Chapter 71: First Fight Against Species 8472
With a snort, an orange shimmer covered my body and blocked the transporter beam from taking me away. The creature's face was charred black, but I could sense that its body was quickly repairing itself. Its pale gold eyes, that had cross-shaped pupils, glared at me with rage, before it shrieked and threw itself at me again. This time, I was ready for it and did not have to worry about the others.
A pair of mage-steel gauntlets appeared on my hands, and I caught its hands before it could claw me again. Surprisingly, its strength was on par with my own, so I was pushed back by the momentum of its rush. Its hands were slowly creeping their way toward me, but before they could reach me, I twisted and yanked it forward, sending it crashing through the wall.
Now, it was my turn to throw myself at the creature, increasing my speed greatly. The gauntlets changed to form a blade that was the width of my fists, and as thick as a finger, which I stabbed into its chest. The creature screeched in pain and swung to claw at my face, but I teleported a few steps away as soon as the blades penetrated its flesh. Before I could enjoy the satisfaction of hurting the creature, I was smacked away by an unseen hand and sent flying through another wall.
What I had feared most about facing Species 8472 was their telepathic powers, and I had just fallen to one of my Council's favorite tricks to use against me. In the split second that my view of the creature had been obstructed, it had reached into my mind and created an illusion of itself. I attacked the illusion which left me wide open to its counter-attack.
With a roar, I threw off the pieces of debris that fell on me and conjured my Chaos Storm Clouds around my body. Although I was still weak to mental attacks, only Loki and Sun Wukong could hide themselves within my storm, so I was making sure that it could not trick me again. As the silver clouds moved towards it, the creature seemed to understand the danger that they posed, so instead of attacking again, it turned and fled towards its ship.
I tried to chase it, but it was still able to confuse my senses which gave it time to reach its ship and break away from the cube. Not one to let my prey escape, I jumped out of the hole it left and transformed into my Dragon form. It was waiting for me, and the bio-ship's weapon was nearly fully charged. It fired at me, and I met the attack with a thick crimson lightning bolt that I launched from my mouth. The resulting explosion threw me back against the remains of the cube and made my entire body ache. Seeing the bio-ship retreating, I snorted with anger but no longer chased after it and changed back to my usual appearance while simultaneously summoning my exo-suit to cover my body.
"Rebecca to Voyager. Do you read me?" I asked.
"We've got you. Are you okay?" Janeway replied.
"I'm injured but will survive. Can you transport me to Sick Bay?"
"Stand by."
While I wanted to make a joke that I was floating rather than standing, I did not bother since I was in a lot of pain. The fight had done some damage to me, but it was those initial scratches from Species 8472 that were the true source of my pain. I could feel some foreign energy radiating from those wounds, but more disturbing was the fact that I could tell it was feeding off my mana and growing. Although my body's natural regeneration was trying to fight off the invading parasitic cells of Species 8472, it was slowly losing the battle. I would have rather been thrown out into space again without an exo-suit than feel the molten iron that seemed to slowly be spreading throughout my body.
"Rebecca?" Kes asked.
"Focus on Harry. I can handle myself," I said as I unsummoned my exo-suit and sat on one of the side bio-beds.
Harry was on the main bed, so with my statement, the Doctor, Danara, and Kes returned their focus to him. I shut my eyes and tried to turn my attention to the invading cells, but that only seemed to spur them to grow faster. It was not until I retracted my mana, and therefore my consciousness, from the region around the wound that the multiplying cells seemed to slow. It seemed that Tori wanted to make sure that only the Borg nanoprobe cure would work.
"Rebecca to Echo," I said, tapping my badge. "Bring the data for the Doctor."
"Understood," Echo replied.
Kes walked over to me with a tricorder in her hand and started scanning me. "Doctor, there is a much higher concentration of the foreign cells that we saw in Harry in Rebecca's wounds and the surrounding tissue, but they don't seem to be spreading as fast now. Is your healing not working?"
"The cells are feeding off my mana and multiplying. Anything that I could try will only make it worse, and my immune system doesn't seem to be stronger than the invading cells," I replied with a sigh.
"Your immune system is having difficulty fighting off the cells?" Danara asked with surprise as she had done the most amount of research on my DNA.
