Janeway tried not to be annoyed by the smarmy tone, but she was silently fuming at the search and seizure of their defensive capabilities. When Paris slyly commented, “I thought we weren’t going to call attention to ourselves,” she had a hard time restraining herself to a look that clearly said she was not amused.
Paris turned and bent over his panel with renewed concentration.
She knew he was only trying to relieve the tension, which was certainly running high right about now. She knew everyone was missing Chakotay and the effect his calming presence had on the bridge; the way he fluidly filled every gap, reassuring the crew with his steady eyes and even steadier belief that everything in the universe would work out exactly as it should. She reminded herself to check on him when things slowed down a bit.
“Proceed along the indicators, Mr. Paris.” She wondered what Chakotay would have thought of the Hub, a roughly egg-shaped mass spinning alone in space. Even from this distance, it was huge.
“I’ve never seen an asteroid shell the size of a small moon.”
“You are correct, Captain.” Tuvok raised one brow. “A solid core of titanium still exists within the asteroid shell.
Infrared readings are off the scale….”
“How many people are on that station?”
Kim sighed. “Uncertain, but I’m getting high activity in the microwave and radio wavelengths….”
“Are we reduced to the industrial age?” Janeway demanded.
Kim acted as if he didn’t want to admit it. “Basically, yes.
But I’m working on it.”
“Do that, Mr. Kim.” Patience, she reminded herself. But she didn’t enjoy being in such reduced circumstances—her ship should have the capability to do almost anything she wanted.
Speaking of patience… Torres popped up out of the access tube as if she’d been ejected. Janeway forced herself to remain motionless as her chief engineer dashed forward with her relentless energy, already talking as she crossed the bridge.
“That shouldn’t have happened, Captain! I isolated the junction and there was no damage to the circuity below the primary node….”
Torres trailed off as Janeway continued to look at her. “I want to know why it happened, Lieutenant, not the reasons it shouldn’t have.”
To Janeway’s relief, Torres immediately shut up, but the engineer gave the viewscreen a lingering look on her way to the starboard console.
As a new line of official, yellow and black indicator buoys swung in, the fuzzy outline of the Hub began to resolve into ships of all shapes and classes tethered to docking spires sticking out like spines from the hull.
Strung between the official buoys were larger, much more eye-catching units. These were complete with fluorescent, flashing lights and universal picture symbols of containers with fluid pouring out, and various stylistic renderings of humanoids that could conceivably be viewed as erotic. Or maybe she was giving them the benefit of the doubt. There were also brief snippets of discordant notes that must be what Tutopans considered music, and various booming advertisements reminiscent of the Gateway Pol greeting. Some of the sounds were untranslated, apparently not logged into the dedicated subprocessor.
“I’ve got the sound level down as far as it will go,” Janeway said.
“But the buoys seem to be compensating. Is there anything you can do?”
Tuvok looked pained, which stood to reason since his hearing was so much more sensitive than humans. “Negative, Captain.”
When they reached the end of the line of buoys, Voyager had to wait behind another vessel that was holding position next to a small outpost station. Enforcer patrol ships, their hulls painted rusty red, were docked to the long pier at the rear of the station, while the ship ahead of them had the bloated, luxurious design of an interstellar passenger liner.
When it finally moved off, sinking like a rock down to the Hub, another bored monotone interrupted the obnoxious advertising buoys. “Unaligned vessel Voyager, processing code 07531TG6, state your business in the Hub.”
Janeway had an extra tricorder ready in case Tuvok’s ran out of power.
“We are pursuing a freighter known as Kapon. They stole our main computer.”
For the first time, there was clearly a reaction from one of the Tutopans. “You mean your memory banks were absorbed?”
“No, the core was left intact,” Janeway explained. “But the entire processing unit was removed. It happened while we were in the asteroid belt of your secondary system.”
The monotone returned. “State your business in the Hub.”
“I told you, we’re attempting to locate the freighter Kapon,” Janeway repeated. “This is an emergency situation.”
There was a pause as if the docking official was accessing data.
