Cybersong (5 page)

Chakotay smiled. “Mr. Carey is an engineer and belongs down here.

And I think I can convince The Doctor to give me the supplies.

Besides, it will get me out of the stench.”

Carey grinned and shrugged. Cutting through interfaces with laser torches really did create an unpleasant aroma, acrid and harsh on nasal membranes.

He still felt very strange, alienated even from B’Elanna, with whom he had served in the Maquis and whom he had mentored through her tempestuous career.

And then the absurdity hit him. There was something very wrong if he felt alienated from B’Elanna, utterly unconnected and unwanted by someone he valued so highly. Someone he knew valued him.

And now he felt vaguely threatened. Paranoid, even, worried about what she might be thinking or planning.

This made no sense. He had been thinking about his feelings, wondering why he was ill at ease. And there was no real problem outside his head. The loneliness wasn’t linked to anything in real life at all.

This had nothing to do with him, Chakotay realized. There was something else wrong. Maybe the intuition that made it clear that no matter what the orders, the ship was heading straight into the tachyon field was giving him new information.

Only without the proper quiet and peace of mind he couldn’t use it, couldn’t follow the threads into the spirit world where he could see it all very distinctly.

Someone jostled him and muttered a perfunctory apology, racing back to another work crew. He tried to step out of the way, only to find himself walking over a set of implements of various size and color whose function he could not identify.

“Commander, could you pass me the two millimeter containment jib?” a young ensign asked.

Chakotay moved aside so that she could choose the tool herself.

He was definitely in the way here.

If he had some possible insight into the problem, something that might get them out of trouble, it was his duty to follow it as seriously as possible. When he was captain, he hadn’t cared where the information had come from, so long as it was useful.

And he certainly would have insisted that one of his senior officers with such a feeling follow it up and get whatever could be found.

Deciding that he would talk to the captain as soon as he could made him feel better. The loneliness was still there, debilitating if acknowledged. But he didn’t pay attention. Get to sickbay. Get the scalpels. That was more useful than anything else he could do on the crowded Engineering deck.

The thoughts occupied him in the turbolift until he arrived at sickbay, where he was greeted by The Doctor and Kes, both preparing for the worst. First aid supplies, normally stowed in cabinets, were laid out ready on tables. Medical tricorders and other equipment that was strangely reminiscent of the tools strewn across the flooring in Engineering was arranged next to bandages and a rank of prefilled hyposprays.

“Yes, what’s the matter, Commander?” The Doctor asked, visually examining the exec for any overt signs of trauma.

“Engineering needs several laser scalpels,” he said.

“I don’t have any to spare,” The Doctor replied. “The charges are low, and we’ve been put on alert. Medical supplies are a top priority.”

Chakotay didn’t want to argue. This was absurd. “You’ve got to be able to spare a couple,” he said. “I know that last month Ensign Ortega used one for an art project.”

“And didn’t return it. Why don’t you go hunt down Ensign Ortega?

We have work to do, if you don’t mind.”

Chakotay was about to turn and leave, feeling as if the effort to understand what had been going on had been futile. He was engulfed again, and worse. The Doctor turned his back and went to the office.

Chakotay went back to the door when Kes came up to him and touched his arm lightly. “You have to forgive him,” she said softly. “The strain is getting to everyone. Come, I’ll give you a few of the larger scalpels. We don’t have many Ordanu or Karesi in this quadrant to use them on.”

For the first time since they had entered the tachyon field, Chakotay smiled. “I’ve never even seen an Oradanu or Karesi, not the whole time I was in Starfleet. I think they don’t get out much.”

Kes handed over three wrapped packages. “If this won’t do, come back and talk to me. I’m sure I can find things that aren’t vital to sickbay.”

Chakotay thanked Kes warmly. He had had little interaction with the Delta Quadrant native. Their duties didn’t intersect and his health was excellent. He hadn’t considered her at all really a part of the ship’s crew, but was pleased to find himself impressed.

