Cohesion

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Kathryn said. “And I think…”

  “Captain Janeway?”

  Kathryn tapped her combadge. “Janeway.”

  “This is the bridge, Captain. We’ve just been contacted by Lieutenant Torres. Shall I patch her through?”

  I guess that answers that question, Chakotay thought.

  * * *

  Four minutes after they left the ground (and approximately two minutes after Kaytok’s stomach reascended from out of his lower abdomen), B’Elanna began to speak to the air again, but not (this time) to the bugs in her head.

  “Torres to Voyager. Torres to Voyager. I have a locator signal from you. You’re out there somewhere.” She tapped a pair of controls on the panel before her and the vessel banked sharply to the left. If Kaytok had eaten any breakfast that morning (or dinner the night before), most of his food would have ended up on the right wall. I was not meant for this sort of travel, he concluded.

  A new voice spoke from a speaker on the ceiling, a voice deeper and richer than either of the two Voyagers’ he had met so far. “This is Voyager, Lieutenant. Please state your current location and status.”

  “I’m back in the Montpelier and on my way to picking up Seven. We’ve had an interesting day, Tuvok. How about you?”

  “It has not been without its complexities, Lieutenant, though hearing your voice at so propitious a moment is most welcome. Seven of Nine is not with you then?”

  “No. She’s working with the locals to figure out what happened to you. So, tell. What happened to you?”

  They talked for several more minutes, and though Kaytok considered himself a clever individual, he understood very little of what was discussed. The gist of the conversation was that B’Elanna Torres’s ship was trapped in some kind of cross-dimensional fold and they needed her help not only to coax some dangerous substance out of the engines, but also to fire the shield generator a second time. “By now,” B’Elanna said, “I expect Seven will have altered the shield generator so that it’s more efficient, which means it won’t produce precisely the same wave pattern.”

  “Then contact her and tell her to change it back,” a new voice, a woman’s, responded.

  “She probably already knows.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind, Captain. I’ll explain later.”

  “So you’re clear on what you need to do?”

  “Yes,” B’Elanna said, touching several switches in quick succession and plunging the shuttle back toward the ground. “Shrink the sun. Save the ship. Et cetera.”

  “Very good.”

  “Is Harry ready to listen to my instructions on how to get trilithium?”

  “I’m here, B’Elanna.”

  “Harry!” And here B’Elanna broke out into a wide grin. “This is the craziest idea I’ve ever heard! And that includes all of Tom’s!”

  “Tell the captain when you see her. Start talking.”

  Kaytok had been confused before when they were talking about spatial anomalies, but now B’Elanna and her comrade were on the more familiar terrain of engineering rooted in the real. Well, semi-real. When they began speaking of matter-antimatter mixing technology, they passed into realms Kaytok had never imagined. Listening, the concepts began to seep into his mind and Kaytok began to grasp some small part of what they were discussing. The only way to harness the incredible energies mixing matter and antimatter would unleash was to inject them into a substance with some kind of fourth-dimensional matrix properties. The dilithium they spoke of seemed to be such a substance; however, if the residue of spent dilithium was mixed with other unspecified substances, the product was an explosive compound that could halt atomic processes in a fusion reactor, even a sun.

  How can they stand such responsibility? Kaytok wondered, and yet B’Elanna discussed these matters with the same ease he, Kaytok, would bring to…to…to his own work on the shield generator, which many of his countrymen considered an insane, even illicit project. The Monorhan sighed. Judgment would have to be suspended.

  * * *

  “Have you got all that?” B’Elanna asked.

  “Yeah, I think,” Harry replied.

  “You think?” She threw the shuttle into another sharp banking turn. She had taken the long route to the station in case the Emergency Council was attempting to follow them, but while they had been flying, she had coaxed the main computer into dumping some more analysis and maintenance time into the shields. While they weren’t up to full, they were capable of deflecting a radar signal, which, Kaytok had assured her, was basically what the Monorhans used.

