#Heaven is a place on Bajor with you | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

voyagerafod · 7 years ago

Text

Star Trek Voyager: A Fire of Devotion: Part 3 of 4: Sweeter Than Heaven: Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it,” Samantha Wildman said to Seven of Nine. “I’m just saying that maybe you should try talking to her yourself before going to the Captain.”

Seven of Nine raised an eyebrow. “The Captain asked me to oversee this year’s annual performance reviews. I do not see why I should give a less than accurate report.”

“Let me try this again,” Sam said. “I know Celes is a bit of a, well, she’s…” Sam struggled to find a nice way to convey her point. It wasn’t that she disliked Crewman Tal Celes. She actually found the young Bajoran quite friendly, despite her shyness; a shyness that had only gotten worse in recent years. “She is the most error prone officer on board,” Seven said. “Her work in astrometrics always needs to be double-checked.” “I know that,” Sam said. “Believe me, I know, she did a rotation in the lab before you came on board and... don’t even get me started. My point is though, what exactly can be gained by relieving her of duty? It’s not like she can just hop on the next shuttle back to Bajor. Isn’t there something she might be good at? You could just have the Captain transfer her.” “Where?” Seven said. “The problem is obviously not her skills, at least not based on what I saw in her academy records. The problem would seem to be that she has failed to adapt to Voyager’s situation.” “Probably,” Sam said. “Still don’t see what relieving her of duty would do. Again, she doesn’t exactly have any place else to go.” “Perhaps she could aid Neelix in the kitchen,” Seven said. Sam didn’t think that was necessarily a bad idea, but she was skeptical it would work. She couldn’t think of a reason not to try it though, and she was about to tell Seven just that when the room’s comm system chirped. “Janeway to Seven of Nine,” the Captain said. “Yes, Captain?” Seven said. “Do you have the reports I requested ready?” “I do,” Seven said. “Shall I forward them to your ready room?” “Go ahead and bring them personally,” Janeway said. “And bring Samantha with you. I have something I’d like to discuss with her.”

Had Janeway’s tone not been fairly jovial, Sam might’ve been worried about being summoned to meet with the Captain. With the exceptions of promotions, one on ones with the Captain were rarely about anything good, and Sam had never put in for a promotion her entire career. “On our way, Captain,” Sam said. The comm closed, and Sam bit her lower lip. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” “Because you’ve developed something of a fatalistic attitude in recent years?” Seven suggested. “Honey, remember that conversation we had about tact?”

---

“We’ll be passing through a class-T cluster in the next couple of days,” Captain Janeway said to Seven and Samantha as the two stood across from her in her ready room, “It’s not important enough to alter course, but I think it’s at least important enough to send out the Delta Flyer to get a full range of scans.” “I assume that’s why I’m still here, Captain?” Seven said. “You do have my report.” “A reasonable assumption,” Janeway said, “but an incorrect one.” Janeway stood up, and moved around to the front of her desk, and leaned back, arms crossed. “I’m piloting the Flyer for this mission, and I’m planning on taking a few crew members with me who I think could use some special attention.” “Oh no,” Sam muttered. “Samantha,” Janeway said, “you can’t stay on the ship forever. Sooner or later a time’s going to come when you need to leave, be it for good or bad reasons. You weren’t planning on staying on board once we got back to the Alpha Quadrant were you?” “Well, no, but…” “So the sooner we deal with this newfound phobia of yours the better,” Janeway said. “Captain,” Seven said, “while I personally agree that Samantha should not be afraid to go on away missions, especially those that would allow her to continue practicing her field of xenobiology, I’m not sure ordering her to go on a Delta Flyer mission is the wisest course of action.” Samantha nodded vigorously. Captain Janeway understood why, considering how badly her first and so far only mission in the Flyer had gone. But in the almost year and a half since then, Voyager had come across so many planets with some astonishing alien fauna, the very thing that Ensign Wildman had joined Starfleet to study in the first place, and she had passed on the chance to see every single one of them. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to pull rank this time, Ensign. You and two other crew members yet to be determined will join me on the Flyer at 1300 hours.” Sam looked like she wanted to protest, but instead simply nodded. Janeway couldn’t help but notice that her hands were shaking at her sides. “Permission to speak freely, Captain?” Seven said. “When have you ever not?” Janeway said, smiling. “I think this is ill-advised,” Seven said. “If this were a planetary mission I might be willing to assist in encouraging Sam to go along, but the data astrometrics has on the cluster you are ordering her to go into is incomplete. If I can’t dissuade you from following through on this order, at least allow me to go with her.” “Request denied,” Janeway said to Seven. To Samantha she said, “Sam, this is an order, but I want you to know that if after the mission is over, you still want to be kept off the away mission roster, I’ll honor that. I just feel you’ve let a few bad experiences cloud your judgment. While it doesn’t seem like it sometimes, well more than half our away missions are uneventful, and of the ones that aren’t we know going in the situation will be difficult and we plan accordingly. And I would never send you on one of those kinds of missions under any circumstance. You’re a biologist, not a security officer.” Sam looked at Seven.

