Sluggish Situation

G. L. Dartt

Sleep lifted slowly, unlike the normal instant alertness she was used to. Blinking in the dim illumination, she glanced over to see her spouse still slumbering, her breathing deep and steady, a strand of auburn hair falling over her classic features. It was silent, and that’s when Seven of Nine, late of the Borg Collective, realized something was very, very wrong. There should be the subtle sound of air recycling, the pervasive hum of warp drive, the whine of energy moving through the circuitry within the bulkheads. Instead, all she heard was the sound of her own breath and that of her spouse. Worse, there was a lightheaded feeling, a sense of disconnection that indicated gravity was no longer operating. The only thing that prevented her from rising from the bed were the blankets tucked around the couple.

Moving very slowly, even as nanoprobes flooded her system, she carefully nudged her partner. “Kathryn, wake up.”

Letting out an inelegant snort, Captain Kathryn Janeway of the starship Millennium jerked awake. “What?”

Except she did not respond as Seven had expected, with that sense of alertness that was characteristic of her during an emergency. Instead, she reached up and put her hands over her face, dislodging the blankets that had tethered them to the mattress. Immediately, Seven took hold of the metal bar that had been welded onto the head of the bed, hanging on with her left hand as she reached out and snagged Janeway with her right, stabilizing them and preventing them from floating away.

“Kathryn, you must wake up!”

Except Janeway didn’t, her hands falling away from her face as she drifted in midair. Her eyes slid shut once more, and her nude body completely relaxed. It made Seven realize how difficult it had been for her to awaken and even now, nanoprobes continued to flood her body, counteracting whatever was affecting her. She didn’t believe it was lack of oxygen, but couldn’t be sure. Carefully, she drew Janeway back onto the mattress, using the sheet to secure her in place. Once that was complete, she let go of the bar, pushing off to propel her toward a panel in the near bulkhead.

“Computer?” she said, surprised and troubled by how tiny her voice sounded.

“Working,” came the swift and welcome reply. Seven was abashed at the sense of relief that flooded through her when she heard the familiar feminine tone of the ship’s computer. “Operating at Standby.”

Standby meant the lowest possible computing power, the backup system operating on the bare minimum for interaction with the ship. Any lower and it wouldn’t be functioning at all and neither would the emergency lighting. Horrified, Seven glanced out the viewport that was located over the headboard, looking down the slope of the saucer section, lit only by the reflected starlight. Not even the running lights were glowing.

“Status of the ship?”

“Warp engines and life support have powered down.”

“Why?”

“Unknown.”

“Resume life support,” Seven ordered immediately.

“Unable to comply.”

Seven felt a chill. Without a constant replenishing of the environment, the ship’s crew would run out of air within twelve hours. They could all put on life support suits, of course, which would grant them a few extra days, maybe even a week, but if the rest of the crew were suffering from the same lack of consciousness as Janeway was, Seven would have to dress all twelve hundred officers and crew, not to mention the visiting Dominion envoy and the new Breen pack they had recently added. She might be able to do it for a limited amount of people, but there simply wasn’t enough time to manage it for everyone.

“Damage report.”

“Structural integrity remains at one hundred percent.”

So, this was not a result of a hull breech or external damage.

“Automated systems?”

“Offline.”

“Status of the crew? Is everyone on the vessel unconscious?”

“Affirmative.”

“Cause?”

“Unknown.”

“How much time has passed since this occurred?”

“Two point five hours.”

“Activate the Emergency Medical Hologram. Bring the Doctor up to speed and instruct him to begin work on a way to revive the crew,” Seven instructed.

“Unable to comply.”

This was becoming worse and worse. With an effort, she pried open the panel and withdrew the two enviro-suits contained within. Made of a flexible blue-gray material, not unlike a scuba suit, so tight it was like a second skin, the protective outfit came with a hood that pulled up over her head. It was incredibly difficult to put on in zero-gravity and she was drenched with perspiration by the time she finished, her implants unable to compensate for the strenuous physical activity. The suits were not designed for long-term exposure to the vacuum and radiation of space, but for use within the ship while operating with compromised systems, it would keep her alive and functioning.

