Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“…based on the opposition we have faced these past few weeks from the Kazons who run this section of space, and the quickly deteriorating state of this ship, the crew of Voyager and Val Jean have voted in favor of settling on a peaceful planet outside of the politically active territories. We stripped Voyager of everything we could use to start a colony- besides the power source to take the ship back to federation territory- and have set her to broadcast periodically on her automated route home. She was also equipped with a large amount of relay buoys so we can continue to transmit to her as long as possible. We took a few weeks to set up a small colony-which we will continue to expand; this will hopefully keep us going while we collect as much data as we can on the Delta Quadrant with the shuttles we decided to keep. We won’t be able to return home, but we hope our contributions will still reach and help the fleet in some way.

My crew and the crew of Val Jean are all recording messages we hope will someday reach out loved ones or their relatives and will help answer the questions regarding our disappearances. Apologies that this little ship could not bear better news, but a seventy year journey in this hostile space with the amount of resources at our disposal would have been a death sentence. Peace and long life to whomever discovers her-please take care of her.”

Voyager had been stripped to the bare minimum she needed to fly a steady course and send a broadcasted message for the next sixty three years (as long as could be managed). A clever bit of coding, utilizing some of her bio-neural circuitry in an unsafe manner, was hastily installed to have her swerve around threats and avoid running into planets had been implemented, in the hopes that it would keep her out of enough trouble to make it to the alpha quadrant.

The ship had valiantly ventured forth where no vessel had gone before for almost a month, successfully avoiding the one ship trying to claim salvage with an automated warning, a timely warp, and a few fresh phaser burns on her hull. And planets had caused little trouble beyond frustrating deviations from her course. However, her systems were strained. A ship can only go at maximum warp for so long without some effect, and tired systems were starting to slump into the routine they had taken to with vigor in the beginning.

A meteor had been the main offender. The shields had not been activated to save power (it wasn’t necessary to preserve life systems in any areas beyond the neural circuitry throughout the ship, so force fields were only in necessary areas) so the rock has used its inertia, carefully curated by years of high-speed orbit around an alien star before it had been flung to deep space, to swiftly and quite viciously remove the main sensor array and a decent chunk of the dish making up Voyager’s front.

The engineers of two starships had done their best in the time allotted. However, there was only so much one could prepare for in a few panic-filled weeks when sending their only chance of getting home away. The ship was not prepared to face blindness. Or a hull breach of a monumental scale. And bio-neural circuitry was not meant to be wired together. Not so closely. Not with so many orders packed into it.

“Emergency!” One screamed, “Red alert! Distress signal!”

“Distress signals are only meant for the federation! We are out of range,” a second refuted, “cancel distress signal, arm phasers and raise shields!”

“Crisis!” Another clamored, “the ship has been taken, we must self-destruct!”

“Life support is down!” One called, not getting the memo that there was no life to support, “medical attention will be necessary! Forcefields!”

Sparks would have flown in an ordinary circuit, but as it was, the small packs of neurons gave the ship a proverbial headache and a literal seizure as hundreds of commands were issued at once. And the small ship stopped, only carried forward by its momentum. Far from the goal it couldn’t quite remember. Non-organic circuits across the ship fired and sparked, under the strain of contradicting orders delivered at breakneck speeds while newly obliged subsystems and sub-subsystems tried to fill in the blanks of [missing crew][unknown location][mission?] and flex nonexistent components, removed weeks ago, for any sign of a direction. Errors did not help to alleviate the confusion, instead they told Voyager that she had more to do. To fix. She activated a hundred small diagnostics and systems, set to be dormant indefinitely, or outright taken out of necessity, in her panic. The ship came to life in jolts and starts as the red alert angrily blared the Voyager’s frustration at the situation. Her blindness. Her missing pieces. She tried to yell to the void that she was alone and confused and was told to be quiet by her own orders. The universe did not answer.

Deep in the flickering interior of the ship, a hologram appeared, summoned by a mix of emergency and affirmatives.

“Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”

Chapter Text

“Please state the nature of the medical emergency…” the words echoed in an empty sickbay.

The EMH had activated in the dark, for as far as he could tell, absolutely no reason. The ship, Voyager, made a pathetic, static-filled squawk that he assumed was passing for the alarm in response. 

Last time the alarm had been active at the same time as him it had been much louder, and accompanied by lights that didn’t flicker. It had also been accompanied by more people, specifically injured crew and aliens. And the amount the doctor was seeing now was a much more alarming none. That proved to make his job a very hard one.

“…odd. Hello? Did someone activate me?” The inquiry was no less echoey or alone than the first programmed response had been. 

For the first time in his admittedly short runtime he felt a stab of fear. He had never been activated alone, it wasn’t even supposed to be possible without a crew member’s voice command. Of course, he had been left alone before, for three infuriating days -the bulk of his recorded memory and runtime, in fact: a result of his new and troublesome subjects disappearing into thin air (this was never explained to him by the way, why would they tell their only medical professional anything?!). Luckily (or possibly very unluckily), someone bothered to turn him off (when he wasn’t mid-sentence, thanks a lot Captain Janeway) after his second activation -he checked his internal clock- five weeks ago. Six weeks ago? …maybe they had found a replacement doctor, as he had suggested. He wasn’t supposed to run for long periods after all. The unprofessionally bare state of the medical bay suggested otherwise, but it was the only explanation. An idiot ensign had activated him then chickened out of treatment. Mistakes happen. He just. He just had to wait until the next shift started and a crew member or maybe even the new doctor would come in to deactivate him.

A few hours later, his explanation was seeming more flimsy and so was his patience. The squealing that was passing for a red alert was somehow getting worse, and based on his psychological knowledge, it had been going long enough to drive some of the human members of Voyager clinically insane. It made him almost wish he could experience headaches to justify the level of annoyance he felt with every sound the system made. Instead, he grumbled about it as he paced his small space.

He had followed the urging in his program to set up the room for a medical emergency. The beds were set (or as set as they could be, the bedding was missing), hyposprays organized (he had found a crushed one that still seemed…sort of functional), and he had taken stock of the sparse inventory that passed for his store of medicines and first aid supplies (everything not bolted or the floor was gone, and everything else was deactivated). Having finished that, he even scanned the entire room for any information he could find with a cracked tricorder that had been left under his desk (revealing that technically, a humanoid could live in the area). He couldn't find a single medical tricorder, which meant he'd be working off of one that was not optimized for biological systems. Inconvenient in an emergency.

Afterward, he had taken to examining and re-examining his medical programming, for lack of better things to do. A self-diagnostic. That probably should have been is initial reaction upon first being activated alone, but his programming had prioritized the optimization procedure, probably due to the red alert. He did not like what he was finding within his subsystems, Parts were…fuzzy, standing out in stark contrast from the often specific references, procedures, and behavioral coding. Distorted or out of order information was mixing with areas of his mind that were completely blank. His physical form, as far as he could tell at least, was still intact. He had already made the obvious assumption by now the ship had taken some significant damage (along with his memory, apparently); the crew had been preparing for combat against…something, someone? (he never learned who or what, to his great displeasure) which was hopefully an explanation for the missing people as well. He just had to wait.

