Cohesion

  “Seven…?” she began, and then bit off the word. No point in asking questions, she thought as she pressed the first switch in the restart sequence. Don’t think about what just happened. Don’t think about how you’re in a brick losing altitude damn fast. Don’t even think about the hole that you’re going to make in the landscape. Just start the engines. She touched the second switch in the restart sequence. Time crawled. Why is this taking so long!? One more switch and she would know if the engines were going to fire up. Emergency lights flickered on around her. At least the batteries are working. If the engines didn’t start…well, they had a couple of other options, but, again, no point in getting too far ahead of herself.

  Beside her, Seven said, “Lieutenant…”

  “Not now, Seven!”

  The shock wave crashed into the shuttle like a tsunami rolling into a paper boat. G forces crushed B’Elanna toward the stern, forcing her hands away from the console. Around her, lights flickered as the shuttle began to spin, sun flashing past the viewports. B’Elanna’s internal organs were smashed up against her trunk’s interior walls, and she would have vomited if the centrifugal force hadn’t been shoving everything down. I’m going to black out, she thought.

  The shuttle stopped spinning as suddenly as it began, jerking B’Elanna painfully against the harness straps, making her gag and retch.

  “Inertial dampeners on,” Seven announced. Somewhere behind B’Elanna, a panel burst apart in a shower of sparks. She looked back over her shoulder to see if the fire-control systems were functioning. Chemical extinguishers deployed out of the walls and two seconds later shut off.

  “Battery couplings,” B’Elanna said. “You just blew them out.”

  “It was that or die, Lieutenant.”

  Glancing out the window, B’Elanna could see that they were still spinning, but with the inertial dampeners on, they were not subject to the effect. Switching the dampeners on had been a brilliant idea, but such systems weren’t designed to turn on without having the engines turning over. She didn’t reply to Seven’s comment, but said instead, “We’re falling up.”

  “The shock wave,” Seven said, calmly checking her systems console. “We will begin to fall again in fourteen seconds. I suggest you restart the engines.”

  Biting back a suggestion of her own, B’Elanna began to work the console again. The shock had rescrambled all the shuttle’s systems, so she had to begin the sequence from zero. This time, she made it through, but when she hit the last control, every light on the navigation console flashed, then died. More showers of sparks behind her. Damn, damn, damn! Not good! B’Elanna thought. Why isn’t Voyager beaming us out? Maybe the radiation was blocking sensors again….

  Scanning the board in front of her, B’Elanna noted that the computer was rerouting power away from nonessential systems and trying to restart for her. Risking queasiness, she glanced out the window again and saw that they must have reached the peak of their arc and were beginning to fall again. “Any idea how high up we are?” she asked.

  “Not far enough up that gravity isn’t an issue, Lieutenant.”

  Right, B’Elanna thought, then added, Smartass. More lights on the panel were green, but the autostart wasn’t working. The batteries were shot. Reroute power from life-support, she thought. Those systems are on a separate power source. Of course, that would mean losing inertial control. “Brace yourself.”

  Not waiting for Seven to respond, B’Elanna pressed herself back as firmly as she could into her chair, mashing her head against the support, then touched the switch that would shunt power from life-support to the thrusters. Her last coherent thought was I hope we’re not pointed at the ground.

  Ready to scream, ready to bellow to the universe how unfair it was that she should die here and now, B’Elanna Torres saw her world turn red, then black.

  * * *

  Then there was white. The white was pain felt first behind the eyes, as if someone were touching the backs of the sockets with a white-hot welding torch. Opening her mouth so wide she heard her jaw crack, B’Elanna tried to scream, but couldn’t get air into her lungs. Another white-hot coal touched her neck, and B’Elanna tried to swat it away, but her arms were either too heavy or tied to the chair’s armrests. Seven! She’s pierced me with those damn tubules! She’s turning me into a Borg!

  “Lieutenant! Stop struggling!” Seven shouted. “We have little enough supplies as it is!” The white-hot coal hissed as it touched her again, B’Elanna’s skin charring and curling away from the brand.