As soon as she connected the tubules from the lightweight backpack to the neckpiece, the hood expanded and hardened, swelling around her head to form a helmet. Slipping down the transparent shield, she sealed it and activated the backpack’s life support system. There was an immediate response from her nanoprobes, easing their grip on her biological systems. The keen and jagged chill of acute awareness retreated from her senses, like ice melting in the warm sun of spring, leaving her without the jittery, aggressive feeling that relying so heavily on them engendered in her. Only then did she realize how many had been flooding her body in the effort to maintain consciousness. The magnetic soles of her boots clamped to the deck, stabilizing her position.

Feeling somewhat more in control of things, Seven retrieved the other suit and took it over to the bed. As quickly as she could, with little grace and only a minimal gentleness for the sake of speed, she managed to dress the captain.

As soon as the air began to circulate within the helmet, Janeway’s eyes began to flutter and Seven exhaled audibly in relief. Janeway reached up, her gloved fingers feeling the transparent face-shield, and then inside the helmet, she shook her head, as if shaking off the last of whatever narcotic element had been affecting her.

“Seven?” Clumsily, she righted herself, her boots anchoring onto the deck with a muted thump.

“Both warp engines and life support are inoperative,” Seven said quickly. “The crew is unconscious and whatever is causing it is apparently in the ship’s remaining atmosphere.”

“How did you manage to wake up?”

“I do not know,” Seven said. “Perhaps my cortical node detected the threat and released the necessary nanoprobes to counter the effect. It was an effort to wake.”

“So as far as you know, only you and I are conscious?”

“Yes.”

Inside the helmet, Janeway’s features were grim. “We’ll need to wake up a few other key people, especially B’Elanna and Ro. I’ll head to engineering, try to figure out what’s going on with the ship. You head for their quarters and get them into suits. Then find Dr. Pulaski. We only have a few hours before we run out of air and people start to die.”

“Understood.”

Reaching up to her collar, Janeway touched the tiny triangular emblem them. “Comm system test. 1, 2, 3. Check.”

The sound of Janeway’s voice crackled in Seven’s ear, the comm utilizing an old transmission signal originating in their suits, the backup system, rather than the usual subspace band used by the ship’s computer. It was reminiscent of 20th century radio or cellular phone signal, functional within a certain radius, but completely impractical for most space operations due to how slowly the signal traveled.

It was the best they had.

Seven tapped her collar. “Acknowledged.”

Janeway nodded at her to indicate hers was working as well. She touched another part of her collar and the two discs that bracketed each side of her face shield lit up, offering a brighter illumination than was provided by the emergency lights around them. “Let’s go,” she said, turning and heading for the bedroom door.

It did not automatically open at her approach. The collision was enough to knock her backward into Seven and it was only the Borg enhanced strength and balance that prevented her from detaching from the deck and flying across the room into the bulkhead.

“Damn it,” Janeway said once she had regained her equilibrium. “I forgot. We’re completely manual.”

Prying off the plate on the side of the door frame, she flipped the lever and once the door released with an audible hiss, she grabbed the edge with both hands and physically pulled it open, sliding it into the recesses on either side.

Seven hesitated briefly as she spared a thought for their Irish setter, Jake, but realized that he was either unconscious as well, or he was in the arboretum with his food dispenser and plenty of water. How he might deal with zero-grav wasn’t pleasant to contemplate, but there really wasn’t anything she could do for him. Following Janeway through the living area, they repeated the steps necessary to open the door to their quarters.

Following the corridor to the end, they released the hatch leading to the Jeffries tube. Inside, a ladder provided access to the other decks. Seven looked up to the underside of the hatch two decks above where the bridge was located. Below was a dizzying plunge of twelve decks to the bottom of the saucer section. From there, the captain would have to leave this utility access and make her way to another which would take her the rest of the way down to main engineering on deck eighteen.

 “It is a considerable journey without benefit of the turbolifts.”

“And time is of the essence,” Janeway agreed. “I’ll fly down.”

“Be careful of your velocity,” Seven reminded urgently, alarmed at the thought. “It plus your mass---”

“I’m aware of the theory of relativity, Lieutenant. It’s not my first time in zero-g.” Then, Janeway reached out and grasped Seven’s arm, squeezing lightly in silent apology for the tartness of her initial response. “I’ll be careful,” she promised in a gentler tone. “You be sure to do the same.”

“I shall, Kathryn.”

