Chapter 15
Kathryn monitored Chakotay's vitals carefully while he sat on the floor of the Flyer, eyes closed. The tricorder data notwithstanding, she could tell by the way his posture and face muscles relaxed that the sedative was slowly taking effect. She reopened a channel with Voyager and made sure that the Doctor was also monitoring in case she needed to intervene medically.
Her mind reeled and her lips still tingled from their kiss, and her hands itched to touch him, to reassure herself that this was real. She tried to ignore the sensations and forced herself to focus on the task at hand. The sooner they got themselves out of this situation, the sooner they would be able to continue their conversation. Now that the cat was out of the bag where their feelings were concerned, there was so much to talk about, so much about the future to discuss, so much to discover about him, and she was impatient to take on the exploration.
Focus.
The Doctor had told them that this particular sedative would relax Chakotay into something akin to a hypnotic state, so that part of him was still conscious of his surroundings. The Doctor had urged Kathryn to talk to him and, with Tuvok's help, guide him toward the answers they sought.
"I feel it," Chakotay said after describing trying to burrow his way deep inside himself. "It's dark. Powerful."
"What does it feel?" Tuvok asked through the comms, his voice calm.
"Fear. Hunger. Curiosity."
"What does it want?"
Chakotay frowned a little. "I don't know."
Kathryn took over. "That's okay, Chakotay. Is it aware you're trying to reach out?"
"I think so. Its curiosity increased when I touched it with my own. I think it's curious about us. But also afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"I don't know. I just know that it feels fear. It's an instinctual reaction, a basic survival instinct."
"We're going to send out the photon beam now."
"I'm ready."
Kathryn moved to the controls and entered the commands. The beam pulsed out of the Flyer, but it was almost immediately absorbed by the darkness around them.
Chakotay grunted in the back and Kathryn rushed back to the force field, wishing she could do something to alleviate his pain. He was holding his head in his hands, but hadn't come out of his trance-like state.
"What does it feel now?" Kathryn asked softly.
"It wants more. If you do it again, I'm going to try jostling it with my own feelings."
"Releasing the second beam, now."
This time Chakotay tensed and doubled over in pain before falling to his side. Kathryn rushed to him but didn't dare lower the force field for fear that her emotions would only make it more difficult for him to focus on what he had to do. "Chakotay!"
He writhed in pain but shook his head even as his fingers curled into fists by his temples. "No—I'm … almost there, just … a little more…"
Suddenly he stiffened and fell eerily still, his head falling to the floor with a painful thud. No, no, no! Spurred on by fear, Kathryn jumped to her feet and deactivated the force field before she knelt by him and frantically felt for his pulse. The half-second it took for her to feel it felt like eternity, but when her fingers felt the throbbing beneath his skin she slouched back onto the floor with a relieved sigh.
Chakotay suddenly moved again, startling her, as he quietly, strangely, sat back up. His eyes were still closed, but he wasn't shivering anymore—he looked perfectly in control, in a way that jarred uneasily with his previous behavior. Kathryn stared at him as she slowly put some distance between them. There was just something eerie about the way he moved.
"Chakotay?" she asked softly, cautiously.
"I'm still here," he replied, his voice sounding so normal Kathryn almost laughed with relief. "I understand now. The entity. It's trapped. It's afraid."
"Where is it trapped? In our space? Can we help?" Kathryn prompted gently as she slowly returned to the front of the Flyer to reactivate the force field, her eyes never leaving Chakotay's form as she backed up. Just in case.
Chakotay frowned in concentration at her question. "No. It's trapped. In-between."
"In-between what?" It was Tuvok's voice and Kathryn almost startled. She'd forgotten all about the others.
"It's trapped inside the wormhole?" Icheb suggested and Kathryn gasped. Of course! That was why it hadn't been able to fully come through. Its paw was stuck in a trap. No wonder it had felt fear and had sought help from them. In the only way it knew how.
"Yes," Chakotay confirmed.
Kathryn nodded eagerly. Finally, they were getting somewhere! "Okay, how do we release it from the trap? Ideally on the other side of that event horizon…" She asked the others.
Silence was the only answer, and she rubbed her face anxiously.
"What do we know so far?" She prompted as she paced the small space of the Flyer. "It feeds on photons, it didn't like the thrusters, and something about the Neutrino Entraptor is containing it. B'Elanna, is it possible that it's made of a different kind of lepton, a kind that we've just never identified before? It might explain why the containment field you used for trapping the neutrinos is having a similar effect on it."
"I guess it's possible, but we have no way of knowing!" B'Elanna replied.
"It would be consistent with my analysis of the entity," Tuvok commented.
"Okay, so how do we release it?"
"We need to force the devices to shut down," Seven stated. "The containment field will dissolve, and the entity will be free."
