The Violence Not Chosen

Source Episode: VOY 3x16 Blood Fever

We found B'Elanna in a cavern a ways down. She had uncovered a still-blinking power system built into the rock, and explained her discovery as Tom covertly began scanning her with the medical tricorder.

"It's an active power system," she said. "It must've been built by the colonists."

Collins frowned as he scanned the system. "I don't understand how this can be."

B'Elanna slapped one of the conduits. "This is the source of the gallicite readings! These conduits are covered with gallicite plating. It's exactly what we need, and I found it."

"That isn't what I meant," Collins said, rechecking his tricorder readings.

I stepped closer to Collins so I could see his readings. "I hear you Andrew. This isn't abandoned technology." I looked up at my team, and Tom met my eyes with a subtle nod, confirming B'Elanna's neurochemical imbalance. "There's someone down here, probably in hiding. Which means we need to leave, now."

"What?" B'Elanna's voice echoed throughout the cavern. "No! What are you saying? We can't just leave! Look at how old this thing is! There's no one here, and we need this."

"Absolutely not. This belongs to someone else, and they clearly don't want to be found."

She growled, clenched her fists, then unclenched them. "Fine. What if we recalibrate our tricorders and scan again for lifesigns? If we find someone, we offer a trade. If not, maybe you should consider the possibility that I'm right."

"I don't think recalibrating our tricorders is going to work, B'Elanna. We need to go back to the ship."

B'Elanna backed away from me slowly, shaking her head in disbelief. Tom reached for her, but she dodged his grasp and bumped into a wall of rock behind her.

Then, that rock wall began to move—and not in any way I had seen rock move before.

B'Elanna jumped back as several men and women emerged from the shadows of the cavern around us, all dressed in camouflaging attire and armed with large energy weapons.

One of the men stepped past B'Elanna and stopped in front of me. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Swallowing my surprise, I introduced myself as calmly as I could. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Eelo Talia. I came from a starship called Voyager. We detected gallicite on this planet and came to mine it. We thought the mines were abandoned. Please accept our sincere apology for disturbing you. We will leave your territory immediately."

He eyed me suspiciously. "Why are you carrying weapons?"

"It's standard procedure for any mission into unfamiliar territory."

"And what is that?" he asked, pointing to my tricorder. "Some sort of scanning device?"

I nodded. "Yes, that's right."

"But it didn't detect any lifeforms here?"

"No, it didn't."

Some kind of alarm echoed through the cavern, and B'Elanna looked around nervously. "What's that?"

"It's a seismic alert," the man said. He gestured to a wall that led out of the cavern and into another tunnel. "That wall is unstable. Be careful."

B'Elanna looked to be on the verge of panic. Tom attempted to guide her away from the unstable wall, but she pulled away. As the bedrock began to quake and rocks shook loose from the wall, the man nearest B'Elanna moved to help Tom guide her away from danger.

Instead, she attacked them.

I lunged forward, but froze when two of the aliens blocked my path. I wanted to shout at them that I only intended to subdue my crewman, but their looks silenced me. They weren't being defensive, but merely keeping me out of harm's way. I looked to the mouth of the tunnel just as B'Elanna disarmed the alien. "Tom!" I shouted. "The wall!"

Tom wrapped his arms around B'Elanna and pushed her to the ground just inside the tunnel's entry.

When the shaking finally stopped, I saw that the tunnel had been completely blocked by fallen rock. I turned to the alien leader. "Please, help us get to our people. When we have them, we'll leave and never come back."

The man shook his head. "We cannot. It is too dangerous."

"He's right, Commander," Collins said. "We should wait until the aftershock passes."

The alien leader nodded to his aides, who began examining us with their scanners. "In the meantime, allow me to introduce myself. I am Ishan. We are the Sakari. I want to know about the vessel which brought you here. Your propulsion systems, weapons, sensors, artificial intelligence."

"I'm sure our captain would be glad to facilitate a peaceful exchange of information between our peoples. We trade with many species. However, I'm not the expert on Voyager's technical specs."

The aide who was scanning Collins gestured for Ishan, who frowned at the readout. "You have an artificial implant in your knee. Explain."

"I had a nasty tumble on an expedition back home," he replied, "and I had to have the joint replaced."

Ishan's frown didn't fade. "Do you have any other artificial implants?"

"No."

He turned to the woman examining me. "Anything?"

"No," she said. "A purely biological humanoid."

He then looked to the man examining Neelix, who shook his head.

I cleared my throat. "Your people have made a great deal of effort to avoid detection by outsiders. We saw the ruins on the surface. May I ask what happened?"

Ishan looked from Collins to me, his frown deepening.

"We can show you how we detected the gallicite," I offered, "so you can disguise it better. We can also help you eliminate the last traces of the ruins on the surface, so no one else will be curious about them."

Aftershocks rumbled through the caves, shaking a few small rocks loose along the walls. In the silence between us, I caught the woman's eye. "Tell me about the people who did this to you."

"It happened a long time ago," Ishan said, "before I was born. My people never knew who the invaders were or why they attacked. It was all over in less than an hour. Some of the colonists were fortunate enough to escape into the mines. We've lived here ever since, where it's safe. If the invaders ever learned of our existence here, they might return."

"And why the fear of artificial implants?"

"There are stories," the woman explained. "Some of the survivors claimed they saw monsters who were part man and part machine."

I exchanged a weighted look with Collins. "The Borg."

Ishan stepped closer. "You know of these creatures?"

I nodded. "Yes. They have attacked my people, too."

"How did you survive?" the woman asked. "Is that why you live on a spaceship?"

"No, our ship was pulled across the galaxy against our will by a different entity, and we are trying to get home. But the Borg are weaker in that part of the galaxy—there are fewer of them. They only sent one ship to scout us, and we destroyed it."