Seven watched as Janeway deactivated the magnetic soles of her boots and began to float, as if she were underwater, though motion was much quicker in air and correspondingly more dangerous. If she moved too quickly and collided with anything, the results could be deadly. It was all Seven could do not to say anything else as the captain dived into the hole and began to descend headfirst, much as a scuba diver would. It reminded Seven of their honeymoon, when they had enjoyed the pastime. This was not nearly as enjoyable.

Inhaling slowly, Seven retained the magnetization of her boots, preferring the feeling of stability as she climbed down the ladder to the deck below where the senior crew quarters were located. As she made her way through the corridors leading to B’Elanna and Ro’s cabin, she occasionally came across an officer drifting through the air, and after checking their vitals to make sure they were still alive, she left them floating there, aware that she had little time to waste. After forcing open the door to Ro and B’Elanna’s quarters, she entered to discover an empty living area. They had undoubtedly been asleep when calamity struck and Seven had to pry open the door leading to the bedroom. Despite the situation, she felt a certain sense of discomfort as she entered, aware she was intruding on a private space. B’Elanna and Ro were curled up together in the center of their bed and drawing back the blankets, Seven discovered both women slept in the nude, which made it significantly easier for her to wrestle them into the enviro-suits. She was surprised to discover that Ro had a small tattoo on her right shoulder blade, a Klingon symbol for eternal love. It revealed a depth of romanticism Seven hadn’t suspected of the stoic Bajoran.

B’Elanna woke up cursing and thrashing, which did not surprise Seven who had prudently taken up position a couple of meters away after activating the suit’s life support system. The Klingon collided with the ceiling with a solid thump before collecting herself and activating her magnetic boots, sinking down to the deck.

“What’s the hell? Seven? What am I doing in this getup? Miral?”

“I’ve got her.”

Ro was already across the room, heading for the nursery. By the time she returned, towing a small stasis chamber behind her, which contained the still slumbering form of their daughter, Seven had filled B’Elanna in on everything she knew, which at this point, was very little.

“I’ll join the captain in engineering,” B’Elanna said. “You two should head to the bridge.”

“I need to revive Dr. Pulaski before I attend to anything else,” Seven said. “She may be able to formulate a measure to counter whatever is keeping everyone asleep.”

“All right, I’ll meet you on the bridge after you take care of the doctor,” Ro said. She shot a look at B’Elanna. “I’ll take Miral with me. She can’t stay here unattended.”

Seven wasn’t sure why, considering Borg babies remained in stasis chambers for their entire gestation, and Miral was perfectly safe so long as she remained inside, but from B’Elanna and Ro’s concern, it was clear they needed her with one of them. It made Seven realize once again just how inconvenient having children was.

Surely, having a dog was so much easier.

Captain Kathryn Janeway had always considered Millennium, and before it, Voyager, to be a kind of living organism, a melding of man and machine, of computer and crew, a vital partner in her ongoing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek new life, new civilizations, and to boldly go where no one had gone before. Often, when no one else was around, she would speak to her ship, praise it when things went well, berate it when things didn’t, even beg it to function when nothing else seemed to work. She found comfort in the solidity of its bulkheads, drew strength from the power of its weapons and shields, tasted freedom with every surge of its engines.

Now she stared into the cold, inert heart of the warp core, usually thrumming with life, and knew true despair, a sense of utter hopelessness and a conscious dread of not knowing what to do.

First things first, her inner nucleus of stubborn will asserted. One thing at a time.

Moving over to a compartment not far from the chief engineer’s office, she pried open the panel to reveal a stack of power cells, glowing a soft blue within their silver frames. Perspiration slid down her face and dripped off the tip of her nose as she wrestled one onto a metal dolly retrieved from the hook on the bulkhead, the suit’s cooling system humming briskly as it sought to recycle her sweat. Wheeling the dolly over to the main engineering console, she unceremoniously used a metal bar to remove a panel from the side to reveal its inner workings. With the provided cables, she connected the power cell to the internal grid. Immediately, the console display lit up, the graphics glowing in the darkness and she felt a small measure of satisfaction.