“If you don’t want to go, Sammy, I can talk to Chakotay, maybe convince him to-” “No, it’s okay, Annie,” Sam said, eyes closed, and visibly nervous. “I’ll do this. I can do this. There aren’t any plasma storms nearby are there?” “No,” Seven said.

Sam stood at attention, took a deep breath, and looked Janeway in the eye. “I’ll be ready by 1300 hours, Captain,” she said. Janeway smiled. “See you then. Dismissed.”

---

Chakotay wondered to himself how many ways he could tell the Captain that one of the three crew members she’d chosen for the mission was a mistake without outright committing insubordination. He settled instead for saying “Are you sure?” for the third time in almost as many minutes.

“I understand your concerns,” Captain Janeway said. “But if we don’t get Tassoni more integrated into the crew soon he’s going to become a problem.”

“He does his job, but only to the bare minimum. He follows orders, but in the most passive-aggressive fashion possible. He refuses to even try to interact with the rest of the crew, including his former shipmates. If you insist on taking someone from the Equinox with you on this mission, why not one of the others?”

“The others are at least trying, to varying degrees of success. Tassoni acts like we’re going to kick him off the ship any day now so ‘why bother.’ I want to make it clear to him that there can be a place for him on this crew.” Chakotay shook his head. “And if he doesn’t want to be?” Janeway sighed, and shrugged. Chakotay figured that she didn’t really have a good answer to that question. “If I can’t talk you out of this,” he said, “I at least insist you keep a phaser on you, just in case.” Janeway chuckled. “I appreciate the concern, but Tassoni has shown no inclination towards violence since coming aboard.”

“I know that,” Chakotay said, “but better safe than sorry.” “We’ll be fine with the phasers that are stocked on the Flyer normally,” Janeway said. “I doubt we’ll need them giving where we’re going but as you say, better safe than sorry.” Chakotay simply nodded. He didn’t like it, but he had backed his Captain on more questionable decisions than this in the past. If he had truly felt that she was needlessly endangering herself and others, he’d push back. He’d done it before, and despite how ugly that had gotten, they still respected each other after it was over.

“Well,” he said, “have fun.” “I intend to,” Janeway said.

---

“I have to admit, Brian,” Marla Gilmore said to Brian Sofin, the two of them sitting in a corner of the mess hall having lunch, “I figured it would bother you that Angelo got to go on an away mission before you did.” “No, it’s okay,” Sofin said. “It still amazes me sometimes how few people will give me a dirty look anymore. Is less than a year all it really takes to get over someone stealing a key piece of technology from you and leaving you to die?” “I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that the man who ordered us to do that is dead,” Marla said. “But yeah, I get the feeling. Sometimes when I’m in engineering, it feels like people are treating me like I’ve always been part of the team.” She sipped her tea, glanced at the various other crew members chatting and enjoying their meals, while Neelix stirred something in one of his massive pots. “Marla? You still with us?” Sofin said. “Yeah, just thinking. On the one hand, I look at these people and think that they never would’ve done what we did. On the other…”

“They had it a lot easier than us,” Sofin said. “Easy being relative of course. Most of this ship’s senior staff were dead before they even knew what hit them. And we didn’t have to deal with a Cardassian spy or Betazoid serial killer.” Marla rolled her eyes. “I think I’d take both of those things times two before dealing with the Ankari spirits of good fortune again.” Sofin shrugged. “Yeah, fair point.” “Have you talked to Angelo at all? Since Ransom died I mean.” “Only once. He didn’t say it directly, but I think that he thinks you, me, and James betrayed the Captain; sold him out.” “You told him that Captain Ransom helped save us, right? That Burke was the one who got the rest of our shipmates killed?”

“I did. So did James.” Sofin finished the last of his food. “I hope getting to go on an away mission again will snap him out of it. He was a good officer back before we started killing those aliens for fuel. Maybe he can be again. I’d certainly feel better about him being in security.”

“How does that work, by the way?” Marla said. “How can he be on the security team if he isn’t allowed to have a phaser yet?”

“You’d have to ask someone else,” Sofin said. “I don’t really get to talk to the security people.”

---

Captain Janeway flew the Delta Flyer away from Voyager, her three charges situated behind her. She had put Angelo at the tactical station despite the unlikeliness of needing to use the ship’s weapons. Samantha took the seat behind him, refusing the one directly behind Janeway at the helm. She explained that it had been the chair she was in when the Flyer had crashed last year, so Janeway didn’t argue. Tal Celes took that seat instead, monitoring the sensors, and glad to do so as the young Bajoran was convinced that was one of the few things she was good at.

