by Laura Watkins
Disclaimer - Voyager and all recognisable characters are owned by Paramount. MGM, Gekko and DoubleSecret own the basic plot. No infringements on any copyrights was intended. This story was written purely for entertainment purposes and not for monetary gain. This story is mine, do not archive without permission and keep my name attached.
Copyright © Laura Watkins July 27th - December 31st 2000
"Kim to Janeway."
Harry's voice filtered through to her consciousness, rousing Kathryn from sleep.
"Kim to Janeway," Harry repeated.
Kathryn opened her eyes and pushed herself up so her weight rested back onto her arms. She reached out for her commbadge, which was lying on the table by her bed along with her pips, and activated it.
"Janeway here," she said, hoping her voice didn't sound too sleepy.
"Sorry to wake you, Captain. We've arrived at the system."
"Thank you, Harry. I'll be right there. Janeway out."
Kathryn set the commbadge back down on the table and rubbed her face. Then she rose from the bed and headed for the bathroom.
After a quick sonic shower, Kathryn put on her uniform, quickly applied some make-up, attached her commbadge and pips to her uniform and ran a brush through her hair. Then she replicated a cup of coffee and took a sip, savouring the taste and feel of the velvety liquid slipping down her throat.
Exiting her quarters, she walked straight into Chakotay and almost spilt the boiling liquid down the front of his uniform.
"Sorry," they said together.
Kathryn looked up at Chakotay's face, her sapphire blue eyes locking with his chocolate brown ones. She saw amusement at their synchronized speech, and affection for his friend.
Kathryn began to feel uncomfortable, and broke the connection by taking another sip of her coffee.
Chakotay took in the woman in front of him, her beautiful hair freshly brushed, her uniform crisp and clean, her skin smooth and soft. The corners of his lips turned up into a bittersweet smile. Kathryn had demonstrated time and again with crystal clarity that they could never be more than friends, but Chakotay knew that he would never stop loving her. But his love made her uncomfortable, and so he hid it from her in the hope that it's absence from their friendship would serve to strengthen that friendship.
Kathryn's husky voice interrupted his thoughts. "We should get to the bridge."
Chakotay nodded and they fell into step together and headed for the turbolift.
Kathryn strode out of the turbolift, Chakotay close behind her.
"Report," she ordered.
Harry Kim ran a hand through his thick black hair and rose from the command chair, silently handing command of the vessel back over to his captain. "We are approaching the fourth planet now, Captain. There are signs of civilisation, but sensors still have not detected any life-signs and we appear to be alone in the system, no ships have been detected. All systems are normal."
Kathryn suppressed a wry grin. What was normal for Voyager's systems anyway? "Thank you, Mr Kim," Kathryn said with a small smile at the young Ensign, who, she mused, was not quite so young anymore. "Keep scanning, just to be sure, I don't want any surprises."
"Aye, Captain," Harry acknowledged, and Kathryn noticed with a small measure of satisfaction that he had not said 'Ma'am'.
"Mr Baytart," Kathryn addressed the Ensign who was currently manning the conn, "Put Voyager into a geosynchronous orbit above the largest continent. Mr Kim, keep scanning for ships," she ordered as she sat down. She grinned at Chakotay. "Just in case."
Ensign Pablo Baytart's fingers danced nimbly across the conn as he guided Voyager smoothly into orbit of the fourth planet of the system. He did not quite have the finesse that Tom Paris had when he flew, but he was a skilled pilot nonetheless, and very capable. And so when Tom Paris entered the bridge, Kathryn signalled to him to wait.
Tom was itching to sit down at the conn, some days his job was very boring, sitting, flying in a straight line, nothing to do but sit, flying in a straight line, watching the view screen. But this, putting a ship into orbit, required skill, accuracy and talent, which Tom had in abundance, and fancy flying was what he lived for. Deep down he knew that he deserved to wait - he had been late for his shift, and that Pablo deserved to show off his talent for flying.
As the ship slid into orbit, Tom patted his friend on the shoulder. "Nice one, Pablo," he said, commenting on the young man's smooth piloting.
Pablo noticed for the first time that Tom Paris had been watching over his shoulder. Tom was the acknowledged best pilot on the ship, and it was true. Pablo smiled, clearly pleased by the praise his superior officer and friend.