But it evaporated quickly as she touched the screen, trying to determine what to do next. The readout was not encouraging, a stark list of all the inoperative systems with no clue as to how to activate them again. Janeway considered herself a scientist, though not at the level of Seven, and a decent engineer, though far from the level of B’Elanna, but this defeated her. The catastrophe was so widespread across the board that she didn’t know where to begin. When she heard noise behind her, the unmistakable thump of boots hitting the deck as someone trotted across the deck toward the main engineering console, the relief that flooded Janeway was almost strong enough to make her weep.

B’Elanna flashed her a grim smile through the transparency of her helmet as she joined her. “We’re in a bad way, Captain,” she greeted.

“That we are,” Janeway agreed evenly as she gave way to her chief engineer. As she watched B’Elanna’s fingers flash over the display, moving with the sensuous skill of a grand pianist, she felt a flicker of hope, a spark that grew ever brighter as more lights began to appear across the massive console, spreading from this central panel as one by one, other display screens came online.

“The automated systems are completely shot,” B’Elanna said conversationally as she worked. “I’m having to go through them one by one and reinitiate each one from scratch.” Her features, shadowed within her helmet, gave no indication of her expression, but the tone of her voice, confident and controlled, made Janeway feel better than she had. “It’s as if the ship’s been dry docked and we have to power up from a cold start.”

“You can do this by yourself?”

B’Elanna turned her whole head to look at her, as if detecting the slight trace of uncertainty in her captain’s voice. “Hey, it’s not as if I haven’t had to do this before,” she said reassuringly. “In fact, trying to get dead ships up and running was a sort of occupational hazard when I was with the Maquis. Millennium just happens to be a bit bigger.”

“No way to tell how or why this happened?”

“With all due respect, Captain, let’s get her up and running again, before we worry about that.”

“Fair enough.” Janeway felt as much as heard the steady hum beginning to rise around her, a primitive throb that resonated through her body and lifted her spirits correspondingly. “What can I do?”

“You can check the power grid,” B’Elanna instructed. “All the main fuel cells appear to be viable. Whatever happened to us didn’t seem to have damaged anything. Just shut us down.”

“Not a type of electromagnetic pulse, then,” Janeway said as they worked.

“That would have fried all the circuits,” B’Elanna agreed. “No, this was a ship-wide shutdown, every system taken offline. It’s what happens when a vessel is decommissioned. It’s so the computer core can be physically removed without damage.”

Janeway glanced up in alarm. “The computer core?”

B’Elanna reacted to the dismay in Janeway’s voice, turning her whole body to look at her. “You think that’s what’s going on here?”

“We need to find out,” Janeway said grimly. She tapped her collar. “Janeway to Ro. Where are you?”

“On the bridge, Captain, but there doesn’t seem to be much I can do without power or connection to the ship’s main computer.”

“The computer core might be the point of all this, Commander. Meet me in main operations. We may have intruders.”

There was a pause as Janeway started for the ladder, and when Ro spoke, her tone was a confusing combination of reluctance and dread. “Captain, I have Miral with me. There’s no one else to look after her.”

Janeway faltered. The thought of Ro and B’Elanna’s daughter hadn’t even crossed her mind but she could see where her security chief might make it a priority.

“Seven, where are you?”

“In Dr. Pulaski’s quarters,” came Seven’s response, sounding slightly distracted. “I am endeavoring to place her in an enviro-suit.” She paused. “It is somewhat difficult.”

“Careful, Seven,” B’Elanna spoke up. One of the disadvantages of the primitive comm system was that everyone was ‘on the line’ as it were. There was no way to limit it to suit-to-suit communication and keep things private. “Old bones can be brittle.”

Janeway needed Pulaski, but perhaps she should have had Seven revive Tuvok rather than Ro. Still, B’Elanna’s expertise was crucial, and it was unlikely she would have left her daughter behind in her quarters any more than Ro had. “What’s Miral’s status?”

“She’s in a stasis chamber, Captain,” Ro explained.

“Then she’s perfectly all right,” Janeway said, reasonably. “Leave her where she is.”

“Captain?” B’Elanna said, voice tinged with outrage.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Ro sounded regretful, but quite firm. She didn’t need to say anything else. She would not be leaving her child alone on the bridge. “I’ll take Miral down to engineering and meet you as soon as possible.”
“Kathryn, once I have revived Dr. Pulaski, I’ll meet you in operations,” Seven interjected calmly. “I am only one deck below. By the time you reach this level, Dr. Pulaski should be awake.”

