Cohesion

  * * *

  Sickbay was crowded, but Harry managed to make a spot for himself in a corner near a computer station so he could watch the sensors. The Doctor stood nearby, fussing over his medkit, probably mildly resenting having his sanctum turned into a shelter. Harry noted with approval that the Doc was wearing his holoemitter, though when he thought about it, he realized they had no reason to assume the twenty-ninth-century technology was any more immune to the radiation.

  Listening to the captain’s orders through his combadge, Harry watched the sensor feed as the deflector came online and the first of the torpedoes hit the twisted end of the bag. Then, without warning, a crippling, numb sensation enveloped Harry’s mind like a sodden blanket. Feeling the panel under his hands, he was vaguely aware that he was supposed to be doing something, watching something, but he couldn’t remember what or why or even how to keep his eyes focused.

  “Mr. Kim?” Harry heard the Doctor speak, but could not lift his head to look around. “The shields must have collapsed. It’s much worse this time, isn’t it?” Harry’s knees buckled and his chin collided with the top of the panel. “My readings show sickbay is receiving twelve times more…”

  Harry heard a clatter as something heavy fell to the deck. Dropping to his knees, he forced his eyes open and scanned around himself. There—to the left of his hand—something blocky and familiar: a medical tricorder. To his right he saw the Doctor’s feet shuffling around and around in tight circles. Emergency klaxons began to blare while beneath his hands, Harry Kim thought he felt the deck growing insubstantial.

  * * *

  In their assigned quarters, Ziv and his hara writhed on the deck, their minds roiling in torment. The Voyagers had warned them this might happen. The captain had even sent Neelix down to stay with them, and the hara had settled down to wait, Ziv at the center of a circle, all wishing they had something to do. The first time they had been exposed to the subspace radiation, none of the hara had felt anything worse than a mild tingle, but this, this was much more than anything Neelix or the others had described. The Talaxian fell to the floor, instantly unconscious. Jara and Shet cried out incoherently while Mol vomited. Ziv felt each of them drop out of the link, their minds swallowed up by an inarticulate hum until he was left desolate, trapped within his own mind. He curled around himself, ready to tumble into the void because anything, anything would be better than the wretched isolation.

  Without warning, Ziv felt a voice in his mind, the special twinge that meant the rih-hara-tan was communicating with him. But how? Ziv asked, struggling to focus his eyes. She’s not here. Even considering the special bond a rih-hara-tan shared with her shi-harat, mental contact from outside a room was impossible. And yet, he heard Sem in his mind. She had done something—something she had been pleased about, but now regretted as a mistake.

  This is very bad, Ziv thought, pushing himself up off the deck. She did not like to make mistakes.

  * * *

  “What is wrong with all of you?”

  Janeway heard the words despite the fact that she had her head down between her legs. She was vaguely aware that the lift doors had opened, and that someone had entered the bridge, but could not summon the will to look up. The exposure to the radiation in the subspace fold on the two previous occasions had been wrenching and unpleasant, but this time the effect manifested itself as a blinding, searing pain set directly behind her eyes and at the roots of her teeth. She started to count just to keep her mind working, marshalling all her resources to keep the numbers in order. I can take this, she thought. I can. “Tom,” Janeway shouted. “Are we moving?”

  No answer. Janeway forced her eyes open and saw that the pilot was slumped over the helm console, his fingers feebly gripping the top edge so he wouldn’t slide out of his chair. Brilliant lights flashed on the main monitor as another of the preprogrammed array of torpedoes burst against the twist in the subspace fold. Dammit! she thought, and pushed herself up out of her chair.

  “What is wrong with you?” Janeway heard again.

  Someone—some idiot—was speaking to her. All around her, Janeway heard groaning and muttering, the sounds of men and women grappling with their agony.

  In the periphery of her vision, Janeway saw that Tuvok was unconscious on the floor. Whatever is happening here is harder on him than it is on us. To her left, Chakotay was still moving. He was looking at her. No…past her. Janeway finally turned and saw only…light.

