject to asteroid bombardment.
"My god." Vin whispered. "What happened here?"
"Without sensors," Ezra shook his head in horror. "It's hard to say."
"Nothing could live there." Rain remarked.
"I think they did." Vin replied, indicating the aliens that had stolen the Maverick and the bodies of all the female crewmembers. "Not much of a homecoming."
"It has been two hundred and fifty thousand years," Ezra pointed out. "One must have to anticipate some changes."
"Some changes yes," Vin shook his head, unable to imagine what could have precipitated such complete destruction of a world. What justification had there been in this terrible sight before them? "Not this."
"In either case, we need to get to the Captain. Our guests are not likely to be very charitable after witnessing this spectacular sight." Ezra stated seriously. His tone reminding them all the ship was still in danger, to say nothing of the friends who awaited liberation on the bridge. "There should be a maintenance hatch on the bulkhead directly above the captain's Ready Room. We can get in through there and continue towards the maintenance shaft 32A which will bring us into the ventilation system."
"Oh, the scenic route." Rain joked.
"It will take us into the Ready Room and not the bridge," Ezra said shortly, not in the mood for jokes. Not with the day he was having. "We will have some measure of surprise."
"Assuming that no one is in the Ready Room." Vin added.
"That is why I love about you Mr. Tanner," Ezra sighed. "You are always such an optimistic soul."
Unfortunately, optimistic or not, Ezra knew it was the only way they could reach the captain. It was this way or none at all.
The bridge was silent.
No one was speaking because they were too focused on what was on the view screen. Men and women alike were staring at the screen; a mixture of horror, shock and sadness unifying them for one moment after facing each other from diametrically opposed viewpoints. The planet and its moon lingered on the screen, a stark reminder of how much destruction violence, and hatred can produce when left to rage unchecked. As Chris saw the pained expression on the faces of the enemy, he could not help but feel some measure of pity for them at the sorrow they must be feeling at this moment.
Chris had been a lieutenant commander on the Brigadier when the Borg had first ventured into the Alpha Quadrant and made its bid to take Earth. Every available ship had been sent to hold the line at Wolf 359 against one Borg cube. The Brigadier had not arrived in time to join the battle but what they found when they arrived were the remains of twenty starships, almost destroyed. It was the single most demoralizing defeat the Federation had suffered since its war with the Romulans two hundred years ago. Seeing all those ships, broken and ruined, floating in space in a cavalcade of debris had imprinted itself on the minds of everyone who saw it and the sorrow at all those lives lost had marked him forever.
Watching the faces of the aliens who had stolen the bodies of his crewmen, not to mention his ship, Chris could imagine that what they were feeling was not too different from what he had experienced at Wolf 359.
"That cannot be Accra." Salya gasped softly, anguish reflected her eyes.
"It is." The Alex entity answered somberly. "We are home."
"They destroyed it!" Narita exclaimed. "The Daia destroyed Accra!"
"What do the scans say?" X'hala asked quietly, her voice nothing but a hoarse whisper.
Salya looked to the readings on the console before her, hoping to find some evidence of life but when she raised her eyes, Chris knew that she had not. What they were seeing with their eyes had been confirmed by the sensor scans. The world was as dead as it appeared.
"Some form of antimatter weapon," Salya recited quietly. "I am uncertain of what type exactly. Judging by the metallurgical scans of the debris, it was used on one of the twin moons."
"My god." Buck gasped, wondering how such foolishness could have been allowed in a place of authority to wreak this kind of destruction. "That would have caused a planetary catastrophe. Aside from the debris, the shock wave might have been enough to knock the planet a degree or two out of its axis. They would have had global warming or an ice age in a second."
"Is this true?" X'hala looked at Alex, who was still manning the helm, for confirmation.
"Yes," the amalgamation of science officer and information gatherer nodded sadly. "That is what would have happened."
"Confirmed." Salya responded from Alex's station. "The planetary axis is irregular."
X'hala shoulder's slumped at the news and Chris found his voice to speak. "I'm sorry." He replied, genuinely meaning it.
"Your kind was responsible for this!" Narita swore, almost reduced to tears.
Chris ignored her and regarded X'hala. "You have come home. I am sorry that it was not the homecoming that you envisioned but there is no more reason for this. Let us help you. The Federation can find you a new world to colonize; your existence does not have to end. We know of many races that have attained higher levels of existence, they would welcome you. I am sure of it."
X'hala met his gaze, her uncertainty apparent by the strained look in her eyes. "Your kind are not known for your compassion."
"For the last time, we are not your kind!" Buck groaned in disbelief. "Haven't you learnt anything about us by now? We do not treat our women the way you were treated. Can't you see by how badly we want them back alive, that we care about them?"
"Lies!" Narita interrupted.
"Enough!" Salya shouted and left her station to approach X'hala. "We have nowhere to go and if we steal these bodies and call our act a casualty of war, we become no better than Daia! X'hala, we are free. For the first time in a quarter of an eon we are free, there are no more enemies to fight. The Daia have destroyed our world because of their hatred, let us not continue this folly!"
"You have been corrupted by them!" Narita crossed the space between them to make her case. "She coupled with one of them! Perhaps she has feelings for him."
Salya was about to speak when suddenly, X'hala glanced at the panel on the side of her command chair and noticed something that gave her immediate reason to halt the debate. "Stop it both of you!" She ordered them into silence. Both women went quiet as X'hala studied what was before her. "Someone is flooding all the decks with anesthesia gas!"
"What?" Salya exclaimed. "That's impossible!"
Chris and Buck were exchanging furious glances, telling each other in the split second that they had to offer each other the hidden signals that formed something of a plan that the time had come for them to make a move on reclaiming the bridge. Obviously, someone had regained control of Engineering. It was the only place that could bypass the bridge to carry out that subtle attack.
"The order came from Engineering!" Salya reported after a moment confirming Chris' thoughts on the matter. "It's moving throughout the ship. All decks except Engineering are being flooded!" Her voice was rife with excitement. "I am going to seal off the bridge."
As Chris waited for the opportunity to strike, Narita returned to her charges and glared at him. "Well captain," she glowered with a menacing gleam in her eyes. "I suppose you will have your wish. We are going to put an end to this, just not in the way you wished."