Richardson wrote:Well, if someone can make JarJar likeable, then Neelix can become a badass.
Personally, I'd like to see him punch out a borg drone.
who made Jar jar likeable???
considering how long the pilot is taking (No offense, you're not paid and fanfics generally take longer than television scripts anyway) to get to the borg we would ahve to either skip huge amounts of voyager, or um die of old age.
"Since when is "the west" a nation?"-Styphon "ACORN= Cobra obviously." AMT
This topic is... oh Village Idiot. Carry on then.--Havok
Darths and Droids, made by the guy who makes Irregular Webcomic. Basically Star Wars, if it was a game of D&D, with standard insane players. And jarjar is explained by being a young kid. And the way it's done is awesome in ways that are cthulu level mindfuck.
a little girl, I'm guessing about 8 and now Jar-Jar makes sense
"Our Country won't go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won't be any AMERICA because some foreign soldier will invade us and take our women and breed a hardier race!"
LT. GEN. LEWIS "CHESTY" PULLER, USMC
Voyager shook with the impact of the Kazon weapon. Alarms started howling around the auxillary bridge.
"Damage report!" said Janeway.
"Electromagnetically propelled kinetic impactor," said Gombe, the acting tactical officer. "It penetrated the saucer, deck four portside, just aft of the forward turboshaft. Sections 408 and 409 are venting atmosphere."
"Unidentified ship, this is your last warning. Surrender or die."
For a moment, Janeway was frozen. Everyone on the bridge was looking at her.
"I have photon torpedoes," said Gombe, breaking the silence.
"How many?" said Janeway.
"Only the ready two in the tubes. The loading system isn't responding."
"That should penetrate their shields" she said.
He grimaced. "They should, but they won't," he said. "There's only enough antimatter in the ready reserve for one one-tenth yield shot, and I can't get the antimatter pumps to respond, either."
She wanted to cry. Now what do I do?, she thought. "We're running out of time," said Janeway. "Does anybody have a plan?"
Nobody said anything.
"Unidentified ship--"
"Try to stall them," said Janeway.
"How?"
"I don't know. Ask them for instructions."
There was a flutter of chatter between the comms operator and the Kazon on the other end. "Ma'am, I asked them about transporting over, but they didn't seem to know what I was talking about." More chatter. "Ma'am, we're running out of time."
"They are charging their weapons," said Gombe.
I can't let this ship fall into their hands, she thought.
"Janeway, this is your last chance. Surrender or be destroyed." For emphasis, the Kazon ship fired another slug into Voyager's saucer, smashing open more compartments on Deck 4.
"Captain," said the comms operator, "we're being hailed by another ship. It encrypted with...it looks like an old Romulan code."
"Do we have the key?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Put it on speaker."
#
Val Jean
"I have Voyager," said Tuvok.
"Are we sure about this?" said Torres. "Chakotay, you know why they were in the Badlands."
"You just keep the warp drive working," he said. He didn't trust a week's worth of jerry-rigged repairs, even B'elana's. It gave him a legitimate reason to shut Torres up before she could reinforce his own doubts.
"Unknown ship, this is Voyager. Who are you?"
"This is the Liberation Front starship Val Jean, and we're coming to save your ass," said Chakotay. "I can help you, but only if you do exactly as I say."
#
Janeway looked around at her officers. On the one hand, the idea of accepting help from terrorists was repugnant. On the other hand...
"Tell the Kazon we surrender," said Janeway to comms. To Chakotay, she said, "All right, I'm listening, Chakotay."
"Do you have any photon torpedoes?" said Chakotay.
"Two. But they can't penetrate the Kazons' shields."
"What about your transporters?"
"They're out," said Janeway.
"Ma'am, the aeroshuttle has a cargo transporter," said Gombe. "It still works. I can't operate it from here, though."
"Correction, Chakotay: I've got a working cargo transporter. Mr. Gombe, send a crew down there to operate the transporters right away."
"Listen to me very carefully," said Chakotay. "In two minutes, I'm going to drop out of warp in phaser range of the Kazon. The Kazon don't have subspace sensors, so they don't see me coming. Once I drop out, I'll need to remote operate your transporters."
"There's no way we can get the torpedo fueled and hauled over to the cargo bay in time," said Gombe.
"Do a site-to-site transport, then," said Janeway.
"Ma'am, transporting antimatter once is risky enough--"
"Do you have a better plan?" said Janeway.