As soon as the Flyer went into warp, Janeway began the mission briefing. “Once we reach the cluster,” she said, “we’ll drop out of warp and maintain one-quarter impulse on the sweep through the protostars. Celes, you’re going to be running an ongoing sensor analysis. Samantha, you’ll be looking at subspace particle decay for anything new we might learn about star formation. I know that’s not your field, but I can assist you along the way. Mister Tassoni, your job will be to look for signs of life, a long shot in this environment, but it’s something to do.” “Captain,” Tassoni said, keeping his voice polite, but still rolling his eyes, “I know it’s not my field either, but I do know enough about these types of clusters that if we find any planets at all they’ll be gas giants.”

“They could have moons,” Samantha said. “Captain, I have to ask again why you insisted on bringing me along. Haven’t my former friends done more to earn this opportunity than I have?” “Former?” Janeway said. She’d heard of course, on several occasions, that Tassoni was never seen interacting with the other Equinox survivors, but this detail was news to her.

“They don’t appreciate what Captain Ransom did for us, the sacrifices he was willing to make, even his own conscience, to save us. They think they have to apologize for doing what we needed to to survive. I won’t.” The cabin of the Flyer got uncomfortably quiet. Janeway could see Samantha’s left hand from the helm chair and saw that it was clenching and unclenching. Celes looked like she wished she could melt into the bulkhead and not have to listen to any of this.

“I’m not here to rehash arguments about what Captain Ransom did,” Janeway said. “I’m here to see if you can function as part of a team without being rude to your teammates. I can see we’re off to a bad start, but let’s call this a dry run and start over. Mister Tassoni, your job will be to look for signs of life in the cluster.” Tassoni narrowed his eyes briefly, but nodded. “Aye, Captain.”

Janeway turned back around to keep an eye on the helm console. Tassoni was right about one thing, there was no point in trying to change his mind. He truly felt that under the circumstances, Ransom did the right thing. She disagreed, but while there would be a time and place to address the larger issues of that incident, it wasn’t now. Not while they all had to live together. A Federation inquiry once they all got back to the Alpha Quadrant would decide ultimately what to do, if anything, with the Equinox survivors. Her job was simply to keep them alive and make sure they did their jobs. So far, at least as far as she was concerned, that was mostly working. Angelo Tassoni though would have to learn to dial back his attitude, and with any luck, this mission would help make that happen.

---

Samantha found herself about to drift off. She didn’t usually get tired on away missions, but she had failed to get a full night’s rest before she had to leave. Seven of Nine had been very supportive of her, even providing her with a thermos of Sam’s favorite flavor tea before leaving, but no amount of coddling from her wife was going to make this any easier. She was tired and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Which it seemed to almost immediately, as mere seconds after dropping out of warp the Delta Flyer shook. Samantha gripped the edge of the console so hard her hands hurt. “Engine status?” Captain Janeway said.

“Within parameters,” Tal Celes said.

“Anything on sensors?”

Sam took a deep breath, let go of the edge of the console, and began manipulating the controls. “Uh, nothing. Might’ve just been a hiccup with the impulse drive.” “Not unheard of,” Janeway said, “but rare. I’m going to take a look at it. In the meantime, I think we’re due for lunch. Celes, head below and see what Neelix packed for us.”

“Aye, Captain,” Celes said. Sam had to admit, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard the young Bajoran sound so confident. She seemed to like it out here. Perhaps, she thought, when we get back she can transfer to a smaller ship. Some people just prefer tighter spaces.

A console near Janeway beeped, and she looked at it. “Sam, can you identify the source of that spatial fluctuation?” “What fluc-” Sam’s request for additional information was violently interrupted by the Delta Flyer shaking hard enough to nearly send her to the floor. Not again, not again, she thought. The stars out side became swirls, a sign that the Flyer was spinning wildly, only the inertial dampeners keeping the four people inside from being pinned to the bulkhead.

The Captain, struggling with the controls the whole time, finally managed to get the ship stabilized. “What the hell was that?” Tassoni said, checking his monitors. “Were we attacked?” “I don’t know,” Janeway said. “We need to get propulsion back on line first, then we can figure out what hit us.” “I can’t see anything on sensors,” Sam said. “Same here,” Celes said. “But whatever hit us tore a section of plating off the outer hull. Ninety percent of our anti-matter has been neutralized. The reaction’s cold. So much for warp drive.” “Impulse engines are still operational, but they’ve been damaged,” Janeway said. “We won’t be able to go faster than 1/8th impulse. We’ll have to call Voyager to come pick us up. Is the subspace transmitter working?” “Affirmative,” Tassoni said. “Delta Flyer to Voyager,” Janeway said, “we’ve been hit by an unknown phenomenon and have taken heavy damage. We require assistance.” Janeway hit a button. “Transmit that message continuously on all subspace frequencies,” she said to Samantha.