  “I’ve got it. Basically, you want me to pump trilithium resin into a magnetic bottle, but first we have to disable most of the sentry systems Starfleet built into the engines to prevent exactly what I’m trying to do.”

  “Only one sentry system really.”

  “Why only one?” Harry asked.

  “Because I disabled all the others months ago.”

  Harry did not reply for several seconds, then finally said, “By various hand gestures, the captain has conveyed her desire to speak about this when you’re back on the ship.”

  “Well, now I’m motivated.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. This probably won’t work anyway.”

  “Don’t be pessimistic, Harry. I think this is fabulous. Seven loves it. She’s been listening in.” And the weirdest part was that B’Elanna was certain Seven had been listening in and believed the idea was, yes, crazy, but also might be Voyager’s only chance.

  “Ooo-kay,” Harry replied, but had nothing else to say. “Then tell her that she needs to get to work on the shield…”

  “She knows. Already working on it. We should be ready in about two hours.”

  “Can you make it one? I don’t think the shields will make it to…”

  “One hour and fifteen is my best guess right now. I might be able to trim off another fifteen once I touch down, especially if Kaytok can remember some of the settings.”

  “I remember everything,” Kaytok said.

  “There you go, Harry. We’re touching down. We’ll call you every fifteen minutes with a progress report. Don’t hurt my engines!” She signed off before Harry could reply, and B’Elanna found herself thinking how inefficient verbal communication could be sometimes.

  * * *

  After a short consultation with Kaytok’s technicians, the work began in earnest. Though, as Kaytok had claimed, he remembered all the shield generator’s original settings, Seven had made considerable changes to the power supply and delivery middleware. While some of these alterations had to be undone, Torres agreed that other modifications should remain as they would not change the effect, but would enhance the shield generator’s performance.

  Seven was pleased. She and Torres were now working together much more efficiently with thoughts and impressions flashing back and forth, words only occasionally necessary. They might not have found the level of intermingled consciousness a Borg work team achieved, but not too shabby for a couple of humans. Pausing, Seven asked herself, “Shabby?” I have never used that word before. She dismissed her distress. “Shabby” was a perfectly acceptable word. It had a nice ring to it.

  * * *

  “How much longer?” Chakotay asked. He knew he wasn’t doing anything useful in the engine room. Though he knew every square centimeter of every system on the rest of Voyager, he had never been able to find the time to dig into the detailed specifications of the warp engines. Theory? Yes. Every graduate of the Academy had to be grounded in warp theory, but theory and practical knowledge were two very different quantum packets.

  “You can’t rush this kind of process, Commander,” Harry said. “If you make a mistake…” Ensign Kim and Joe Carey had been working for more than thirty-five minutes, and their time was running out. If Kim and Carey couldn’t coax the resin out of the warp core soon, there was no way they could be ready before the shields collapsed. Paris had been do
ing an astonishing job of anticipating the waves and guiding Voyager through the worst of them, but there was no way he could avoid every one.

  “I appreciate your wanting to be careful, Harry, but you’re going to have to cut corners.” The makeshift magnetic container was attached to Harry’s belt and he had managed to squeeze under the warp core to a spot directly beneath a batch of alarmingly colored conduits festooned with warning labels and embellished with Starfleet insignia. “What would B’Elanna do if she were here?”

  “Lieutenant Torres would likely just start yanking on things,” Carey said. “But she knows precisely how hard to yank and which bits are likely to explode.”

  “Don’t you?” Harry asked, his casual tone attempting to mask his anxiety.

  “Sure, if everything in this room was up to Starfleet spec,” Carey said. “But nothing is anymore.”

  Harry said, “Sorry, but can both of you be quiet for a minute. I’m about to insert the probe. If this works the way B’Elanna said it would, we should be out of here in two minutes.”

  Chakotay couldn’t resist asking. “And if it doesn’t?”