“Vessel Kapon… aligned House Min-Tutopa. Arrived last shift, transporting salvage cargo. There will be no charge for this information.”
“No charge?” Janeway repeated incredulously.
“You may file a request for an appointment with an agent of House Min-Tutopa,” the voice continued. “For no additional charge.”
“Yes, I’d appreciate that,” Janeway replied. “Let me talk to someone who knows what’s going on.”
The official didn’t seem to notice her tone. “Please follow the indicator beacon to your docking assignment.”
As if in response, a yellow ball shot out of the front of the station.
It took up position directly in front of Voyager, then moved forward as if urging them to follow.
Janeway pushed herself up. “I’d like to file a complaint with your authorities about the theft of our computer.”
“You must appeal to one of the Houses to receive sanctions from the Cartel.”
“According to what you’ve told us, one of the Houses is responsible.
Can’t we appeal directly to the Cartel?”
“For sanctions? Against one of the Houses?” The official broke from his routine. “Where are you people from, anyway? The other side of the galaxy?”
“Yes,” Janeway snapped.
As if taxed beyond reasonable belief, the official’s interest disappeared. “Please proceed to your docking assignment,” he intoned.
“You’re holding up the line.”
The yellow beacon danced in front of Voyager, leading them a leisurely spiral down and around the Hub, as a stream of falsely upbeat advertising rolled through the speaker. When Janeway closed the channel, the beacon froze and began flashing urgently.
It only moved again when she reopened the channel, while a recording admonished them to “listen for further instructions.”
“A captive audience,” Janeway said under her breath. Rather than continue to fume over the delay or the noise, she took the opportunity to call sickbay. Kes reported that the doctor’s programs were still suffering intermittent failures, and they had only replicated enough antidote for half the crew so far. Ever the optimist, Kes added that everything was basically under control.
“Chakotay is conscious and requesting to return to duty,” Kes added.
“But the doctor wants to observe the effects of the antitoxin for a few more hours.”
“Understood,” Janeway acknowledged, setting aside the tricorder that was tuned to the sickbay frequency. She was starting to be surrounded by open tricorders—perched on Chakotay’s chair, on her monitor—and she was having trouble remembering which ones were which.
“I swear we’ve passed that docking spire already,” Paris complained.
“PTO-four-three, yes, I’m sure of it… only we were heading in from the port side last time.”
Helpfully, Kim offered, “There’s a lot of traffic around here; maybe flight patterns dictate a spiral approach.”
“More likely that docking clerk has a twisted sense of humor,” Paris replied.
Janeway kept her eyes on the Hub, noting familiar vessel designs as well as far more numerous ones she’d never seen before. There must have been a few hundred ships docked at the station, and once again, she remembered Chakotay’s warning that they were alone in this quadrant.
That reminded her of something else…. She took deep, calming breaths, imagining the beach where her spirit guide lived. She saw herself lying on the warm sand, with the sun beating down on her bare skin as the salty breeze refreshed her with its coolness. She liked to think of her spirit guide lying next to her, stretched out on a rock, its scales reflecting the strong light as its tongue lazily flicked out to sample the air.
Chakotay would be proud of her. As the ship neared their assigned pylon, she didn’t say a word of protest as Voyager followed the docking instructions dictated by the beacon.
Up front, she overheard Paris say to himself, “There comes a time when simulations end, and you find out what you’re made of.”
The pilot was actually sweating as he completed the difficult maneuvers, but if there was one thing Janeway trusted, it was that Paris knew how to fly. Her confidence was rewarded when the ship docked to the Hub with a whisper contact.
“Docking joints coupled,” Paris announced, with something like a sigh.
“Finally.”
“Nice work, Mr. Paris.” Two other ships were tethered to the same spire—the one to starboard was a large merchant vessel similar to the ones they’d seen crewed by Yawkins, an interrelated family group. To the port, a stumpy freighter was connected to the spire with elaborate coils of electrocable.
The beacon bobbed, and a final recording informed them, “Docking complete. Welcome to the Hub.”