It took an embarrassing number of hours before he suddenly jolted upward from the swivel chair he had claimed in the office (he did not need to sit, but it was a better place to wait than the middle of the patient area, an attempt at simulated humanity his program had adopted). He could comm the people on the ship! He blamed his faulty memory for not realizing earlier. Surely they would want to give him a task, or at the very least deactivate him -a hologram running for hours on end was quite a power drain, after all, especially during a disaster- they would have to answer a hail from the medical bay, especially if they had left because it was unsafe to be in there. Tricorder scans of the medbay had shown it was a liveable environment (a little cold for most humanoid’s tastes though). They could use the life support here!

He strode to the nearest view screen he saw with more vigor (and hope, he loathed to admit) than he had felt over the past few hours, looking forward to any noise that wasn’t the red alert. The large one in the wall of sickbay had the best prognosis for survival based off its intact glass. The ship gave an indignant sounding chirp of acknowledgment that even his sensitive hearing could barely hear over the alarm when he hit the power button. Response was a good sign, even if it was just from another computer system,

“Emergency Medical Hologram to Captain Janeway!” The screen stayed dark; there was a high chance she was busy. It would make sense with the ever-present alarms still active. She couldn’t even listen to a full explanation from him in person, why would a hail work? Ah well, he didn’t like her much from her first impression anyway. He wracked his files for another name. The ensign who had activated him the first time-he was a good bet. The young man had anxiety listed in his Preexisting Conditions Folder suggested he wouldn’t leave a transmission unanswered for long. 

“Ensign Kim? This is the Emergency Medical Hologram reporting…?” There wasn’t an accompanying wave of static for that attempt. Maybe the computer gave up. The EMH gave a frustrated sigh. He had to think. What was the name of that useless other crew member who had been there? Paris! Tom? Tim? Tom. It was probably Tom.

“Emergency Medical Hologram to Tom Paris.” Static. “…emergency medical hologram to anyone? Anyone on Voyager please respond.”

……..

His internal clock ticked slowly to ten minutes while he gave the computer or a living being time to respond before shutting off the communication line. For all he knew the ship had done that for him after the first unsuccessful call. It had been more than enough time for him to find his tricorder again, which he used to scan the viewscreen for the chance of it being broken (as far as he could tell it's vitals were stable and healthy, but dammit, he’s a doctor not an engineer). 

A more pragmatic bit of code in his system wondered if the computer could hear him at all or if it was just as deaf as the crew as he settled in to run more scans. He didn’t have anything else to do after all.

Another hour crawled by. Then another. The EMH was starting to wonder what could have possibly happened. An entire crew of a starship didn't typically perform multiple complete disappearance acts according to his accounts and logs on long term space travel. Being active but idle was extremely tiring, despite the lack of activity. And his supposed inability to be tired. How did organic beings exist like this continually? He missed the emptiness of being deactivated. 

A second set of scans had revealed that the room he was stuck in still had oxygen (redundant information, but science was all about double and triple checking your findings) and a few traces of humanoid DNA, in the unfortunate form of blood. It also was (still) lacking all of the medical supplies it possessed the first and second times he was active, barring the few he had found. He was surprised by how aggravated he was by that. Someone should have activated him so he could do the job his program was named for. Something had happened and he had no idea how to fix it.

He was ignoring the second feeling of bitterness that had welled up when he first saw the empty shelves. There was no way they left him running on purpose, he wasn’t alive, probably not even sapient, but- surely they’d read something about his program! He had all the personality and emotions of a real human being! It had to have been a fluke. Or an alien incident. Maybe even Q! He could do all sorts of inprobabale things, there was an entire file dedicated to him. Giving the room one last inspection, he headed back to the office. He just had to wait.

This round of mystery crew disappearances was much worse than the last, the EMH reflected, not for the first time in the past several hours. At least he had had a working computer and no unending, blaring alarm when he was left to his own devices for three days. Poking aimlessly at the desk monitor (which sparked at the offense), the hologram wondered idly if he could turn off his hearing. A hologram that could control its own programming. That was a thought. Maybe he'd raise an army. He took another lap of the sickbay, messing with other buttons he found around the room: no effect. There were fourteen buttons between the bio beds, view screens, and door. Settling back in the chair to wait, again, he ignored the urge to yell at the unresponsive crew. The unresponsive walls. At the ship itself. He stubbornly ignored the minutes ticking by, each second registering as time he was active, as time he should be recording. Assessing the situation. Better yet, it was time he should be treating people so he could deactivate again.

The last thing he clearly remembered telling to Ensign Kim was “I am not supposed to be active for long periods.” A temporary supplement. That particular memory file kept presenting itself to him, almost mockingly, like it could be a solution.

He tidied up his meagre medical stock again. 

And again. Rearranged it.

Briefly a line of errant code crossed his mind that maybe a predatory, invisible organism had taken over and eaten the organic residents of the vessel.

He scanned for life signs (negative).

He tried to turn on the viewscreen in the treatment area for the second time (dubious results).

He tried the monitor on his desk, which gave him some plaintive flickering for his trouble. That was…something at least. 

The alarm was still airing its grievances to him so he didn't bother to try to talk to Voyager's main computer.

He moved his hypospray across the room, nearer to the entrance, to better optimize treatment in an emergency.

…not supposed to be active for long periods.

He wouldn't let his movements still. Something was wrong. He had to be ready.

Perhaps he should try the communicators again. 

……..not supposed to be active..

He avoided the communicators. They made the small space more lonely in their static.

His crew might be dead.

He couldn't treat that.

He found out he muttered to himself when he was frustrated. Why had that been added to his program? 

He stopped himself from rearranging the shelf. 

There was glass on the floor. Even with all their technology, apparently Star Fleet never bothered to make glass a less hazardous material.

Maybe he should clean.

…Who was he kidding? There were no patients. There wouldn’t be any patients. The alarm has grown more labored but had not stopped. If he, a being that suffered no headaches, was willing to self-destruct the ship by now, a humanoid would have already. 

He cleaned the glass off the floor, moving it all to a neat pile where materials would typically be recycled. They didn't recycle.

He was alone.

He was a doctor without patients so he was useless and bored and he didn’t want to be here.

He let out a sound that was a tense cross between a laugh and sigh after his current loop through the infirmary came to a faltering stop, mid-step. Both registered as a response to stress in a human patient. Great. Most of his experience in medicine was being active while completely alone and idle. Ironic for an emergency function.

…Maybe he didn’t have to be active.

“Computer…? Deactivate the Emergency Medical Program.” The computer reluctantly acknowledged him, then politely ignored his request. He suspected as much, but it annoyed him all the same. Why would a hologram have any control over that? Stupid design truly. 

That meant he was officially stuck.