He rose, and handed the conn over to Tom, not that there was much for Tom to do now. As he was leaving Kathryn spoke.
Simply saying, "Thank you, Ensign," she accredited his performance.
Pablo's face lit up. "Thank you, Ma'am," he said.
Kathryn turned to Chakotay and smiled ruefully. "It's taken me 5 years to train Harry not to say that," she sighed, "Maybe it's not such a bad thing we've got a long journey ahead of us."
Chakotay smiled. "Whatever you say," he said sotto voce.
Kathryn turned back to the viewscreen, gazing at the marbled planet they now orbited.
"Ma'am," she heard from her left, even quieter than before.
She whipped her head around to Chakotay again, who appeared a picture of innocence, and shot him a withering look.
Chakotay flashed her a cheeky, dimpled grin.
Deciding to ignore him, she surveyed the landmasses on the planet's surface, and observed for herself the sign's of civilisation. She wanted to investigate.
Standing, she began issuing orders. "Chakotay, Tom, Tuvok you're with me. Harry, you have the bridge." Then she headed for the turbolift, with Chakotay, Tom and Tuvok behind her.
As they materialised, Kathryn began to take in the views around her. They were inside, not out, and the room was quite dark but she could see that it was full of objects.
They had beamed down in a standard circular formation, backs to one another so that should they be attacked they would not be surprised from behind. Scanning with both tricorders and their own eyes they searched for any signs of life that could have built the building they now stood in, or designed the objects that littered the room.
They found nothing, just as the sensor scans on the ship had revealed nothing. Cautiously they stepped forward in different directions, still on guard just in case there were any surprises. Kathryn glanced quickly at Chakotay who flashed her a reassuring smile.
They spread out further; examining each object they saw with curiosity. Kathryn analysed everything with a scientific mind, wanting to know how it worked, what powered it, how efficient it was. Chakotay looked at it from an anthropologist's point of view, wondering what role it had in the society of this once populated planet. Who had used? What had they used it for?
Tuvok, as chief of security, kept his eyes on his tricorder, scanning for any dangers, only moving his eyes from the display to scan the room quickly. His vigilance made everyone feel a little safer, and gave them a chance to become more diverted as they came across objects of interest.
Tom was having a great time - he always loved to get off the ship and stretch his legs, breathing in fresh, non-recycled air; everyone did. Everyone, even Tuvok, welcomed the opportunity to go planet-side for a few hours. However, Tom had found a small room on his explorations - it looked like a lab of some kind where the objects inside were analysed.; all the objects were tagged. Probably from different planets, or other continents on their own planet, he surmised, found and brought back to be studied. Judging from the variety of the objects and the differences between them, he knew they could not be from the same small area.
He walked over to the table in the middle of the room and looked at the objects. Some of them looked to be from an age similar to Earth's late 20th and early 21st century.
Tom got out a device similar to a camcorder and began to scan the room - the Doctor loved taking holo-images when on away missions. Tom had recently begun to make moving images that he could take back and share with others, so they could see what the planet was like, and maybe help analyse things they had discovered.
As he moved it past the doorway he could see Tuvok walking slowly around, and Chakotay and Kathryn both bent down in a similar fashioned, examining the same object on different sides of a tall shelf. Tom knew that his captain would be fascinated by this room, and that she would not settle for simply seeing holo-images.
He tapped his commbadge. "Paris to Janeway."
*"Janeway here. What have you found, Tom?"*
"A small room, it looks like a lab of some kind."
*"Sounds interesting, I'll be right there. Janeway out."*
Seconds later, true to her word, Kathryn was there and she and Tom began to examine together, hypothesising about the items.
"Commander," Tuvok said, getting Chakotay's attention. "I believe I have found something."
Chakotay turned his head to look up at the dark-skinned Vulcan. "What is it?"
"A structure of some kind, with a symbol displayed in it, and small symbols surrounding it," Tuvok informed him.
Chakotay rose up from his haunches and moved over to where the Vulcan stood. He looked in the direction Tuvok was facing and found himself with a clear view of something akin to a short totem pole. From a distance it appeared to be made from metal, formed of a ring with a face crudely carved out of it's centre, a painful expression on it's rough features, and there were symbols around the ring that Tuvok had mentioned.
