บท 42: Forced To Run
B'Elanna, Raven, and the Engineering Team were able to get the Voyager's warp drive back online in six hours. The Vidiians had stayed on the edge of our sensor range for the entire time that the engines were down, but once we jumped to warp, they did not pursue us, strangely. I discussed the matter with Janeway, Chakotay, and Tuvok, but it was not easy to guess what they were planning. She had wanted to negotiate with the Vidiians before and after the attack, but they refused to respond to any of her hails.
Danara woke up later that day, so Janeway and I went to talk to her with Pedira. She was still in Sick Bay, getting treatment from the Doctor since a few of her organs were close to failing. Despite her condition, she had a smile on her face.
"Danara, this is Captain Janeway and Captain Cox. They are the ones responsible for saving both of us and have taken care of Syrala and me," Pedira introduced.
"Thank you, Captains," Danara said.
"You're welcome," Janeway replied. "Could you tell us a little about why you were out here?"
Her expression fell, but she nodded her head anyways and explained, "About six months ago, I was called back to Vidiia Prime, where the main headquarters of the Sodality is located. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I was detained and questioned about Pedira… when was my last communication with her... did I know her location… things like that. Unsatisfied with my answers, they locked me in a cell onboard the Krawon. It wasn't until my old mentor, a member of the High Council, helped me escape a few weeks ago that I learned why I had been taken. They wanted to use my life as leverage against Pedira to have her betray Voyager. I really wasn't trying to find you. I was just trying to hide, but it's been months since I have had any treatment for the phage, so I figured I was worth more to them alive and Tolam could help me escape again."
"Do you know why they won't communicate with us? We are obviously willing to help your people come up with a cure, yet none of my offers get any response," Janeway asked.
"Because it's about more than just curing the phage. They want the people who rescued the Klingon and healed Syrala," Danara replied.
I smirked as both Janeway and Pedira looked at me and retorted, "You've seen what I can do. They want to figure out how our powers work so that they can replicate them in their soldiers, no?"
"Yes, that is Sulan's and General Wudan's plan. Their faction has the majority in the High Council, so they have mobilized nearly half of our military, including the Krawon, the strongest ship in the Vidiian fleet and a flying fortress," Danara confirmed.
"Of course, they have," I remarked, crossing my arms. "So, why did they let us go?"
"You were able to disable two of their ships and heavily damage a third in a matter of seconds. You probably scared them off," Pedira suggested.
"Perhaps, but Danara is talking about a large force that they mustered. If they go back empty handed, do you think they will keep their positions? It's too early for them to give up with how much they pose to lose," I replied.
Janeway sighed, "I hope that you can understand that I must restrict your access to the ship and keep a guard posted to watch you. I want to believe that you're worthy of my trust, but you know the situation that we are facing."
"Of course, Captain Janeway," Danara agreed.
"Thank you. Rebecca, let's give them the chance to catch up," Janeway said.
"I'll see you later, Pedira," I said before following Janeway out of Sick Bay.
"What do you think?" Janeway asked as we stepped into the turbo lift.
"I feel like she's telling us the truth, but it certainly doesn't make me happy. If that main force catches up to us, your only option may be to hand us over to the Vidiians," I replied honestly.
"You know that I would never agree to that," she remarked.
"I do, but if it was a real offer, it might be worth considering. My group and I are not the easiest to restrain, after all," I suggested.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," she said dismissively as we stepped out of the turbo lift.
She called Chakotay and Tuvok to join us in her Ready Room, who were both on the Bridge when we arrived. She told them what Danara had told us, leaving out my offer to sacrifice my group if the need arrived. I knew it was not in her personality to abandon her people, but it was nice to see that I was right, even if it was a decent strategy. All of us had the ability to travel through the Yin Realm meaning that there were few cells that could actually hold us, not taking into account our other abilities.
My group was temporarily reassigned to work on producing magic torpedoes since it was one of the few ways we could prepare. Raven and Katye had to take on more of the work since Echo's and my skill with enchanting was too low, despite us practicing over the past two months which left us on crystal duty; boring but needed. At Raven's request, L'Naan was also assigned to help with production, though her time was spent with Raven and Katye.