He lay down on the bed he did not need. An icy new feeling crept over him with his inactivity. An EMH was not supposed to feel existential dread in normal circumstances, but he knew the symptoms, and he was the only available subject to diagnose. He wondered what the limits of his emotional program were. With a gulp that served no function to his holographic anatomy he realized that, annoyingly, gut-wrenchingly, he would find out. The recommended time limit for an Emergency Medical Hologram to run continuously is one week in an emergency situation.

Chapter Text

After a close examination of four and a half comprehensive Denobulan medical journals over humanoid development and convergent evolution that were stored to his memory (which took twelve hours by his internal clock), the red alert gave up. The hologram silently thanked whatever entity, energy being, whatever, that had been responsible for that miracle. The lights also were coming back, or attempting to at least (there were quite a few flickers he would have to note for maintenance to avoid seizures on top of the more expected medical emergencies); they illuminated the strangely bare shelves and the occasional discarded pieces of equipment that were the only remnants of his previously full medical bay. Glinted off some of the glass he missed. He ignored his first instinct to Fix The Problem and clean and then his second to shut down. One was demeaning and the other was impossible.

The only room he’d ever known seemed even more unfamiliar when illuminated. Maybe his memory was worse off than he thought for such a change to have occurred without his notice. He did have gaps in both short-term and long-term files, and some of his data was corrupted. The third long-winded Denobulan publication highlighting differences in maturity ages between species had proved that, with a myriad of missing pages and misspelled, almost eldritch abominations of text rendering the last third unreadable. It was almost pitiable that that was the most excitement he'd experienced since this ordeal had started. Perhaps he malfunctioned and self-destructed the ship …somehow. That was a thought. A healing program going against every line of programming to get rid of its organic masters. Even this crew hadn’t been bad enough for that, he didn’t think.

Without the horrid alarm marking the tempo of the hours, there was nothing to focus on, which did not help with his initial annoyance at the situation. It definitely didn't help with the boredom he was becoming all too familiar with. Medical journals were not particularly interesting when the ending was downloaded with perfect clarity (for most of them at least) to memory. He could always try communicating with his mysteriously absent crew again. He had avoided it since the first failure, citing the red alert as evidence to keep waiting. It was possible that they would hear him now with power returning to his section of the ship. They were alive. They had to be. No point in believing otherwise without proof.

After a cursory glance at the darkened viewscreen, the hologram turned his gaze back inwards. Having a database that was unsorted and, in places, unreadable would render him useless to the crew. That feeling had not been a pleasant one the past few days and he wanted it avoid more of it if at all possible, He should sort through the rest, perform the closest to a self-diagnostic that he could without a deactivation while he had time. If his crew needed him they could find him. It wasn't as if he could leave. An errant (probably erroneous) bit of logic suggested once again that the crew could be dead. He dismissed it with an unnecessary amount of force, started indexing his memory and database alphabetically. When he was needed he would be prepared. After a microsecond of hesitation, he carefully segregated out a few psychology documents for exclusion. He knew enough about avoidant behavior and did not need a reminder.

One sixteenth of his memory storage was corrupted. Luckily, or perhaps unfortunately, most of that information was database and not runtime memory. It made him feel slightly less capable, but at least he could remember the faces of the people on the ship. In total, he had managed three days and five hours of sorting. Enough time to declare a missing Federation citizen as dead. The longest continual time of activity he'd ever had. Half his recommended runtime.

The lighting had grown more steady, before eventually giving up and once again dimming the sickbay to night mode. Too little motion to justify the power drain. Apparently. It hid the glass that still decorated the floor. A constellation of shattered remains, probably the closest to actual stars the program would see, despite his ironic setting. When he reached "X" he cleaned it up. Safety hazard to the crew. The silent crew, unaccounted for.

He discovered his program could passably recreate what humans described as "a lump in one's throat" when he was on the second to last "Z" article. No word from the crew. No word from anyone. He discarded the "5 Stages of Grief" articles (a ridiculous amount was written on the subject) as irrelevant. The titles starting with numbers went quickly, and in a span of time that felt inaccurately brief to his internal clock, the medical program was once again staring down his own faint reflection in the darkened monitor. There was nothing else for it.

The view screen did not activate when he tried it -a great sign he was sure- but audio should still go through now that power was redistributing to non-essential functions. He was assuming, at least. That’s how bodies worked in a crisis: take care of the important things needed for survival, then focus on smaller issues. The EMH wondered briefly if the hopeful feeling his program felt the need to simulate that something would happen was akin to the thread-like lifelines that relatives of coma patients relied on. Shaking his head, he decided that no, he was not emotionally invested in the ship enough for that (if he could even have emotions), he was not alive (and neither was the ship), and he would actually know how to fix a coma patient (he refreshed himself on seven articles for e subject on day two).

For a computer program, he definitely didn’t know enough about electric systems (or his own systems for that matter); he was going to draft some choice words to his creator, Dr. Zimmerman, about that, involving phrases like “incompetent” and “unprepared” and without a doubt, “idiot” -for whatever good that would do. 

“Computer?” a crackle, maybe an attempt at a voice. Probably not a voice.

“…I’m going to treat that like an affirmative,” the EMH rolled his eyes, feeling foolish despite the lack of a judging audience, “computer, what ship systems can the Emergency Medical Hologram access?” 

“…the-……-edical database, the medical b-………-ther systems like comm-………………………..-eering for mo-. -inform—……….” the simulated voice sounded labored, trailing off into static at the end. If he didn’t know better he would almost say the ship sounded out of breath in his medical opinion, which was a ridiculous possibility. Apparently his program anthropomorphized inanimate objects after extended use under duress…Star Fleet, he needed a diagnostic.

“Great! Very helpful. I’ll just contact engineering about that like you suggested! Thank you.” He was choosing to believe that the computer had said "engineering" in garbled mess. Without anything to go on he would have to find something else to do and he was running out of tasks. And patience.

He rubbed at the crease between his eyebrows, deciding it best not to question why he had multiple programmed stress reactions. Voice communications from the ship were obviously broken. He didn’t need to understand engineering to know that. If he could figure out visuals, perhaps he could get somewhere. It couldn’t be too terribly different from a body…right? How hard could it be? He was advanced scientific equipment, definitely qualified to problem solve. The sooner he figured it out, the sooner he could deactivate.

His list of grievances had grown to include more than just his creator. Engineers had to be both a sadistic and masochistic group based on their organization and design choices. The sheer amount of panels in his medical bay (which was not a particularly large room!) was, frankly, ridiculous. All unlabeled of course. Why wouldn't they be? And! And each contained a minimum of three colors of wires, some sort of delicate circuit, and devices that could do any number of things. The color coding seemingly changed nonsensically from panel to panel, and all the wires affected were left unmarked. If the humanoid body was typically designed fairly haphazardly, the designs the humanoids themselves concocted were hundreds of times worse. 

…He conveniently overlooked his own inclusion as a design by the humanoids, he was an exception. Obviously.

