Slowly, so slowly it felt completely unreal, Janeway opened her eyes. The world around her was bright, but not painfully so and she tried to sit up. Every last part of her was stiff and sore as she summoned the strength to stagger to her feet. Her clothes were sodden with spray and her hair was crusted with salt, but she pushed the thoughts aside to survey the damage done by the storm. They had managed to save the both mainsails and the main topsail, but the fore topsail was ripped nearly in half. Splinters were all that remained of the fighting top and a few planks in the deck were broken where it had landed. Lines, hooks and pins were strewn about the deck in hopeless disarray. Crewmen were moving about on the deck, trying to get things back into a semblance of order or helping the injured.
"I want a full damage report!" she shouted, ignoring the pain in her throat. "Ensign Kim, get a fix on our position – I want to know exactly where we are." He ran for the equipment locker while she looked around for herself. The clouds were still there, but the Broken Islands had disappeared completely. She wasn't worried – the storm had pushed them somewhat off course, but it hadn't lasted long enough to get them completely lost.
At least, she hoped it hadn't.
One of the running lines was flapping loose and she made to secure it, but the belaying pin it was supposed to attach to was missing. There wouldn't be any spares on deck, but she spotted a piece of broken rail and grabbed it. It would hold until she could find a replacement. A chill ran down her spine. This was the line Stadi had pulled loose before she-
"Captain!" shouted a voice. It was Lt. Carey, one of the deckhands.
"Yes, Lieutenant?" she called back, still pulling the line into place.
"There's nearly five inches of water in the bilge. Look!" He held out the glass pipe where she could see it.
Tension hummed through her at the sight of it. "Salt or fresh?" The last thing they needed now was a breech.
"Mostly fresh – it's probably rain and spray, but I thought you'd want to see it for yourself. I've got people working the pumps hard as they can now."
"Good. Keep it up." Something else occurred to her. "Lieutenant, where's Commander Ruorke? Isn't this his job?"
Carey stared at the deck and Janeway saw that one of his boots was missing.
"I'm sorry ma'am; Ruorke was lost overboard. We also lost at least two crewmen when the fighting top fell."
A chill that ran deeper than the dampness of her clothes settled in her bones. Four dead already? They had been out less than a week! Had that been the scream she heard? She tied off the line just as a new thought flittered through her head that brought her heart to a stop. Where was her first mate?
"Cavit! Where are you?" Her mouth was dry and her hands shaking, but she didn't notice. All that mattered was that her first mate wasn't answering. She drew another breath. "Commander! Answer me! CAVIT!"
Tom Paris heaved an injured crewman down to sickbay. Somehow, indirectly, he was responsible for all this. If he hadn't been caught, Seafleet wouldn't have needed his expertise in trying to find the renegades, which would have meant that Voyager would never have left port when she did, which meant that none of this would have happened. Why was he thinking these things now? Guilt was not something a drifter and a criminal had any use for. It just got in the way. Well, then, was he really a drifter or criminal when he got right down to it? He didn't know and found he didn't care – all he cared about was the woman he was helping through the door who groaned with the pain of a wrenched ankle and broken wrist.
"Zimmerman? Get out here! We have wounded!" He helped the woman onto the table and she let out another grunt.
"Zimmerman? Didn't you hear me?" Paris looked around. The doctor should have been sitting behind his desk or rummaging through his stores for healing salves and herbs, but the desk was unoccupied and the door to the stores was closed. It seemed like Paris would have to do something on his own. He went to open the door, but as soon as he touched the handle, a figure made of light burst into being. Rays blasted in all directions, then turned back in on themselves. When the colors settled, Zimmerman was standing in the middle of the room.
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," he said.
What a weird thing to say, thought Paris. "Doctor Zimmerman?"
"No. I'm a Construct, designed to take his place in the event of his death. The fact that I'm standing here now would suggest that this ship has taken a casualty."
All Paris could do was blink at him, dumbfounded. "Um… can you help her?"
"Certainly." He began to pull small jars out off the shelves and moved over to the table. "Doctor Zimmerman made sure to pass onto me all the knowledge he possessed, including the information from several Federation medical texts." He took the woman's wrist in his hands with a gentleness that suggested he didn't know how to use them yet. She hissed in pain. The door banged open and more people staggered in, bleeding in various places.
"You're not seriously injured," he said. "You can wait."
Paris and the woman looked at each other and she shrugged. They both knew how triage worked, so she slid off the table and he helped her hobble to someplace out of the way.
Kim shook his head in disbelief, then reset the sextant to check again. He knew, of course, the reading wouldn't change, but it had to be wrong. It had to be. The numbers were too impossible. Too unreal.
"Report Mr. Kim," said the captain. He tried to say it, but his mouth failed him. He tried again. She needed his answer; was counting on her navigator to give it.
"Captain." A good start, but what came next? "Our position…it's impossible!" He stopped just short of her hearing his voice shake.
"Where are we, Ensign?" She was demanding an answer he couldn't understand.
"According to my readings, we're off the charts. I might be able to get a better reading from the stars, but as far as I can tell at this point, we're in the uncharted ocean. Probably on the other side of the world – I can't even guess how it happened."
Her eyes went wide. She couldn't believe it either. He might have felt sorry for her, if he'd known her better. After all, she'd just learned they'd lost almost a dozen people in the storm, including the first mate. Then they'd lost sight of the renegade ship, which was the whole reason they'd come out in the first place. Now, she learned that they themselves were lost in uncharted oceans. The captain pressed a fist to her mouth and the lines around her blue eyes tightened. In them, he saw pain and fear. Kim found he did feel sorry for her, after all. This was not something they trained captains to deal with at the academy. Or anyone else, for that matter.
"Please," he found himself whispering, "let something go right for a change."
No answer came immediately to his plea, nor did he expect one. They were a long way from any kind of help. In fact, they were lucky to make it through the storm with their hull intact. What a way for his first mission to begin.
He let his thoughts wander while he worked to repair the ship.