“Thanks a lot,” Paris retorted.
“We’d have been here ages ago,” Torres added. “If they hadn’t kept interfering.”
“I’ve never heard of such rigid docking procedures,” Kim agreed.
Janeway felt practically serene after her pseudo-meditation.
“Now that we’re here, take all nonessential systems off-line.
Torres and Kim—I’ll want a full report on the damage to the ODN and the main core as soon as possible.”
Torres joined Kim at Ops. “Aye, Captain.”
“Tuvok, you’re with me,” Janeway added. She refused to endure any more faceless manipulations. “I believe we have an appointment with an agent of House Min-Tutopa.”
Paris casually turned to stop her. “Captain, navigation systems are locked down, and there’s nothing I can do until computer control is returned so request permission to go off duty.”
“Request denied,” she said instantly. “Paris, you have the bridge.”
“Me?” Paris glanced around dubiously. “But we’re docked.”
“Make the most of it while you can,” Janeway told him with a brisk slap on the shoulder.
Startled, he straightened up. “Aye, Captain!”
Paris pretended to jab at his control board, waiting until Kim and Torres followed Janeway off the bridge. Then he slumped back in his chair. The sound of Kim’s nervous voice trying to placate Torres had been even more irritating than Janeway’s refusal.
He’d already told the kid to give up, but he figured some people were too nice for their own good.
Shrugging off his jacket, Paris sauntered over to the captain’s chair.
Ensign Yarro at the environmental station eyed his gray undershirt, but she said nothing. Ah, the privileges of command…. Paris took his time, settling into the seat of power.
But he felt nothing. How could he, when they were stuck to the station like some dying parasite? His chin sank into his hand, as he brooded on the image of the Hub on the viewscreen. He could almost feel the teeming life within it, all those possibilities barely within his reach… and he was stranded on the bridge, a puppet-commander in charge of a papier-mache ship.
His eyes narrowed at the blinking lights of turbolifts transporting people to the interior of the station. Everyone knew the only realistic thing a pilot could do in spacedock was go on shore leave.
He swore to himself that he’d get into the Hub somehow… it was only a matter of time.
Tuvok deduced from the Captain’s relaxed gait on the way to Voyager’s primary docking port that Janeway had achieved a measure of calm, despite the series of unfortunate events.
Complying with her silent request, he refrained from postulating about their circumstances, intending to file a complete security report later.
He confirmed that the hard gangway had automatically extended from the docking pylon, allowing shirtsleeve access to the service deck. As Tuvok opened the port, he instituted a security lock requiring an authorized access code before entrance or exit would be permitted.
The small service deck was empty, yet Tuvok noted the existence of umbilical monitors, indicating the Hub was capable of full external support. Voyager would benefit from such a service, and he intended to include that fact in his security report.
Entering the docking lift, they were carried rapidly down the pylon.
After 16.4 seconds, the lift slowed and abruptly made a 180-degree roll. The gravity maintained a steady downward pressure, yet the captain emitted a sound that Tuvok associated with the tendency of human digestive systems to react adversely to unanticipated motions.
Tuvok prepared to administer whatever aid was necessary, when the lift came to a halt with a brief flash of white light.
A computerized voice announced, “Scan complete. You have been granted access to Lobby Five-eight.”
“Scan!” Janeway exclaimed, apparently controlling her autonomic reflexes. “They’ve scanned us?”
The door slid open.
“It would appear so.” Tuvok didn’t appreciate the personal invasion any more than Janeway did, but he continued to shunt the negative associations to a portion of his brain that would not interfere with his performance. He had already been grossly derelict in his duty in allowing the Tutopans to render the crew unconscious, and he fully expected the captain to log a reprimand in his permanent service record.
Upon leaving the lift depot, they emerged into a vast chamber.
The three slanting walls met in a point at the center, approximately fifty meters in height.
“A pyramid,” Janeway said, craning her head.
“Technically, this would be considered a tetrahedron,” Tuvok informed her. “If this room is a reliable indication, the interior framework of the asteroid is constructed on the geodesic principle.”