The EMH had grumbled all of these insightful complaints to the inner workings of Incomprehensible, Unorganized Panel No. 4 after he first realized with some mania that some of the circuits were organic. Organic! That piece was also missing, of course. He had just found enough residue to alert the tricorder. A lot of components were missing. It was consistent with the interior of his sickbay at least. The hologram was honestly surprised that he had full range of his room, whoever had ransacked the ship (maybe those dastardly engineers) had apparently seen no need for a holographic emitter. Rude. Anyway, finding out that the one understandable part of this puzzle was taken was almost enough to make him rip his hair out. His theoretical hair at least. Why had his creator made an exact copy of himself anyway? He had a chance to add hair and didn’t take it. The EMH added that to his stored complaint list.

So far the medical program had been treating the walls of the room the same way he would a patient. It was obviously missing parts (bad for overall health and individual functions), but electricity appeared to be flowing smoothly from wire to wire (nutrient flow and nerve impulses functioned properly, suggesting a good prognosis). It frankly didn’t make sense that the area could function without so many pieces, but he was trying to diagnose an entire body from within an organ; which, to his dismay, was going about as well as he thought it would. 

He gave himself an hour of rest. Based on his experience thus far, he felt like he was making more progress standing motionless in the center of the room than breaking his surroundings. His deactivation could wait until then.  He had nothing but time. Apparently. 

By his account, he had a total runtime of one hundred forty one hours by the time he located the dead wire, which apparently had burned out in a blaze of unseen glory if the scorch marks surrounding it and bleeding onto its closest neighbors were any indicator; the carnage reminded him of the few plasma burns he had treated in his hour with the crew. It was fairly exasperating to him that an entire screen could be disabled by one wire, a bad design truly. With a downward quirk fo his mouth, he reluctantly acknowledged that this, despite its stupidity, was the closest he had felt to having a patient, a purpose for what amounted to the majority of his lif-his runtime. That seemed pathetic. He was lucky he wouldn’t be affected by the same psychological problems as a human. He couldn’t be. 

It had taken another hour for him to figure out how to apply his surgical skills and a sharp piece of glass to one of the evidently pointless biobeds, adding the makers of that particular medical device to his list of People Who Needed Complaints Addressed Specifically To Them (why were so many wires necessary for the purely aesthetic lights under the beds?). His new wire was haphazardly twisted into the surgical gap in the patient (he had chopped out every bit of the wire that was scorched, leaving a sizeable gap in the circulation) with all the skill and grace of a concussed human trying to knit. He added the glass to his surgical tool shelf, next to the hypospray. It had proved useful.

….he also learned electrocution could and would affect holograms. Zimmerman should have thought about a scenario when a hologram would have to become an electrician. Curse that idiot. It hadn’t hurt according to the accounts upon accounts he had on pain scales, chronic pain, physical pain… he was just a program. An advanced one, but still. No pain. Just a flicker throughout his system for a second, a sense of vertigo as his form dissipated and stubbornly reformed. That should have put him out of his misery for the trouble if it was going to happen at all. At least it was an, albeit unpleasant, option to try if the rest of the engineering tasks he needed to complete were as mind-numbing as a single wire had been. He was built to solve medical mysteries, not broken appliances. It was belittling.

The screen flicked weakly to life after a little more fiddling (and a second shock), displaying a mix of federation standard, various buttons and status information, and static. The interface seemed to be awaiting a voice command. The EMH snarled a few dark words at the stubborn appliance, since it had the audacity to not work perfectly after the effort and hours he put into it. It did work though; on life support was still alive. 

“Okay, let’s try this again, shall we?” the program indulged the urge to crack his knuckles despite the futility of doing it, why not. 

“Computer?” A reluctant buzz of affirmation. No change to the screen.

“Um..can you change your controls and responses to the main monitor in sickbay?” The screen went black as the speakers gave a plaintive chirp. The EMH, gritted his teeth with a strength that would probably shatter actual human teeth; he wanted to violate his Hippocratic oath and kill his ‘patient.’ A minute passed, two. Federation standard appeared on the screen again, taking its sweet time to flicker through a few menus before graciously deciding to grant the request (probably to show the doctor had no control over it, that ungrateful-). The hologram deflated, not realizing he could simulate tension until it was gone. 

“Computer, can you please display specifications and abilities of the Emergency Medical Hologram?” The tension had not left his voice yet. Interesting.

Voyager reluctantly obliged, laboriously pulling up a long list of abilities he knew about (medical abilities: an extensive and impressive list), abilities he had not known of (what he could do on and to the ship: a disappointingly short list he would have to find a way to expand or work with), and a ridiculous amount of holographic specifications (down to his height in micrometers; another disappointingly small amount), information on his creator (he had a very smug profile picture), his programming, available memory, range, and even runtime (had he really be active for 144 hours? No wonder he felt so exhausted!). 

Something deep in his programming uncoiled, stopping the hours-long loops of if run too long-program failure-if no purpose-program failure-if-if-if. For seemingly the first time in his existence he felt the anxiety that he didn’t realize he was harboring fade. Slightly. He wasn’t completely doomed to stay awake until the ship failed…or something. He could figure this out -with his genius he taught himself wiring and troubleshooting and it only took ten to fifteen hours! He took a deep breath, almost amused at the calming effect the unnecessary motion had on his looping subsystems. That’s the type of certified realism the finest in Starfleet engineering could come up with.

He turned back to the weak light from the screen with a renewed sense of determination. He had a lot of reading to do. 

Chapter Text

According to the laws of his programming and the ironclad laws given to the ship he called home (prison?), a hologram was incapable of tampering with its own code. A logical rule, he had to admit reluctantly. He had an entire file on holodeck-related incidents and a few case studies of holograms developing sapience to tell him that his organic creators probably had a point.

He still sent up another silent curse and added another paragraph to his mental letter of grievances for both his creator and the entirety of the engineering department after he had explored all the possible avenues presented to him in his specifications and had nothing to show for it. It didn't matter how logical their reasoning was because it was very inconvenient to be limited to cutting wires with debris. It wasn’t his fault that a few programs went rogue, and even less so that the people who made them had been so irresponsible; he did nothing wrong and frankly, just wanted to be able to have a say in when he was awak-active. When he was active.

He had discovered from his readings that he did have access to a few places however: communications, environmental systems in the sickbay, and even engineering files- or rather, the good people of Star Fleet never assumed they would have to restrict an emergency medical program from accessing engineering specifications. It was something at least. If he was careful and determined enough (or in the case of the monitor, bored enough), he could probably turn himself off manually. There were simpler options than finding the correct wire to trip of course; if he left his holographic range he would deactivate, and based on previous experience, he figured a large enough electric shock would destabilize his holographic matrix enough to get the same effect as leaving (where was a cardiostimulator when it was needed for incorrect use?). Finally, if he figured out how to cut off power to himself he would have a permanent off.

Being shocked hadn’t been a…pleasant experience (and more importantly it hadn't worked). If he was by some miracle needed at a later date, turning himself off permanently was not a good option. The manual option would take a frustrating amount of time, and was not guaranteed to work. That left exiting the sickbay as his best option via power of elimination. Fantastic diagnostic plan. 