“I think I know what got us,” Celes said, “A dark matter protocomet.”

“A what?” Sam said, knowing what dark matter and comets were, but having never heard of one of the latter made out of the former. “I read a paper on those once,” Janeway said. “If I remember right, the theory was anything like that would be attracted to any source of antimatter and neutralize it upon contact. Are you sure that’s what hit us, Celes?” “Mostly,” Celes said, her more normal shy personality reasserting itself. “I went to the academy with the guy who wrote that paper. I remembered him talking about it, otherwise I would’ve never thought to look. I know it’s not something to normally look for but…” “But if you’re right, we may have evidence that will make your former classmate very happy,” Janeway said, smiling. “Good thinking.”

Sam smiled herself, despite the situation. While she longed to be back on Voyager with her family, she took some small comfort in finally seeing a crewmate who had fallen behind her peers have the chance to step things up. She also couldn’t help but note that Angelo Tassoni had gotten far more professional once things started to go bad.

Perhaps some good will come out of this mess after all, Sam thought. I just wish I wasn’t here to see it.

“Should we eject our remaining antimatter?” Tassoni said. “If it attracts these protocomets we might get hit again.”

“Not yet,” Janeway said. “We may still have a chance to get the warp drive back on-line.” “We may not survive another hit,” Celes said. “Ma’am,” she added quickly. If the Captain was offended by her speaking out of turn she gave no sign of it.” “A few more minutes,” Janeway said. “Understood,” Celes said. “Also, Captain, if it’s alright, we should bring the damaged hull plating aboard. It’s only ten kilometers away. Impact from a dark matter body might’ve left something valuable on it that could help us detect any further such bodies. If we can get a decent warning if another protocomet approaches…”

“We can dump the antimatter we have left and save the ship,” Janeway said. “Good thinking, Crewman. Do we have transporters?” “Yes,” Tassoni said. “I’ve already found the plate, and am locking on right now.”

“Good,” Janeway said. “Beam it to the aft section. Celes, come with me. Sam, Angelo, continue repairs.”

“Yes ma’am,” Tassoni said. “On it, Captain,” Samantha said. Once Celes and Janeway exited the cabin, Sam let out a heavy sigh and rubbed her eyes. “Figures,” she muttered under her breath. “What was that, Ensign?” Tassoni said. “I’m saying it figures. I didn’t want to leave the ship because the last several times I have, something had gone wrong. And what happened to us today?” “That sounds like an incredible run of bad luck,” Tassoni said, not sounding as sympathetic in tone as the words implied. “Not that I would know, most of my bad days were on a ship.” “I didn’t mean to-” “Offend me? No, I know,” Tassoni said. “I’m just trying to say that I understand how you feel.” “That’s a bit of an understatement,” Samantha said. “Annie told me what a mess the Equinox was when we found you.” “Annie?” Tassoni said. “Oh, sorry. I thought you knew that Seven of Nine’s birthname was Annika.” “No,” Tassoni said. “I knew that she still went by her Borg designation, but I’d figured she just didn’t remember her name.” “No. For the record though, she only lets me call her that so…” “Understood,” Tassoni said.

---

Captain Janeway ran her tricorder over the hull fragment now lying on the floor. Once she was done scanning the entire chunk of metal, she handed it off to Tal Celes. “Download this into the main computer,” she said, now looking at the debris. “It looks like it was sheared off rather than blown off.”

Celes began working at a console near the back of the room, looking tense. “Everything alright, Crewman?” “Fine, Captain. It’s just… I’m sorry I spoke out of turn earlier, about the antimatter.” “It was a valid point,” Janeway said. “I guess so,” Celes said. “You doubt yourself too much, Crewman,” Janeway said. “I should. And you should too. My work always needs to be double-checked, as I’m sure you’ve been told before. I imagine I’d have been kicked out of astrometrics a long time ago, but I think being married has softened Seven of Nine a little bit.”

“We all make mistakes,” Janeway said. “Even me,” she added, several of the ones she considered her biggest coming to the forefront of her mind, threatening to distract her.

“Every day? Every time you report for your shift? On Voyager, it doesn’t matter because nothing I do is that critical. Seven doesn’t trust me with anything important. The crew is protected from my mistakes there, but out here I could get us killed.” “The reason we know what hit us is because of you, Celes,” Janeway said, trying to bolster Celes’s spirits without pushing too hard. “You showed evidence of unconventional thinking on your application. That’s why I accepted you to the post when your name came up.” “I only know what hit us because of something someone else said to me one time,” Celes said. “So? Trust me, Crewman, my senior staff have pulled ideas that saved our ship out of places much darker than your memory,” Janeway said with a smirk. Celes chuckled. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Captain, but you have to understand. To you, this is just data. To me, it’s a monster with fangs and claws. In my nightmares, I’m chased by algorithms. My brain just wasn’t built to understand this.”