  “Captain Janeway,” said a voice from the center of the light. “I demand you tell me what is happening!” Janeway felt another hand on her other shoulder. Both hands gripped hard and small bones crunched. Pulled up sharply, the voice from the light snapped at her impatiently. “Is this some sort of trick?”

  How can a ball of light scream at me? Janeway wondered. The voice. She knew the voice. Janeway squinted against the glare and tried to shield her eyes, but could not lift her hands.

  “And the noise!” the voice shouted. “Why does it have to be so loud?”

  The klaxon was sounding again. How many times is that in the last twenty-six hours? she wondered. Three? Four?

  The voice was still shouting: “You’re not listening! Tell me what is happening!”

  How absurd, Janeway thought distractedly. A petulant ball of light. The idea that Q might have come for a visit slogged through her mind, but she dismissed it. No, the voice is wrong. Everything was wrong. She was so very tired, and her shoulders ached horribly where they were being gripped. Pain overcame exhaustion and she decided she had to break free. Kicking out feebly, she felt contact and heard a sharp “Oof!”

  That worked, Janeway thought and decided it felt so good she would do it again. Setting one foot, she planted the other, half-turned, and jabbed, but felt her leg caught at the ankle and held in place. “Not there!” the voice shouted.

  “Warning,” the computer intoned. “Autopilot has been disengaged.”

  “Let her go!” someone cried. “You’ve done enough damage, Sem! Get away fom that interface!”

  The ball of light shouted back, “They won’t tell me what’s happening, Ziv! I don’t think they can tell me what’s happening. They don’t know anything!”

  Sem? Janeway thought, then lashed out with her free foot, the pain in her collarbones increasing a hundredfold. Balls of light don’t have bones, she thought happily. Sem released her grip and Janeway crashed to the deck, her coccyx cracking painfully against the edge of the seat.

  A shadowy figure rushed past her and bore the ball of light down onto the deck beside the helm station. The two figures, one light and one dark, flailed wildly at each other, both pumping and pummeling. Wild grunting noises filled the bridge and the pungent smell grew sharper and more penetrating.

  Enough of this, Janeway thought and pressed herself up again despite the agony in her head and her lower back. Once she was on her feet, she allowed gravity to do its work, tipping forward, falling on Tom’s back, and though she hoped she didn’t injure him, she knew the welfare of one crewman was less important at the moment than getting the ship moving.

  Button, button, where’s the button? The near-incoherent thought swirled around in her head, and she cursed herself for her foolishness. There! Janeway found the correct row of switches and activated the thrusters. Fortunately, Tom had keyed the entire sequence to a macro, so what normally would have required several commands required only one. Voyager lurched forward, the underpowered inertial dampeners struggling to compensate for the leap to full impulse.

  Looking up at the monitor, Janeway saw a gap in the unchanging white, a burst of energy, and then blackness as the overloaded sensors shut down the feed. Suddenly, the agony lifted and the captain gratefully lowered her weight onto the deck, careful not to drop onto Tom again. They had created a gap and gone through it…to what? She would find out in a moment. For now she was grateful to simply rest her eyes.

  * * *

  “Don’t move, Captain,” Chakotay shouted to be heard over the
klaxon.

  “Chakotay?” she stammered. “What happened?”

  “I think Sem somehow turned off the autopilot.” The klaxon suddenly died and Janeway heard Chakotay speaking into his combadge: “We need the Doctor up here.” Janeway tried to sit up, but Chakotay gently pushed her back down. “The way you fell,” he said softly. “I want the Doctor to take a look at you.”

  There was a long pause during which Janeway had a moment to reorient herself and recall everything that happened in the past few minutes. Struggling to see around Chakotay, she spied two crumpled Monorhan bodies to the left of the helm: Sem and Ziv. Was either still breathing? She couldn’t tell for certain, but she thought they both were. Finally, she heard Harry Kim say, “Bridge, this is sickbay. I’m sending up an auxiliary med team.”

  “Is the Doctor busy?”

  “Not exactly, Commander. There’s a problem with the holo-matrix. He’s missing…parts.”

  “Parts?”