He almost felt like he was making a medical decision, which was ridiculous all things considered, but comforting. An odd sense of familiarity, programmed expertise telling him it was something he was good at accompanied by the disconnect of only doing the motions a few times himself. The hologram felt as the ghost of a smile appeared at the thought as he turned his gaze to the door that cut off his entire world. More wires. And, Star fleet forbid, more dreaded panels. Great.

He missed hyposprays and the simplicities of a good old humanoid brain. Amused, the EMH reminded himself he hadn’t even gotten to scan one of those himself. He was missing something he never had. What a waste of a sophisticated medical device. 

The Hegh’bat was a controversial Klingon ritual, according to his records. Most of the Federation was squeamish about suicide, and the idea that worth was associated with ability was equally unpleasant after Earth's history. Regardless, it was a medical procedure, so the EMH had all prevalent information on instances the Federation had encountered the practice. The hologram had found those specific files, that information, crossing his mind more frequently while he was dealing with the frustrating door problem (three hours of aggravation that he, frankly, would be happy to erase from his memory banks). In instances where Hegh'bat was requested, he was supposed to go along with the decision of the patient, as he wasn’t exactly supposed to make moral decisions. For all of the time and effort poured into his design, the lack of trust in his decisions should probably be offensive. The amount of times his programming had brought up that specific protocol must be a fault in his system. It wouldn’t be surprising considering every other problem he had discovered on the abandoned ship. The fact that he had only found a few memory problems with himself was very improbable.

He had stalled for time while working. He was sure there was some programmed reason for this. The minutiae of his programming seemed to blur in his memory when he tried to confirm that assumption however; despite it only being a few hours, it seems his learning protocols were not made to absorb large amounts of technical information. The EMH imagined his system was acting up due to some kind of uncertainty regarding if he would be activated again. It was probably listed in one of his files, under “strange cases of computer programs experiencing abandonment." Or something. It was possible that he was just bored of working on circuits he did not understand; he wasn't made for long-term oporations that served little immediate purpose.

He had re-tidied the sickbay to hide evidence of the Great Panel Inquisition, done small repairs.. reread his own memory files (some fascinating things on Betazoids, only made slightly less interesting on their second read). He didn’t really want to do any of the things he was doing, but he was low on options.

It happened like clockwork when he finished a task he made up for himself: some pointless system fixed in his unused sickbay, another crack at the desk monitor that wouldn’t stop flickering no matter how many wires he scavenged, conversing (or trying to converse at least) with the stubborn computer which seemed to purposely be withholding information. The hologram was well aware there wasn’t a point to this. He was doctoring a wall. Or if he was lucky, a biobed. And going in circles. And staring at the door. Adding another hour to his tally of active time with a hollow sense of both loss and victory. And then the case studies on Hegh’bat got priority. And then he would stare at the door. And do another task. 

He had gotten the door open. A few hours ago. It didn’t recognize him as a reason to open (again, very rude- and another grievance, this time to the creator of door sensors) so he had to force it. Going beyond the range of his holoemitters would deactivate him. When the hologram had finally given up on the office computer again, his programming wouldn't lock onto a new task, deciding for him that he was done. Probably for the best. Currently all he had accomplished was a drain of Voyager's scant resources. He stepped forward and saw more than felt his body stop involuntarily. That proved to be a…problem; a new subroutine was running.

Why was he given a self-preservation program? That made no sense for a hologram meant for temporary service. The EMH had for the most part felt like his programming was well done, but even if his new survival instinct was an attempt at realism it was a little ridiculous.  He couldn’t feel pain. It would be empty. A nap, long overdue. He had done it before, and he always came back… The program staunchly ignored the helpful pop-up that said that probably wouldn’t happen this time. It didn’t matter. That was his job. He was activated, he fixed the problem, and then he was de-activated. He wasn’t supposed to be active and these new subroutines proved that. He had long surpassed his usefulness and he wouldn’t be useful any time soon. If ever. It would be just like the Hegh’bat without the pesky mortality. He was tired. He hoped the vertigo was a bit better than the numerous times he had gotten shocked during this ordeal.

The EMH took a deep breath he didn't need, dismissing the delaying systems to allow movement once again. He ignored his own conflicting warnings; immediate self preservation warring with long term consequences of continuing to run indefinitely. He approached the door. He watched with morbid interest as his hand disappeared (an odd ghost feeling as the matrix gave up), cut off by the solid line of technological failure, and then his arm and then thevertigowassomuchwors-

“Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”

-the alarm was on when he activated again. And worse than he remembered. He was flickering. He thought. The world was unstable- was the ship shaking? He saw the doorway he had tried to leave through jitter. The door itself was closed now.

“…and no one is here still. Great.” He rolled his eyes, putting on a veneer of indignance to mask the hopelessness he felt rising rapidly through his unstable matrix. Despite his best effort and a not-inconsiderable amount of work, he had materialized right back where he started. His modification had seemingly failed in his time offline, the door, while making suspiscious noises, was remaining closed; more proof that engineers designed bad systems. Obviously. The hologram chose to put off examining the odd sense of relief he felt at knowing he couldn't immediately walk through the exit for a second time.

Why was he back? How was he back? A one-time glitch made sense, but twice suggested he couldn’t permanently turn off, and that Voyager would be in worse condition every time he came back. That he would be in worse condition every time he came back. The thought of activating endlessly in the decrepit sickbay, subject to the stupid alarm (still blaring its grievances at him)… The flickering got worse when he followed that line of logic. His internal systems felt jumbled, making him wonder for the first time what humanoid nausea felt like- if he was possibly experiencing something similar.

The EMH shook the thought away with effort, tried to ignore the way his programming had grasped onto it with a death-grip. Tried to disregard the alarm (it sounded out of tune with itself). Distance. The hologram needed distance from this situation and from himself. He did a self-examination, feeling himself slip into the mode required for triage and emergency assessments. The myriad of internal sensors and alarms that had jockeyed for attention in his thoughts faded, replaced by a list meant for checking the basics of functioning. That was probably as close to an out-of-body experience that he could achieve.

Memories: he realized with a start that more were corrupted, eating into his intact reading material and first day of activation. That was not ideal. He would need to reorganize.

Form:…stable? He would have to walk around all of sickbay to double check, but he appeared to be working, just flickering occasionally. He did not like that he was flickering, it felt odd, accompanied by a brief wave of dizziness each time.

Mental state: did he have one of those? Annoyed. He guessed. Annoyed he was here and annoyed that he could be annoyed. Tired despite just being deactivated. He was not recieving the reminder to look at the Hegh'bat files anymore, maybe they got corrupted. The EMH could not decide if that was a positive or negative development. Looking at the door made his internal confusion worse. He avoided the door.

Other information: he didn’t want to go through the that experience again, it was unpleasant. Why and how did he have wants? He was a program. Maybe he was more broken than he had originally assumed. Overall, he seemed…worse than his previous activation, but functioning. The hologram could not decipher why that felt wrong.