“We could find you another post on Voyager,” Janeway said, though she had to admit to herself that she wasn’t sure where.

“I don’t think there is any place for me there. Not unless you need a waitress in the mess hall.” “There’s more to duty than the ability to manipulate algorithms. Everybody on Voyager has showed a courage far beyond what I could’ve expected considering the circumstances.”

“I appreciate the thought, Captain. And I’m happy that you want me to do well. But I don’t deserve to be on your ship. I’m not really a part of Voyager. I just live there. If it takes long enough for us to get home, eventually even Naomi, or Icheb, or probably even Angelo Tassoni will outrank me. I accept that.”

Janeway sighed. She wished she had a trained counselor onboard. She was starting to realize that this level of low self-esteem was beyond her ability overcome. She had managed to inspire her crew during tough times, but she couldn’t get this one Bajoran woman to see herself as anything but a failure. That fact broke her heart.

---

Six hours later, with no reply from Voyager, but also no further impacts, Samantha and the others gathered around to hear Captain Janeway’s report. “Our scans of the hull fragment were inconclusive,” Janeway said. “We found some displaced positrons, which are consistent with a dark matter impact, but could’ve been caused by something else. If we try to recalibrate our sensors with this little information we could end up with either a bunch of false alarms, or completely fail to catch the protocomet that finishes us off. Though I take the fact that we haven’t been hit by anything else yet as a good sign.” She touched the screen and a map came up. Sam wondered where this was going. “There’s a gas giant only a few hours from our current position,” Janeway said. “T-class, surrounded by orbital rings, including one that’s radiogenic.”

“We could use those particles to reinitialize our warp core reaction, right?” Celes said. Sam couldn’t help but notice that what confidence she’d gained during the initial crisis had faded away in the interim. “Exactly,” Janeway said, smiling and nodding at Celes. “With only ten percent of our antimatter left, we’d only be able to make warp two, but that’s a hell of a lot better than our current pace. Everyone clear on the plan?”

Samantha nodded, and saw that everyone else was too. “All right,” Janeway said. “Let’s do this.”

As the crew took their seats to begin the journey, there was suddenly a brief shudder. Sam thought for a moment that they would need to eject the core after all, but it stopped just as quickly as it had started. “I doubt that was another protocomet,” Janeway said. “If it was I-” Sam said, her thought cut off by a noise that seemed to be coming from nowhere, but was getting louder. “Find the source of that sound,” Janeway said. Sam grabbed a tricorder and opened it, seeing that everyone else except for the Captain had too. They all scanned around them, and when they reached the source, a look of dread appeared on everyone’s face, none more so than Angelo Tassoni, who looked at his tricorder in visible fear. “Oh no,” he said.

Suddenly, Tassoni vanished in a haze of green light, like some sort of transport beam. “What the hell?” Samantha yelled. “That’s impossible!” Celes said.

“Where is he?” Janeway said. Sam and Celes each bolted to the console nearest to them. Sam frantically tried to find any sign of him; his bio-signature, his comm badge, anything. “I can’t locate him,” she said, “He’s not out there. Not in space, not in sub-space…”

A brief noise similar to the longer, louder one that had preceded Angelo’s disappearance came and went, and as soon as it ended, Tassoni reappeared right where he’d been sitting, looking exhausted. With a groan, he fell over.

Sam went to him, Celes right next to her scanning him with a tricorder while Sam looked for visible signs of injury, eventually seeing a cut on the back of his neck.

"Inside... me..." Tassoni said. Sam gasped and nearly fell backwards as a creature of some sort could be seen moving around under his skin. Sam felt a tap on her shoulder, and saw Janeway behind her and Celes, motioning for both of them to head to the aft compartment, while she helped Tassoni to his feet. “Activate the transporter,” Janeway said, though to whom she was too close to panic to be certain. “Try to get a lock on whatever’s inside him.” Tassoni was panting, sweating, and barely able to stand. Janeway waved Sam over while Celes went to a console and frantically began manipulating the controls. “Help me get him into the bio-bed,” Janeway said, pressing a button. The bio-bed slid out of the wall, and the two women got the man into it quickly. Janeway took out her own tricorder and began scanning him. “The tricorder isn’t picking up anything,” Janeway said, sounding worried. “But I can feel it,” Tassoni said.

“I-I can’t get a lock,” Celes said, sounding equally scared. Sam desperately wanted someone to remain calm in this situation, but was afraid that it would have to be herself. “It’s like something’s there but it’s not there.”

“Oh, it’s there,” Tassoni said. “Unfortunately,” Janeway said, feeling at Tassoni’s sides with her bare hands, “I have to agree.”