  “Important parts.”

  Chakotay frowned, but did not let the anxiety in his face creep into his voice. “Okay, Harry,” he said. “Stay there and coordinate. I expect you’ll be seeing patients soon.”

  “Understood. Is the captain there?”

  “Yes, but she can’t respond…”

  “I’m here, Harry. What is it?”

  “Captain, I’m reading that the main monitor is down. Could you try to bring it up? I’m looking at something through the sensor feed I think you’ll want to see.”

  “Help me up, Chakotay,” she said under her breath. He sighed, but did as he was asked, then helped Janeway settle into her chair. “Tom,” she asked. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tom said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry about not…”

  “Belay that, Mr. Paris. Get the monitor up.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” Tom’s fingers danced over the console and a moment later the main monitor lit up. The background noise on the bridge died down as everyone stared up at the image.

  “Harry,” the captain asked. “What are we looking at?”

  “It’s what you told me we might see, Captain,” Harry said. “It’s the Blue Eye.”

  * * *

  Before she opened her eyes, B’Elanna was aware of the scent of clean sheets right out of the ’fresher, a smell that people made a big deal about, but she honestly didn’t care about one way or another. Except this time. This time it was wonderful, special, the most delightful aroma she had ever experienced. She rolled forward and, eyes still shut, pressed her face into her pillow. They found us, she thought. They got us and I’m back on the ship…back home.

  This last thought struck B’Elanna as funny, what with all the complaining about Voyager she had been doing of late, but where had she ever lived that was any more her home than this ship? Back on Earth with her savage mother and emotionally damaged father? At the Academy? Even in the Maquis? None of these places had ever really felt right. B’Elanna Torres had never found a home because she didn’t know what home meant. But maybe here, she decided, feeling the soft cotton against her cheek and nose. Catching a whiff of Tom Paris on the pillow next to hers, she smiled. Maybe here.

  Her door chimed and B’Elanna lifted her head. The lights were set low, but not off. Tom must have put her to bed after they picked her up, then gone back on duty. Where was her clock? Not in its usual place. “Computer?” she called, but nothing replied. Must be offline, B’Elanna thought, sighing. Gone for a few hours and everything goes to hell.

  The door chimed again. “Door, unlock.” Again, no response. “Damn,” B’Elanna said, the pleasant sensation of justifiable pique creeping into her. She threw off the comforter and was surprised how chilly the air was against her skin. Environmental systems are off, too. This was not good. Voyager must have had a rough time wherever she had been after they disappeared. Of course, whatever had gone wrong, the situation mustn’t be too out of hand or the captain wouldn’t have let her sleep.

  Sitting up, she felt a peculiar ache in her neck and shoulders. Touching herself just under the chin, B’Elanna found a tender spot, like the new skin grown with a dermal regenerator. Kaytok, she remembered. He attacked me. Why did he do that?

  B’Elanna heard a dull thud: her visitor pounding on the door. Slipping out from under the covers, she found she was wearing clean undergarments, but nothing else. She wondered absently how Tom could have managed that and smiled at the thought. Bet he enjoyed that. The cool air raised goose bumps on her flesh and she ran across the floor, blood pumping effervescently through her veins.

  When she pressed the manual override, the door slid open and revealed a slightly peeved Tom Paris holding a tray of food. “Hey,” he said. “I figured when I locked the door behind me I’d be able to open it again. Someone should fix this.”

  Grinning, B’Elanna took an edge of the tray and drew Tom inside the doors. Then, taking the tray from his hands, she set it on the end table and stepped into the circle of his arms. “That’s breakfast,” he said.

  “I’m not hungry,” she replied (a terrible lie, but food could wait), and threw her arms around his neck, joyful to feel his warmth against her. Arms closed around her waist and Tom lifted her so that her mouth was on a level with his own. They kissed, tenderly at first, but with increasing urgency, one of Tom’s hands at the back of her head and the other stroking her spine under her T-shirt. B’Elanna curled one of her legs around Tom’s upper thigh and gently bit his lower lip, a signal he knew well. Tom stooped, dropped his arm under her legs, stood with B’Elanna cradled against him, and walked to the bed.