***

“Okay, people, let’s pull the plug,” B’Elanna Torres said. And every board at every control station in Engineering went dark.

All the colors disappeared and only the plain white worklights lit their forms.

“Well, if the computer’s gone crazy, it can’t do anything else to us now,” It. Carey observed.

“Computers don’t go crazy,” Torres said. “That’s just in stories.”

They were talking loud enough that most of Engineering could hear them.

Without the constant background noise of engines, the place seemed unnaturally quiet, haunted, maybe even dead.

But it was dead, B’Elanna thought. She felt its death as a visceral thing. She was connected to those drives, they lived inside of her, breathed with her.

And now they were silent.

“The computer is crazy,” Chakotay told the captain.

They were in her ready room, a comfortable space decorated with antique instruments and artifacts, mementos of various scientific expeditions.

Janeway was one of the few command officers who had started out in science. She had never lost the taste for it, and her interests were reflected all around her.

Tuvok, a silent presence behind the captain, raised an eyebrow.

“Indeed?” he asked.

“It’s the tachyon field. It has somehow affected either basic function or communications through the consoles, but essentially what it means is that the computer is not responding in the normal pattern.”

Captain Janeway smiled at that. “Well, we knew it wasn’t a normal pattern, but I hadn’t considered that the tachyon field might be disturbing our internal communications.”

“What about neural gel-packs in our computer? Maybe that’s where the sabotage is. Someone may have figured out how to do a program override and it’s broadcasting,” Chakotay insisted.

“There was nothing I could see that would lead to the idea that there was real sabotage involved. These gel-packs are the most likely candidate.”

“I concur,” the captain said softly, after a brief pause. She looked up sharply at her first officer. “We haven’t been able to get at the instructions that were in that pack. We don’t know what it could have contained.”

“They could not know how to program, or reprogram, on that level,” Tuvok stated. “It takes years to train a programmer.

There is no way anyone here could know our languages.”

“But logic is the same,” the captain said softly. “And the logical connections would transfer easily.”

Then she turned and studied Chakotay. She noticed the dark circles under his eyes and the tension in his mouth. “Commander, how long have you been on this shift?” she asked suddenly.

“Twenty hours, Captain,” the exec replied calmly.

“Get some rest, Commander” Janeway said. “Now. And that’s an order.”

It seemed for a moment as if Chakotay might protest. Then he left the ready room, presumably for his own quarters.

“I am still not convinced, Captain,” Tuvok said. “Computers do not `lose their minds,’ and there is no way some race unknown to us could learn to program that quickly. And Commander Chakotay has always been very protective of the former Maquis.”

“So you still think that it is sabotage,” Janeway said.

“I still think it is the most logical alternative,” Tuvok confirmed.

“I cannot think of another that has as high a probability.”

Janeway smiled wearily. “I have relied on you for a long time,” she said softly. “And I value your judgment. We will continue to pursue this line of questioning discreetly. But we will also have to start looking for some other possible explanations, because this strikes me as a very illogical sabotage. Why would any of our people want us any closer to this tachyon field? We don’t even know what’s there, and whatever it is has Neelix terrified.”

“Captain, many things create a strong reaction in Neelix. If he is a prime example of Talaxians, they are a highly emotional people,” the Vulcan observed dryly.

This time, real humor touched Janeway’s smile. “That may be true, Tuvok, but he knows the region better than the rest of us.

And I have no reason to doubt that whatever is inside that field could well be more dangerous to us than we realize.”

“Agreed, Captain,” Tuvok said.

Janeway led the way out of the ready room and back to the bridge of Voyager. The bridge crew glanced up at her and returned their attention to their stations, their faces shadowed with the colored lights of their control panels.

She noted the tense, worried expressions of her staff. They were scared, but they were maintaining discipline.

The symptoms of distress under strict restraint filled her with pride.

This was an exceptional crew. Though lost and despairing of home, they still worked with precision and attention to every detail.

“Captain, the readings still indicate that we are traveling at warp,” Tom Paris interrupted her musing. “That shouldn’t be possible, should it?”