Moving closer, Chakotay ran a hand over the structure. It was cold to the touch. The symbols were not like any language he had ever studied, and he did not know where to begin with an interpretation. Turning to Tuvok, he asked, "Can you translate this?"
"I believe so," Tuvok replied, stoic as ever as he set about the task.
Chakotay stared at the object. The face was plain, and so he concentrated on the symbols on the ring. It seemed to display a message, short and to the point, rather than a story or a historic account, maybe a warning, judging by the face's expression.
Tuvok's tricorder beeped and he spoke. "We must leave, Commander. The message warns any traveller to this planet to 'turn back'. The planet has been raided and left contaminated. The surface is radioactive and will be harmful."
Chakotay decided to act now and ask questions later. "Chakotay to Janeway."
*"Janeway here,"* came Kathryn's excited voice, and he knew she had found something interesting that had truly piqued her curiosity, and he hated to tear her away, but he would hate it even more if she were poisoned.
"We must leave, Captain. Tuvok has found a disturbing message, this planet has been raided and left radioactive."
*"Thank you, Chakotay. Janeway out."*
"Tom." The pilot turned to face her, still excited out their discovery. "We're going."
"But..."
"Now!"
"Yes, ma'am," Kathryn heard as she left.
Tom quickly scooped up a couple of objects in his arms to take back to the ship to study further. B'Elanna will love these, he thought.
One of the objects activated as he picked it up. It was round, and just a little larger than the palm of his hand, with a dial and a large pad on the front. He touched the pad and to his right a stone ring, that stood a little taller than him activated also, with an almost mirror-like quality, only although the room was reflected, he could not see himself in the mirror when he deposited his armful of objects on the table and went to stand right in front of it. He touched the substance that gave the mirror-like effect and felt a small electric shock.
He had to show this to the Captain, and maybe get B'Elanna down here, they couldn't go yet, he hadn't even been given a reason as to why they were going - he wasn't about to leave.
He ran out into the main room, device still in hand. "You have to come and see this, it's too heavy for me to move but we have to take it back to the shi..." he trailed off. The room was empty.
"Oh very funny!" he exclaimed. "Who's idea was this? Chakotay, I'm sorry about the dye I put in your toothpaste. I apologised already."
The room was silent.
"Chakotay? Captain? Tuvok?"
Still nothing.
"Oh yeah, that's nice, beam up without me. I really hate when this happens. That probably broke about 10 regulations." He tapped his commbadge. "Voyager, one to beam up."
He felt his molecules de-materialise, then re-materialise in the transporter room. He turned around to face the transporter technician and found himself face to face with a compression phaser rifle.
Tom looked around the room and saw that the guard in front of him was not the only one with a phaser rifle trained on him; simply the closest.
"Put your hands on your head, or we will fire" the guard ordered.
Tom did as he was told. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Identify yourself," was the reply.
"Ensign Tom Paris, chief helmsman, USS Voyager," he said, confused.
His eyes were drawn to the door as it slid open. Kathryn entered, followed closely by Chakotay. And, he noticed, Chakotay was dressed in off-duty clothes, not a uniform, and his tattoo looked different, although he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
"Captain," Tom started. "What's happening here?"
"Do you see four pips anywhere on my uniform?" Kathryn questioned. Tom looked at her neck and saw only three pips, but that didn't say much as her hair partially obscured his vision. Then it dawned on him, her hair, like Chakotay's tattoo, looked different too. "How did you get a Starfleet uniform and commbadge?"
"What?"
"Commander, he says he's a member of this crew," the guard told Kathryn.
"Commander?" Tom said in disbelief.
Kathryn eyed him suspiciously, not believing him and ignoring his comment. "Now who are you?"
"Run that one by me again?" Tom asked incredulously.
"Who are you?"
"Commander," Tom turned to Chakotay, "I'm really sorry about the toothpaste, I never would have done that if I'd have kno..."
Kathryn was glaring at him, never a good sign, and so he shut up again.
Kathryn turned to Chakotay. "Take him to the sickbay, have him checked out. Then confine him to the brig."
"Aye, Commander," Chakotay said.
Tom felt a sharp tap in his back and guessed he had been prodded with the butt of a phaser rifle to get him to move. He stepped forward.