“Maybe we weren’t hit by a protocomet after all,” Sam said. “No comet I ever heard of could do something like this.” “Think about it,” Janeway said. “Sensors can’t find this thing, transporters can’t lock on to it… Maybe this is some kind of dark matter lifeform.” “That can’t be right,” Sam said, trying to come up with an alternate explanation in her mind, but failing. Still, it had to be wrong. “Molecules that complex would collapse under their own weight. They could never support life.”

“It’s the best theory we got right now,” Janeway said to Sam. She looked down at Tassoni. “Angelo, where did they take you?”

“I don’t know,” Tassoni said, far more calm than Sam would’ve expected but still visibly in considerable pain. “It was dark, hot, there was breathing all around me. I tried to speak but there wasn't enough air. I tried to move, but something was pressing down on me.”

“Should we sedate him?” Sam asked. “If we do that it might lower his immune response,” Janeway said. “I don’t like seeing him like this either, but I don’t want to take that chance. Angelo?” “I understand, Captain,” Tassoni said. “You should put up a force field around the bio-bed. Just in case this thing breaks out of me.” Sam couldn’t believe how matter-of-factly the man had described something that could potentially lead to a very painful death, but then she remembered that this was a man who’d lived with the threat of certain death hanging over him for years. “Celes,” Janeway said, “come with me. Sam, stay with him.” “Understood,” Sam said. She hoped the Captain had some idea of how to help their colleague. She walked over to the bio-bed, as close as she could get without hitting the force field, and, as silly as it made her feel, tried to engage Angelo Tassoni in small talk.

---

“I’m setting a course for those rings,” Janeway said as she sat in the pilot’s seat. “Shunt as much power as you can to those impulse engines. Maybe we can get just a little more than 1/8th impulse.”

“We never should’ve left Voyager,” Celes said, sighing sadly as she followed Janeway’s orders. Janeway tried but failed not to smirk, glad that Celes wasn’t looking at her. “Voyager’s not exactly a safe haven either, Crewman. The Vidiians, the Kazon, the Borg, Species 8472, the Malon, I could go on and on.” “That doesn’t make me feel any better, Captain.” Celes said. “Just trying to put things in perspective. We’ve been chased across this quadrant by things far worse than whatever’s doing this to Angelo.” “I’ve got you three more percentage points of impulse,” Celes said. “I’ll take it,” Janeway said. “Good work. Have you considered engineering?” “What?” “If you feel that astrometrics isn’t right for you-” “Captain, is this really the time for this?”

“Perhaps not,” Janeway said. “But unless something changes with Angelo, there’s not much else we can do until we reach those rings.”

“Fair enough, ma’am, but I’d honestly rather not think or talk about my career right now.” Janeway couldn’t argue that point, so she respectfully stopped talking. The silence for the next few moments was uncomfortable, but Janeway decided it was best to just let Celes do her work. “Incoming transmission,” Celes said, sounding shocked. Janeway was shocked herself. “Source?” she said. “It’s a Starfleet frequency,” Celes said. “Must be Voyager.” The comm system activated, and at first the signal coming through was all static, but as it gradually faded, Janeway sighed heavily as she recognized her own voice, and her own words. Then she noticed something. Certain words were repeating, and not like an echo, but several times for one word, but only twice for another. There didn’t seem to be a pattern in it, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. “Subspace echo,” Celes said, her voice cracking. “Maybe not,” Janeway said. “There’s a .005 deviation in the carrier wave. Recognize that number?” “From our scans of the hull fragment, yes,” Celes said. “But what could that mean?” “They’re bouncing our own distress signal back to us,” Janeway said. “But modified. They might be trying to communicate. Try to adjust the universal translator for-” “Captain!” Samantha Wildman yelled. Janeway turned to see Angelo Tassoni, pale, but walking upright. “I don’t know how, but he went right through the force field,” Sam added.

“Angelo,” Janeway said, her hand moving close to a panel where she knew a hand phaser was kept, “what are you doing?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Tassoni said through gritted teeth. “It’s controlling me. I can’t stop it. You’ll have to stop it.” “How? Janeway said. Tassoni directed his gaze towards the panel that Janeway had her hand near. “Do it,” he said. Janeway quickly opened the panel, took out the phaser, and was glad to see it was already on a low stun setting. She fired, hitting Tassoni square in the chest, He yelped, and fell back, but remained conscious.

“It’s in my shoulder,” he said, tearing up, the pain clearly getting to be too much. The alien, whatever it was, ripped through the skin on Tassoni’s neck where the cut they’d seen earlier had been and lept onto a console. It reminded Janeway of a millipede, only much larger, and glowing black and purple. Its tiny legs began manipulating controls on the console, equally purple sparks of energy coming from it as it did so.