Janeway suspected future discussion was required regarding duty to ship versus duty to family, but she didn’t have the time right now. “Fine,” she said in that mild tone that those who knew her had learned to dread. “But Seven, we need to arm ourselves.”

“I will accompany Dr. Pulaski to sickbay.”

Since both the medical center and the security section, including the armory, was on deck six, that seemed a reasonable compromise. “Ten minutes, Lieutenant.”

“I suspect it will take longer,” Seven said in a warning tone. “Be aware of your velocity, Captain.”

Piqued at the reminder, as well as the fact that her senior staff seemed to have their priorities skewed, Janeway disengaged her boots and started up the tube, propelled by the occasional grasp of a passing ladder rung, both to maintain her speed at a safe level and to keep her on course so that she wouldn’t catch the edge of the hatches she was moving through. As she swam upward, it became increasingly more difficult and she realized B’Elanna had brought the ship’s gravimetric emitters online. It was a gradual increase, so that anything floating would ease back down onto the deck rather than fall, including any of the crew. She finally had to reach out for the ladder and start climbing manually, which was a lot harder than flying, but was a more comforting sensation, a sign that things were returning to normal a little bit at a time.

When she reached the saucer section, she had to trot the length of the main corridor on deck fifteen until she reached the fore utility access, a tiring reminder that starships were not designed to do everything manually. They were large and cumbersome and having to manipulate every door and hatch, to move through the ship by climbing ladders or crawling through Jeffries tubes, was exhausting. She didn’t meet Ro on the way and wondered if she had taken an alternative route. Perhaps the security chief knew of a quicker way to move through the ship’s many utility passages.

She was breathing heavily by the time she reached deck six, the sound enclosed in the confines of her helmet rasping loud in her ears. As she reached sickbay, she saw the large double doors were open, indicating someone was already inside. She discovered Pulaski working at a medical console that was powered by a fuel cell. Seven was lying on her back as she worked inside the cabinet, her manipulations of the interior components hidden from view. Other power cells littered the deck around her.

Pulaski’s head lifted as the captain approached, her lined features and snowy hair barely visible through the transparency. “What the hell is going on?”

Despite the situation, Janeway swallowed back her smile at the querulous tone. “Your guess is as good as mine, Doctor,” she responded. “Our immediate concern is to get the ship operational.” She paused beside the chief medical officer, peering down at the display. “Any idea what knocked everyone out?”

“It was a ship’s system,” Pulaski told her, her gloved hands moving over the panel. “The ‘Final Solution’ protocol.”

Janeway started in shock, turning her whole body to regard Pulaski. “Are you serious?”

“I’m not totally certain,” Pulaski admitted. “But so far, it fits the parameters. Seven is working on reestablishing control over the dispersal system.”

Janeway inhaled slowly. The ‘Final Solution Protocol’ was something Starfleet Headquarters had come up with during one of their more morbid periods of the Dominion War. When a starship no longer functioned, or was facing a no-win situation … or a Kobayashi Maru scenario as was better known by Starfleet officers … and the crew faced a certain and tortuous death, there existed a protocol that enabled the ship’s captain to release a general, species-crossing anesthezine gas into the ship’s atmosphere, essentially sedating the crew and allowing them to slip painlessly into death. Janeway had considered FSP a ridiculous protocol and doubted any captain worth their salt would ever utilize it. She knew that she would rather fight and struggle to the bitter end, trying to find a solution, any solution, than simply surrender to the inevitable, no matter how agonizing the situation. So long as there was life, there was hope, as was her motto. She suspected it was the same for most Starfleet officers.

She discovered she was grinding her back teeth at yet another silly concept implemented by the current Starfleet Command, though that didn’t explain why or how it had activated.

“Can you reverse it?”

“Once we regain control, we can vent the anesthezine gas into space, but that requires our life support to be up and running so the air can be replaced. Until then, the ship’s current atmosphere is all we have to breathe.” Pulaski paused. “That might start to get a little thin before long. And cold.”

“I know, Doctor,” Janeway assured her. “We’re working on it.” She moved around the console and knelt beside Seven, peering into the dark compartment where she was working. “Seven?”

“The activation sequence is nearly complete, Captain,” Seven said. “Once life support is re-established, all Dr. Pulaski is required to do is input the necessary commands to remove the sedative element from the atmosphere.”

