Chapter Seven

"This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager." Kathryn said. She knew that the Klaamox were not happy about them being in their territory, and she was trying diplomacy to ward off further conflict. She had a sinking feeling it wasn't going to work. "We are investigating the disappearance of two of our crew and one of our shuttles. Please do not fire."

"They're responding Captain." Harry reported.

"On screen." The image of a Klaamox appeared on the screen. Kathryn opened her mouth to speak but was cut off.

"I am Captain Saxis of the Uxlee. Leave this area immediately!"

Kathryn put her hands on her hips. "We pose no threat to you. Two of our crewmen have disappeared, and we are only trying to locate and rescue them." she explained gently.

"Unacceptable! You will leave our space now or bear the consequences!"

Kathryn gave the reptile her patented death glare. "We will not leave until we have finished our investigation." she said, nearly hissing, but venom still dripping from her every word. Saxis glared at her then ended the transmission, the screen changing back to the view of the Uxlee. The calm Kathryn returned, and she turned to Harry to ask about the transmission. But she instead got her answer from Tuvok.

"They are powering weapons, Captain." he stated calmly.

"Shields to full!" Chakotay ordered.

Everyone watched in horrid fascination as an odd looking green pulse was launched towards them. It hit the ship, cutting through the shields like a bat'leth through gagh. The bridge tilted forty-five degrees' port, the inertial dampeners unable to keep up with the sudden hit. Everyone who wasn't holding on to something went flying. Kathryn was no exception, since she had been standing in the middle of the Bridge, hands on hips. The lights above went dark and the popping sounds of consoles shorting out could be heard. The emergency lights flickered on above, tinted with red as Chakotay called Red Alert.

The first officer looked at the viewscreen just in time to see the Uxlee's disrupter cannons fire, also going right through the shields. He tightened his grip on the rail where he was standing by Ops as the ship convulsed again.

"Tuvok, return fire!" Chakotay commanded, looking in the direction where Kathryn had flown, seeing her lying inert on the floor.

"Weapons not responding Commander," Tuvok called as Voyager shook again. "Shields down to 36%."

"Torres to Bridge!" B'Elanna's voice suddenly crackled over comm.

"Bridge here!" Chakotay called back. "B'Elanna, we're a bit busy up here!"

"Chakotay, you must get us out of here immediately! That first pulse is sending some type of neural blocker through the gelpacks! Get us to warp before we lose the engines!" she yelled.

"Acknowledged! Chakotay out!" He swiftly moved to helm. Wildman was slumped over it, but not in the way. He quickly put in the coordinates from where they had come from, and the ship did a 180 degree turn, then jumped to warp six.

"Are they pursuing?" Chakotay called out.

"Negative," Harry responded, his speech slightly slurred as his lower lip was swollen and bleeding. "They are retreating into their own space."

Chakotay sighed, looking around at the messy Bridge. "Get repairs crews on the job as soon as they're able to." he said, then tapped his combadge. "Chakotay to Transporter Room Two. Beam the Captain and Ensign Wildman directly to Sickbay."

"Sorry sir," came Ensign Gerron's voice. "But transporters are off-line."

The Commander tapped his combadge again. "Chakotay to Sickbay. Can you send some stretchers up here? We have casualties."

"Sorry Commander, but I have no free hands here while my field medic is gone; Seven and I have our hands quite full as it is." the Doc replied, then closed the channel.

Chakotay sighed audibly. "Guess we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way," he said as he bent to pick Kathryn up and motioned to a slightly fazed ensign to tend to Samantha. "I'll be in Sickbay. Tuvok, you have the conn." he said as he entered the turbolift, idly hoping in the back of his mind that it wouldn't give out in transit.

Allucia was regaining consciousness again. She felt plain awful. She moaned and opened her eyes, seeing a blurry silhouette hovering over her. The person placed a cool cloth on her head. "Tom?" she rasped. Her throat felt dryer than Vulcan, her brain felt like it had turn to lead, and she generally felt like she had been hit head on by a runabout.