“It’s tapping into our systems,” Celes said, panic entering her voice. “Wait,” Janeway said, “it might be trying to communicate.” The console’s lights began flickering. Soon, sparks began exploding from the console. “It’s in our environmental controls,” Celes said. “We’ve got to stop it.” “Wait,” Janeway said again, but Celes had already found another phaser and fired at the alien, vaporizing it. Janeway knocked the phaser out of her hand. “What the hell did you do?” she said. “It was trying to kill us,” Celes said. ��I had to. I’m sorry.” “You don’t know that for certain,” Janeway said. “I heard its thoughts, Captain,” Tassoni said. “When it left me, I could hear what it was thinking. ‘Do not belong.’ That’s what it said.” “It didn’t belong on the Delta Flyer?” Janeway asked. “Or it could mean that we don’t belong in this part of space,” Samantha said. “Prophets forgive me,” Celes said. “What if it was just trying to survive? What did I do?”

“We can discuss this later,” Janeway said. “If it was hostile, it probably has friends who will come after us. We need to get to those rings to-” The Flyer shook violently, sending nearly everyone toppling to the floor. “We just lost another section of hull,” Celes said, managing to take a seat at the nearest console. “How far are we from the gas giant?” Janeway said. “200,000 kilometers,” Celes said. “I’m taking the Flyer into the radiogenic ring,” Janeway said. “With any luck they won’t follow.” “We can’t survive in there for more than a few minutes,” Celes said. “That should be enough to reinitialize the warp core,” Janeway said. As she flew the Delta Flyer into the rings, she wondered if this situation was avoidable. The more thought she gave it though, she realized that there was no right answer. The odds were roughly 50/50 that the alien was either trying to communicate and the environmental controls were an accident, or it was trying to kill them and Tal Celes had done the right thing. Regrettably, she doubted she’d ever know.

“Start continuous transport of radiogenic particles directly into the reaction chamber. When it’s approaching critical mass, let me know.” She got up and headed to the back of the cabin to check on Tassoni. “Watch for any sign of pursuit.” Tassoni sat on the floor, leaned back against the bulkhead, looking exhausted, but also relieved. Janeway imagined that, despite how painful the exit look, having the creature gone was a great relief to him. “How are you doing?” she asked. “Mildly amused by the irony of it all,” Tassoni said. “I survive the Equinox, only to end up nearly getting killed by a creature I didn’t do anything to.” “This situation isn’t anything like what happened on your old ship,” Janeway said. “You didn’t do anything wrong here. This is on me. I ordered the three of you out here.”

“I know,” Tassoni said. “They’re in pursuit,” Celes called out from her station, sounding worried. “I’ve got multiple subspace variations, all of them .005, and all of them converging on our positions from the aft.”

“Shit,” Janeway muttered under her breath, quickly moving back to the helm. “How long do we have?” “Three minutes, twenty seconds,” Celes said. “We’ll need twice that to reinitialize warp reaction,” Samantha said. I got them into this, Janeway thought. It’s up to me to give them a chance to get back to Voyager. “Get in the escape pods,” she said. “Captain?” Samantha said. “Plot a course away from the planet,” Janeway said. “I’m going to fire a phaser volley and hopefully set off a chain reaction of the radiogenic particles. It might be enough to disable our friends.”

“You’ll be disabled too,” Tassoni said, having recovered enough to take a seat behind Celes. “Not if I go to full thrusters and keep in front of the shockwave,” Janeway said. “There’s no guarantee we could get the pods to a safe distance in time, Captain,” Samantha said. “As my wife would say, this is highly inadvisable plan.” “How would you say it, Sam?” Janeway said, smirking. “With language that I would never use in front of my daughter, ma’am,” Samantha said.

“She’s right,” Celes said. “About the escape pods I mean, not the language. And Angelo is in no shape to pilot an escape pod. We’re staying.” “Are you disobeying an order, Crewman?” Janeway said. “No, Captain,” Celes said. “You didn’t phrase it as an order.” Under less tense circumstances, Janeway would’ve called Celes out for using semantics to get around what she’d told her to do. Instead, she had to admit she was actually rather proud of Celes finally standing up for herself. I must be getting soft in my old age, she thought. “You know,” Janeway said dryly, “most of the time, mutineers are trying to kill their Captains, not save them. You’ve made your choice. Hang on tight. Charge phaser banks and divert all available power to thrusters. How close are our pursuers?”

“Sixty-five seconds to intercept,” Celes said. “Stand by to fire, on my mark,” Janeway said. “Hey, Celes?” Tassoni said. “You ever consider tactical? You’re doing pretty good at this.” “Not now,” Celes said, focusing on her console. “Fire,” Janeway said. Janeway couldn’t see the phaser beams as they were firing from the aft, but the light of the explosion began to fill the edges of the forward view port, even as she pushed the controls as hard as she could, actually grateful that Tom Paris had insisted on more old-fashioned tactile flight controls when he’d designed the Flyer. Having something she could grip rather than simply tap gave her more of a feeling of control, one she needed as the ship shuddered, the shockwave getting closer. A violent shake, much more than what they were already facing, caught her off guard, and she felt her head hit something, and her vision go blurry.