“We really need to make sure the computer core is secure. While you finish that, I’ll get our phasers. Meet me at the aft utility access hatch.” She glanced at Pulaski. “Anything else you need, Doctor?”

“A few more people, Captain,” Pulaski said. “Though I realize how hard it is to dress people in these cockamamie suits.” She shifted uncomfortable and rubbed at her side. “There’s no way to scratch an itch in these things. And I’m starting to get hungry. I missed breakfast.”

“You may have to starve a little longer,” Janeway told her, not without sympathy. “Even if we get everything else running without problem, the replicators are one of the last systems on the list. It’s ship’s ration bars and away mission meals for the time being.”

“Wonderful,” Pulaski growled.

As Janeway headed for the armory, she hoped the tasteless prospect of ship’s rations would be the most they would need to worry about for the next little while.

Ro Laren spread her fingers over the curve of the stasis tube, gazing down through the transparency to the sleeping form of her daughter. She hated to see her in this state of unconsciousness, but she also knew she didn’t dare wake her up. It would be too difficult to keep the energetic young girl in her tube. Miral wasn’t quite walking, but she could already crawl like a demon and was hauling herself to her feet with the aid of whatever was handy. Revived, she would be bouncing off the transparent walls of the container like a Bajoran leaping bug. But it was hard to look at her and be unable to touch her, unable to brush that little curl of dark hair back from her slightly rippled forehead with the Bajoran ridge between tiny dark eyebrows. Or inhale that sweet baby smell that made Ro feel at home in a way that she had never felt in her entire life.

She had detected the increasing gravity as she descended the ladder, and was able to grab hold of the stasis tube before it started to fall faster than she was. She realized there was no way to carry it and her daughter all the way down to deck nineteen where main engineering was located, not with full gravity restored. She stepped off the ladder on to deck thirteen and accessed the tube’s handles so that she could carry it. It was heavy, pulling at her arms cruelly as she paused, considering what to do next. This deck held ship’s stores, the schools and several family quarters.

She hesitated, agonizing, but decided that there really wasn’t any other choice. Miral’s playschool and small green space was located aft of the ship, the viewports looking out at the ship’s nacelles and the squat engineering section. There was a teacher on duty, but no children, who had been undoubtedly tucked in bed for the most part when the ship went offline. The teacher was there only in the event someone on the gamma shift required child care and she was slumped in the play area, clearly in the process of cleaning up the multitude of toys scattered about.

Ro put down the stasis chamber, retrieved one of the enviro-suits from the emergency compartment, and hastily dressed the teacher in it, first stripping off her clothes to make it easier. Carol Ruditis was disoriented when she woke up and it took a while to understand what Ro was explaining to her, but finally, she seemed to comprehend the emergency nature of the situation, taking possession of Miral’s tube with assurances that she would take care of her.

Ro didn’t quite understand why she felt such a strong ball of guilt, fear and shame roiling in the pit of her stomach as she left her daughter in the hands of a stranger while she went off to deal with the ongoing crisis.

“Laren, where are you?” came the inevitable demand from B’Elanna as Ro was climbing past deck nine.

“I’m headed for deck six,” she said shortly.

“Where’s Miral?”

“At her playschool,” Ro replied. “I revived one of the teachers. She’s looking after her.”

“What? Who?”

“Carol Ruditis,” Ro said. “She’s on the gamma shift.”

“I don’t know her,” B’Elanna protested strongly.

“Miral is fine, Commander Torres,” Ruditis broke in. “I have things under control.”

“Will everyone please keep this communications line clear for official business,” Janeway interjected, irritation strong in her tone. “It’s for emergency use only.”

“Aye, Captain,” Ro said. The other two didn’t dare say anything.

“ETA, Commander Ro?”

“Another five minutes, Captain,” Ro promised, increasing her progress, stung by the need to redeem herself as soon as possible in Janeway’s eyes.

She sprinted through the corridors on deck six and plunged through the open double doors of her security section. Glancing around, she identified the unconscious officers slumped over desks and on the deck as all being from the gamma shift. Clearly it had been late when it happened. Nor did anyone appear to be in a position of disturbance, as if whatever it had been had occurred without warning. Moving through the security lounge with alacrity, passing the door to her office and the conference room, she discovered Janeway and Seven outside the armory.

