Chapter 35: A False Alarm
"So, what is it that you wanted to discuss?" Janeway asked as we sat on the couch in her Ready Room.
"With the danger that we are facing from the Vidiians, my group has been busy and come up with a few designs to combine our two technologies," I started my speech after handing her a data pad with the information about the new torpedoes. "We have three prototypes that are ready for testing if you can supply the casing for the torpedoes. The first design is trying to emulate an EMP by disrupting opponents' power systems and will only affect the ship that it hits. The second is more powerful, creating two opposing, twisting forces which can shred a half-meter thick duranium plate, but the area of effect is only a half-meter radius of the impact zone. The last is the most powerful, yet the easiest for conventional shielding to protect from as it is an eruption of pure energy which Echo estimates is twice the strength of a conventional photon torpedo."
"Is this data correct?" Janeway asked with surprise as she looked through the pad.
"It is purely theoretical currently, as the Fae Dragon doesn't have the ability to use them, but that is what our simulations are predicting," I replied. "When we first had this idea, we started stockpiling the crystal power source, so if you can spare Katye and Raven from their usual duty shifts for a week, they should be able to build thirty in whatever combination that you would request. After that, we can produce two a day while keeping our core topped off."
It had been a month since Katye had completed Sancu's penalty and was able to use her mana again. Each design took roughly a week to perfect and balance the cost versus power ratio. The amount of mana crystals used for a single torpedo was equal to five percent of our ship's core, which was why they were so powerful.
"These certainly are impressive specifications. I'll pass over the data to Tuvok and see what he thinks."
"Thank you, Captain," I replied.
"Have you made any improvements to your own ship?"
"Unfortunately, no. Fae was built by someone with greater expertise than my crew, so editing or adding anything to her is very difficult. Raven might be able to gain enough skill to do something in a few years, but for now, it's simply easier to make something disposable that your ship can use."
"Well, I guess I'll just thank you in advan..."
"Katye to Rebecca," my comm badge chimed.
"Forgive me," I apologized, but she just smirked and nodded her head. I tapped my badge and asked, "How can I help, Katye?"
"You wanted me to alert you if Ensign Wildman started going into labor. Neelix just paged us that he is helping her get to Sick Bay," Katye replied.
"Thanks for letting me know," I replied then sighed, looking at Janeway.
"I'm going to guess that you aren't trying to finish some gift for the baby," Janeway sighed.
"I wish... I'd like to ask for you to send out a reconnaissance probe out ahead of us. The vision was long ago, so I'm not sure how much our time onboard has changed things, but we could be facing a very unique and dangerous situation. I'd rather not risk Naomi's life by birth complications," I replied.
"Naomi? Samantha is having a boy, I thought."
"She made the assumption on her own; the Doctor never revealed the gender."
"Can you tell me what happened in your vision?" she asked.
"While Ensign Wildman was in labor, you approached a region controlled by the Vidiians, so Tom suggested using a plasma drift to sneak by. She would have complications which would force the Doctor to do a fetal-transport, but before he could start the osmotic pressure therapy to fix an imbalance caused by the transport, the Voyager exited the plasma drift and hit a subspace divergence field, creating two separate Voyagers. The problem was that both ships were still connected and trying to draw power from the same source of anti-matter, which was not duplicated, just like the Kent State experiment. One ship would react faster and would start using proton bursts to keep the warp core going, but this, in turn, crippled the other ship. Both Naomi and Harry Kim died on the crippled Voyager before you realized what was happening. You tried to come up with a way to recombine the ships, but they ultimately failed. One Janeway was ready to destroy her ship to save the other's ship, but before she could, the Vidiians attacked the Voyager that was intact. That Janeway was forced to destroy her ship as the Vidiians boarded in force, but she sent Harry and Naomi through a portal which allowed crossing between the two ships," I answered.
The birth of Naomi Wildman was a happy event onboard the Voyager that every member of the crew was excited about, but like any good television drama, some danger had to pop up. I had explained this episode to my group weeks ago, and we weighed the pros and cons of following this plotline. The ultimate deciding factor on the decision to avoid it if possible was we did not know how we would be affected by the subspace divergence field. Fae's databanks told us that mana, just like anti-matter, could not be duplicated, so we did not know if we would get separated between the two ships or where the Fae Dragon would end up if we hit that field.
"That was a quick answer," she remarked.
"Mana is closer to anti-matter than it is to matter, so I have no idea how my ship and crew will react if we hit that field. My visions don't include us," I replied.
"But why don't your visions include you and your kind?"
"Because we don't belong here; we are something that should not exist in this universe, or any," I said, quoting some of the background information that Tori had provided. "As much as we both know that the Q from the Enterprise is an asshole, he still had a bottom line that he wouldn't cross; Quinn, even more since he knew that he could commit a crime to warrant his death, yet never considered it. Q calls us 'mutts' because our Mortal Souls were fused with an elemental creature, making us a combination of both, yet neither. That is how a Q causes a disruption in the Continuum and, somehow, his Death did not undo the 'mistake' that was made."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." she started.