Before anyone else could ask anything, the door to Sick Bay opened, and Captain Janeway entered the room. Her eyes were drawn to the main bio-bed as soon as she walked in and then to me a moment later, and she headed over to me. I peeled off my torn and bloodied jacket which revealed the yellow and greenish tendrils around my wounds from the infection.
"Could I get damp cloth to clean up a little?" I asked.
"Of course," Kes agreed before she headed to Science Lab, which was on the other side of the Doctor's office.
"How are you?" Janeway asked quietly; thankfully, not bothering to ask why I kept fighting Species 8472 after the others were beamed away.
"Aside from the feeling of molten lead spreading through my veins, and the parasitic cells feeding off my mana, just peachy," I retorted with a smirk.
She sighed at my cheeky response and inquired, "Then is it safe to assume that you cannot heal yourself with your power?"
"No, but Echo is..." I was going to say that she was bringing the data for the nanoprobe technology, but she walked in with a data pad in her hand.
Echo walked up, looked me over, and remarked, "You look like shit."
I chuckled, "Thanks for your sympathy. Echo has brought Katye's work, but I ask that only the Doctor can look at the bulk of it."
"Of course," Janeway agreed and then headed to the Doctor.
Kes returned and handed me a blue cloth. After thanking her, I started wiping away the traces of black blood from my arm and shoulder while Danara walked up. She started scanning me with her own version of a tricorder, better than the typical Starfleet ones, and frowned.
"That good, huh?" I asked with a weak smirk.
"Do you know why it is so concentrated around your wounds, yet it doesn't seem to be growing as much now? The amount of time that you've been infected doesn't correlate to its current rate of expansion," Danara asked.
"I've suppressed all of my mana throughout my body since I can tell that the cells are feeding off said energy to replicate themselves," I explained.
"Is that what is happening to Harry?"
"Most likely."
"Can you, or your group, suppress the mana in his body?"
"No. His mana is incredibly weak compared to ours, so suppressing what little he has would be like preventing him from breathing. All that I am doing is slowing the spread throughout my body," I replied.
Danara sighed but nodded her head. Janeway and the Doctor moved to his office, so I stood up and grabbed the data pad from Echo before sliding past her and Danara. I walked into the small office and passed the information to the Doctor.
"This is something that Katye has been working on, but you'll need to do the finishing touches for it to be able to help Harry," I explained.
"Doctor, I am going to give an unusual order, but I expect you to follow it. I want you to study this information and recreate and perfect the technique as if you were the one to figure this out. You must make no note of Rebecca's and her group's contributions and, after Rebecca leaves here, you must not speak of them again, especially to Tuvok or myself," Janeway instructed.
"Okay..." he replied with some skepticism.
"I know it is a strange request, Doc, but we have our reasons, and it will make sense when all of this is over," I said.
The Doctor nodded his head.
"Thanks... Echo and I are going to return to our ship. Hopefully, Katye and Raven will be able to adapt the method to help me out," I said with a sigh.
"Alright, Tuvok and I will meet you on your ship later this evening," Janeway replied.
"Understood. It will also be helpful if you have some other reason why you came to the Shuttle Bay aside from us," I suggested.
"We'll think of something," Janeway agreed.
I nodded and walked out of the office. Waving Echo over, the two of us headed back to our ship. Although I had kept up a brave face in front of Janeway and the others, the truth was that I was in terrible pain and nearly collapsed from the strain of keeping my relaxed demeanor as soon as Fae's door shut behind us. Echo caught me and pulled my arm over her shoulders so that she could help me up the stairs.
"Becca!" Raven exclaimed when she saw us climbing the stairs and rushed over.
Katye, who had been using the Mind Linker, opened her eyes and looked at me with concern as Raven and Echo helped ease me down on my usual couch.
"Species 8472 was able to penetrate my scales when I was using my Dusa form, so they are far stronger than we had guessed. Their cells are also feeding off my mana in order to multiply, which means that I can't heal the wounds myself," I explained. "Things are playing out as we had hoped, aside from my injury, and Janeway and Tuvok will be by later this evening."
"Raven and I will start modifying some nanoprobes and see if we can't get you back on your feet," Katye said, standing up.