"I am a member of this crew," Tom repeated as he was pushed into sickbay and forced roughly onto a bio-bed.
The Doctor approached. "10ccs of Citrazone," he called out. "That should calm him down, and hopefully sedate him," he explained to Chakotay.
Tom looked up at him, still thrashing wildly, as the hologram injected the drug into his neck to sedate him.
"I want to speak to Commander Tuvok." He was hoping the stoic Vulcan would provide him with some answers.
"You mean Captain Tuvok," Chakotay said.
"What?" Tom exclaimed, trying to break free, but feeling himself slowly going under.
There was no reply, and the last thing Tom saw before he passed out was a small blonde girl, with pointed ears and elfin features, talking to the Doctor. It was undeniably Kes.
Consciousness came slowly for Tom. He opened his eyes. He was in the brig – he'd know those walls anywhere, they were marked indelibly in his mind ever since his 30-day confinement about a year ago. It had been all there was to look at.
He rose slowly and walked to the forcefield. He touched it with the corner of a pillow and it shone blue with energy and fizzled. "I want to talk to somebody!" he yelled. The guard, a tall dark man he didn't recognise, ignored him. "Please, let me talk to someone."
Tom kicked the wall beside him in an attempt to attract the guard's attention, but all he succeeded in doing was hurting his toe.
What Tom didn't realise was that the guard had informed the Doctor of his condition as soon as he woke.
Suddenly the doors to the brig slid open and Kathryn Janeway walked in. She was followed by the same girl as Tom had seen in sickbay walked in. It was Kes. He was confused. People didn't know him, there were some crewmen he didn't recognise, like the guard in the brig, ranks were different, clothes were different, and Kes was still here.
Kes. Tom had missed the young Ocampan very much when she had left, she had been a friend to him ever since she had met him, one of his only friends on Voyager for the first few months, and he had always appreciated that, and had a strong affection for her. "Kes?" Tom said incredulously.
"You know me?" the elfin girl asked.
"Of course. You don't know me?"
Kes cocked her head slightly.
Kathryn looked down at a padd she held, and then she spoke. "Thomas Eugene Paris – son of Admiral Owen Paris, dishonourable discharge from Starfleet, New Zealand Penitentiary, charged with murder. I ran your name through the ship's database; this is what it came up with. How did you get here?"
"How did I, what? What's going on here."
"When you beamed aboard you were wearing a Starfleet uniform and communicator. Where did you obtain them?"
"You, here, this ship. I beamed down to the planet on an away mission with you, the one we were orbiting, this morning, a few hours ago."
"What are you talking about, you have never been here."
Tom's eyes widened. "Five years ago you came to me in New Zealand and asked me to go with you to find Chakotay's Maquis ship in the Badlands because you're security chief and friend was on that ship as a spy. I said yes, I went with you, and helped you find it; Voyager got stranded here in the Delta Quadrant. So unless the past 5 years have been some wacky, wacky dream, I am a member of Voyager's crew."
Kathryn regarded him strangely; this stranger was not making any sense.
"I went to you five years ago, you gave us information that helped, admittedly, but you refused my offer."
"I did?"
"In fact, you were very cocky."
"I was."
Kathryn looked down once again at the padd. "The Doctor's scans confirm you are who you say you are, according to Starfleet's medical records," she said.
"Can I see Lieutenant Torres?" Tom asked, hoping that maybe she could come and explain what had happened.
"B'Elanna Torres?" Kathryn asked.
"Yes," Tom confirmed quickly, relieved something seemed familiar.
"B'Elanna's not in Starfleet, she's an engineer. She's attending to more important matters at the moment," Kes informed him softly, always caring. Tom's heart sank, it wasn't familiar after all.
"Don't you have any explanation for why you're here?" Kathryn asked.
"God, no!" Tom exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. "Captain!" He forced his voice to a normal volume. "I mean Commander. This doesn't make any sense. I know you. I belong here!" He turned to Kes. "You don't."
"Excuse me," Kathryn said, shocked.
"2 years ago, you evolved to a higher state of consciousness and reality, you were forced to leave us, you threw us 10 000 light years closer to home, beyond Borg space." He turned to Kathryn again. "Closer to Mark."