"I'm here, Lush. Don't sit up. You have a fever." Tom replied. She felt an arm slide under her upper back and help her to a semi-reclined position. "Thank God you're all right. I think your wrists got infected... those handcuffs did a number on them."

Looking up, she could see her crewmate looking at her, worriedly. Allucia winced at him; he was sunburned and had a bit of stubble. "How long was I out this time?"

"This is the fifth day."

"Fifth day?! Damn!" she squeaked.

"Shhhh... I'm not supposed to be in here. They have me working the fields. You're off until you regain consciousness, so if anyone besides me comes in here, pretend to still be out cold." he said. "Now sip this. Slowly."

Allucia attempted to lift her head but was too weak to do so. Tom lifted her head and gave her some water from a small cup. "Thanks," she rasped. "Where are we?" She turned her gaze to the rest of her surroundings. It was pretty dim; the only windows where high up and small, they did not let in much light. Other than the run-down looking shelves, filled with an assortment of tableware, the only other objects she could see in the room were tons of pillows that must have been nice once. They were ragged and threadbare but many still had stuffing. The floor the teenager lay on was nothing but bare earth and what looked like long grass or hay also lay scattered about.

Now that she had gotten something resembling her bearings, Allucia tried to sit up further, but her bad elbow wouldn't support her. She slipped out of Tom's grip slightly and banged her elbow on the ground before he could catch her and cursed loudly. She saw that it was bandaged, as her wrists were, and still swollen. She began to unwrap it.

"Lush—"

"Didn't the Doc teach you anything?" she asked. "My elbow is dislocated."

Tom looked at Allucia skeptically for a moment, then remembered what happened the first time it had occurred. "Fine. I had thought you had broken one of the radial bones." He helped her lay back down. "On five." Allucia nodded and closed her eyes tightly, bracing her upper arm against her side with her good arm. "One... two... five!" Tom counted, then yanked Allucia's arm. She didn't cry out, but the darkness quickly claimed her again.

Tom sighed deeply, as he readjusted Allucia's prone form into the recovery position as the EMH had taught him. For as much as he complained about his Sickbay double duties, he didn't hate them... he actually enjoyed them. And while he couldn't say he was enjoying himself now, he was still very satisfied he knew how to treat Allucia.

The battered wooden door of the hut suddenly flew inward. "You! What are you doing here?!" boomed a Klaamox voice.

Still with his back to the reptile, Tom's blue eyes turned gray and his gaze hard. "I was checking on my sister," Tom replied calmly. "She's still sick, in case you had forgotten," he said, replacing the damp cloth on Allucia's forehead. The guard didn't respond. Caressing the teenager's hair gently, he stood up and followed the guard out.

Allucia was awake by the time Tom came back when work ended at sundown. She had managed to prop herself up against the wall. They certainly weren't alone now. For the dozen or so beings that were now in the dwelling, almost every one of them was a different species. "How are you feeling?" he asked as he handed her a cup of water and something that resembled bread.

"Better. Not as dizzy." she replied, taking a sip. "My elbow isn't as swollen either. Oh yeah... I wasn't able to show you before..." Allucia trailed off, reaching inside one of her wrist bandages, pulling out an object.

"Your combadge!"

Allucia nodded and took a small nibble of bread. "I took it off while we were still on the ship."

The pilot raised an eyebrow. "How did you manage to hide it? The only stuff they let us keep was..." Tom suddenly turned red. "Oh. Ooooh..."

"You pervert!" Allucia said, blushing as well. "It was in my underwear, not me! We should consider ourselves lucky that their culture has something against seeing people naked!" She sighed. "Anyway, I put it under my bandages after I woke up. Thought it'd be safer that way in case I passed out again."

Tom nodded his approval. "I don't suppose it's still working, is it?"

"Not at all anymore. We need to get some tools."

"I'll see what I can do." Tom looked at Allucia askance for a moment. "Are you sure you're up to what's ahead? Maybe you should pretend to pass out again... or you'll end up with a bad sunburn like me."

By this time the sun had completely set, and the hut didn't even have one lantern to light it with. Most of the occupants started to drift off to sleep. Having nothing else to do, Allucia's mind suddenly thought of what else people could do in the dark, and she was suddenly very grateful to have Tom there to protect her. "I can't just sit here and wait to be rescued." she replied, lowering her voice to a whisper.