"No ma'am. Readying the torpedo."
"All right, Chakotay. I'm sending the remote access code for the aeroshuttle's transporter systems. They'll be online by the time you get here."
"Acknowledged, Voyager. Chakotay out."
"How do we know he's not just trying to steal a photon torpedo?" said Gombe.
"You said it yourself," said Janeway. "It's dangerous to transport antimatter."
"Yes, ma'am." He glanced down at his station. "Ma'am, the Kazon have launched boarding shuttles."
#
Harry Kim ran like he never had in his entire life, his feet pounding on the deck as he approached the aeroshuttle airlock. With his normal Red Alert station--backing up the ops officer on the main bridge--destroyed, he had run around looking for the auxiliary command center until some damage control officer corralled him and sent him down to Deck 9 forward to supervise a gang of ratings on firewatch. He'd had to come by emergency ladderway, and his heart had been hammering by the time he'd scrambled down nine flights. He hadn't even found the ratings when another officer, a j.g. lieutenant named Nozawa grabbed him.
"Do you know how to power up a runabout?" he'd said.
"Yes, sir," said Kim, who'd done particularly well on that unit.
"Good. We need to get the aeroshuttle's transporters online in the next ninety seconds."
Kim gulped and followed Nozawa at a dead run through three hundred meters of half-lit, smoke-filled, debris-clogged lower-deck passageways to the aeroshuttle docking port. Fortunately, the airlock doors still worked. Inside, to Kim's right, were the cabins and cargo spaces and a passageway to engineering. To his left was the standard forward cabin of a Danube class runabout.
Nozawa pointed to the cockpit. "You start up the ships's systems from there. I'll go operate the transporter. You've got about one minute."
"What are we transporting?" said Kim.
"A live photon torpedo, so make sure the voltage is steady." Kim nodded, swallowed hard, and bolted for the pilot's chair.
As soon as he sat down, the Okudagram control panel lit up, instantly filling Kim with paralyzing terror. For six, seven heartbeats, he couldn't even read the labels.
"I'm ready when you are!" shouted Nozawa.
That broke Kim out of his trance. His training rushed back and his fingers danced across the panel. Unfortunately, as the startup procedure unfolded, he realized he was never going to get the impulse reactors started in time, let alone the warp drive. He checked the umbillical connection from Voyager. It was stone dead; Engineering had cut the aeroshuttle off to conserve power. "Oh, shit," he said.
Then the lights on the panel reminded him. The aeroshuttle was designed to operate semi-independently, which meant it had a battery, which meant..."You've got power!" he shouted at Nozawa as he flipped open the circuits. "Give it twenty seconds to warm up."
#
"Thirty seconds to impulse," said Mohommad.
"Are you sure about this?" said Seska. "Transporting live antimatter--"
"You think we can get home without Starfleet's help?" said Chakotay.
"Do we want Starfleet's help?" said Torres. "They'll arrest us the minute we get back."
"Look at them," said Chakotay. "They're a wreck. Once we're back in the Badlands, we'll leave them in our dust. But we need to get back to the Badlands first. Tuvok, ready phasers. Alaya, stand by; they're going to hand over transporters to you the second we drop to impulse." He turned to Seska. "Are you sure you have the timing down?"
"Yes," she said.
"All right," he said. "Tuvok, make sure you only fire on the mothership. If we wipe out their boarding parties, there's no reason for them not to shoot Voyager."
"Ten seconds," said Mohommad.
#
On Voyager, Nozawa activated the transporter and held his breath while the sleek black torpedo materialized on the pad.
Outside, the Kazon boarding shuttles drifted in, a few hundred meters from Voyager's hull. The first group of them had started slowing to contact speed.
On the Kazon battleship Predator, Maje Jal Jabin watched with growing excitement as his boarding parties approached the crippled alien starship. The Caretaker had provided many victims for the Kazon-Ogla, but he sensed that he had one of the great prizes of his career at his fingertips. There was something about the streamlined, white, alien hull which suggested great power and sophisticated technology. Ships like it had come here before, but they'd outrun or outfought him or destroyed themselves.
He didn't notice how his boarding shuttles were blocking most of his best firing lines to Voyager.
On the auxiliary bridge, Janeway called Carey on the intercom. "Mr. Carey, if this doesn't work, we'll fight the boarding parties for as long as we can to buy you time. But this ship can't fall into the hands of the Kazon. If Engineering falls, you blow the antimatter pods. Do you understand?"