  Carey said, “Then that sharp ringing you’ll hear will be your molecules moving away from each other at the speed of light.”

  Chakotay heard Harry laugh (Gods of my father, we’re all getting punch-drunk), then grunted once with satisfaction. “Got it.”

  “Great. What next?”

  “Pull me out of here. I’m afraid to move.”

  * * *

  “How much longer?” Kaytok asked, turning his head slightly so that he was looking into a corner. He disliked watching the two Voyagers working together. Their movements were too coordinated, too effortless and smooth. B’Elanna had tried to explain earlier that Seven had once been part of something called a Borg collective and that each member of the collective was not an individual at all, but a cell in a larger organism. Given his own unusual circumstances among other Monorhans, Kaytok had initially thought this idea appealing, but then watching the mini-collective’s eerie silence and flawless interaction began to prey on him. Oddly, Kaytok had noticed that Seven of Nine was smiling with beatific satisfaction, while Torres grew more quiet and grim with every passing moment.

  “We will be ready in three minutes,” B’Elanna said. “Have you assembled your comrades?”

  “They’re waiting outside. You know none of them is too happy about this.”

  “About our taking the generator?” B’Elanna asked. “It is to be anticipated. Many of them have devoted years of their lives to the project and they do not know if we will be doing anything to benefit either them or your world.”

  “Tell them to get over it,” Seven said. “We’ll take good care of it.”

  “I do not think your attitude is productive,” B’Elanna said to Seven, “though I agree with your sentiment.” Turning back to Kaytok, she said, “We’ll be able to use the device more effectively in the shuttle. Also, if, as you suspect, the Emergency Council will track us here, then we need to move it anyway.”

  “You think we’ll be able to move it by ourselves? The console’s not so bad, but getting the dish off the roof…”

  “We have antigrav pads,” Seven said. “Once we have disconnected the dish, we’ll be able to hustle it off the roof.”

  “Antigrav?” Kaytok asked incredulously.

  “Hustle?” B’Elanna asked.

  Pad scuffled into the room at the same moment that Seven’s portable scanner began to sound an alert. “Company,” he said. Seven retrieved her scanner and studied the display. “Two large ground vehicles—trucks—are entering the compound. There are eight Monorhans in each one, including the driver. Most are carrying weapons.”

  “Emergency Council security team,” Kaytok said. “Trouble.”

  “Not necessarily,” B’Elanna said. “I talked the last group of soldiers into releasing us. I believe I can do the same again.”

  “But you may fail,” Seven replied, snapping the scanner shut. “And you are needed to complete the work on the shield generator.”

  “You could do it…”

  “But not as well or as quickly as you,” Seven retorted. “I believe that our recent…merger…means you have all the skills you need to finish this task, whereas I feel better equipped to kick these jerks’ collective tails.” She stopped, evidently surprised by her own words, but then a slow grin spread across her features. “I will return as soon as I can,” she said, and headed down the stairs.

  * * *

  They had warned Corek that there might be Voyagers with the Dissenters. He had resolved that should this turn out to be true, he would attempt to be diplomatic. If the tales were true, the Voyagers possessed impressive technology, but the report from the other teams also noted that they were physically unprepossessing. The word “puny” stuck in his memory.

  But then he caught a glimpse of his first Voyager and he concluded that the reports had omitted an important detail. They were shameless. This woman, this creature, marching toward him—at first he thought she was naked, but then Corek realized the blue tinge was clothing and not the color of her flesh. Were they all like this on Voyager? If so, how did they ever get anything done? And then he realized that the female only had two arms. Perhaps…perhaps she was some kind of special neutered gender—a drone—and the normal females were responsible for child rearing.

  The giantess halted within an arm’s length of Corek’s vehicle and barked, “I am Seven of Nine of the Starship Voyager. Explain why you are here. We are performing very delicate engineering operations and your presence is disrupting our work.”