I was a little suspicious of why Raven wanted L'Naan, especially since she started joining us every night for dinner and drinks, but Raven and Echo seemed to enjoy her company. Raven could talk to her about her various projects and different engineering subjects while Echo enjoyed having another drinking buddy and someone to spar against that was closer to her level. With my Dragon side no longer causing me problems with her, I could also relax and enjoy myself around her. Although she was the Klingon side of her, B'Elanna had always been one of my favorites, just like Janeway and Seven of Nine; there was still a bit of a fangirl in me when I was around her.
When I was not working on making mana crystals, I spent the majority of my time using the Mind Linker. My Dragon Body had proven to be strong, but I had wasted a lot of my mana because I was not used to fighting like that. The form was too large to use in the holo-deck, so this was the only place that I could practice. It came as no surprise, though, when Fae had a number of suggestions on how to better utilize my strength based off of Dystina's old fighting style.
We had a few days of silence before the first ambush happened. Twenty Vidiian ships had been hiding inside a large asteroid belt that circled a small star system which we flew nearby. We had been traveling at warp, but dropped down to impulse so that the Fae Dragon could be launched. I also made an appearance in my Dragon form and showed off what I had been learning.
Instead of breathing out a torrent of crimson electricity, I charged my teeth and talons with lightning. Not as flashy, but it allowed me to disrupt the shielding around where I attacked, giving me the ability to tear away pieces of their hull. My Chaos Storm Clouds surrounded my body like a thick blanket, yet as I tore holes into the ship, pieces of the clouds would cling to them and drain away power from the ship since it was the easiest for me to convert back into mana. Using this method, I could easily fight for half an hour instead of the ten minutes that I had first quoted Janeway, and the more practice I got, the longer I would be able to last; this was how I was born to fight.
I did not get away unscathed this time, taking a few phaser blasts and even a hyper-thermic charge that destroyed a few scales. We managed to fight off the Vidiians after we destroyed three of their ships, and disabled another eight. When I transformed back into my humanoid form, I had a nasty plasma burn on my left side that was nearly a foot long and a couple of other minor burns.
The damage that I had taken was on the lower end of previous fights, so Raven and Katye had no trouble leaving me to heal while they left to help the Voyager. Echo stayed downstairs, refilling the core, while I headed upstairs to clean myself up and get a new shirt. I was not surprised when ten minutes later, Fae told me of a visitor.
"Forgive my appearance; I haven't started healing myself yet," I said since I was topless other than a small wrap around my chest as I pulled out a bottle of Spirit Wine from the fridge.
"How badly were you hurt?" Janeway asked.
"Not too bad, just a few burns," I replied, shutting the door and showing her the worst of it.
"That is a third-degree plasma burn," Janeway said with some concern.
I shrugged, "I've had worse training accidents when I was first rediscovering my strength, even Raven didn't fret over the wound. So, how did Voyager manage through that scuffle?"
"Minor damage to a few subsystems, and a couple of injuries, but nothing too serious," she replied.
"Good," I said as I poured myself a drink. I walked over to the couches and sat down then chugged my cup. "So," I asked as I placed a hand over the burn and started healing myself, "what's the other matter that you wanted to discuss?"
She smiled bitterly and sat down on the couch across from me. "Those ships were waiting for us, so we need to know if they extrapolated our course or if someone tipped them off. I have Tuvok going through all of our communication logs right now, but I wanted to see if there was anything that your sensors could pick up."
"While we're in the Shuttle Bay, most of the Fae Dragon's sensors are shut off to minimize the drain on our reserves, but I can activate them and let you know if I discover anything," I replied.
"Thank you."
"Have you thought about changing course? It's obvious where we are trying to go, so if we took an unexpected turn, it could throw off the Vidiians or prove that someone is betraying us. This isn't going to be a short journey back to the Alpha Quadrant, so a few extra months isn't going to matter in the long run," I suggested.
She sighed, "I already had Tom change our course to head out of Vidiian space as quickly as possible which should add another four months to our journey if we want to avoid all of the colonies that Pedira told us about."
"Unless you want to go on the offensive, that's pretty much our only option."