Down in engineering, Carey and Rodriguez looked at each other for a long moment. Then Carey, his voice shaking, said "Yes, ma'am," and dialed up the controls for the antimatter containment fields.
Val Jean screamed towards the Caretaker array at many times the speed of light.
#
"Captain, another ship is approaching," said Gombe. "Maquis raider. They just dropped out of warp and they're closing fast."
"On screen," said Janeway.
Janeway's heart sank when she saw the condition of the little raider. Its hull was covered in hasty patches and fresh burn marks; it could scarcely be in much better condition than Voyager. She spotted a hole in the hull just a few meters from the flickering port warp nacelle; the ship's engineer had to be incredibly good and incredibly reckless to keep the ship operating at warp speed in that condition.
"Bridge, this is the aeroshuttle," said Nozawa. "Val Jean has taken control of the transporter."
"The Kazons are firing on Val Jean," said Gombe. On the screen, the computer highlighted depleted uranium shells streaking within a few kilometers of the Maquis ship.
Janeway could do nothing but cover her mouth with her hands and wait.
#
"They've got us bracketed!" said Seska.
"Mohommad, give them whatever you've got left!" said Chakotay.
"They're recharging their forward coilguns," said Tuvok.
"Alaya, now!" said Chakotay.
#
Harry Kim could hear the whine of the transporter as the torpedo vanished.
#
Gombe's eyes went wide. "Captain, I know what he's doing! The Kazon have to open a hole in their shields to fire their weapons!"
Janeway didn't have time to reply.
#
Deep in the bowels of Predator, near a critical three-way power junction, a Kazon crewman named Mierna was startled by a high-pitched whine. He turned around to see a black, lozenge-shaped device shimmer into existence. He reached out to touch it.
The world exploded.
#
The explosion ripped through the port side of Predator, dissolving steel and flesh in a blaze of gamma rays, creating a blast wave of metal vapor that piled up against armored bulkheads so fast that even with most of it escaping into space, it had enough pressure to smash down gastight doors and raced through passageways. Spikes of death and fire radiated along corridors, ladderways, and conduits, killing and destroying in every part of the ship. One such spike reached all the way to the internal starboard nacelle, turning twenty-five thousand tons of irreplaceable warp coil into junk. The port nacelle, of course, was destroyed completely, leaving only a single runty third nacelle in the ship's underbelly. Another cracked open the deeply armored central core, just a few compartments away from where Jal Jabin was in the process of being hurled through the air by the shockwaves reverberating back and forth through Predator. Out on the ship's surface, armor spalled away and the hull cracked open, spilling living Kazon into the vacuum.
Janeway stared, gape-mouthed, at the slowly spinning wreck Predator had become. And yet, there still was a ship to stare at. And yet, her engines, unbelievably, were still working. A few shield panels still flickered. There was power to her guns. Val Jean wasted no time, blasting the wounded Kazon battleship with phasers.
"Fire torpedoes!" said Janeway. Gombe hurled their last empty casing at Predator, where it smashed uselessly into a tangle of twisted wreckage.
Suddenly, Predator heaved, like a wounded animal trying to shake off a pair of grasping predators. An anemic subspace field faded into being, and suddenly Predator was gone, warping away at barely more than the speed of light, with all her boarding shuttles abandoned to Chakotay's tender mercies.
"Kazon boarding parties, this is--" said Janeway. That's all she got out before each and every shuttle popped, like a string of firecrackers, self-destructing, leaving them no prisoners and no answers to the ten thousand questions Janeway had.
Voyager floated in the sudden calm over the hothouse world. The alien space station sat, implacable, unperturbed.
"Val Jean to Voyager", said Chakotay. "We need to talk."
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
Its nice to see Chakotay is actually a tactical genius here and not just alleged to be one like in the show. A question, though; If Kazon don't have subspace shields, how can they safely travel at warp speed?
Also, I'm sure many characters have been talked about, but could we get a list of 'Dramatis Personae' with names and how they differ from their tv characters?
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
sweet mang! I love the whole out-of-her depth angle you've given to Janeway, it really makes the character more believeable.
PRFYNAFBTFCP
Captain of the MFS Frigate of Pizazz +2 vs. Douchebags - Est vicis pro nonnullus suscito vir
"Are you an idiot? What demand do you think there is for aircraft carriers that aren't government?" - Captain Chewbacca
"I keep my eighteen wives in wonderfully appointed villas by bringing the underwear of god to the heathens. They will come to know God through well protected goodies." - Gandalf
"There is no such thing as being too righteous to understand." - Darth Wong
CaptainChewbacca wrote:If Kazon don't have subspace shields, how can they safely travel at warp speed?
