Chapter 9: A&E (Anomaly & Emergency)
Thirty long minutes had crawled by since the scarily ill little girl had been transported to Sickbay. The Doctor had managed to stop her fitting instantly. A simple hypospray injection had done the trick. However, why she was fitting, he had no idea.
The Captain had accompanied Ensign Wildman to Sickbay and remained there. Seeing Naomi in the comatose state she was in actually tugged at her heartstrings so she didn't even dare imagine how Samantha must have been feeling.
The Doctor was at a loss. He'd been studying Naomi's scans continuously, trying to find any pattern even vaguely recognisable in attempt to understand her condition. All he knew what that her cells were beginning to breakdown. He didn't know why.
Ensign Wildman raised her head slowly as he approached them in the surgical bay, her pale, tear-stained cheeks easily seen. She'd never felt so sick to her stomach in her life, not even when she had lost Naomi as a baby. In that situation, she had known the cause but this, this was different.
"Doctor?" her voice was weak, her worry evident. Her little girl was dangerously ill and she could do absolutely nothing to help.
"I'm sorry, Ensign." he apologised sincerely, "I don't know what else I can do for her."
Samantha felt the air vacate her lungs painfully fast.
"For the moment, she's stable. However, until I can understand what's causing her condition…"
The Doctor trailed off, no more words needing to be spoken. The Ensign just felt her heart grow heavy. Her thoughts were swimming. She wondered if there was a possibility that there was a genetic tag still invaded her baby girl's system but she knew that couldn't be the case. With the experience they'd all just had, the Doctor wouldn't have missed it.
The Captain bit into her lip to prevent herself from losing control of her emotions, something very difficult when fresh tears started flowing down the young Ensign's face. Having to look away, she glanced over at the holographic doctor.
"Doctor?" the Captain barely whispered, "What's wrong with her?"
He sighed and looked down at the frail little girl. "Her cells are breaking down at the molecular level." his voice was quiet, "I don't know why."
The Captain ended up covering her mouth in attempt to cover up the fact that she was once again biting her lip. In all her years in Starfleet, she'd never heard or even come across anything like it. She'd heard of cellular degradation, she'd even seen that, but there was always a cause. Always.
"Bridge to Janeway." hailed the Commander, causing a well-needed distraction for the Captain's behalf, "Please report to the Bridge."
"On my way." she responded before looking towards the Doctor, "Keep me informed."
He nodded once before she made her way out of the bay, somewhere she was glad that she was able to leave. Her pregnancy hadn't been too bad but her emotions had been all over the place. Damned hormones. The amount of times she had wanted to cry back in Sickbay had been ridiculous but for Ensign Wildman's sake, she'd thankfully managed to stop herself.
Upon reaching the turbolift, she pressed the button to open the door.
"Going up?" questioned Q having suddenly appeared and popping his head out the door.
Her eyes went wide.
"I don't think so!" she exclaimed, pressing the button again to close the door. It wasn't as effective as slamming a door but living in the 24th Century had to come with a price.
Turning away from the lift, the Captain started hastily walking towards the next one. A flash of white light to her left came not long after, just as she had expected.
"You can't get away from me that easily!"
"Shame." she sneered with a sudden confidence, not making eye contact with the man who still made her blood boil. She was still angry with him.
"Seriously Kathy, what's up with you lately?" he sighed.
The Captain stopped dead in her tracks, turning to face him with a deadly cold expression. He was actually taken aback due to the tightness of her eyes.
"I should've known, shouldn't I?" she was very calm, "I should have known it was you."
"I'm sorry?"
She nodded slowly to herself. "It was bad enough with B'Elanna, but not Naomi." her tone was dangerous, "There is no way in hell I'll forgive you for this. You don't mess with children, Q!"
"Look…" he sighed, "I know what I did with the Klingon was wrong, I'm sorry." he looked genuine but she didn't buy it, "But I really haven't got a clue what you're on about… Who's Naomi?"
The Captain scoffed at his nerve. "The two-year-old in Sickbay. The one dying!" she exclaimed through her gritted teeth, "She has a condition with no apparent cause but of course you already know that, don't you?"
"Kathy…"
"Don't you 'Kathy' me!" she warned, harshly interrupting him before he could continue, "I've tolerated you, Q. I was willing to help you with that incident with Quinn without any objections but this is something I will never forgive you for. This is too far!"
"Please…" he tried to object, reaching out to touch her arm. Big mistake.
At his touch, all the muscles in her body tensed. She could deal with being in the same room as him but she couldn't have him that close. That was too much.
"Get off me." she quietly demanded, snapping the longer his hand remained, "NOW!"
She forcefully pulled away from his grip and put some space between them. He just remained silent, the look on his face indicating just how shocked he was.
Somehow, she squared up to him. "Don't touch me!"
Crew members who were passing by had turned briefly to watch the pair's interaction but the Captain had failed to notice.
"What have I done to you?" he asked after a moment, his confusion evident.
She scoffed. He honestly did have a nerve.
"You crossed a line." her tone was quietly bitter.
He daren't say anymore. She clearly meant what she said.
