Fade
By Elizabeth Carter
Part 4
Seven had felt slightly better knowing that Miral was in the custody of the other children. The more she thought about the connection they shared the stronger it seemed to grow. Now it was as if she could hear a shadow of their thoughts; as if they were some verity of a collective hive mind now only realized.
The coolness in the corridor did nothing to relieve the sensation that she was being pummeled with each throb of her heartbeat with a massive headache that had settled behind her eyes like a house guest that had no intention of leaving, though the party was long since over. Of course she wasn't the only one to have an unwanted guest; nearly every crewmember Seven encountered had the nail through the skull headache. Wishing that she had taken some sort of painkillers back in sickbay the lanky blonde amazonian scientist headed for the central computer core she had earlier found.
The headache she and everyone else had could only be a symptom of the mass amnesia and while important on the medical front, it was at this moment irrelevant for it interfered with the necessary work that had yet to be done.
Besides a ....a what - a drone...a warrior didn't complain about pain, they performed their duties.
Seven wondered about the children and their place in her life. It worried her that until meeting them face to face that she didn't recall them. B'Elanna had reconnected with Miral almost instantly.
'Of course she did, my woman gave birth to our daughter, it is only logical that she recall the girl. The others are adopted.' Suddenly the blonde stopped in her tracks. She couldn't believe her mind took her down that path. Her woman? Their child? No their children . Her B'Elanna would have adopted the kids as well. Of that Seven was almost certain, as certain as she was she and no other belonged at B'Elanna's side. She and no other was the one B'Elanna claimed as mate. Regardless of the memory loss this was a truth Seven knew in her heart.
At this moment there were far too many variables too many computations in the equations to know exactly who to trust and who not to. The one thing in the young Klingon's heart was she knew the blonde meant something to her, the very scent of her drove her wild, drove her base instincts to conquer what she desired. And Soch was what she desired. That was no a question, it was a fact. Even upon seeing the lanky young blonde human-borg hybrid the Klingon hybrid knew that she wanted her as a mate.
Trust her gut. It was something B'Elanna figured she had always done. And Soch delighted her, fired her blood, the image of slamming her mate into a wall and making hard very passionate love. Then carrying her woman to the bed and making slow very passionate love.
'Kah'less, woman stop thinking with your libido! There are things that need doing!' Torres chided herself. From libido to kiddos..... 'Our kids...I know Miral fits in with us. That wa'Hom has a scent I can never forget. ... I know she's mine even if I don't remember giving birth to her. But this gangly creature..." Kiddo still confused her.' How does he fit in? He has the same adornments as my Soch. He's way too old for either of us to have given birth to him and he's not even remotely Klingon, no true ridges just a nasal ridge.' she repeated her earlier thoughts about his origins. 'Maybe it's just the part borg-blood that connects them and nothing more.'
"Kiddo," B'Elanna addressed the boy. "Like you said the warpcore is off by a variance of .00078. I want to see that repaired first. Alright boy, on my mark enter these commands." B'Elanna indicated a set of codes on the com-panel that would transfer power to the buffers while the chief engineer reset the warp matter and anti-matter mixers. B'Elanna's fingers danced over the computer console commanding the computer to order the feeder dump and clear the lines, she would then seal them anew.
"Three, two, mark!" A quick glance at the main and sublevel control panels revealed at all the indicators light were still red. The systems were overheated. Kiddo cut the power, jettisoned the stabilizer, B'Elanna switched to an auxiliary mount, pushed the ignition of the warpcore causing the straining engines to whine, the phazing blue core whirled loudly before leveling out to an even flow. The ship was stabilized.
"That's it!" B'Elanna smiled, pleased.
"Should we not inform the Bridge?" asked Kiddo
"Yeah, we should. But no comm system. Yet." B'Elanna offered awkwardly.