“We have a problem,” Janeway said. “It’s secured. How do we get inside?”

“There’s a manual code,” Ro said. Again, she was forcefully reminded how difficult it was to operate on a starship that lacked power for even the most basic procedures. “And a retinal scan. That won’t work without computer access.”

“So much for waiting for the chief of security,” Janeway said, a hint of sarcasm in her tone she turned to her spouse. “Seven?”

“A moment, Captain,” Seven said. “This will damage the internal components.”

From the back of her left hand, ripping through the enviro-suit, assimilation tubules erupted and plunged into the access panel. Sparks flew and Seven’s eyes grew silver and distant as she brutally overrode the door’s locking mechanism. Ro felt the same shiver of horror resonate up her spine that she always did when she was face-to-face with Seven’s connection to the Borg, a tiny insidious fear that slithered around her heart as she remembered that her friend and crewmate had not always been acquainted with such concepts as mercy, compassion and empathy.

The door abruptly opened with a hiss, drawing back into the recesses and both Ro and Janeway eased past Seven who withdrew her tubules and repaired her enviro-suit with a patch that came from a kit secreted in a pocket on her waist. As Janeway found hand phasers for herself and Seven, Ro retrieved a Klingon dagger that she slipped into her boot, a few flash grenades that she secreted in her various suit pockets and a large phaser rifle. By the time she had finished, Janeway and Seven were both regarding her with bemused expressions.

“I'm not entirely sure there are intruders, Commander,” Janeway said evenly.

“Better to have it and not need it, Captain,” Ro responded.

Seven appeared to take that under advisement and retrieved a phaser rifle for herself. Janeway shot her a sardonic look and then led the way out of the armory. “What gave you the idea there might be intruders, Captain?” Ro asked.

“Something B’Elanna said,” Janeway responded as they made their way through the security section. “It’s as if the ship had been decommissioned, all the systems shut down as though someone was preparing to remove the computer core.”

“How could anyone do that without setting off the proximity alerts, or any of the other security procedures we have in place?” Seven insisted, a touch of skepticism in her tone.

“I’m going with my gut, Seven,” the captain told her. “At this point, we really don’t know anything other than the fact that the ship’s been shut down in such a deliberate fashion. This may have a purely natural cause, but I’m betting someone’s behind it and if that’s the case, the computer core is the most logical place to start.”

The main computer was located near main operations on deck four, in a room that was secured in similar fashion to the armory and required Seven to open in the same manner. Inside, the large columns of electronics containing the ship’s data banks ran from ceiling to deck, a multitude of lights twinkling over the silvery surface, though not nearly as many as there should be. In the center of the room was a control console designed for humanoid interface, with a comfortable chair that was seldom used. Theoretically, the captain could come down here and operate the entire ship through the single console. It was one of the better protected areas of the ship, with the bulkheads comprised of a material that resisted radiation of all kinds, including that of a transporter beam. The door they had just opened was the only way in or out.

No one was there, and their helmet lights flashed and darted as they examined every part of the area. Seven looked at the captain when they had completed a complete circuit of the room.

“Perhaps your ‘gut’ requires enhancement,” Seven offered.

“No, I think she’s right,” Ro said as she tilted her head, trying to listen. She wished she could take her helmet off. “There’s something off.”

“Everything is ‘off’,” Seven pointed out.

“That’s not what I meant.” Ro moved over to the doorway, hefting her rifle in front of her. She was no longer thinking of Miral or feeling guilty about having to leave her behind. Instead, she was fully in the moment, senses alert and keen, her body a drawn bowstring of tension. With only emergency running lights, shadows loomed dark and large but the lack of sound from ship’s engines and life support made it easier to hear sounds that weren’t normal aboard Millennium.

Like the subtle swish of something sliding over the carpeted deck in the outer corridor, or the squishy motion of something easing along the smooth surface of the bulkhead.

“Captain,” Ro said quietly.

“I hear them,” Janeway muttered.

Using hand motions, Ro sent Seven down the hall to the ops conference room while she darted forward to the shelter of Rekar’s office door. Janeway remained in the computer room, the last line of defense. They just weren’t sure against what.

Then Ro caught a glimpse of something moving in the gloom, a formless shape that oozed into view and she felt her jaw loosen. She had encountered many alien lifeforms in her time, and not all of them had been humanoid, but she had never encountered anything like what she was seeing in that moment.