"Is this going to happen with every race that we cross?" Janeway asked.
I chuckled, "I would like to hope that the Vidiians, with their advanced medical knowledge, would be the only race foolish enough to think that they could replicate our powers, but I can't say that for sure. Power like ours draws greed and envy from all directions, which is why we normally choose to isolate ourselves."
"I can imagine," she sighed.
"There are pros and cons to working with us, Kathryn, and this is one of the cons, I'm afraid. We truly do attract trouble in some form or fashion, but we won't give up on you and this crew for as long as you let us remain a part of it," I promised.
She smiled and remarked, "You're a part of this crew, this family, and that won't change because of a little more trouble coming our way."
"Thank you," I said then stretched since I was done healing myself. "Much better."
"I'll let you recover your strength. Thank you for your help today," Janeway said, standing up.
"Of course, Captain, just doing my duty," I replied with a smile.
She chuckled and gave me a nod before heading downstairs. I put on my new shirt before grabbing the Mind Linker, and activating it once it was in place. I had not forgotten Janeway's request, but the benefit of Fae being the computer and controlling the Mental Plane meant that she could activate the sensors for me while I went back to training with my Dragon Body.
The change of course bought us another week of silence, but the need for deuterium had us stop at a small Talaxian mining colony that Neelix knew about. We had only delayed ourselves for half a day, but it was enough time for the Vidiians chasing us to get ahead. They were smart too, and planned the ambush a day after we left the colony, so they could not help us.
There were only three ships at first that found us, but they had deployed their ships in a search pattern, so more closed in quickly. The Voyager, with the help of our special torpedoes, could handle the first three ships while still at warp and even managed to knock two of them off our tail before another five closed in. With long range sensors showing twenty-three more ships heading our way, our only option was to change course and race towards a Class T nebula.
The nebula would disrupt their sensors as much as it would our own, but that would benefit us in this situation. As soon as the Voyager dropped out of warp, we launched the Fae Dragon to protect their backside while they entered the nebula since they had already taken some damage. We also retreated into the nebula, but with twelve ships following us in, Katye and I were forced to act outside of the ship.
I pulled six of the ships in one direction while Katye and the Fae Dragon took another four and the remaining two went after the Voyager. I did not bother fighting them and just led them deeper into the nebula yet a different direction than the others. A simple strategy of divide and conquer, but I was not planning on fighting these six alone. Instead, once I was far enough away, I vanished into the Yin Realm. It was a risky plan since the energy-based weapons of this universe could directly hurt my Soul, but they would not be able to detect me when I was like this, so I just had to dodge the first volley then retreat to the Fae Dragon and Katye.
When I exited the Yin Realm, they had managed to destroy one of the Vidiian ships while the Voyager had disabled one of their pursuers. I rushed towards the nearest Vidiian ship and sunk my electrified talons into their hull. Activating my Chaos Storm Clouds, I discovered that they could feed off the nebula itself and it was easier than draining energy from a ship, though it was not too surprising. The boost was enough for me to use my mana more liberally, so once I tore open a hole in a ship's hull, I would unleash a mixture of Lightning and Fire inside the ship then jump towards the next.
I took a number of hits but that only made me more excited as I fought on. By the time that the other six ships approached, the others had either been disabled or destroyed, and I was drunk on the power running through my veins. I threw myself at the ships before the Voyager or the Fae Dragon could react. My instincts took over while I danced between the six ships, attacking and dodging when I could.
Before I knew it, I had destroyed four of the ships alone and was chasing a fifth that was retreating. Suddenly, a large wall of violet energy appeared in front of me, and I did not have the have the ability to stop before I crashed into it. It shattered like glass but felt like a splash of cold water on me. An angry fairy was glaring at me, and I could not help but let out a chuckle, knowing that this had happened in our past lives numerous times.
{Let them go; Janeway's orders.} Katye's voice echoed in my mind.
{Sorry, I got a little carried away.} I sent back.
{Alkatyenia warned me long ago that it happens, as if I hadn't seen it before.} she chuckled mentally. {Let's get you cleaned up before the Vidiians figure out what to do next.}
{Yes, my Queen.} I retorted.
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