"Now… Get. Off. My. Ship."
She left him stood there, his mind spinning as she made her way to the Bridge. She couldn't bear to remain in his company any longer.
=/\=
The Commander was the first to notice that the Captain wasn't happy as she entered the Bridge. However, after seeing who soon entered after her, he completely understood.
"Captain?" he asked cautiously, his eyes tightening as they glued to the individual following her.
She remained silent, passing the Commander before coming to a stop. Her silence and the Commander's question had led to the others noticing Q's presence. Within moments, they all seemed to grow just that little bit angrier. He'd taken advantage of their Captain. That was enough. However, in Lt. Paris' case, he'd almost killed the woman he loved. That was enough to push him over the edge, anger wise at the very least.
"Report, Commander." the Captain was in dire need of a distraction.
"Yeah, Commander." seconded Q, "It's Chuckles, right?"
The Commander physically moved himself away from Q. He knew it wouldn't bring anything other than personal satisfaction, but he wanted nothing more than to punch the grin off his face. However, it wouldn't help with much. Nothing would make up for what he did to the Captain.
Q went over to the Captain's chair and flopped down into it while the Captain looked around her tense crew. It was obvious they all were just as unhappy as she was.
"Ensign Kim reported the appearance of an unusual anomaly appearing on sensors just under an hour ago." the Commander explained.
The Captain tried to appear intrigued as she looked over at Ensign Kim. That was his cue.
"It's too far away to get an accurate reading." he reported, "It would require a significant detour."
The Captain's turned back to face the Commander. "Thoughts?"
He shrugged his shoulders half-heartedly. "A major detour for a minor anomaly." he gave her his opinion, "But it's your call, Captain."
The Captain sighed loudly, rubbing her tired face as she considered the best option.
"Continue course, Mr. Paris." she ordered. She couldn't be dealing with major detours at that time of night. "If the night shift fancy a detour, I'll leave it up to them."
It was at that moment that the turbolift doors opened and all nightshift crew members entered the Bridge. Right on time if she did say so herself.
She looked tiredly around as the main Bridge officers. "Go and get some sleep, everyone. See you all at duty calls."
She watched as the officers all made their way to the turbolift, more hurriedly than usual. Then again, it wasn't a surprise. None of them wanted to be stuck anywhere near Q.
Chakotay made his way to her side just as Lt. Ayala made his way up to her.
"The Bridge is yours." she passed over her command. Selfishly, Q too.
=/\=
The Captain didn't bother pretending to be asleep as soon as Chakotay dropped off. She couldn't lie there any longer. She was too warm.
Sitting up in the bed, she sighed deeply. She honestly didn't know how she was supposed to relax. Q was on-board and Naomi was deteriorating only a few decks below her. Even watching the stars outside of the viewpoint was not enough to help her relax.
As she sat there, she didn't notice any movement in the room until Chakotay sat up on the bed.
"Kathryn?" his voice was soft as he reached for her.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." she sighed, leaning against his shoulder as he began to lightly run his fingers up and down her bare thigh.
"You didn't." he confessed, softly kissing the side of her face, "I didn't expect to get much sleep tonight."
He was right. She didn't and ultimately, he didn't either. To be honest, none of the Bridge crew seemed to have slept well that night. Therefore, the next morning, the Bridge was a very tense place to be. The atmosphere was so think even a Klingon Bat'leth would have struggled to slice through it.
Much to the Captain's dismay, Q was still on-board. All he seemed to have done throughout the night was swap chairs and then annoy the hell out of Lt. Ayala. The man seemed eternally grateful when the day shift arrived to relieve him.
The Captain's day only went from bad to worse when she received the Doctor's report on Naomi. Her condition was slowly deteriorating to the point where he Doctor had had to put her into a coma in the hopes of prolong the time before deterioration became irreversible. Sufficed to say, it wasn't looking good.
After passing the report over to the Commander so he himself could see the severity of the situation, the Captain dared to look around at Q. He was sat on the Engineering console on her right, clearly bored but obviously not enough to disappear.
The Bridge was far too quiet for her liking. If Q hadn't been there, they'd all more than likely be engaged in a general conversation. It was amazing what the presence of just a single individual could do to the ship.
The Commander didn't speak as he put the PADD down. His heavy eyes which met with her own said it all.
Through the silence, a silence even the usually noisy consoles seemed scared to break, Ensign Kim was watching the displays of the ship's general operations. There was nothing out of the ordinary, at least he didn't think so. However, when a single, shrill alarm began to sound from his station, everything changed.
All of the officers looked around, concerned when they saw the look of utter confusion plastered across the young Ensign's face.
"Harry?" the Captain was frowning. They'd been on Voyager for almost four years yet she'd never heard that particular alarm before.
Ensign Kim was scanning almost frantically. He honestly couldn't believe what he was reading. One by one, everything seemed to be shutting down at such a rate that he was sure than with minutes, they'd be dead in the water.
Before he even had chance to say a word, the lights on the Bridge began to shut down, so too did the majority of the monitors. This immediately made the others do what they could before they too lost everything.