"Or be destroyed," B'Elanna countered. She gave a loud sigh. "The truth is, we have no way of knowing what the effect of that would be, Admiral."
"Based on the data we have so far," Icheb commented, "it's obvious that it's only stuck in the wormhole because the gravitometric energy released at the exit of the wormhole is disproportionate to the energy created at the entrance, and the flux of neutrinos within the containment field doesn't allow for the energy to escape the conduit. You should fly the Delta Flyer through the wormhole back to the Delta Quadrant. The entity will follow you and will be released once the devices are disabled," Icheb stated matter-of-factly.
A stunned, heavy silence filled the comms and Kathryn's blood froze. Her mind reeled trying to catch up with Icheb's reasoning, but, she told herself, that was exactly why B'Elanna had insisted he come along. He comprehended things in a way few people did. What if he was right and they had to return to the Delta Quadrant?
God, what if he was right?
Seven recovered first. "Icheb, do you realize what you're suggesting?"
Kathryn shook her head to dismiss the tightness gripping her heart. "Even if we wanted to go back, we seem to be stuck, we didn't move an inch when we activated the thrusters earlier."
"Perhaps Captain Chakotay can convince the entity to let you escort it back, if it knows we're trying to help…" Icheb suggested.
"It's far too risky, we have no way of knowing whether the entity will follow," Seven countered.
"If Admiral Janeway releases a steady pulse of photon beams, there's a chance the entity will follow the Flyer back through as well. So far it's been acting like a wounded animal, it is but a short leap to assume that it will respond to the offer of sustenance much in the same way as well."
"Perhaps, but Janeway and Chakotay risk getting stranded in the Delta Quadrant—we have no way of knowing if the Entraptor will function a second time, let alone what the forced shut down will do to it."
"No, Icheb is right," Kathryn conceded, putting an end to the debate. A strange kind of calm settled over her, and she walked closer to Chakotay. She crouched as close as she could to the force field, but he didn't react to her presence. He was still sitting eerily still, the slight raise and fall of his chest the only sign that he was in fact breathing. She knew, some instinct, perhaps, that he wouldn't be able to sustain the entity's presence for much longer. They had to act now, and so far, returning to the Delta Quadrant—returning to the Delta Quadrant—was the most logical option she had been presented with. It relied on several untested assumptions, but she didn't have the luxury to do anything about it. And her instincts told her it was the thing to do.
"Admiral…!" B'Elanna pleaded.
"It's settled," Kathryn replied before disintegrating the force field and reaching out to lift Chakotay's hand from his thigh. It was icy cold. The urgency in her gut returned in full force.
"Chakotay, I need you to tell the entity something for me. Tell it that we need it to follow us, we're going to help it."
"Kathryn. You're going to release it from the trap?" Chakotay asked, his tone sounding almost childlike.
"Yes. Can you tell it to allow us to fly our ship? It's only going to be for a moment. Then it'll be free."
"I'll try."
Kathryn squeezed his hand and tried to swallow the lump of fear in her throat. Her free hand reached out to touch his face, but she let it fall back to her side before it made contact. "Thank you."
Summoning all of her willpower, she stood to her feet, reactivated the force field, and moved back to the pilot seat. "Seven, will you still be able to monitor the entity once it goes through the wormhole?"
"So long at the wormhole remains open, I believe so."
"Good. As soon as we're on the other side, shut the door. And if all goes well, when you reconnect the devices, we'll be there ready to come back home."
oooOooo
B'Elanna couldn't stop herself from shooting an angry glare at Icheb. "Why did you do that?"
Icheb frowned in confusion. "Occam's razor theory dictates that most of the time the simplest idea is the one most likely to succeed."
"Since when are you so well versed in Earth philosophies? Now they're going to go through that wormhole, and we don't know… Damn it! There are so many unknowns right now I don't even know where to start!"
"Then perhaps we should start with the things we can know," Icheb countered, and B'Elanna wasn't sure whether she was mad at him or proud of him for sounding so calm. "How do we restart the Neutrino Entraptor after it's been shut down? And can we do it from Voyager or the station?"
B'Elanna let out a long breath, rubbed her fatigue out of her eyes, and focused. "Right."
oooOooo
From her position in Astrometrics, Seven kept an open channel with Admiral Janeway while she monitored the Flyer's progress.
"I'm ready to engage thrusters," Janeway stated. "Hopefully the entity won't retaliate by hurting Chakotay."
The thought had crossed Seven's mind—if the entity had somehow taken possession of Chakotay's synaptic connections... Seven was glad that Janeway couldn't see her own concern. "The photon beams will keep it distracted," she stated, hoping her certitude would reassure Janeway.