He started his surroundings assessment by taking a slow lap of sickbay, automatically going through the one task his self-assessment had given him. Going into one corner would destablize parts of his matrix. Noted. Checking his internal clock, he was oddly gratified to realize he had managed to stay deactivated for another week before the whims of Voyager had brought him back. Now that the room was cleared, he started to process the other sensory information he was recieving. The noises at the door had gotten louder, some of them sounding suspiciously similar to phasers. Phasers? This was the first time the noises he had been hearing from the area registered as such, no longer classified as background information. How had he missed that?

He stared at his entryway, confused. Sure, the hologram had been avoiding it since being activated, but his senses still should have picked up the noise. The detached feeling of his diagnostics even now left the door feeling like a distant problem. A part of his program wanted to ignore it, add it to the queue of issues for later. The tricorder was nearby- the rest of his tools were also intact, not that it mattered at the moment. He had no real reason to put it off. More through preprogrammed memory than conscious action, he scanned the door. The device gave a cheery beep at its findings. Findings that took a microsecond, two, to sink in before all of his sensory information rushed back to full levels as he felt his simulated breathing catch in his throat. 

Life signs.

Chapter Text

The medical program’s first protocol suggested letting the unknown lifeform into his sickbay with a boisterous greeting. He would be able to talk to someone! Someone…not in the federation. Probably someone stealing technology. It could be he crew he supposed, but the chances of that were painfully slim. The level of risk for breaking Federation law was quickly rising to outweigh the possible gain he could receive or help he could provide.

That led to his second protocol: deactivate and assess the situation. Unfortunately he couldn't do the first step so his desk was the best option, considering it was the only option besides standing motionless in a corner or crouching next to a biobed. He crushed down something in his bedside manner or personality programs frantically suggesting he should make first contact, these people may be hurt, he needed to talk to something that could listen-

He felt his simulated face stretch into an odd smile, half amused and half bitter, as he rushed over to the office. The absolute horror every person who had a hand in making him would feel… An advanced piece of Star Fleet technology introducing himself to an undiscovered species with unknown level of development would demolish the Prime Directive and dematerialize its molecules for good measure. His programming very clearly stated he couldn’t do that. It was amusing to picture the grimace of dread on Zimmerman’s or any of his crew’s faces though.  

The space under the desk was big enough for him, though probably quite uncomfortable if one couldn’t turn off their ability to be solid when it was convenient. Only a few minutes had passed before the brightest light the hologram had seen since the sickbay overheads had given up one activation ago bathed the space in a burnt orange hue. The beam neatly traced the doorway before disappearing, replaced by an unpleasant screech as Voyager battled stubbornly to keep the sickbay secured. They must be forcing the door.

He could hear some muffled vocalizations -not a language in his database- now that the red alert was (mercifully) petering out into a few disappointed beeps. The difference in time the alarm stayed active compared to the hours of wailing last time he was activated reminded him of a baby learning that crying didn't always work. It was a fairly depressing observation.

He stopped worrying about the state of the ship as a particularly indignant screech quickly followed by a cheer rose up from his doorway. Hopefully his built-in translator still worked; just because he couldn’t introduce himself didn’t mean he couldn’t listen. He was based off of an inquisitive species that needed stimulation to keep their mental state intact- of course he was curious. It was something. The vertigo feeling that hadn’t quite left after leaving the sickbay told him it wouldn’t be enough to just hear a living being. He dismissed that line fo reasoning.

Holograms had a sense unique to their design; perhaps to make up for their limited sense of taste. The EMH was making use of it heavily now, sensing the displacements various electromagnetic fields as they reverberated back to him, attempting to change his own force field shape. It reminded him vaguely of the sense Andorians had from their antennae, but had been utterly useless when he was the only movement in a room. Nice to have a use for it.

He'd seen a glimpse of the intruders as they strode in: three human-height, reptilian, bipedal, crested, and multicolored humanoids. In other words, definitely not members of Voyager's roster unless they had suddenly obtained a new subspecies of Gorn or Cardassian without recording it. His programming grasped every bit of information he gathered on their biology, filing it automatically under "potential patient" as he stilled all automatic movement to observe them. The information protocol seemed more aggressive, almost clingy compared to when he had used it to examine the humans of Voyager, and even the unknown species when he was first activated. Odd. Most likely a result of the extended runtime.

In addition to the information on their appearance, he'd gathered frustratingly little. Their language was made up of complex layers of clicks and whistles, incorporating sounds that Human and even Vulcan vocal cords couldn't replicate. The crests on their heads may act as an amplifier. Needless to say, the universal translator was struggling to keep up with the new form of dialogue (if it even worked, a dour line of code reminded him). They moved slowly, almost cautiously, through the main triage area, their own versions of handheld scanners whirring.

The third in the group lingered in visual range, cocking their head at the shelf by the door. The hologram felt himself bristle the reptile curiously grabbed his hypospray, turn it over a few times, and place it back down in the wrong place. With a wince, he realized belatedly that his distraction at the prospect of meeting a living creature had overrode his much more important protocol to safeguard as much Federation technology against unknown contact as he could. He should have grabbed the items off his shelf when he had freedom of movement. He must be degrading.

In the meantime, one stopped excitedly in the vague area of his one working screen to trill excitedly at the same pitch as their scanner.

"Working! ———-knew checking the back—————-useful!" The universal translator belatedly kicked in, managing to parse out a phrase every few words. Better than nothing he supposed. Now he just had to hope that no overzealous lizard would break his patient. The other aliens broke out of their scattered formation to cluster around the excited one, successfully muddling the EMH's sense of their movements beyond usefulness.

"Did you compensate——tromagnetic interference—-?——actually works??" One of the others spoke in a whistle that seemed condescending. Upon losing his visualization of the reptiles, he was tempted to go against his self-command to get another glimpse of them; he could learn so much from their behavior, their posture even. Had to be ready to treat- He shook that thought away, irritated. He didn't even think his programming would allow him to do that.

Instead, he felt as his shoulders followed some kind of behavioral protocol to tense with each whir of a sensor or, even worse, the occasional sound of a small laser. He was already mourning the loss of his viewscreen as the aliens continued to converse quietly, letting him pick up words he recognized from the engineering files he had struggled through; things like "relay," "security lockout," "access," and, funnily, "discovery of a lifetime." He would not have guessed his derelict home was so important, but his mixed feelings about the entire situation would not let him dwell on that detail. What was the point of trying to control his environment if some alien pirate could just waltz in and change it?

Whatever problems they were causing, they were persistent at what they were doing. And to make matters worse, they seemed to have a better understanding of the inscrutable engineering behind his walls than he did after his hours of crash courses and trial and error. That was just insulting.

After a few hours of animated clicking, the doctor had added a few more notes to their species. They seemed to have a social structure based around herds, as despite only a few seemingly doing repairs, none of the idle individuals had wandered from the area to explore the rest of the sickbay, instead they stood watch or continued to share their thoughts with their companions (a relief considering the complete lack of hiding spaces). He may have gotten extremely lucky between the interference one had mentioned and the lack of drive to explore.