"What?" Kathryn asked.
"The man you we're engaged to marry when we left Earth."
Kathryn stared at him. Not many people back on Earth had known they were engaged – together, certainly – but engaged, it had been a recent development in their relationship, and Tom Paris should certainly not have known.
"We've only got 50% of the damaged systems repaired, Captain," Harry Kim delivered the status report to Voyager's Captain.
He was interrupted when the doors to the briefing room slid open, admitting Kes. "I'm sorry to disturb you, I know you're busy."
Tuvok turned to her. "It is alright, Kes. What is it?"
"I think you should meet the man who beamed up from the planet," Kes suggested to Tuvok.
"Why?" the Vulcan asked, he trusted Kes' judgement but he needed to know her reasoning.
"He," she paused briefly. "He knows things."
The decision was taken out of Tuvok's hands when Tom entered the room. "Harry! Tuvok!"
Tuvok turned to the stranger, with an almost puzzled expression on his face. "We are in the middle of a situation here," he explained, "And I am afraid that I do not know you, but Kes says that you may be able to aid us," he said, letting Tom know that he was willing, for the moment to let Tom speak, if it meant he could help.
Tom wondered just what the 'situation' was that he could help with. He looked at Harry's face – it spoke of confusion, and a little bit of fear. "Ok, this is starting to get a little bit strange," Tom said. "Everything was a little different, not completely different, I mean," he gestured to Harry, "You're still you."
Tuvok was not willing to allow Tom to vent his frustrations, his talking was not aiding the situation, he determined that the most logical course of action would be to ask the man direct questions, the answers to which would be beneficial so that he could utilise the information and save more time that could be used for other purposes. "What can you tell me about the Borg?" he asked, monotone.
"What?" The question had caught Tom off-guard.
"Do you know who they are?"
Tom was still slightly confused. "Yeah," he said, the word was drawn out.
"Tell me what you know," Tuvok practically made it an order.
"Ok, now maybe I've completely lost my mind here, but as far as I'm concerned we know each other very well," he eyes travelled the room, encompassing everyone with his remark. "You know everything that I know!"
The expressions on their faces told him that he was mistaken.
"Look! I am a member of Voyager's senior staff," he tried to convince them once more, showing them his commbadge and rank pips, "With you—" he looked to Harry and Tuvok "—and Lieutenant Torres and Chakotay and Seven."
Something seemed to dawn on Tom and he looked around. "Where is Seven of Nine?" he asked. At the confused, unknowing looks on their faces he went on to explain: "Blonde, tall, knockout, enhanced eye, half metal hand. You can't miss her."
Tuvok realised, partially at least, who Tom was referring to. "A Borg?"
"Yes, she's our," he searched for the right word, settling on a word that was true for himself and Tuvok, although he knew the sentiment was not shared by all of the crew, "our friend."
Deciding that he was not going to get anything of tactical use from the man, Tuvok considered that the most logical thing he could do now would be to leave, and make better use of what little time they had. "Take this man back to the Brig, now," he ordered, turning to leave.
Kes watched as Harry grabbed Tom's upper arm to lead him away and she knew that Tom could be of more use, could tell them more, if only the asked the right questions, and kept listening. "How did he get to the planet? How does he know the things he knows?" Kes asked the questions, both wanting the answers, and wanting Tuvok to stay and hear him out. This was more logical.
"According to Captain Janeway you found the Maquis ship without me, the one that you infiltrated, and got swept to the Delta quadrant. Did you still encounter the Kazon and the Vidiians?"
This question caught everyone's attention. Tuvok turned back to Tom and started to walk towards him. "How do you know about that?" Tuvok asked him.
"You were sent to infiltrate the Maquis ship, find out their bases, numbers, plans, all that you could find and send back to Starfleet to help them fight the Maquis, right?"
Kes turned to Tuvok. "Kathryn and I, we didn't tell him anything."
Tom continued. "Did you still make an alliance with the Borg to fight species 8472?"
"What is Species 8472?" Harry asked Tom.
"A strong race, even the Borg can't defeat."
"But you fought them."
"Yes, we sent them back to fluidic space."
"How?" Kes hastily found a padd and handed it to Tom. They were approaching Borg territory and the ship had suffered greatly in the altercations that had resulted, anyway they could defend themselves could mean their salvation.