Real velocity is critical to a high-end warp drive. Voyager is actually capable of high fractical cee where without thier deflector the ship gets sand blasted to death inside the warp bubble.
So my guess is the Kazon do not safely travel at anything faster than a crawl. Without fractical cee velocities, stray impacts you need to worry about are reduced to other ships and large stellar bodies which don't move very fast or unexpectedly.
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
Its nice to see Chakotay is actually a tactical genius here and not just alleged to be one like in the show. A question, though; If Kazon don't have subspace shields, how can they safely travel at warp speed?
The story says that they lack subspace sensors, not shields. Chakotay waits till they drop shields to fire before using his transporter trick. This means they must be traveling blind when they do a warp jump, but that's not implausible if they have a good idea where major celestial bodies are.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Man Chakotay is going to make Janeway his bitch at this rate. Still you've done a good job of making her seem competent enough, she doesn't umm and ah when presented an opportunity even if she's too inexperienced to be making her own plans and opportunities.
Random thought:: is Tuvok still an undercover operative? And what's his rank? Will we end up with Chakotay and Janeway serving as acting Captain Tuvok's top officers? At the moment I can only see Janeway retaining command if she has Tuvok's support in keeping the Maquis in line.
As was said in the story, starship captains can set the line of succession at their discretion. Janeway is the 'lawful' captain right now, and can only lose her position voluntarily. I'm hoping she starts to rise to the occasion, because 'Janeway the inept' is only entertaining for so long.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
The way I see it, Chakotay will prop up Janeway as captain, due to it being a Federation starship with a largely Federation crew. The Marquis will know he still has plenty of power, and that it's in their best intrests to play along (nicely, not required) while the Feds get to keep 'their' captain.
This would give Janeway a crutch to lean on when things get tough, but also a reason for her to develop into a proper captain given time.
The RedImperator is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He causeth Voyager to not suck: he leadeth it beside the competent writing.
He restoreth my faith in Trek: he leadeth me in the paths of eliteness for his skill's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Berman, I will fear no treknobabble...
This is an awesome rewrite, Red.
"Freedom is not an external truth. It exists within men, and those who wish to be free are free." - Paul Ernst
The world is black and white. People, however, are grey.
When man has no choice but to do good, there's no point in calling him moral.
And here I thought this fic was left for dead. Thanks for proving me wrong, it was worth the wait.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one insists on adapting the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- George Bernard Shaw
CaptainChewbacca wrote:As was said in the story, starship captains can set the line of succession at their discretion. Janeway is the 'lawful' captain right now, and can only lose her position voluntarily. I'm hoping she starts to rise to the occasion, because 'Janeway the inept' is only entertaining for so long.
Correct me if I'm mistaken: my impression is that while she's not stupid or inept in general, she was overwhelmed by the pressure of events and her sudden promotion. I wouldn't be surprised to see her rise to the challenge once she gets a grip on things, if that's true.
I'm enjoying this so far. I just started reading it today. Course, now I'm wondering, since Chakotay is rather smart in this one, if the Val Jean will survive and be this story's version of a Delta Flyer. Makes a lot more sense than them building a shuttle from scratch. Plus, wouldn't it be cool to have them with two ships, so they could accomplish more?
Then again, if it survives, there is no reason for the crews to integrate.
FaxModem1 wrote:I'm enjoying this so far. I just started reading it today. Course, now I'm wondering, since Chakotay is rather smart in this one, if the Val Jean will survive and be this story's version of a Delta Flyer. Makes a lot more sense than them building a shuttle from scratch. Plus, wouldn't it be cool to have them with two ships, so they could accomplish more?
Then again, if it survives, there is no reason for the crews to integrate.
In the latest chapter, they mentioned Voyager having an 'aeroshuttle' which will probably fulfill the same purpose.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
FaxModem1 wrote:I'm enjoying this so far. I just started reading it today. Course, now I'm wondering, since Chakotay is rather smart in this one, if the Val Jean will survive and be this story's version of a Delta Flyer. Makes a lot more sense than them building a shuttle from scratch. Plus, wouldn't it be cool to have them with two ships, so they could accomplish more?