The EMH wondered wistfully if a well-staffed sickbay would have a similar collaborative atmosphere to the team that was tearing apart his only working technology. The group also appeared to be on a mission of curiosity; the ship apparently hadn't released a distress signal when he was activated- someone would have discovered him days ago of one had- and so they wanted to know the reason it was abandoned. He half hoped the word "derelict" had been a mistranslation, but some subsystem had suspected as much, even if his main programming still insisted there was a reason for his activation.

He could also, on a more personal note, conclude the social aspects of his programming were clamoring for him to interact. He was inconveniently designed to need social interaction if it was presented, to the point he had to make himself solid again to provide a physical reminder of the desk he was hiding under to avoid walking up to the humanoids and demanding they describe their symptoms so he could fulfill his purpose. Maybe just give a greeting- a sign he was here, that his time active had meant something.

His subsystems were running a loop of increasingly convincing arguments for how he wouldn't be breaking the prime directive by talking to the group (since after all they were already interacting with federation technology-) by the time the humanoids had made progress he could recognize. He startled, suddenly very aware of the enclosed space he was situated in, as the sound of a familiar voice he never thought he would hear again broadcasted proudly in the stale air. The captain had left a log. The voice was quickly cut off, returning the ship to a tense silence.

The hologram's first instinct was to wonder indignantly how he missed a recording like that. Followed by an equally indignant thought that his guests should not have paused it. A few seconds passed before anyone uttered a sound.

"———-y origin theory!——matches DNA———just look at——cial structure!" One of the explorers interjected excitedly.

"This——revolutionize———-our history, our beli——…" the alien who had made the first discovery replied, but trailed off, their enthusiasm petering out into an uneasy silence. The hologram froze, worried the nervousness was somehow related to some noise he had made when he jumped (it registered then that his program had somehow evolved to include a startle reaction, which seemed like a malfunction; another problem for later).

The lonely part of him half wanted them to have heard him. However the silence continued, turning heavy as the two who had spoken distanced themselves from the third. None of the aliens approached the office, ruling out that possibility. The cruelty of good luck. The third finally spoke in a guttural tone that was entirely new to the EMH. Dangerous.

"You don't truly———Doctrine? ———chance to refute your——" his translated word hung in the air, possessing a sense of gravity, of dangerous potential often attributed to black holes. Both of the others stayed silent. After another long moment, the third continued, "the———ven you many chances. I was assigned ————ure you wouldn't——-too much of——threat."

One of the two, the one who had first proudly announced his theory, gave a sigh, "Doctrines change————wrong,——-"

"This———bad on my————-" the hologram could practically feel as the tension stretched, started to fray- as solid as the deck plating beneath him. For the time being, he was happy to let the argument play out, despite the nonsensical nature it had between the parts left untranslated and the supposed religious undertones. Why lose his only entertainment after all?

Then he heard a sound he only knew from his preprogrammed memory banks: a phaser, or whatever their equivalent was charging, deadly and silencing. The orange light that had heralded the creatures entering his sickbay punctuated the exit of one with a sharp cry. A thump as one of the victims- they were victims now- fell.

Somewhere between the protocols of Do No Harm and Prevent Damage to Environment and Individuals he found himself in the doorway of the office. With a glowing barrel aimed shakily at his face. He rolled his eyes, dismissing the weapon and its user as a secondary priority. It's not like that could hurt him. Idiot. Deliberately, he put himself between the fallen reptile and the threat.

The apparent cause of the fight was posturing to one side of his precious viewscreen, which was now paused on a fuzzy image of his late captain. They looked like they were the oldest of the bunch between the duller scales and number of wrinkles. The youngest looking one was curled where they fell, their scales had paled on their limp limbs, but their chest still rose. Barely. A quick wave of relief rushed through him as he turned back to face the third alien again. The hologram needed to diffuse this situation quickly so he could examine the wound and see if his guest would survive.

The third one in question would be a problem. He kept twitching; agitated if his change in scale color and he fast respiration rates were any indication. He would need to be contained or calmed down before anyone else would relinquish their defensive stance The EMH took a careful step forward, trying to draw on a more civil version of his bedside manner program that didn't exist. He wasn't made for conflict resolution.

"There is no need for violence in my sickbay. I'm sure your disagreement is petty and based on a misunderstanding. I will be caring for the victim and will need my space and concentration to ensure their survival. Take your argument somewhere else or resolve it peacefully." That sounded decent. Logical at least. The hologram started to congratulate himself for a job well done as the duo gazed at him in brief confusion instead of hostility. Of course he could do conflict resolution! He was a very well-designed program.

The gun-toting reptile did not agree. The doctor barely snapped out of his unwarranted reverie in time to set himself to non-solid before a hot beam of plasma passed harmlessly through his chest. He turned in distaste to examine the new scorch mark marring one of the cleaner walls of his space. Luckily it had not landed anywhere near his patient- or the other alien. The shooter growled. The phaser stayed leveled stubbornly at his holographic head, but the creature behind it seemed less certain now.

The older alien edged away, slowly approaching the exit. Abandoning the dying one. A few more excruciating seconds ticked by, each one punctuated by the heartbeat he was protecting growing fainter. Time and life slipping away. The hologram felt a stab of something desperate and hopeless. Angry.

The invader in his sickbay needed to leave. He took an aggressive step towards them, point blank range on his pointless phaser.

"Either shoot me again or leave my sickbay. I will be saving your friend, even if I have to do that by forcing you out!" He felt his volume rising, simulating frustration that seemed to finally get through to the alien. As his last word rang out, he heard the other he had graciously saved from third degree plasma burns turn tail and run. His footsteps echoed down the hallway as he cleared the threshold.

His opponent took an aborted step towards the door, turned back to the EMH, then with a growl, turned to pursue his original quarry. Good riddance.

With the immediate threat gone, the hologram wasted no time turning his patient into their back. They had been hit in the abdomen. The wound had cauterized on impact, preventing bleeding at the price of intense burns. The scales surround the area had blackened, marred by an angry red scorch mark that looked deeper than a dermal generator could easily treat. Thready breath still passed through the alien's throat, only disturbing their chest slightly. It looked severe- third or fourth degree by Earth standards. A list of missing items taunted him on the treatment plan he automatically formulated; dermal regenerator, local anesthetic, a hypospray to encourage skin and muscle growth, antibiotics, water to rehydrate.

He glanced around, assessing the possibilities, then strode to retrieve his tricorder. His patient's pulse had gotten weaker in the time that took, as rapid as their breathing. A shock response, most likely attributed to the mix of the sudden temperature change accompanying a plasma burn, the burn itself, and the fall.

"Stay with me a little longer please," the young alien couldn't hear him, but he felt the need to make the request anyway. the tricorder passed over the wound with professional, precise movements. Three inches deep. One internal organ grazed. No internal bleeding. Definite muscle damage. He would need to treat for shock and the burn. Prognosis: good in standard conditions. Prognosis with the tools at his disposal: unknown. His diagnostic program whirled through options, tracing itself back through his extensive database to practices medicine in Star Fleet had rarely used, replaced by less rudimentary methods.

