“Torres should be in position shortly.” Janeway settled into her chair. “Mr. Paris, I’d like to pick up some speed if this works.”
“Aye, Captain!” Paris sounded as if he couldn’t wait.
Kim crossed his fingers, carefully making sure no one else could see.
He hoped Torres was right.
Torres crawled through the narrow access tube to the junction node at the base of the computer core. Through the wire-mesh catwalk above her, she could see the three-story shaft in the center of the core. Blue nutrient gel was slowly dripping through the mesh on one side, sliming the interior of the access tube.
It wasn’t easy working in a space the size of a small doghouse.
Wondering why the designers hadn’t foreseen the need for easy access to this junction, Torres closed the top port using the manual wheel. When the bottom port was also sealed, she flicked open the tricorder.
“Captain, I’m ready to shut down the subspace field.”
“Proceed,” Janeway ordered distantly.
Torres keyed in the long command sequence that overrode traditional, Starfleet fail-safes and redundancies. Too many, if you asked her.
“Junction closed—” she started to say, watching the series of red indicators flick on.
The next thing she knew, she was slammed against the rear wall of the Jeffries tube.
The viewscreen leaped, and Kim managed to grab hold before the ship shot forward. In rapid succession, it executed a bizarre series of maneuvers, then froze, shuddering. Abruptly, the lights shut off, leaving only the red wounded glow of emergency power.
Kim realized he was draped over his console. The captain was fumbling with the navigation controls, while Paris was crumpled against the front wall under the screen. Stars were drifting across the viewscreen in a lazy, oblique slide as the Tutopan vessels scattered out of their way.
“No response from helm!” the captain called.
“Captain!” Tuvok called out. “Phasers firing.”
“Override!” Janeway ordered.
But it was too late to stop the iridescent phaser trail that shot out, disappearing into the distance. Kim’s throat caught as several more bursts were sent out in erratic directions, narrowly missing the one of the vessels.
“We are experiencing a spontaneous discharge,” Tuvok announced flatly.
“The electroplasma system is overloading.”
A gravity flux hit the bridge, mashing Kim’s face against the plasteel surface of the terminal. He was stuck there, unable to move, his heart laboriously pounding under the stress.
Then it released.
“Inertial damping malfunctioning,” he announced, breathless.
“We can see that, Ensign.” Tuvok still managed to maintain his air of calm, even with his shiny hair sticking up on one side.
Paris crawled back to his console. “Plasma valving into the warp coils from the power transfer conduits. Automatic venting—” A flash lit the viewscreen, practically blinding Kim with the blue-white brightness of precious energy being dispersed into space.
“—of plasma injection system,” Paris finished.
Janeway leaped for her tricorder. “Torres—get that junction back on-line!”
Torres realized she was lying on her back, staring at the curved ceiling of the tube. She could actually feel the ship moving, straining against itself. This shouldn’t be happening…
The captain’s order got Torres moving, but her mind was still reeling with denials as she tried to get up. Half-dazed, she bent over the control panel, trying to remember the codes.
The ship lurched again, followed immediately by the captain’s query, “Torres, report!”
“I’m trying…” the engineer called out, righting herself.
What she really wanted to say was—this shouldn’t be happening…
The Ops control panel was off-line again, just as it had been before they reestablished the subspace integrity in the core.
Janeway met Kim’s gaze as she hung on to the rail, the tricorder clutched in her hand. I knew this was a bad idea…. But Kim didn’t have the heart to say it out loud.
Kes called through the tricorder. “Captain? This is sickbay.
Something’s wrong with the doctor—” “Kes, we need to keep this line open,” Janeway interrupted.
“But he’s just standing there, frozen. I can touch him, but his eyes are blank.”
“Stand by,” the captain ordered. “The core will be reconnected any moment.” The ship shook and accelerated again. “Torres.”
Kim felt the ship lift beneath him, and knew exactly how helpless an earthquake victim felt. He couldn’t hold on through the violent bucking, as the ship let off another phaser burst.
Then abruptly they paused, hanging motionless.
“No response from helm!” Paris called out, frantic.