Tom took the padd from Kes. "What, do you want me to write it down?"
The slight inflection of Tuvok's head, a nod from Harry. "Yes," Kes told him.
Tom began to write down very brief notes. "So, if you've never made an alliance with the Borg then you've never been to a Borg ship and have probably never met Seven of Nine."
"That sounds like a Borg designation."
"It is!" Tom threw the padd down in frustration of his situation and began to pace. "Everything's messed up! Why?!" he looked at them for answers. None came.
He ceased his pacing when the doors opened to admit B'Elanna Torres. The first thing that struck Tom was her hair; it was tied back in a loose, messy bun, clearly longer than his B'Elanna's so that it was not practical to have it down in Engineering.
"B'Elanna!"
B'Elanna glared at him. "Who is this?" she demanded to know with a voice the indicated that her Klingon temper was close to the surface.
"Tom Paris," Kes said gently, wanting to diffuse the possible situation.
Tom seemed to realise something. "Of course," he whispered of Kes' explanation.
"The man who beamed up from the planet with a Starfleet uniform and commbadge," Kes continued.
"Report, Ms Torres," Tuvok asked.
B'Elanna looked long and hard at Tom and he hoped that she might recognise him, but she did not. Instead she turned to Tuvok and gave her status report as asked. "Systems are continuing to fail all over the ship. The Borg are getting closer and we've lost deck 13."
How could they lose a deck? Tom wondered. "I'm sorry," he asked, "What do you mean by 'lost'?"
Tuvok inclined his head to a panel on the wall of the briefing room. "Show him."
B'Elanna called him over to the panel with a wave of her hand. The diagram showed deck 13 and there were systems flashing where malfunctions had occurred. "Deck 13," B'Elanna explained tersely. "All the locking mechanisms failed on 13, 14 and 15, so crewmen were stuck there, unable to leave rooms or enter turbolifts. The transporters went down shortly after you beamed up so we could not beam them out. Life support failed about two hours ago on decks 14 and 15."
Tom drew in a sharp breath. When life support failed it got very cold, and the oxygen thinned. Death came slowly, and not without a great deal of pain. It was battle between asphyxia and hypothermia to see which could kill first.
B'Elanna spoke again. "We just lost it on deck 13."
"It would appear," Tuvok stated with surprising calmness, "That the Borg have gathered a large enough force to commence another attack against us. Once we have been eradicated, they will, no doubt, proceed to earth. All our efforts to overcome the ships have proven inconsequential."
B'Elanna cut in with an emotional continuation. "They've started to systematically annihilate all signs of civilisation!" she cried, gesturing wildly and pacing the room with wide angry strides.
Harry picked up the report. "They started at the centre of this region of space, moving outwards with frightening speed." The young man appeared much like the man Tom knew, forced to give up part of his naïve innocence and trusting nature. He was shocked and disgusted; they all were, but Harry's face expressed his feelings more openly than the other occupants of the room. "There has been no response to our attempted communications with the Borg," he delivered the report in a terse voice, "And so far, there have been no survivors in the wake of their destruction. They're unstoppable."
"I feel like the victim of the biggest practical joke EVER!" Tom exclaimed, pacing around in what he knew to be Chakotay's office, but was in fact Kathryn's.
Chakotay looked up and followed his movements for a few seconds, but Kathryn ignored him, too busy studying the alien objects he had been carrying when he had beamed up. "You got all this on the alien planet you were talking about?" she asked.
"Uh, yeah," Tom replied, halting in front of the desk they both worked at. "With the exception of the tricorder and phaser of course. I found this lab, and I called... well, I called you actually, and we concluded that they must have kept things there that they found on other planets. There was also a mirror, like a slab of rock-" he was speaking fast "-It could have been made from alutritanium, but I don't know. Chakotay called you. You said we were leaving. I touched the mirror."
While Tom was repeating the story of events, Kathryn picked up the object he had seen just before he had gone through the mirror. Finding it interesting, she gestured to Chakotay, and now they were both scrutinising the object. Tom smiled, at least something here was the same: Kathryn and Chakotay worked closely together, both as colleagues and friends and could communicate without words. Some things, it seemed, were truly universal.