---

“Captain!” Celes yelled. Samantha moved forward to see if the Captain was alive. She was, but was clearly out of it, breathing, but her eyes closed. “Auto-pilot is off-line,” Tassoni said. “We’re starting to turn back into the shockwave. The captain must’ve pulled the control when she went down.” “I don’t know how to fly this thing,” Celes said, starting to panic, though Samantha could only barely make out the words over the noise of the ship shaking. This is it, she thought. The Delta Flyer’s going to kill me after all. Suddenly, random memories came to her. Skiing with Seven of Nine. Teaching Naomi how to do her hair. Showing Icheb how to work an electron microscope. “Screw this,” Samanta said. “I’m gonna live.” She got into the pilot’s seat, and looked at the controls. She cursed Tom Paris for having insisted on controls similar to older ships, as her only piloting experience, limited though it was, was on standard issue Starfleet shuttles with touchscreen controls. Still, she had watched Tom piloting it that week where she had nearly died along with Paris and Tuvok. She hoped it would be enough. She took the controls, and got the Flyer back on course as best she could, nearly overtaxing the inertial dampeners in the process.

---

Seven of Nine was prepared to offer whatever comfort Samantha needed once she was cleared from sickbay with the others who had been on the Delta Flyer. She did not suspect that she would not need to. Seven entered sickbay, and before she could say a word, Samantha threw her arms around Seven, kissing her hard on the lips before pulling back. “Oh, Annie, it was, wow. I’ve never felt anything like that before. Was it like that for you?” “Was, what?” “Saving people. Getting to be the hero.” “I don’t under-” “I brought them home,” Samantha said, smiling, breathing heavily, barely able to stand still. Seven was concerned that she was having some form of attack. “I saved us. I flew the ship. I stabilized it so we wouldn’t get destroyed in the shockwave. I’ve never saved anyone’s life before. It’s so exciting, I can barely even speak.”

“Are you sure about that part?” Seven said, wanting to be happy that Sam was happy, but instead feeling confused. “I know things didn’t go as smoothly as the Captain planned,” Samantha said, finally slowing down, “but it was worth it. I’m not afraid to leave the ship anymore.” Seven titled her head. “I was led to believe that phobias were not so easily cured.” “Cured, no,” The Doctor said, “but what Sam had wasn’t a true phobia. Not in the medical sense of the word anyway.”

Seven felt Samantha’s hands on her behind, squeezing gently. “You wanna know something else getting to be the hero makes me feel?” Sam said. “I do not need to be seeing this,” The Doctor said, quickly moving to the other bio-beds to look after the Captain, Tal Celes, and Angelo Tassoni. “Are any of the holodecks free?” Seven said. “Let’s find out,” Sam said.

---

Tal Celes was lying down in her quarters, her sheets pulled over her head. She was late for a shift, but didn’t care. She heard the door open, but didn’t bother to look. “Go away,” she groaned. “Not yet,” Captain Janeway’s voice replied. Celes sat upright so fast she nearly got dizzy. “Captain! I, I didn’t-” “If you’re going to make excuses for being late to your shift, don’t bother. I told Commander Chakotay to give you a pass. This time. I just wanted to come down and apologize to you in person since I didn’t get the chance in sickbay.” “Apologize? For what?” Celes said, feeling confused. “You made a judgment call when that dark matter alien was manipulating the environmental controls. I’m still not certain whether it was hostile or just confused, but that didn’t give me the right to yell at you the way I did. You acted in defense of your crew. That’s something to be proud of, Crewman.” “I killed something. Whatever it was. I’ve never taken a life before. Not even when I was still on Bajor. My family kept me hidden, and by the time I was old enough for them to finally let me fight, the Occupation was over. How can I live with myself? How do you do it, Captain? You’ve had to kill before, to defend the ship.” “Yes, yes, I have. You’re probably wondering how I’m able to sleep at night after I’ve done so,” Janeway said, sitting on the edge of Celes’s bed. “I didn’t mean-” “It’s a fair question. I just wish I had the answer I think you’re hoping for. Fact is, some nights, I can’t. It gets easier with time, certainly. And how much they hurt us before I hurt them factors into it, I won’t pretend it doesn’t. Killing someone who’s trying to kill you, it feels good, in the moment. But that moment never lasts. That’s a good thing though. If it ever does become easy for you, that’s when you have a problem.” Janeway got up. “Be glad you feel remorseful, Crewman Tal. It means you’re still one of the good guys. Take the day off, but I expect to see you in astrometrics for your regular shift tomorrow.” “Yes, Captain,” Celes said.

#a fire of devotion #Part 3 #chapter ten #sam7 #star trek voyager #fan fic

0 notes