  The pain receded. Everything felt lighter and B’Elanna’s arms floated up into the air over her head. White light turned pinkish and shapes came into focus. There was a blob in front of her and it was saying, “Can you hear me, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m fine,” B’Elanna said, though her mouth felt numb and her tongue was sandpapery. “Do we have any water?”

  The Seven-shaped blob disappeared, and B’Elanna heard rustling sounds. Illogically, B’Elanna found herself thinking of the kitchen cabinets in the house when she was a girl and her dad shifting objects inside while looking for something to make for supper. Neither he nor B’Elanna were particularly fussy eaters, so “cooking” was often a matter of juxtaposing items until they found two roughly compatible foods. Tomato sauce and beans? B’Elanna thought. Sure! Nothing wrong there! Replicated chicken and cucumbers? Both good so they’re good together!

  “What happened?” B’Elanna groaned.

  “You were unconscious when we landed,” Seven said. “The shuttle’s medical tricorder recommended I treat you for shock. We were without inertial dampeners for almost two minutes while the computer struggled to regain control of the shuttle.”

  “No,” B’Elanna said. “Before that. What happened? What knocked us out of the sky?”

  “I have not been able to access the sensor logs yet, but I believe we were struck by a shock wave.”

  “Well, obviously,” B’Elanna said testily. “But a shock wave from what? A weapon? An industrial accident? Some other kind of explosion? Was it directed at us or were we simply caught in the blast?”

  B’Elanna heard Seven sigh. “I repeat, Lieutenant, I have not had time to check the sensor logs. The discharge, whatever it was, disrupted our electrical systems, which suggests some kind of electromagnetic pulse.”

  Considering the options, B’Elanna asked, “Atomics? Could the Monorhans be using nuclear explosives? That would be insane.”

  “The Monorhans strike me as a desperate people. Desperate people do foolish things.”

  Cupping her forehead, B’Elanna collected her thoughts and considered Seven’s observations. She was right about the last thing: The Monorhans were desperate. But could their desperation drive them to start lobbing nuclear weapons at each other? And if that was the case, could she and Seven have absorbed a lethal dose? Well, not that Seven would worry about that…. Likely her nanoprobes had already converted the rems into useful packets of energy that the drone could live off of for centuries to come. She looked up at her companion and was annoyed to see that her outline was still fuzzy. “What’s wrong with my eyes?” she asked.

  “Your corneas were damaged by g forces,” Seven replied crisply, “but the drugs I have administered will deal with the worst of that effect. Your organs may also be bruised, but that will not be fatal. Merely painful.”

  “Yeah,” B’Elanna said as she tried to sit up. “Painful. Yes.” After struggling into a seated position, she felt so exhausted she wanted to lie back down again. “This has been another awful day.”

  “Really?” Seven asked. “I cannot say that I have noticed it is any worse than most of your days.” The comment confused B’Elanna. Is she saying that all my days are bad or that this one hasn’t been worse than most of them?

  “What do you mean?” B’Elanna asked as she surveyed the shuttle’s interior. The lights were on—a good sign—but the bulkheads were extensively charred and supplies had tumbled out of every cabinet onto the dec
k, a bad sign. Rough landing, she thought. Glad I missed it.

  Seven was checking the supplies in the emergency medical kit. “I have observed that you complain a great deal, Lieutenant, so my assumption is that all your days are bad.”

  “Shut the hell up!” B’Elanna exclaimed much too loudly. “OW!” Her ears rang and her eyes throbbed. “I thought you gave me some kind of analgesic.”

  “I did,” Seven said. “But not very much. We must ration supplies as we cannot be certain how much longer we will be here.”

  “What time is it now?” B’Elanna asked, wrestling the chair back into an upright position. “And how long has it been since we left the ship? Have they contacted us yet? I was surprised when there was no emergency beam-out. Maybe it’s better that we didn’t because, yow, Clemens is not gonna be happy.” She squinted at the navigation console. “I’m having trouble focusing. Is that supposed to happen?”