"Interesting," Kathryn spoke distractedly. "What is it?"
"I have no idea," Tom confessed.
Both Kathryn and Chakotay looked up at him immediately and Tom resisted the urge to take a step back.
"You said you touched a mirror?" Chakotay prompted, clearly wanting more information.
Tom nodded, then shook his head. "Well actually I touched that thing first. It turned on, I heard a noise, that's when I noticed the shimmering."
Kathryn lifted the object. "Maybe this is what controls it," she hypothesised.
"When I touched the mirror there was this," Tom paused, searching for the correct word to describe the sensation, "This surge, it was like getting an electrical shock just for a second. Then I went to find the Captain and Chakotay and Tuvok, so that they could help me carry it back, and we could see if Seven had assimilated any knowledge about the technology," he explained.
"She's the Borg you say is a member of Voyager's crew?" Chakotay confirmed.
"Yes, but I couldn't find them, it was like they were just gone. So I figured that maybe they had left without me, so I hit my commbadge and gave the order to beam up and I re-materialised in the transporter-" he stopped when the lights dimmed and the Red Alert klaxons sounded and cast an eerie flashing red glow about the room.
"Warhead one is loaded."
They hurriedly exited onto the bridge as the Lieutenant manning Tactical, another face Tom didn't recognise, called out, "Warhead two is loaded."
Tom scanned the scene and tried to assess the situation.
"Warhead three is loaded."
"Sir," Kathryn sounded. "Isn't our priority to get to Arcadia, repair the ship and get the crew to safety?"
"I believe it is more prudent to try to stop the Borg attack first." Tuvok replied, his voice calm and composed.
"What is this Arcadia?" Tom asked Chakotay. "What does she mean?"
"Warhead four is loaded," the tactical officer said as Chakotay replied to Tom.
"We are trying to reach a planet about 10 light years from here that we have nicknamed Arcadia. Once there we will be able to carry out repairs using the planet's rich resources and we hope that the ship will be shielded from Borg sensors. Certainly the crew will be able to take refuge on the planet, so that even if Voyager is destroyed we may survive to fight the Borg."
"Warhead five is loaded."
Tom seemed satisfied with Chakotay's answer. He looked at a console nearby and suddenly realised just what was going to happen. "You're going into fluidic space?!" he exclaimed.
"You got a problem with that?" B'Elanna retorted icily.
"You can't do that! The 8472 haven't done anything to you!"
"Yet."
"The 8472 aren't your enemy; you haven't even met them! That means the Borg haven't invaded fluidic space, so the 8472 haven't attacked. They're stronger than the Borg! Why unleash another wave of terror. Aren't the Borg bad enough?"
B'Elanna was looking angrier by the second. "Try to understand what's happening here. The Borg will kill us and then attack Earth and other Federation planets, assimilating others as they go. The death toll will be off the scale."
"The death toll will be higher when the 8472 come through into our space!" Tom exclaimed, hardly believing what was happening.
"Warhead six is loaded."
B'Elanna continued. "We want to open up a quantum singularity to fluidic space and set off a warhead to attract their attention. Hopefully then the 8472 will come through and attack the Borg. If they overlook us, as you say they did, then the Borg attack will be stopped and we'll be fine; we can repair our ship, send the 8472 back where they came from and be on our way. However, if they attack us, then we have the fire-power and the means to protect ourselves."
"Warhead seven loaded."
"This is wrong," Tom said. His comment was ignored.
"Open the quantum singularity," Tuvok commanded.
B'Elanna turned away from Tom and tapped in a few commands on the science console. "Opening the quantum singularity." Tom watched the progress on the viewscreen. "Quantum singularity open, sending warhead." As soon as the warhead went through to fluidic space B'Elanna shut down the quantum singularity. "Quantum singularity closed."
Tuvok stood from what Tom knew to be Kathryn's chair. "Proceed to Arcadia until it is time to open the next quantum singularity," he ordered.
"These aliens are innocent to our space! You will kill innocent people and they'll have no idea why."
"As will the Borg," Tuvok answered. "If this man has no further information that we may use, confine him to the Brig. I do not wish to see him again. Commander Janeway, you have the bridge." With that Tuvok left the bridge for the quiet of his ready room.
To Be Continued