"Ship wide power drain." Ensign Kim reported.
"Switch to emergency power." the Captain ordered, just as the room fell into complete darkness.
"No effect." Tuvok stated.
"Harry, set…"
The Captain's words were cut short when as quickly as the power had cut out, the emergency power activated and gave the crew access to the emergency systems.
Immediately, Ensign Kim's short-range scans picked up something disturbing.
"Captain, a massive spatial distortion has just appeared 20,000 kilometres off the starboard bow!" he cried.
"Red Alert!" her order led to the activation of a few of the red klaxons and she used the opportunity to stand, "On screen."
As the screen activated, every crew member found themselves moaning and looking away. The intensity of the light from whatever was outside was too much for their eyes to register.
Q was the only one who could look. Clearly whatever it was could be seen by the Q but not the humanoids on the Bridge.
"Uh oh…" he whispered loudly enough to be heard by the crew members closest to him.
Ensign Kim manage to shut down the viewscreen as soon as possible, the crew moaning in short-lived relief. Their problems weren't over yet.
"Captain, the distortion is discharging some type of polarised energy." Ensign Kim explained, "It's disrupting every system on board!"
The Captain rolled her shoulders back and looked over at Q. For some bizarre reason, he looked scared. Strange. She'd never seen Q scared before.
"You have the ability to stop this." Q turned to her as she spoke, "So do it!"
He was about to respond when the starship suddenly fell off course into a rapid free fall, violently pushing the crew to the floor by the extreme forces. Tuvok and Ensign Kim managed to hold themselves up by using their consoles as support but the Captain, Commander and Lt. Paris weren't as lucky.
Fighting the forces, the Commander managed to scramble over to the Captain. He held her tightly against the floor and held onto the rail above them. She did the same as best she could. However, it wasn't easy. She could feel her insides turning the longer they fell. It wasn't helping the fact that she seemed to feel queasy at the best of times.
She looked longingly over at Lt. Paris. He was the best hope they had of stabilising.
"Mr. Paris!" she cried.
Somehow, Lt. Paris managed to clamber towards the helm with the assistance of his chair. Climbing onto it and pinning his feet into the foot well to keep him in place, he did his best to read what was happening.
"Inertial dampers are offline. I can't restore them!"
The Captain tried to ignore he sickly feeling building in her stomach. Right now, her ship was more important.
"Reset the baseline at 1-5-0 and reinitialize!" she ordered.
He did so and was mightily relieved as the readings began to return to normal and the ship stabilised. They all were.
"Field processers coming back online." he informed them, sighing with exasperated relief, "Inertial damping restored."
The Captain breathed out rather loudly, aware of the Commander's weight pressing against her as the gravity was restored. In no time, he stood and helped her up. Immediately he could see just how pale she had become. To be fair, a few officers looked a little off colour – a sudden free fall could do that. However, the Captain had more than just the free fall to factor into it.
"Captain?"
She couldn't speak for a moment, she simply breathed out deeply to compose herself.
"All stop." she managed to order, turning to look at Tuvok, "Damage report."
"6 minor injuries reported."
In an instant, the lights on the Bridge returned to normal, the power slowly returning.
"Systems are coming back online." reported Ensign Kim, "The distortion's dissipating."
Captain Janeway slowly nodded, allowing the nauseous feeling to wash over her completely before it too dissipated.
"Anybody want to tell me what the hell that thing was?"
She turned to face Ensign Kim who was deciphering the information on his console.
"It appears to be have been a highly localised yet unstable distortion in space." he paused, "The energy signature also matches the anomaly sensors picked up earlier. It wasn't a new anomaly, it was the same one."
The Captain sighed deeply. She then looked over at Q. Immediately, she frowned. She may have been wrong but she would have sworn he had a cut on his forehead.
"Q?"
The dazed-looking alien turned to look at her before his eyes swiftly rolled back into his head. Within moments, he fell to the floor with a large thud.
The Commander couldn't stop himself from scoffing as he looked over at the alien adorning a red uniform.
"Did he just faint?" he questioned.
Lt. Paris didn't dare go over, neither did Tuvok. For a long few moments, the entire crew just looked at him. They were all quietly confident this was just another one of his stupid tricks. However, as the moments passed, Q didn't even flinch. It was only then that Ensign Kim took the bold move to go over check on him.
He knelt down and for a moment, he paused. He hadn't got a clue what to do. Q wasn't human – all the first aid he knew would do nothing for an alien. With a shrug of his shoulders and rough sigh, he decided to simply check Q's responses.
Nothing.
"He's out cold." he reported.
The Commander's tongue pushed against his cheek. "Is he dead?" he wondered.
Ensign Kim checked for a pulse. "No." he answered, silently surprised to find one in the alien's neck.
The Commander's shoulders dropped. "Shame." he returned to his seat. He honestly couldn't have cared less.
The Captain looked down at Q's lifeless body and sighed incredibly deeply. No matter how much she didn't like him, she was a Starfleet Officer. She had an obligation to fulfil.
"This goes against my better judgement." she felt compelled to explain herself, "Sickbay, Medical Emergency!"