They were large and colorful and mostly slimy. There were three of them and they looked somewhat like slugs, each approximately the size of a land speeder, with a translucent flesh that revealed the organs throbbing beneath, flashing with phosphorous. Twin eyeballs on stalks rotated in a constant scan of their surroundings and from the sides of their bodies, tentacles whirled, clutching various devices, a few of which were undoubtedly weapons of some kind.

Phaser set to stun, Ro fired as the first one, a pretty sky blue, was halfway across main operations, the beam glowing red in the dim light. It impacted on the glistening skin and seemed to splash over the being. A penetrating shriek ripped through Ro’s ears as it rose half its length, eyestalks brushing the ceiling above, before flopping back onto the deck with a squishy slap. Lids over the waving eyeballs slid shut and it didn’t move, spasms rippling along its body as it lay in a heap, twitching.

Behind, the two other aliens, a bright purple and a somewhat garish orange respectively, reared up in consternation at the plight of their companion. From their devices, blinding white pulses lanced out to impact the frame of the office door where Ro was crouched, leaving smoking holes, and scorched patterns on the bulkhead around the impact craters, making her curse and duck away.

Seven came out of the conference room, firing steadily at the orange being closest to her, making it wince away and collide with its companion with a sticky thud. The distraction allowed Ro to roll from the shelter of her office and come up firing on one knee, targeting the purple one with a shot directly between the waving eyestalks, making stop dead as if it had run into a wall.

For a few seconds afterward, Ro was conscious of a ringing her ears, and the arid odor of burnt metal from the wall behind her. “What the hell are those!?”

Seven did not deign to answer, striding past the quivering bulks to the door to check the outer corridor. With only a split second of hesitation, Ro joined her, unpleasantly aware of the slime left on the floor beneath her feet, taking care to maintain her balance as she slammed her shoulder against the bulkhead, pointing her phaser one way to check, and then the other, determining the way was clear.

Then Seven put her rifle aside and knelt to scan the effluent on the deck with her tricorder. Leaving her there, Ro cautiously made her way down the corridor, following the trail toward the end where the door to the turbolift had been torn open, enlarging the opening, Ro presumed, so that the bulk of their large bodies could go through. There was no lift in the shaft, only more slime on the walls, dripping down to pool on the top of a car five decks below.

“Commander?”

Ro nearly jumped out of her skin as she heard the captain’s voice behind her. She took a quick, measuring breath, both to stifle the oath she’d nearly uttered and also to prevent her from lashing out in an instinctive protective reaction. Then she looked over her shoulder at Janeway.

“It looks as if they came up from deck seven,” she said tightly. “If you can secure the prisoners here, I need to check if there are any more below.”

“By yourself?” Janeway frowned.

“I think it’ll take both of you to watch them, especially if they revive,” Ro said. “And we don’t have time to revive more crewmembers.”

Janeway hesitated, and then dropped her head in acknowledgement. “Very well, Commander. Be careful.”

Slinging her rifle over her shoulder, Ro agilely jumped across the shaft to the access ladder, catching hold of the rungs and descending in rush to the lower deck. Her foot slipped a little in the slime as she went through the opening where the doors were also torn away on deck seven, and she staggered clumsily for a second before turning her momentum into a forward roll as if that was what she had intended the entire time.

The trail continued down here and her face tightened as she saw the mashed remains of a crewman, pressed against the corner of the deck and bulkhead, as if the creatures had simply rolled over him. She paused to check for a pulse, unsurprised when she found none, and continued on her way, following the trail through the main corridor to the aft hangar deck.

A force field sputtered and flickered in what remained of the hangar deck doors, a pinkish hue that sparkled with flashes of green and gold. It was not provided by the ship, but rather a device of some kind, preventing the atmosphere from venting into the hangar bay where a hulking box of a ship crouched in the vacuum, bristling with spiky protuberances that may or may not have been weapons. The Federation shuttlecraft that had been stored here were tumbled about, slammed against the bulkheads while a couple more drifted in the dark emptiness of the space beyond, thrown clear when the alien vessel had forced its way on board.

Around the alien ship were six more creatures, force field shimmering around each one as they gathered, protecting them from the vacuum. They grouped up and as Ro watched, they turned and began to head toward her position.