Easy-on-eyes and Vulcan-boy who had diligently worked on restoring power to the rest of the ship replacing gel packs had accumulated a stack of the infected and compromised packs. "Chief you should take a look at this, I think I found the cause of our power problems." Easy-on-Eyes held up a contaminated gel pack, instead of a glowing neon green it was a dark sickly looking yellow.
The control relays were overloaded, Seven knew she would have to realign the whole system, throughout the entire ship. That would take a great deal of time, time the young woman wagered they did not have. There still could be a foothold situation onboard.
Of course there was always the fast efficient and practical solution to the dilemma at hand. Closing her long fingers into a fist, Seven activated the tubules and plunged them into the computer core and interface directly. Her eyes glazed over for a moment, teraquads of data streamed by in her mind, and in order for it not to overload her, Seven wasn't even aware she automatically assimilated it into precise perfect order.
She knew the ins and outs of the ship, the ships cargo manifest, a list of personnel but only their faces, individual data else seemed to be encrypted. Seven tried to assimilate the data-banks to create order out of the chaos. There was a virus inflicting the core.
'Isolate, and exterminate virus.' Seven automatically commanded the nanoprobes some instinct within her commanded the computer thus Voyager to adapt to the virus and annihilate it. If only it could be so easy with the crew. It seemed the virus was designed to confuse a crew, leave them open to be boarded and imprisoned, but once they were over it, the enemy could interrogate them for information.
Seven saw flashes of battles, dozens of them from the memory banks of Voyager's computer. Perhaps even the same enemy who inflicted Voyager and the crew with the amnesia virus. Bypassing many of the protocols set in place for safety and security, Seven accessed the tertiary computer banks.
Something called the phage had once infiltrated the ship, as well as an insectoid that had inflicted itself on her mate and started to resequence B'Elanna's DNA If it had not been for a Cardassian method of treatment B'Elanna would have died. The problem was that the Cardassian medicine was procured through morally objectionable means as it was tested on Bajoran prisoners of war. Seven further accessed records concerning something called the Dominion, Species 8472, the Hirogen and Kazon. All hostile. All had a grudge against Voyager which meant any one of them could be the enemy that had caused their uncertain situation. Species 8472 could mimic humanoid forms as could the Changelings. Seven withdrew her hand quickly the revelation that there were species that could mimic forms changed everything.
Now things were worse.
It was bad enough not to remember who everyone was, but to know that there possibly were shape-changers.... chameleonoids altered everything. Just who could you trust?
"I think you're just paranoid, Red," Ro commented. "Paranoia paralyzes sensible thinking."
The older woman frowned but she had to admit her young lover was right. Paranoia paralyzed sense.
Going to the bridge of the ship the women discovered a very young Asian man who was little more than a boy seated in the captain's chair. And that he certainly was not. It must have been his watch when whatever happened, happened. There was also a Vulcan male. A lanky young human woman with flame red hair sat on the floor rubbing a large welt on her forehead which was current being checked out by a blue skinned male.
'Bolian.' Red commented to herself . Behind her she looked again to the choir boy and the stoic scowling Vulcan. 'Stoic and Choirboy.....neither of them seem fit for the captain's chair. Stoic at tactical, ...... Vulcan or Romulan? I know one of them is......an enemy......and why is that kid sitting in Seven's chair?'
Red blinked she had just acknowledge that slender goddess the captain! 'Ro is right Seven seems to take command naturally. If I think I have power does that make me the XO? I know I have command. In some fashion I know it.'
Stoic held his head and fought back a groan. Red turned to give the man comfort but it seemed that Kes had it under control. "I'd thought I lend a hand with the wounded," the girl said. She received an encouraging smile before she turned back to running a medical tri-corder over the dark skin of the Vulcan's forehead. "You have a small concussion like the rest of us," she diagnosed. "Do you have any other injuries?"
The man shock his head. "No, I don't think so," He said. He frowned. "Who are you?"
"Kes," she smiled warmly.
He seemed to be embarrassed. Leaning close to her he uttered. "Do you know who I am?"
