Chapter 3: Death
Wesley stopped for breath in a Jeffrey's Tubes junction. "If anybody was following me I should have been able to have heard them by now." Taking reassurance from the belief he was not being pursued, Wesley took the time to attend to himself. He had become increasingly fatigued (obviously), nothing in his private holodeck program had prepared himself for this kind of workout. Not only that, but he was becoming rapidly dehydrated and his head was feeling fuzzy. And the hand where that zombie bit him HURT.
Putting his knowledge of the inner workings of a starship to work, he licked condensation off some of the pipes lining the sides of the tube. He knew this condensation to be water since environmental systems ran on a surprisingly primitive hydraulic system. He laid his head down for a moment, and nearly fell asleep. He began recalling random words and images as one often does when they are about to fall asleep when he began thinking about the creatures he encountered in sickbay.
He was no expert in twenty-first century popular culture, but he believed they were zombies, which were monsters that could transform anyone into a zombie by simply biting them. Wesley looked with increase worry at his bite. Might he actually turn into one of those things? "I wouldn't discount the possibility." He thought. "With everything that's happened thus far."
He looked through an engineer kit that was placed in the wall of the Jeffrey's Tube (every few hundred meters one was placed in case of an emergency). He pulled out a small saw used for cutting metal and then looked at his hand. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that. His thoughts were interrupted when he heard somewhat faint cries of "Wesley?!" far above him. He put the saw in his pocket and continued to descend through the ship.
Bridge.
"Picard to engineering." Said the Captain. "Geordi here." "When can we drop out of warp, Commander LaForge?" asked Picard. "To be honest sir – I have no idea. This warp core Wesley installed is emitting some energy rays that were considered controversial as to if they even existed when I was in Starfleet Academy. And it's emitting more and more of these waves as it stays on longer." Said Geordi. "All the more reason to turn it off." Said Captain Picard. "Look sir, if we just drop out of warp, there's going to be a reaction in the warp core that will cause it to detonate. We'll destroy the ship." Said Geordi. "What if we create a shield around the warp core?" asked Picard. "If that did work – and I'm not saying I even know if it would, we would still be stranded out here." Said Geordi. "We'll just have to get towed home by another starship then Geordi." Said Picard.
"Sir it would take months to get another Federation starship out here, and by then… without a warp core we would run out of energy to power replicators… we would be experiencing environmental system failures… we'd starve or freeze or suffocate… we would die very slowly in space sir." Said Geordi, who was becoming more and more gloomy. "What are you talking about Geordi? Months for a starship to get here?" asked Picard. "Sir, are your navigational computers on the bridge working properly? Because according to the ones down here, we are currently crossing over into the Gamma Quadrant." Picard froze for a moment after hearing those words and simply replied by saying "Continue with your work Commander LaForge." Said Picard. "Yeah!" said a frustrated Geordi.
"Ensign, get a tech up here to examine our navigational computers." Picard ordered an ensign leaving the bridge. "Aye sir." He replied.
Worf, Monk, and Data continued descending down the Jeffrey's Tubes with no luck in locating Wesley. "Can we stop for a moment?" asked Monk. They all stayed put on the ladder while Monk caught her breath. "Why's it so hot in here?" she asked. "The increasing heat would appear to be a result of our being at warp nine for over four hours." He said. "I had no idea the amount of strain that could put on the ship." She said as she was panting. "It also seems that environmental systems are suffering malfunctions due to the interaction between the dampening field and various rays being emitted by the warp core." Data said.
"Lieutenant Dan to Worf.", came in a faint transmission. "Worf here." He replied. "We've failed to contain the situation in the sickbay." Dan said. "What?!" replied Worf. "Most of the entire deck has been taken over. Our officers aren't skilled enough in hand to hand and melee to fight them off. There only sixteen of us left, excluding your search parties." Worf paused for a moment. Things just kept getting worse as the morning went on.
"I assume you've already sealed off the deck." Said Worf. "Yes sir… but –" Dan was cut off by Worf. "Then you'll need to cut off life support from the deck. Can you do that?" asked Worf. "Yes sir, but there are still officers and civilians trapped in their quarters on that deck." Said Dan. "Can't you just specify those rooms to not be deprived of oxygen? The life support system operates in terms of rooms and corridors, not entire decks." Asked Worf. "With the increasing number of malfunctions occurring across the ship and the environmental control errors, there's no telling what would happen if we do what you are suggesting." Said Dan. "It's not a suggestion, lieutenant, it's an order." Said Worf. "Yes… sir." Dan reluctantly replied.