Kim tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. As his grandfather would say, “Looks like the jig is up!” Kim wasn’t sure what that meant, but if it didn’t refer to a situation like this one—drifting helplessly in space as a pack of pirates prepared to descend on them—then he didn’t know what it could mean.
Suddenly, all systems powered up, obliterating the emergency lights.
Kim’s ears popped, and he had to open his mouth wide to equalize the pressure difference. When he could, he said, “ODN is back on-line.
Systems returned to Reduced Power Mode.”
Paris was sitting with his legs braced far apart, just in case.
“I have thrusters.”
“We lost almost a quarter of our energy reserves,” Kim added.
The captain stood up, tucking a stray strand of hair into her bun.
“Ahead, on our original course.”
Kim didn’t know how she could act so calm after all that. Then he wondered if maybe it was no act, maybe this was just par for the course in Starfleet.
“Ahead at forty meters per second,” Paris confirmed.
Kim decided to emulate the captain, even if he felt like mush on the inside. He quickly completed a level-five diagnostic.
“Basically, we’re back where we started. Systems are functioning intermittently.”
“Vessels are retreating,” Tuvok announced.
“Wouldn’t you?” Paris asked. “After that little display, they don’t know what we could do next.”
“Holding at a distance of one hundred thousand kilometers,” Tuvok confirmed.
Janeway sat down gingerly, as if she’d pulled something in that last tumble. “Not exactly what I had in mind, but it seems to have had the effect we wanted. As long as they think were unpredictable and violent, they’ll stay away from us.”
“Maybe that’s not the reason,” Kim said, staring at the readings.
He hoped he didn’t sound as frightened as he felt. “There’s a large structure dead ahead.”
“The Hub?” Paris asked.
“Confirmed,” Tuvok said impassively. “We are approaching a space station approximately fifty kilometers in diameter.
“Fifty?” Paris repeated incredulously.
Tuvok ignored him. “There is a break in the outer defensive perimeter delineated by the buoys.”
On the viewscreen, the two ends of the line of buoys came together directly ahead, narrowing into a funnel shape that joined with the end of a long cylindrical structure. The Hub loomed beyond it in the distance, with the movements of dozens of ships clear even from their position outside the perimeter.
“The emission trail is fading,” Tuvok informed them. “Apparently due to heavy traffic in this area.”
Kim decided he didn’t like looking down the maw of that cylindrical structure. Its exposed girders and platforms were made of some sort of melted material, and it seemed raw and unfinished. Yet the brisk warning lights and the careful line of buoys leading to the opening indicated everything was in perfect working order.
“Looks like a huge construction dock,” Paris offered.
“They don’t want us to go through that thing,” Kim protested, eyeing the threatening structure.
“We may have to,” Janeway said grimly. “If we want to find the Kapon.”
Janeway glanced around the bridge and realized the ensign was voicing doubts many of them had. It was no wonder—they’d been so cautious about entering this system, yet look where it had gotten them. If she had a counselor on board, he’d probably be ready to have a seizure over the ragged edges that were showing in her crew.
After everything that’s happened, how can I blame them?
Especially when their only option seemed to be that intimidating structure ahead. She wondered if that was the effect the Tutopans had intended. If nothing else, the utilitarian severity certainly indicated a lack of concern for the technicians who must maintain it.
She stood up, facing the perimeter structure. She’d learned from hard experience that when all else failed, the captain must maintain at least the illusion of control.
“Our processor was taken in there,” Janeway told the crew. “And we’re going in after it.”
“Aye, Captain!” Kim instantly replied, even though she hadn’t given him an order.
Janeway suppressed a smile, pleased that some old tricks still worked, even if it was only on young ensigns. “Tuvok, can you give me ship-to-station communications?”
“Affirmative,” he said, as if he had been prepared for her request.
“In emergency mode, the tricorder will send burst data transmissions directly to the transceiver network of the ship.
However, the Universal Translator is off-line, and the signal will be decrypted only if the lingual patterns have already been recorded in the dedicated subprocessor.”
“We’ve been dealing with Tutopans for days, I trust we’ll be fine.”
Janeway adjusted the tricorder’s mode operation, and opened a channel.