"For all we know, we could be rescued tomorrow." Tom retorted, lowering his voice in kind.

"Or we might not! I'm not about to sit around to find out!"

Tom let out a long sigh. "Alright. But keep close to me, I don't want you out of my sight."

To his relief, Allucia nodded. "Don't worry, I won't argue with that!"

The day after the Klaamox attack on Voyager, Kathryn stepped onto a bustling Bridge. "Senior staff meeting at 0900," she called, as she walked towards her Ready Room.

Once inside, she promptly plopped onto her couch. She put a hand to her temple. She had such a headache. And she'd left Sickbay without the Doctor's permission, of course.

After a moment of respite, Kathryn pulled herself off of the couch and over to the replicator, giving her usual order of coffee, except today laced with a bit of a painkiller to ease her throbbing skull. She returned to her desk and activated her console, taking a sip of her coffee.

While one part of her mind concentrated on the data and reports on the screen in front of her, another dwelt on the enigma of her two missing crewmembers.

The first aspect of their disappearance that disturbed Kathryn was the convenient appearance of the Klaamox vessel also immediately upon approaching Tom's coordinates, not to mention the response of weapons instead of words. That was what really annoyed Kathryn.

Then there was the fact that Voyager had to retreat out of Klaamox space because of some weird energy pulse that, for all intents and purposes, paralyzed the ship. Voyager was now in Grey Mode. B'Elanna said that the repairs would take a month at the very least.

So they were basically a floating duck in space, after the engines had given out when the neural blocker hit them. And there were no engines, weapons, or shields. On top of that Tom and Allucia were lost and probably captive somewhere in in Klaamox space and there was no way Voyager could get them out with the state she was in; and when she was repaired, would they still be able to get in and out without what had happened the day before happening again?

Kathryn took another sip of her coffee as her door chime sounded. The chirp told her that her headache was getting worse. "Come," she called. Chakotay entered, carrying a PADD. "Report?" Kathryn asked, arching an eyebrow.

Chakotay nodded, handing her the PADD. She skimmed it over while he summarized it verbally. "Shields are up to 40%, Environmental is stabilized, and replicators are still on-line. But I suppose you already know about the replicators."

"I'll drink to it," Kathryn said, raising her teacup and nodding. Then she closed her eyes, putting a hand to her head.

"What about you?" Chakotay asked. "How are you feeling?"

"To tell you the truth, I feel like my head is in a vise." Kathryn replied. "But other than that, I'm just peachy."

"Kathryn, you know you shouldn't have left Sickbay without clearance from the Doctor," Chakotay gently chided. "Even a Captain has her limits."

"I know but with the state this ship is in, I just can't afford to be in Sickbay."

"I'm hurt. You don't trust me." Chakotay pouted.

Kathryn chuckled. "Don't give me those puppy-dog eyes, Commander," she said, waggling a finger at him, "you know full well I trust you." Chakotay grinned. Kathryn rolled her eyes, and realized the throbbing in her head had subsided somewhat. Perhaps laughter was the best medicine. Then a forgotten thought crossed her mind and the throbbing returned. "What did the Doctor say about the gelpacks?"

"The green pulse that hit us did, in fact, have neural blockers in it. They went right through the hull and basically paralyzed the gelpack system, like a venom. If B'Elanna hadn't been able to reroute everything at the last minute like she did, we wouldn't have a ship right now."

"How do you think they knew about the gelpacks?" Kathryn asked. "From the shuttle's computer core?"

Chakotay shrugged. "Possibly, although they would need a good hacker to get through decrypting it, translating it, and developing the technology. But I think they have the technology themselves, as they steal it. The Federation can't be the only ones to have developed bio-neural circuitry."

Kathryn nodded. "When we go back into Klaamox space—and we will go—how will we can defend ourselves?"

"B'Elanna, Harry and Seven are already on it."

"Good. Keep me informed." Kathryn leaned back into her chair and closed her eyes. Chakotay cast a thoughtful gaze at her for a moment before exiting.