She shrugged and sadly shook her head. "Sorry, I don't. It seems we were somehow attacked and all infected with amnesia."
"I didn't know that it was something one could catch like a disease."
"Well, maybe it's a symptom of something different," Kes shrugged again. "A biological weapon? A spatial anomaly? You're at tactical maybe you know something about it, only now you forgot."
Stoic grinned. "A logical assumption," he praised the girl. "How is it you know who you are?"
Kes blushed. "Well actually a Klingon toddler told me. She seems to know me and several other of the crew. So far she is the only one not afflicted with the amnesia. It's probably due to her very young age. I encountered other children about the age of eight that were afflicted."
"And you trust the word of this child?" Stoic asked
Kes's gray-turquoise eyes glimmered. "I don't see why not. I wouldn't trust the girl to tell the truth if she ate a forbidden cookie or to touch something she isn't supposed to, but as young as she is I do trust her to know who some of us are."
"Why?" This came from the Asian kid.
Red and Ro turned they both wanted to hear this, as did Carey, Bolian and the Flame-job.
The Okampan seemed to get smaller, her eyes locked on the man questioning her. "Well children that age their parents often play 'whose that game' and adults around them do to. It seems funny but an adult can become giddy if an infant identifies them as does the child. It's a game."
"You know a bit about children," this came from Red. "One of those we met in the mess hall wouldn't happen to be yours?"
"No I don't think so. They had more familiarity with Seven, than me. Maybe I'm their nanny or something." Kes said. "Miral seemed very content in my presence."
"The others sure as hell didn't. That little bossy one, takes after her mother, IF Seven is her mother," Ro rolled her eyes. "Whoof, what an attitude!"
"She was frightened and frightened people do odd and even dangerous things to protect themselves," Kes said.
Red found herself agreeing. The kids were vastly outnumbered and had a height disadvantage of course they would lash out. Seven proved to take the situation in hand easily. She must be their mother or at least an authority figure they respect on instinct. The sure as hell wouldn't yield to her or Ro. And they were positively walking all over Hedgehog...er... Nee.
"Well speaking of bossy short females."
All heads turned to the speaker and all the women had a prominent scowl on their faces.
"Ya know that might need a bit of rephrasing," Choirboy said to the other male but his eyes never left the three women who looked less than pleased at his words.
"Maybe it's because she's Klingon, but she came in and she took over engineering," Carey continued as if he hadn't heard Choirboy.
Bolian backed away from the open terminal he was working on. "She said her name is B'Elanna, and she is an engineer. I believe her. The woman knew the ship's warpdrive was out of alignment. Only a fracking good engineer would know that. She has a sidekick, well acquired one. He was in engineering with us. He knew the engine was off line too. Only I think he's a bit young...maybe he's a student?" Bolian stopped there in his explanation as his blue eyes fell on Choirboy. "Perhaps he was not that young. We seem to have a ship full of whelps."
Choirboy seemed to take exception to that and snorted at Bolian. He was sitting in the command chair after all! Granted he didn't feel much like a captain, but he was no whelp either.
Carey frowned at the blue skinned male, as well. He had thought Bolian was with him thinking that the small Klingon had started taking over. Apparently he didn't have an ally after all.
'Seven, to B'Elanna we have communications back on line.'
B'Elanna in her excitement clapped Kiddo on the back hard enough to send him lurching forward that he had to grasp the railing in order to stop himself from going head over heels off the top tier of Engineering. "Whohoh! Way to go girl."
'I have also discovered the reason computers were malfunctioning. A computer virus was introduced into the computer core and gel packs similar to that which afflicts us.'
"Sounds like it was deliberate."
'I believe so. There is more.' Seven said.
It was unvoiced, but B'Elanna heard it all the same. Her woman wanted to speak to her in privacy. Something urgent clouded the taller, younger woman's voice. "We, just got the warpdrive realigned, why don't we break for lunch. Besides there is someone I think you should meet." The Klingon looked at Kiddo and smirked.