"Let's hope so. Engaging thrusters."
Janeway fell silent and Seven redirected her attention to the screen where she could still see the entity in real time, as well as the interdimensional conduit created by the Entraptors. Even though the Delta Flyer, trapped within the entity, still escaped the sensors, Seven could tell that the entity appeared to be moving, slowly so, but moving. Slowly shrinking back into the wormhole.
"It appears to be working, Admiral. What is Chakotay's status?"
"He seems fine, which worries me. Earlier he doubled over in pain when we tried this, but now he's just sitting still. I don't like it. I'll try accelerating a little. The sooner I get this thing through the better."
"Agreed."
"Seven, are we alone on this channel?"
Seven frowned in confusion. "Yes."
"Then can I ask you something? Why did you really ask for reassignment?"
"Perhaps now is not the best time to discuss this," Seven replied, her eyes on the monitors. The entity was reverting into the wormhole at a slow but efficient rate.
"I might never get another chance." Even though the situation hardly warranted it, the admiral's tone was sarcastic, almost amused. Seven realized that it was Janeway's way of coping with the uncertainties. "And I'll be damned if I'm going to get stuck in the Delta Quadrant again, destined to endlessly wonder what made you change your mind. It's been on my mind since I got the paperwork."
Seven inhaled. "I was hoping to participate on this project, actually."
"The Entraptor project? Why?"
Seven hesitated, but remembered that Janeway had always been understanding and meant well, even when they'd had disagreements. She would understand this, perhaps better than anyone. "I was hoping that, if it succeeded, it would help me find someone who is … far away."
There was a pause. "That man you connected with in Unimatrix Zero. The drone, Axum. You want to go looking for him."
Seven inhaled. She should have known that the admiral would know exactly whom she was referring to. "Yes. However, my wish is not entirely selfish; I also hope to provide assistance in his resistance movement and help them regain their individuality. The way you and the crew have helped me." A light blinked on the screen, and Seven's attention shifted to it. "Our sensor momentarily picked up the Delta Flyer within the entity. I can now extrapolate your location based on the last reading and the entity's current speed."
Janeway cleared her throat, as if to recover from a surge of emotions. "Good, because I'm flying blind here. How long until we get to the wormhole?"
"At this speed, approximately twenty seconds."
Seven waited anxiously while her eyes scanned the screen and her monitors.
"Whatever happens, I hope you find what you're looking for, Seven."
Seven swallowed her own sudden rush of emotions and shook her head, as if to dismiss them. "You will be reaching the wormhole in 15 seconds. 10 seconds. You will soon be back here to help me find it, of this I have no doubt."
"You bet I will. Janeway out."
Almost at the same moment that her voice faded, the entity completely retreated through the wormhole. Seven tracked its journey through the conduit until it reached the second event horizon. Seven hit her combadge. "Lieutenant Torres, deactivate the Entraptors, now."
"Alright, here goes nothing…"
The lights flickered aboard Voyager, and moments later the Astrometrics screen went dark.
"Wormhole successfully disengaged," Seven stated.
oooOooo
Kathryn held on tight while the Flyer was jostled in every direction for a long moment until, suddenly, the shaking stopped. The thrusters stopped screeching as if they were one of Tom's automobiles put in overdrive. Kathryn looked up and saw the darkness surrounding the Flyer dissipate almost as quickly as it had surrounded them what felt like ages ago. It took only a few seconds of it retracting before she could start seeing stars, and then the dark entity took off at impressive speed, retracting its tendrils onto itself until it looked like a ball of darkness. Trying to ignore the fact that she was back in the Delta Quadrant, Kathryn nodded to herself, relieved that they had succeeded in helping the entity at least, and keeping it from causing havoc in the Alpha Quadrant. Her sensors indicated that the Talaxians' asteroid field had been pretty much destroyed, tough. It was a good thing the they had evacuated when they had.
There was a heavy thud coming from the back of the Flyer. Chakotay was now lying on his back, inert. Kathryn rushed to deactivate the force field before she knelt down next to him. With some anxiety she felt for his pulse again, and let out a breath when she found it. It was faint and fast, but it was there. She fumbled through the medkit for the tricorder and scanned him. The unusual brain activity that she had detected before appeared to have returned to normal—which was a good sign that the entity had left him entirely. But his vitals were all over the place and his skin was cold. So cold. He was in shock. Her hands shook when she grabbed the hypospray and injected him, hoping that the Doctor's special concoction for such cases would be enough to stimulate blood circulation. Once that was done, she elevated his feet using the medkit box and tucked him into the emergency blanket.
Then she gingerly lay down next to him, hoping to transfer some of her body heat, her head on his shoulder rising and falling with his shallow but regular breathing.
Now all she could do was wait.