Then again, if it survives, there is no reason for the crews to integrate.
They could eventually run into the Equinox, only NOT fuck it up this time...
"Since when is "the west" a nation?"-Styphon "ACORN= Cobra obviously." AMT
This topic is... oh Village Idiot. Carry on then.--Havok
FaxModem1 wrote:I'm enjoying this so far. I just started reading it today. Course, now I'm wondering, since Chakotay is rather smart in this one, if the Val Jean will survive and be this story's version of a Delta Flyer. Makes a lot more sense than them building a shuttle from scratch. Plus, wouldn't it be cool to have them with two ships, so they could accomplish more?
Then again, if it survives, there is no reason for the crews to integrate.
In the latest chapter, they mentioned Voyager having an 'aeroshuttle' which will probably fulfill the same purpose.
According to Memory Alpha, In the original Trek canon, Voyager always had this aeroshuttle. Except they never, ever used the fucking thing. Even though it would've been really useful, and the crew built a custom spacecraft that essentially served the same purpose. They had to retcon in an explanation for the idiocy of the writers in the fluff materials like Trek magazine. It's good to see that the existence of this vessel is actually acknowledged in a Star Trek universe where people do things that actually make sense.
I was under the impression that while Voyager had the mooring spot for one, in the series the explanation was that it had been 'in the shop' when they went looking for Chakotay.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
It had taken forty minutes of negotiation just to agree on a meeting place, during which time Janeway's headache and shoulder just got worse and worse. Janeway finally gave up and agreed to beam over to Val Jean in an hour's time, then went to sickbay to finally have her shoulder repaired.
The sickbay was bedlam, with patients slumped in the passageway outside, bleeding on the deck and smearing more blood on the walls. When the wounded parted to let her pass, she felt intense guilt.
Inside, the carpet was drenched in blood and a single doctor, assisted only by a handful of goldshirts performing basic first aid, was working on patients virtually stacked one on top of another. He worked on a patient lying on the stasis bed, his hands moving faster than Janeway could see, and she realized he was an artificial human--either an android (which seemed unlikely, since she only knew of one in Starfleet) or a hologram. The EMH.
He was working frantically on a gold-shirted crewman second class. He had opened her chest cavity without even bothering to remove her uniform or set up a partition--only the sterile force field separated them from the rest of sickbay. As Janeway approached the operating table, he suddenly looked over at her and said, "Please stand back, captain." His voice and face were flat, neutral. His hands never stopped moving.
Alarms started piling up. The woman's vital signs were collapsing. Her heartrate and breathing zeroed. The sickbay went quiet. The doctor kept working, even reaching under her sternum to manually stimulate her heart. Except when he directly manipulated it, though, her heart refused to beat.
Finally, he gave up. He withdrew his hands and, still showing no emotion, shimmered briefly. The blood coating his arms hung in midair for the briefest instant, like a pair of gloves. Then it splashed to the deck.
"She's dead," said the doctor. He pointed at two goldshirts, who were injured themselves with burn blisters on their faces. "Take the body." They hustled through the sterile field, grabbed the dead woman from either end, and hauled her off. As they passed, Janeway reached out with her good hand and stroked the woman's face, once.
The doctor turned to Janeway. "Please step through the sterile field," he said. She did, feeling numb. The field burned, like rubbing alcohol, as she walked through.
"What was her name?" said Janeway.
"Crewman Second Class Pullman," said the doctor. "I have noted her death in the medical log." He scanned Janeway with a medical tricorder. "You have a dislocated shoulder and a concussion," he said, as he guided her to sit on the edge of the table on which Crewman Pullman had just died (the self-cleaning bed and deck had already dissolved and absorbed her blood). "You should have come to me immediately. Hold still."
"How many other casualties?" said Janeway.
"Forty-six," he said, as he injected something into her neck via hypospray. Janeway blanched. That was nearly a third of the ship's crew.
"Where's Dr. Fitzgerald?" said Janeway.
"Dr. Fitzgerald is dead," said the hologram.
Janeway jumped off the table, too angry to notice her headache was gone. "Why the hell didn't anybody tell me?" she said. All the conversation in sickbay died as every conscious patient turned their heads to look at her. Even the doctor didn't respond.