“Is that a passive reading or computer-generated output?” the captain asked quickly.

“Computer generated, Captain,” Paris replied.

Janeway could almost hear the relief from Tuvok. “No, Mr. Paris,” she said. “The computer still thinks that it’s in charge of things, and so it is driving this ship at warp. But with the connections cut, it should effectively be out of the loop. Mr. Tuvok, will you confirm with Engineering that we are traveling at only impulse power?”

Before the Vulcan could say anything, B’Elanna Torres stepped out of the turbolift and onto the bridge. Energy crackled around her as she strode briskly to report.

“Captain,” she said. “We cut every connection and the warp core should be off-line. But we’re still generating power, and the ship is still headed toward the middle of that field. And we’re slower than we were before, but we’re not down to a stop yet.”

“Why not?” Janeway asked, perturbed.

“I don’t know why not,” the engineer said furiously. “According to everything I know about power control, that warp core should be cold.”

She practically spat out the last word, as if the fact that there was still some drive power left was a personal insult.

“Do you think there could be some kind of tractor beam pulling us in?”

Harry Kim asked ingenuously. “Or maybe there’s something very dense in there so we’re feeling the gravitation as well.”

“For it to be dense enough to be affecting us at this level, it would have to be a black hole,” Torres shot back. “And we aren’t getting any readings that indicate any serious mass in this region at all. Only those old dead ships out there.”

“Maybe they’re not so dead,” Paris interjected.

And suddenly the bridge was enveloped in dark. Not a single control panel was lit, and the giant forward screen was dead black. Even the service lights had died.

“Sit tight, people,” Janeway said. She couldn’t see anyone, but at least there were no footsteps sounding. Before she could say anything more, the screen lit up like a nova before them. And when she had recovered her sight through the red and yellow flash dots that floated in her retinas, Janeway saw a clear communication on the screen.

She sat up straighter. “I am Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation ship Voyager. We come in peace and mean you no harm.”

The beings did not seem to respond to this greeting. They were so close to human that it was hard to see the immediate differences. And they were not only fully humanoid, but all spectacularly beautiful.

Perfect bodies with sculpted muscles under faces so refined that the only image Janeway could think of was angels.

They all had different coloring; there was one with pale blue hair and matching eyes and skin the color of new snow, one with honey skin and golden hair, another with skin the shade of the midnight sky and hair sparkling silver white like the stars twinkling in the distance. Their semitranslucent garments draped fluidly, and with hair and skin all the colors of an artist’s palette, it was sometimes hard to discern what was flesh and what was clothing.

“We of the ship Lys are in desperate need of assistance,” said the woman with the indigo skin. Her voice was as fluid and mellifluous as her robe. “You are no doubt aware of the tachyon field that surrounds us. It makes communication and readings very difficult. Please, we beg you, come rescue us. Our drive is destroyed and we are in danger.

Please help us. Please come.”

“It’s a real signal, all right, Captain,” Harry Kim said.

“Kind of odd how it’s coming through the tachyon field when nothing else could,” Tom Paris added. “And we’re still heading for them whether we want to or not. Only, Captain, we’re not at warp speed any more. In fact, we’re on low impulse.”

“Oh,” B’Elanna Torres’s voice was unmistakable in the dark. “The warp core’s cool-down phase is on long duration. We did that to conserve power.”

“But it’s still dark,” Tom Paris pointed out as the lights came back on.

“I’d guess that the message was punched way up to get through the interference and overloaded the screen circuits,” Ensign Kim conjectured.

“Another thing we’ll have to fix,” Torres responded as if she were already on the second page of her list of repairs.

“How much longer until we’re in scanner range?” Janeway asked.

“An hour, four minutes,” Paris responded quickly. “At normal scan.

But with all this interference, I don’t know that we’ll be able to get decent readings.”

“Lieutenant Torres, could you use that hour to configure the scanners to filter the tachyon field?” Janeway suggested.