  Seven inhaled deeply, then sighed heavily and answered in rapid, clipped tones. “It is seventeen hundred hours and forty-two minutes. No, Voyager has not attempted to contact us and I have been preoccupied with other matters, so before you ask, no, I have not attempted to contact them. I, too, was surprised when there was no beam-out, but perhaps that speaks to the situation with regard to Voyager; that they were affected by the shock wave, too. Yes, Mr. Clemens will no doubt be angry, but his anticipation of trouble is what motivated him to install the emergency restart software packages, which saved our lives. And, last, yes, I am not surprised you are having trouble focusing; the damage to your corneas was extensive. It may take a few hours until they are fully repaired.” She inhaled again, then said more softly, “If you think you are feeling slightly…hyperactive…it may be a result of the mild stimulant I added to the hypo. I thought you might be feeling sluggish after the accident.”

  B’Elanna had wondered why the top of her scalp had been tingling. “Ah,” she said, but decided not to make an issue of it. Too many other things to do. “What’s our status? Do we have power? Sensors?”

  “Yes and yes. The engines are functional, though I fear the shuttle may have taken damage during reentry.”

  Another thought suddenly presented itself. “How are you, Seven? I seem to have taken the worst of it.”

  “Several of my ribs are broken, Lieutenant, and one of them pierced my left lung,” Seven said calmly. “Also, I strained my wrist and my hand was burned when I attempted to put out a small electrical fire.”

  B’Elanna squinted at her. Though fuzzy, Seven appeared more or less as she always did: composed, unflappable, serene in a cranky sort of way. “How can I help?”

  She shook her head. “The nanoprobes in my system are already at work repairing most of the damage, thank you.” She held up her hand and B’Elanna saw a small, gradually fading pinkish patch.

  “Must be nice,” B’Elanna commented, but did not add having a bunch of little robots crawling around in your bloodstream.

  “It has its advantages” Seven acknowledged. “We should attempt to contact Voyager. I find it troubling that they have not hailed us yet.”

  “Agreed.” B’Elanna checked the shuttle’s comm system. Green bars on all displays. She smiled. All things considered, the shuttle self-repair systems were doing their job. Chief Clemens would be pleased. “Voyager, this is the shuttle Montpelier. Please respond.” No one replied. She checked the system again, but found no problems.

  Seven was already working the sensors, but her knit brow told B’Elanna she was getting no satisfaction. “We’re approximately seven hundred kilometers from our intended destination,” she announced. “We’ve landed in what appears to be a dry lake bed and the sun will be setting locally in approximately twenty-two minutes.”

  “Wonderful. What exactly does this have to do with Voyager?”

  “Nothing, Lieutenant. I just thought you’d enjoy some irrelevant chatter while I worked. I assumed you would find it soothing.”

  B’Elanna closed her eyes and rubbed them, realizing she must still be in some light form of shock, because the only thought going through her head was Please, Tom. Please still be out there, because if she’s the only one left I may just have to kill myself. Or her.

  Seven continued to work for several more minutes until she finally announced, “Voyager is not there.”

  “Can you tell where she went? Did she leave orbit? If so, why? Did she attempt to land? Or…did something else happen?”

  Seven shook her head. “There is insufficient information, Lieutenant. Also, the local radiation levels…”

  “…Make it very hard to scan. Right. But is there any evidence of a matter-antimatter explosion? That would show up no matter what.”

  “None.”

  “Well, that’s something. She didn’t blow up.”

  “The core did not blow up,” Seven corrected. “The ship might have been destroyed without the core being damaged.”

  “All right,” she snapped. “Fine. It could have happened. But probably not. So let’s focus on the most likely possibilities. What are they?”