Janeway's ears started burning and she was about to slip back onto the operating table. Wait, she thought. You're the captain. It's your perogative to shout. She closed her eyes and thought about how she'd handle the situation as a department head, and realized she would have had the exact same reaction. Still, shouting at sick people wasn't going to make it better. She tapped her commbadge. "Attention all hands: this is Com--Captain Janeway. Listen carefully: I am ordering everyone to report his or her status and location to the computer. That's immediately. I need to know where everybody is and what they're capable of now." She tapped her commbadge off. "Are you sapient?" she said to the doctor.
There was a long pause, as if the simulacrum was imitating deep thought. In reality, Janeway knew, it could fit a million of its deepest thoughts in the time it took Janeway to blink. "I am capable of independent initiative," said the Doctor. "And I am aware of myself as an object distinct from my surroundings." He poked his index finger though the surface of the table. "For a given value of 'object'."
"Close enough for government work," she said. "Until further notice, you're the acting CMO."
"Captain, I must point out that I do not have a legal Starfleet rank and thus I am legally unable to serve as CMO."
Shit, thought Janeway.
"However," continued the Doctor. "I should also note that as commanding officer of Voyager, you have the authority to issue brevet commissions to any sapient life form that is not legally disqualified from accepting such a commission."
"And are you legally disqualified?" she said.
"No," said the Doctor.
"Fine. I hearby issue you the brevet rank of Lieutenant," she said. The Doctor nodded. A pair of rank pips appeared on his collar.
"Computer, coalate the data the crew sends you," said Janeway. "I want a map of where everyone is and an organizational chart of who's still alive. Doctor, bring me a PADD." The Doctor complied.
"Captain, I need to reset your shoulder," he said.
Janeway took a deep breath, held it, let it out. She knew what was coming. "All right. Let's just do it."
"Relax your arm," he said. He gave her a hypospray of painkiller, which wasn't enough, and started carefully manipulating her arm.
"It's the twenty-fourth century," she said. "You'd think they'd have a better way to do this."
"Please hold still," he said. A muscle spasmed and she cried out. The Doctor was unrelenting, continuing to rotate her arm even as she cried and pleaded with him to stop.
And then, suddenly, there was a *pop* and her arm was back in place. Instantly the pain...well, it didn't exactly disappear, but it changed to something more tolerable, and it got more tolerable still when the Doctor gave her another hypospray. He bound her arm in a sling. "I gave you medication to speed up your body's natural healing process," he said, "but you will still need to keep your shoulder immobile for the rest of the day. I have also given you something for your concussion; however, you should take care to avoid future head injuries."
Janeway nodded, grateful that the intense, distracting pain was gone. She barely even noticed her concussion headache was gone, too.
"Is there anything you need, Doctor?" said Janeway.
"More assistance," he said.
"I'll see what I can do," said Janeway.
"Captain," he said. "You should be aware: I was only designed to operate temporarily, as emergency relief. It would be in your best interest to find a replacement doctor as soon as possible. I cannot predict what will happen to my program if I am left running in the long term."
"I know that," she said. "Right now, your closest replacement is 70,000 light years away, so we're going to have to get by with you."
"I understand," he said. Satisfied, she left sixkbay.
Her next stop was engineering. The turbolifts still weren't working and there were depressurized compartments all over the ship, forcing her to take a roundabout path. She made use of her time by going over the PADD, where the computer had already downloaded data on the surviving crew. She grimanced once at the numbers--not only was a third of the crew dead, but a disproportionate number had been high-ranked officers, most of whom died in the bridge blowout. She grimaced again when she saw the map. People were scattered at random, with no regard for chain-of-command or actual expertise, leaving her with such absurdities as the ship's only surviving OPS officer supervising a firewatch on Deck 9 while she tried to run the auxillary bridge with a crewman first class on the OPS station. Damage control and Engineering seemed to know what it was doing, but everyone else was lost.
She was still pondering this when she arrived in Engineering. Carey was standing in the control room, giving instructions to what seemed like three different people at once.
"...look, don't worry about the starboard engine," said Carey. "Just get the portside running so we'll have impulse power again. We can always vector the thrust." He looked up and noticed Janeway. "Captain," he said. "What can I do for you?" He was plainly annoyed she was there.
"What's your status?" she said.
"I could have told you that by commbadge."
"I was in the neighborhood," said Janeway.
"Fine," said Carey. "We're trying to get the impulse engines back online so we have mobility."
"What about power?" said Janeway.
"We're drawing auxilliary power off the fusion reactors. Those still work; we're just having trouble with the reactant pumps."
She pointed at the dead warp core. "What about main power?"