"Thanks," I sighed and shifted myself so that I could lay down across the couch.
Raven leaned down and gave me a kiss before she walked with Katye downstairs.
"Do you need anything?" Echo asked.
"Some Spirit Wine would be great, but I'm also sure that it will do more harm than good," I chuckled weakly.
"We'll drink after Katye and Raven fix you up," Echo said as she sat down on her own couch.
She took out a Mind Linker and activated it a moment later. If the pain was not as bad as it was, I would have smirked and shaken my head, but all I could do right now was lay here and keep myself quiet, or I would be groaning in pain. I had suffered worse injuries before, but these were a constant burning ache that only grew stronger over the passing hours.
I could not sleep or meditate without risking the infection from getting out of control, so I just had to lay there and wait for Raven and Katye to finish. Unfortunately, despite creating a small batch of nanoprobes within an hour, the dosage was destroyed the instant it was injected into my bloodstream. Similar to how only the specially coded could work on the invading cells of Species 8472, my own immune system would attack and destroy the nanoprobes before they could take out more than a few cells from Species 8472, making the cure basically useless for me.
Janeway and Tuvok came as promised and checked on me before Katye sealed their memories. After they left the Shuttle Bay, Chakotay gave us the signal and the Fae Dragon launched. We hid off Voyager's side and tapped into their communication system so that we could keep track of what was happening on the ship... or rather, so Echo could keep track of what was happening. I was pretty useless while I focused on suppressing my mana, and Katye and Raven were focused on trying to come up with some way to help me, but it was a slow process.
"Rebecca," Echo said gently. "Chakotay wants to speak to you, and he only has a few minutes."
I gave a light groan as I came back to my senses. I had fallen into a sort of trance where I was focused on limiting the amount of mana channeling through my body which had numbed my senses to the pain, but it all came back to me when I had to focus on the outside world. I forced myself to sit up and took the tablet from her hand.
"Chakotay," I greeted.
"Rebecca?!? Are you...?" he started.
"It looks worse than it is, Commander, I assure you," I cut him off.
"Is the treatment that you gave to the Doctor not working for you?"
"Unfortunately, my DNA is on the scale of Species 8472, so my body destroys the nanoprobes nearly instantly. Even the ones under Raven's control can't work as the cells of Species 8472 are drawn to her mana. Katye and Raven are trying to figure out something, but it's not a simple matter."
"I'm sure... I'm sorry for disturbing you, but we just found out that the Northwest Passage is where Species 8472 is supposed to originate from. Is there some way that I'm supposed to react?" he asked.
"Follow your instincts and, ultimately, Janeway's orders, but speak up when she asks for your opinion. In my vision, you wanted her to turn around after you confirmed that the Northwest Passage was unusable, and then you doubted her idea to proceed forward, and told her, but she will still follow her gut... hopefully, though the future is not set in stone. My crew has seen my vision, so if this infection does take me out, they can help guide you. Please, for your sake, your relationship with Janeway, and the rest of galaxy, trust us to make sure everything plays out as best as we can," I said.
Chakotay sighed and nodded his head. "Fine, I'll do my best."
"Thank you, Chakotay. I know that I'm asking a lot of you, but I just need you to be yourself and keep the crew from asking Janeway or Tuvok about our group. Our influence is still on the minor side, so we just need to keep it that way," I stated.
"Understood. I'll contact you later if anything important comes up," he said before shutting off his device.
I sighed and laid back down, handing Echo the tablet. "Keep monitoring Voyager. After they see the Northwest Passage for themselves, Janeway will get the idea for the alliance with the Borg during the evening. If it doesn't happen, we are going to have a lot of problems."
"I will. How are you doing?" Echo asked.
"Surviving, but ready for Katye and Raven to figure this problem out," I replied.
"I'm sure they'll have something soon," she assured.
I hummed with acknowledgment and shut my eyes. The infection was slowly spreading outwards from my wounds, with tendrils creeping up my neck and down both arms and my chest. While it was not as bad as Harry's current condition, about thirty percent of my upper body was covered by the tendrils, marking the infection. Unless they could figure out how to treat me soon, I would be unable to fight later if Voyager needed help which could unravel all of my plans...
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