After a few moments the tiny speaker echoed with a hiss-garbled drone, “What is your business at Gateway Pol? What is your business at Gateway Pol?”
Janeway readied herself to speak, but Kim interrupted in a stage whisper, “Captain—data storage will be reduced in burst mode, so keep it short.”
Janeway knew she looked sour, but she spoke into the tricorder, “This is Captain Janeway of the Starship Voyager. We’re looking for the freighter Kapon.”
There was a hesitation, as if switching recordings. “Place your engines on standby and await further instructions. Place your engines on standby and await further instructions. Place your engines…”
A slight jolt shook the ship.
“What was that?” Janeway asked over the sound of the tricorder.
“The perimeter structure has locked on with a tractor beam,” Tuvok replied. “Holding position.”
“Barely,” Paris added, trying to make helm cooperate. “I can’t get it to respond fast enough….”
The recording continued to blithely order, “Place your engines on standby and await further instructions. Place your engines…”
“Auxiliary fusion generators are being stressed to red-lines,” Kim warned.
“Cut power,” Janeway ordered. Every instinct told her not to give into such preemptory action, but if the auxiliary generators blew, they’d lose their last source of power. She spoke into the tricorder.
“Gateway Pol, please explain why you have locked on to us with your tractor beam—” The tricorder beeped, interrupting transmission. The green power level indicator was all the way down, and the red warning signal was fading even as Janeway examined it. “You’re right, Mr. Kim, it does use a lot of primary power.”
Tuvok stepped forward to hand Janeway a different tricorder.
“Science tricorders have secondary generators. This one should last longer.”
“Captain!” Paris called out. “We’re being drawn in.”
Janeway glanced up as the structure loomed closer. The open mouth was big enough to swallow a ship twenty times the size of Voyager, and the interior of the cylindrical framework was lumpy with globular units, deflector dishes and emitter grids.
“Any idea of the function of those devices?” Janeway asked in general, adjusting the science tricorder for ship-to-station communication.
“They appear to be scanners of some sort,” Tuvok replied.
When she opened the tricorder channel, the recording was repeating, “Stand by for processing. Stand by for processing.”
“Please explain the processing procedure.” Janeway hoped her voice would carry the weight of her her demand, even if she did have to keep it short.
The recording continued to blithely repeat itself as they neared the structure. Janeway didn’t want to waste tricorder power trying to fight with a nonentity, so she waited impatiently until a bored voice broke through. “Present your House identification.”
“We have no House identification,” Janeway replied. “Please explain why are you holding us in your tractor beam.”
“Did you not request entrance to the Hub?”
“No, I didn’t,” Janeway replied. “We’re in pursuit of the freighter Kapon.”
“For information you must proceed to the Hub,” the voice said.
“Stand by for processing.”
“Wait—exactly what does this processing entail?” Janeway broke off with an indrawn breath as the structure seemed to leap forward, sucking them inside. A fuzzy red haze obscured the interior walls.
“Deflectors and tactical systems are being scanned,” Tuvok announced.
“Down to quantum levels.”
“Shields?” Janeway asked, even though she knew the answer.
“Unable to block the scanners.”
Abruptly, the red haze dissipated, and Voyager shot out the other end of the structure, turning slightly as it slowed. Janeway felt no movement from her ship, and had to admit the Tutopans knew stasis fields. She could tell the moment when the stasis shut off and they were under their own power again.
“Thrusters back on-line,” Paris exclaimed, busy regaining control of the ship.
The Pol voice intoned, “Unaligned vessel Voyager, processing code 07531TG6, proceed along the indicators to receive your docking assignment.”
“They got everything,” Kim groaned. “They might as well have our structural blueprints.”
“They may be able to use this technology,” Tuvok commented.
Janeway didn’t answer with the obvious retort—I tried to stop them—knowing the Vulcan was simply noting the facts.
Suddenly the tricorder blasted out a melodic run of notes.
Janeway flinched as it was followed by a recording at least ten decibels higher and far more animated than any Tutopan they’d encountered thus far: “Welcome to the Hub! You have entered through gateway Pol. Please have your House identification code ready for the docking official. And remember when you leave, process through gateway Pol!”