  “That Voyager was forced to leave orbit in order to avoid the shock wave is the most likely scenario,” Seven reasoned. “A secondary possibility is, as you said, the ship was forced to land, perhaps on some other part of the planet. If that happened, communication may be difficult to achieve without an orbital relay—”

  B’Elanna pointed at the Borg, then turned back to the communication console. “Good!” she said. “Very good! I should have thought of that!”

  “We do not have communication satellites, Lieutenant. Unless Chief Clemens has been working overtime.”

  “Was that a joke?”

  “Not intentionally.”

  “Didn’t think so,” she said, and pulled up a map of the sky directly overhead. Squinting to keep her eyes focused, B’Elanna scanned the heavens for several minutes. “Hello,” she said at last.

  “You have found a communications satellite?”

  “Not exactly. It’s some kind of low-orbit surveillance drone, I think. Somebody obviously doesn’t trust somebody else. Maybe it recorded what happened to Voyager.”

  “What leads you to believe it was not pointed at the planet?”

  B’Elanna paused to stare at her. “If an alien starship suddenly appeared in the sky above your world, what would you do with your spy satellites?”

  Seven considered, then said, “I concede the point.”

  Wow, B’Elanna thought as she absentmindedly punched through the spy satellite’s laughable encryption software and accessed the playback routines. Something is finally going right today.

  * * *

  Harry Kim bent double, gently touched his forehead to the long-range sensor console, and begged, begged his stomach to continue to play nice with the tomato soup he had for lunch. Please, he thought. I do not want to have to explain to B’Elanna why she needs to disassemble the whole console and clean every component. The thought of his friend’s ire gave him the necessary resolve, and Harry felt his nausea recede. Glancing up over the console, he was moderately gratified to see that he was not the only person the energy wave had distressed. With a grace and composure Harry did not think he could ever possess, Clarice Knowles at the pilot’s station quickly turned her head to the left, spat up something into an empty coffee cup, then turned her complete attention back to her board. Ensign Grench, who had been manning the security station, abruptly became as stiff as a board and fell face-forward onto the deck.

  Startled, Harry looked around the bridge to make sure that no one else was tumbling over, saw that no one was, then realized that no one else had seen Grench collapse. Knees rubbery and wobbling, Harry staggered the three steps across the deck to where Grench lay and began a cursory examination. “Grench?” he said, and tried to turn the Bolian over. “Can you hear me?”

  Grench’s eyes were open and his lips were moving, but only incoherent sounds emerged. A moment later, his entire body began to jerk and spasm and a thin yellow
foam oozed from the corners of his mouth, clashing garishly with the Bolian’s blue skin. Harry pulled away, inexplicably frightened that the Bolian might have a horrible new disease, but then his training caught up with his fear. “He’s having a seizure,” Harry said aloud, more to get his own brain started than to inform anyone on the bridge.

  “Make sure he doesn’t swallow his tongue,” Knowles shouted over her shoulder. A lifetime of first-aid classes came flooding back, and he pried open Grench’s mouth to make sure his airway was clear. Satisfied that the Bolian was breathing, Harry leaped up, found a padd, and yanked the heavy stylus from the clip. Hoping that Bolians didn’t have extra-powerful jaw muscles, he inserted the stylus between Grench’s teeth and watched for several seconds to make sure he wouldn’t accidentally swallow it. Harry tapped his combadge and called sickbay, but was answered by the Doctor’s automated triage program.

  “Please state the nature of the medical emergency. Give as much detail as necessary, your location, and steps being taken to treat the patient.”

  “It’s Harry Kim, Doc, on the bridge. Ensign Grench is having a seizure. He’s breathing and I don’t think he’s in any immediate danger. I, uh, shoved a stylus between his jaws.”

  When he stopped talking, the program parsed Harry’s report and replied, “Thank you, Ensign Kim. Your emergency has been assigned a B priority. Your treatment for Ensign Grench is acceptable. Please call again if Ensign Grench’s condition appears to grow worse. Someone from sickbay will contact you as soon as possible.”

  Great, Harry thought as he rose. Sickbay must be swamped. Still, that triage program seems to be working. That was a good idea….