"Your people must be powerful, indeed," the woman murmured.

"We gain strength by making peaceful alliances with other species and sharing our resources. We lost a lot of ships and people to that one Borg cube, and it almost succeeded in reaching my homeworld."

The woman looked at Ishan, her face full of amazement.

Ishan was still frowning. "Forgive me for saying this, but it appeared that you were having difficulty getting one of your people to cooperate."

"She's sick," Neelix insisted. "We didn't realize it until we got here, but she's not acting very much like herself right now."

"I think they're telling the truth, Ishan," the woman said. "I believe them."

"Thank you," I replied. "May I ask, were you only attacked by these people once?"

"That is correct," Ishan confirmed. "They have not returned, as far as we are aware. We would like to keep it that way. If your people can help us as you said, we would gladly accept it. There is more gallicite to mine in these caves. We will trade whatever you need to ensure our people stay hidden."

"I understand," I said. "Thank you for sharing your story with me. I know it wasn't easy, and I'm sorry for what happened to you. When we return to our ship, I'll speak with our captain, and I'm sure she'll be willing to help you out however we can."

It took a while to dig out the tunnel that Tom and B'Elanna had been trapped in. By the time we found them, B'Elanna's higher brain functions were beginning to shut down. We needed to resolve her neurochemical imbalance soon. Otherwise, we could lose her.

Once we made it back to Voyager, I pulled Tom into my office to ask him what happened.

He stared at the floor. "She wasn't herself. She... she kept trying to convince me to have sex with her, but I knew it wasn't her talking. It wasn't right. But—" He looked up, meeting my eyes. "I wanted to give in. I've wanted her for so long, but I didn't want it like this. And if I gave in, she'd never even look at me once she was better. Normally, I could live with that, but B'Elanna—" He choked on a sob that he refused to let out. "I think I might be in love with her, Tal. But, how can I claim to love her if I can't do this one thing to save her life?" He sighed and hung his head. "What the hell is wrong with me?"

"Nothing," I said. "Nothing is wrong with you."

He looked again at me, his skin flushing red. "Yes, there is! Stop trying to make me feel better and just say it. Would you have turned away an opportunity like that? It's just sex! I've fucked my way around half the Alpha and Beta quadrants before getting stuck out here. And then I fucked my way around Voyager. Why now, all of the sudden, is it such a big damn deal?"

"What do you think? Why the hesitation, Tom?"

Finally, a few tears broke through his resistance and escaped from his eyes. He mashed his fingers to his face to wipe them away. "I don't know." His voice shrunk, and his eyes fell to the floor. "I don't know."

I let the silence linger for a while, until it was clear he had finished talking. "I think you're right, Tom. I think you love her. And, maybe I'm wrong, but I think you know that sex means something different to her than it means to you. It's not something she does casually. I think you care more about her feelings surrounding sex than your own."

His head bobbed slowly as he absorbed my words, but he offered no reply.

"Do you agree with what I just said? Or is there something else?"

He sighed and looked up. "No, you're right. You always are."

"Well, I don't know—"

"Look, if the doc can't come up with something soon, tell him I'll do whatever I have to do, okay? I'd rather she hates me for the rest of our lives, than lose her over this."

While I was away with Tom, Schmullis confirmed that B'Elanna was, in fact, suffering from the pon farr. He attempted to stabilize B'Elanna's hormonal and neurological levels with medications, but nothing seemed to be working.

"Any ideas?" he asked upon my return to sickbay.

I racked my brain trying to think of anything that might help, but the only option I could think of was to ask something of Tom that he did not feel right doing—resolving the pon farr by agreeing to be her mate.

Kes eventually broke the silence. "If a mind meld with Vorik is what transferred this process to her brain, could telepathy also remove it from her?"

"Ensign Vorik is still struggling to control his own condition, Kes," Schmullis answered. "The meld didn't help him at all. If anything, it accelerated his condition."

"I realize that, Doctor," she replied, "but over the last few months, I've been able to retain and develop Lon's mental probing abilities myself. My work with Tuvok has also made me quite familiar with Vulcan telepathy and mental exercises. I think I can help B'Elanna regain some control, or maybe even teach her how to resolve it like Ensign Vorik is trying to do."

Schmullis hesitated, frowning.

"I can do this," Kes said. "Let me try, Doctor. B'Elanna deserves a chance to make the choice herself. Let me give her that chance."

When Schmullis relented with a nod, Kes stepped up to B'Elanna's bedside and attempted to establish a telepathic connection.

It took a few hours for any significant progress to be made, but Kes was able to stabilize B'Elanna. After the two women shared a lengthy meditation session, Dr. Schmullis suggested sending Kes on to Vorik next. I told him to wait and allow Vorik as much time as possible to resolve the pon farr himself, just as he had requested.

Captain Janeway readily agreed to help the Sakari, and they returned the gesture by giving us enough gallicite to refit Voyager's warp coils. Once I was dismissed from sickbay, Chakotay, Tuvok and I led teams down to the surface to clear the ruins. I was working with my team to vaporize remnants of buildings when Chakotay shouted at me from some nearby brush.

I kept my phaser in hand as I made my way over to where he stood; he looked deeply concerned. He sent his team on to the next site, leaving us alone. Just then, Captain Janeway materialized beside us.

"Your call sounded urgent," she said to him.

Chakotay nodded. "I think there's something you should see, Captain. We found this as we were clearing away the ruins. Undoubtedly, one of the invaders who destroyed this colony." Moving tangles of brush aside, he revealed the decomposed carcass of a humanoid whose body was covered in cybernetic implants.

Janeway's face darkened. "You were right, Talia. These people were attacked by the Borg."