  Corek sensed his second-in-command staring at him, probably eager to see how his superior officer would respond to such an outrageous claim. Unfortunately, an appropriate answer did not leap immediately to mind. He had expected the Dissenters to have broken and run as they always did when they heard EC troops coming. At worst, he had expected to have a minor skirmish with whoever was inside the compound, but everyone knew that Dissenters weren’t inherently dangerous as long as you kept them under control. Let them know they were being watched.

  The Voyager continued to stare, fists on her hips. Corek tried to keep his eyes locked on her face. Looking at anything below her neck was distressing, though he didn’t much care for anything above it either. Her small eyes and flat nose reminded Corek of an infant. He settled on the neck region and said, “I am Commander Corek of the Emergency Council police. We have been sent to investigate an electrical disturbance that our scanners tell us originated from this location approximately twenty-seven hours ago.”

  “Really?” the Voyager said. “We have been here for less then twelve hours, so this is no concern of ours.”

  “That is beside the point,” Corek replied, wondering why this woman was being so obtuse. “Also, another member of my force contacted one of your crew less than two hours ago and asked her to accompany us to the city. She was very rude to the shalla.”

  “Ah, yes. Lieutenant Torres. She is very rude. I will make sure she is severely chastised.” She paused, cocked her head as if listening to another conversation, and then repeated, “Severely.”

  Baffled, Corek stood transfixed, unsure how to respond. His second moved close behind him and nudged him in the side. “Sir?” Corek asked him what he wanted.

  “Sir,” the second whispered. “There’s movement on the roof.” He paused to let the idea sink in, then suggested, “Snipers?”

  Corek stiffened and experienced a sudden desire to move closer to the vehicles. He squashed it, knowing that he could not risk showing weakness in front of his troops. Momentarily ignoring the alien, Corek lifted his field glasses to his eyes and scanned the rooftops, and instantly saw movement. If there was a sniper, he was the clumsiest in existence. Or perhaps—anxious thought—he didn’t feel an urgent need to hide. “Who’s up on the roof?” Corek asked.

  The Voyager turned to look up, then immediately snapped around again. The creature’s spine
was very limber. A Monorhan would have had to take a half-step to the right or the left to look back over her shoulder that way. Watching the movement made Corek feel slightly queasy. “Technicians,” she explained. “We’re setting up an experiment.”

  “They’re moving something, sir,” the second said. “Do you want me to send someone around to investigate.”

  “No!” the Voyager said sharply. “This is none of your concern. If you do not cease your intrusions…” She stopped speaking so suddenly that for a split second Corek wondered if one of his troops had lost control and fired at her. But then she said, “What?” and looked at the ground before her feet as if she were having a squabble with a small, invisible person. “Of course you can! Just hold on all the way down.”

  “Sir?” the second asked, taking a step back, his hand reaching toward his weapon. Dealing with aliens was one thing. Dealing with an insane alien something else entirely. “She’s talking to someone.”

  “If you don’t,” the alien said, spinning to look up at the roof, “we’re going to be here all day! Just do it!”

  Of course, Corek realized. Some kind of hidden microphone. “Excuse me,” Corek said, attempting to wrest control of the situation. “You’re going to have to come with us. The shalla will decide what is to be done.”

  The alien looked up at him, her small eyes boring into his, and stepped forward. “Here’s what I think of your shalla.”

  * * *

  “She punched him,” Kaytok announced.

  “I know!” B’Elanna shouted from the pilot’s seat.

  “Why did she punch him?”

  “Because he made her angry.” The engines hummed beneath their feet. Kaytok very much wished he could sit down, but the console was neither bolted to the floor (as he had suggested) nor lashed into the shuttle’s bulkhead. B’Elanna trusted it to one of the antigravity pads, which, she claimed, would keep the machine in place. Kaytok was not so sure and had decided he should stay nearby in case it began to shift. The dish was snuggly stowed in a compartment that B’Elanna said she could open remotely when the time came.