"Well," said Carey, "Technically, we could probably start the warp core. The thing is, though, after a violent shutdown, regulations say we need to conduct a level-1 diagnostic on the entire system. That could take days."
"Then shouldn't you be getting started?" said Janeway.
"Ma'am, the way I see it, whatever dragged us here must be on that space station. We don't need the warp drive to get back. Unless we're planning to take the long way." He smiled to show he meant it as a joke.
You are a presumptious little shit, thought Janeway. But she hesitated before upbraiding him. He might have been right about the warp engine; it was very uncomfortable, she realized, giving orders to technical specialists which contradicted their technical judgment. "Mr. Carey, I'm going to follow your recommendation," said Janeway. "But in the future, I expect to be consulted before you make decisions like this."
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
"All right, I'm going over to talk to the Maquis. Do the transporters work yet?"
"Not yet. You'll have to use the aeroshuttle's transporters."
"What about one of the shuttles?" The shuttlebay was a lot closer than the aeroshuttle.
"No air in the shuttlebay," said Carey.
"Right," said Janeway. "Aeroshuttle it is, then." She left engineering, trying to remember how to get to the aeroshuttle dock. The map on the PADD helped. She weaved through debris-strewn passageways and around gold-shirted repair teams.
She couldn't shake the feeling that Carey didn't respect her. The further she walked from engineering, the more disgusted she was with herself for putting up with his attitude. Not for the first time that day, she wondered how in the hell she'd wound up in charge of Voyager. Why hadn't Bujold put her at the end of the line of succession? Why had she taken the bridge officers' exam in the first place? She was a scientist, not a leader. She was born to do battle in the halls of academia, with snide memos and contemptuous letters to the Starfleet Meteorological Review editorial page. She hadn't planned on getting into actual battle with alien pirates, let alone in a crippled ship on the wrong side of the galaxy.
"You are getting dangerously close to feeling sorry for yourself, Kathryn," she said out loud. A nearby rating turned his head. Fortunately, he didn't seem to recognize her.
She checked the ship's org chart again. Among the departments decapitated was Science--the computer had removed her as department head when she got promoted to CO-by-default. She checked the next name down and tapped her commbadge. "Janeway to Ensign Wildman."
"Wildman here."
"Have you ever run a science department before?" said Janeway.
"No, ma'am."
"Now you have," she said. "We have to get our heads together. Gather up everyone in the department you can find and start working on how we got here and how we're going to get back. If the sensors don't work, notify Lieutenant Carey and get a repair team on it. First priority is that space station. Do a scan of the planet, too, while you're at it. Maybe there's something we missed the first time."
"Yes ma'am," said Ensign Wildman.
"Janeway out," said Janeway, who only afterwards realized she had no idea what Ensign Wildman even looked like.
She walked on, fiddling with the PADD. She dragged names around with her finger, trying to put together a chart that made sense. She was resigned to putting ensigns and junior grade lieutenants in charge of departments; in that sense, she was lucky to have Carey, or else an ensign would have been her chief engineer.
And speaking of ensigns...
She found him standing in the middle of a group of crewmen, looking lost. Gold shirt, one pip, round face, jet-black hair. "Ensign!" she said.
He jerked and spun around. "Yes ma'am?" he said.
"What's your name?" she said.
"Ensign Harry Kim, ma'am," he said.
"You're the backup ops officer, right?" she said.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I see. Then what the hell are you doing down here?"
"I was sent by--"
"I don't want to hear it," she said. "This ship needs an ops officer. You're the only one left, I'm sorry to say. Get your ass to the auxilliary bridge, on the double."
Ensign Kim spent a moment staring, wide-eyed. "Yes, ma'am!" he said. He scurried away.
Did I just chew out a baby-faced ensign because I let Carey walk all over me? she thought. The crewmen were still standing around, watching her.
"Computer," she said. "Locate the nearest NCO."
"Petty Officer Jarvis is in section 917," said the computer.
"You heard the computer," said Janeway. "Get to section 917."
The crewmen saluted and scattered. "You sure showed them who's boss," said Janeway to the empty air. She sighed and walked towards the aeroshuttle dock.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
And so Janeway's reign begins. And Ouch, I would not want to experience what Janeway went through in the Sickbay.
Now, this makes sense as to why an ensign is getting assigned to Ops. Course, I have to wonder how hard the job at Ops is. And wouldn't there be a Lt available? But hey, Janeway doesn't really know what she's doing.