"That was a lifetime ago, and one I don't remember, Kathryn. I know my history because I've read it," I cut her off before she could fully apologize; I never liked lying, especially to someone who I respected.
"We'll send out a probe. There was nebula slightly off course that could be worth studying while we wait to see what's ahead," Janeway said with a light smile.
"Thank you," I replied.
We stood up and headed back to the Bridge. Janeway had Harry launch a probe and then change course to the Class K nebula. I headed over to the unmanned Science Station and started going over the long-range sensors. There were five star systems within scanning distance, though only three were ahead of us, and of those, there was just one with a habitable planet.
Even after checking the other two, nothing matched up to what I remembered. I might have misremembered things about Danara since it was a minor fact between her episodes, but this was the major plotline of this episode, so I did not think I was wrong. I got permission from Janeway to return to my ship, so I could use our sensors.
On my way to the Fae Dragon, I tapped my badge and said, "Rebecca to Pedira."
"Yes, Becca; what do you need?" she asked.
"Could you meet me on my ship? I'd like your help with something."
"Sure, I'll be there in ten minutes," she agreed.
"Thanks."
I walked onto the Fae Dragon and stopped by the core, placing my hand on it. Topping off the core had become a habit these days since we were constantly stockpiling mana crystals for the torpedoes and it was easier to replicate them, even if the exchange was not exactly equal. Pedira did not make me wait long and I led her onto the Bridge.
"I'd like your help with your knowledge of this area, more specifically where your people are," I said, showing her the star map. "This yellow line represents the Voyager's course since we joined them, and you joined us here. I want to know if we have passed by any star systems with specifically two inhabited worlds, more likely recently."
"One of your visions?" she asked with a hint of concern.
"An old one before you joined the crew. Things have changed since then, so it could have been a 'right place at the right time' situation and we've passed the danger," I replied since she knew as much about my powers as Janeway because we worked together so often.
"Alright," Pedira agreed and looked closer at the screen. "Geno and Tayo... Jaqinni Alpha and Beta... Farron and Delaca are a pair of moons that orbit a gas giant. That's everything that we've neared since I joined if you just want two inhabited worlds."
"Anything ahead of us along our course?"
"Not any with two planets. Our territory only extends for another fifty to sixty light-years in the direction that the Voyager is heading, and it's the outskirts as it is."
Looking at the star systems that she pointed out, Geno and Tayo were the closest to our current position, so they were most likely the ones that I was looking for. We had passed near them a week and a half ago, but we had been six light-years away from the system at the closest point, so we had avoided the entire encounter if I was right. Sixty light-years would take us a little over four months to travel at the Voyager's average pace, so if Danara was going to pop up, it would be within that timeframe.
"I guess we missed it. Thanks for your help, Pedira," I said with a light sigh.
"Is there something wrong?" she asked.
"Not exactly; I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop to use an old phrase. Seska sent your research to the Vidiian Sodality, so they are going to be hunting us even more, yet we still have not seen them. I don't want a confrontation with your people, but without a cure, it's only a matter of when they will find us," I replied.
"I'm sorry, Rebecca. If I had never come here..."
"Syrala wouldn't have a mother," I cut her off with a hard look. "Yes, your research has drawn more attention to the Voyager, but you were not the one to release it. Janeway and I both agreed to help you despite the danger, so don't beat yourself up over this."
"You are kind," Pedira sighed. "The longer I stay here, the more impressed I am by the generosity of this crew... It's so different than my home. This disease has been killing my people for hundreds of years, and many of our politicians and scientists have never developed compassion for the people who keep us alive. Even if we do cure the phage, do we truly deserve to live after everything we've done?"
I leaned on a console and crossed my arms with a heavy sigh then remarked, "A long time before my group and I joined the crew of the Voyager, we led hundreds of thousands of people. That planet was facing a nuclear apocalypse which we knew about with plenty of time to evacuate our people, but we chose not to because doing so would have alerted a dangerous group of our existence. Instead, we decided to hunker down for five years while we waited for the surface radiation to return to safe levels, but our bunkers could only support two thousand people. We doomed over two hundred thousand to die because we were scared of what that group could do, but we also feared losing those closest to us. Do we still deserve to live after what we've done? The simple answer is that it does not matter. We did what we did, and no one can change the past. The only thing that we can do is move forward and keep trying to make things better."
She looked at me with honest surprise. I had hinted about my past a few times in our conversations, but this was a bit more detailed than anything else I had mentioned before. While I had accepted the things that I had done to survive back then, that did not mean that I had forgotten them or the weight of those decisions.
"It's hard to believe that you've had that kind of weight on your shoulders," she said after a few moments.
"We all have a past; some are just more complicated than others," I replied with a shrug. "If we manage to come up with a cure for the phage, it's a rebirth for your people. Let it be just that and judge them for the actions they take after they have been cured, while never forgetting the past."
"I see the wisdom in your words. I will try," she said with a light smile.
"Thanks again for your help. I need to let Janeway know that we've likely missed the event, so if you'll excuse me."
"Of course. I was working on some equipment in the Medical Science Lab when you called, so I should get back to it."
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