  Feeling her feet leave the floor, Seven of Nine flailed, kicked her legs, and squirmed like a small child who was being carried away to an early bedtime. Paris lost his grip and dropped her legs, but held on to her waist so that she fell awkwardly to the ground. “What’s wrong?” Paris asked.

  Seven half-stood and crabwalked toward the bulkhead, too confused to respond. Where was she? How had she been transported back to Voyager without her remembering it? And what was she doing in B’Elanna Torres’s quarters? Paris approached her again, still smiling, but obviously confused. “Are you all right, hon?”

  “Lieutenant Paris,” Seven said, taking another awkward step backwards. “I think there’s been a mistake…” She looked down at herself and felt her confusion grow even greater. She was wearing nothing more than a couple of pieces of thin cotton undergarments. What happened to her uniform? Looking up at Paris, she felt a cold fury rise up within her. She had always known Paris had a lascivious temperament, but this was too much. “I must report this to the captain, Lieutenant. You give me no choice.”

  Paris shrugged. “Report what?” he asked. “It was her idea.”

  The captain’s idea? This was too much. Captain Janeway had finally gone too far. Seven tried to respect her ideas, but this, this was too much. Touching the wall behind her, Seven groped along it until she felt the edge of a doorway. Spinning, she lunged through the door and heard it snap shut behind her. The bathroom. This would do. She would program the replicator to give her a new uniform, then call…someone. Commander Chakotay perhaps. Or Tuvok. He would have no tolerance for this behavior.

  The room lights blinked on and Seven found herself staring into the large mirror over the sink. Humans, she thought. So vain. Seeing that a strand of hair had fallen down over her forehead, Seven lifted it with the intent to tuck it back into place.

  Something was wrong with her forehead. Leaning closer, she saw a shadow, a ridge. Reaching up, Seven touched her forehead and found…bumps. What had happened? Who had done this to her? Running her fingers along the ridges, she saw she now had the subdermal bony plate of a Klingon female. Fury overtook her and she punched the door control.

  “Lieutenant Paris!” she shouted, the blood running hot in her veins. Paris was standing next to the tray of food, idly picking at a repugnant pile of bacon slices. Seven suddenly felt her mouth awash in saliva at the thought of cooked meat.
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  “What is it? Want some bacon?” Seven curled her hand into a fist and aimed at Paris’s face but did not connect, and instead she grabbed the bacon from Tom’s hand. Seven stuffed it in her mouth. She was almost overcome by the disgusting, wonderful texture and revolting, lovely salty tang. Closing her eyes, she savored the flavor, but then opened them abruptly when she felt arms around her shoulders and waist. “See?” Paris said. “You were just hungry.”

  B’Elanna squirmed, enjoying the kiss on her neck, but still more interested in the bacon. Tom’s attentions quickly became more insistent and she considered letting herself become distracted. Turning, she lifted her mouth to his and touched her slightly greasy lips to his. Laughing, Tom asked, “Are you okay now?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, reaching up to touch his cheek. “I’m just glad to be back with you.” Two thin tubules emerged from the backs of her wrists, snaked up over her fingers, and gently pierced the flesh at Tom’s temples. His eyes rolled up in his head and his neck muscles grew taut. Traceries of tiny black webbing ran out in fractal threads from the punctures and his skin turned a clammy gray. The strength went out of the man’s legs and he slumped forward. B’Elanna caught him easily despite his size and lowered him gently to the ground.

  As she watched, the black threads became blotches. The skin over his cheekbone split open and a tiny input module sprouted.

  Seven leaned down over the module and spoke softly into it, like a parent awakening a child. “Wake up,” she said. “Wake up. It’s time to wake up.”

  Chapter 15

  “I’m awake!”

  “Shhhh!”

  “I said, ‘I’m awake!’”

  “Lieutenant, be quiet!”

  “I’m awake!” B’Elanna croaked for the third time, her throat so parched and scratchy she felt like she was inhaling sand. “Now everyone…just…shut up!”