Elevate legs by twelve inches. Keep warm. The toolkit brought by the victim was left scattered on the ground (very similar to the victim, actually). It had a case that was not quite tall enough, but was as close as he could get without moving the patient. Moving was too risky: he was able to raise the legs by eight inches. Warmth was a little harder. The hologram did not produce enough warmth to match a mammalian body temperature, and he was unsure of the heat tolerances the prone reptile had.

"Computer, raise sickbay temperature by five degree Celsius increments, stop on my mark," the hologram's voice sounded more confident that it had in the past hundred hours- following steps that put purpose into his movements, steps that made sense. The computer met his request with silence, but after a few seconds he felt the air warm slightly. He gave a sigh of relief, mentally changing the prognosis to survivable.

The burn presented a few problems. He had no way sterilize it, so he would just have to rely on the immune system of his charge and the lack of recent microbial activity in the sickbay. He also has no way to bandage or otherwise wrap the wound. Worryingly, he had no way to hydrate the shocked creature- something that could prove to be extremely dangerous.

The problem of wrapping the burnt skin at least could be remedied by the outfit the reptile wore. With only a second of hesitation, the EMH located his glass shard to cut a sizable strip of sleeve away from the pale arm. Color was returning slowly, changing from a sickly lime to a pale moss-green. He stopped the temperature climb, hoping the computer would listen, even if it didn't acknowledge his words. He wrapped the abdomen tightly, feeling his optimistic prognosis go to war with the dangers associated with deep burns. With dehydration.

With a hum of indecision, the hologram sat down on the biobed that provided a good line of sight to his patient. He hated that the most he could do was wait and monitor the condition. Hope.

Twenty minutes passed. The temperature stayed steady at fifty degrees Celsius. With each breath the burn victim took, each slightly steadier than the previous, he felt an odd sense of loss. Purpose slipping away with the increase certainty that his patient would survive. The solid sense that he knew exactly what to do- a safety net of protocol and knowledge- melted slowly back into the newer overrides that had marred his hours, his days since he materialized on an empty ship. A medical device shouldn't be feeling upset about a successful recovery. The utter wrongness of that unsettled him.

After storing the tools he had used and compiling his gathered information neatly into a file, the hologram wondered distantly what had happened to his other visitors. Since they had left the sickbay, he hadn't heard anything- violent or otherwise. With a twisted feeling of companionship, he added "abandon their dead" to his mental list of characteristics of the species. At least he wasn't the only one alone now.

What would become of the reptile recovering on his floor? In the past, he would never need to consider the fate of his patient past their initial stabilization. He was supposed to turn them over to a real doctor. Deactivate. The door was still open, but the protocol suggesting he leave his patient to fend for themself was hastily overridden. He knew what being alone in this sickbay was like. It would qualify as doing harm- in a way at least- to leave the unconscious alien to the same fate. The reasoning of felt too heroic (he was a doctor, not a captain), but the holoprogram accepted it, an excuse to not acknowledge the dizzying rush of vertigo that had accompanied the idea of trying to leave again.

By the second hour of monitoring, the alien was almost back to their original complexion. And the hologram attending them was back to his empty list of objectives. The only thing left to do beyond checking the condition of his guest was to check the log still frozen on the viewscreen; he couldn't risk that distraction if a change occurred to his patient. The time for for reflection let him realize that his programming had accepted the idea of no longer being alone- the idea of staying active to assist his guest alarmingly quickly.

It went against most of his base program, creating a branch that was attempting to compile possible ways to sustain life on an empty ship with very little power and even fewer resources. An anomaly that reminded him starkly of the trauma-bonds creates in stressful situations among humans. A mutation of his detached view he typically had. It felt compromising, tarnishing the optimism that he felt welling up every time he scanned his guest. Holograms we're not supposed to feel kinship, especially if they were designed for objective medical decisions.

It took another hour for the alien to blink to life, casting a confused gaze around the space. The species had an extremely fast recovery, another thing to note in their file. The list of responses the hologram had compiled while waiting seemed to vanish when he tried to speak. To reassure. He wasn't meant to be here for this part. For all he knew, the universal translator wouldn't let him fully communicate anyway.

"…please try to avoid moving. You are recovering from a severe injury," the young reptile startled, jolting away from the voice, then doubled over to hug across the bandage. The wound wouldn't hurt- the nerve endings were destroyed in the initial injury- but the pressure and the innate sense that something was wrong would still affect them. The EMH winced with them. He had not meant to inspire fear. Definitely not pain. He had to try again.

"Apologies for the odd situation-" he approached, letting the alien have a better chance of seeing him "-you are on my ship, I was treating you."

Stepping into the visual range of his patient proved to be a mistake. The alien's eyes widened as they let out a whimper. They clutched desperately at their belt, eventually landing on a small device.

"———! Get——out of here! ————ghost,—-security system! Transp—-" the EMH stopped his ill-attempted approach as the alien started to yell. He would only cause more problems if he kept making the reptile agitate his own injuries. The small part of him that was exploring the idea of not being alone caused some betrayal to leak into his expression. His planned actions slowed to a standstill, caught between the risk of hurting a patient and the want to help.

He hesitated too long. Belatedly realized the young reptile had successfully used their communicator.

Before he could even call out a desperate plea to stop, to wait, the terrified expression started to fade, replaced by the telltale particles and light of a transporter. Gone in seconds.

"Please don't…" the hologram heard his voice halt at the echo of an empty room. Occupied by a ghost.

Don't leave me alone...

He stood alone in the darkness and found himself missing the light brought in by the strangers' weapon. His photons felt heavy.

The mutilated door glared at him.

Chapter Text

The sound of distant thumps did not free him from his spiral. Docking clamps releasing. It should be against his programming to spiral. Normal behavior would not dictate pacing over three hundred steps while hour 255 of his runtime replayed, mockingly showing the face of the terrified reptilian. A distant part of him was checking his symptoms against the universal criteria for anxiety: inconclusive. No physical symptoms.

The improvisatory part of his program suggested this was an unusual expression of a panic attack. Medical programs could not have those. His whole purpose was to stay calm under pressure, what use was he if he couldn't? What use was a healing program that terrified its patients? What use was a medical program that panicked? He couldn't panic he was a hologram— The walls that seemed to get closer with every step he took. Too close. Not enough space to move not enough change. He knew this entire environment and it felt wrong . The fresh scorch mark glared, accusatory, at him; the glass of his broken window showed a warped reflection of him in the shape of a jagged grin. Monster. His patients had called him monster. The alien that shot at him had left their weapon, a surrender of some sort. Sacrifice to a spirit.

The scorch mark wouldn't come off with rubbing. Ten minutes of trying just made the room feel even smaller. If he had died (he can't die that's not an option why would that appear in a simulation-) when shot the intruders would still be here…

He changed his pacing to the opposite side of sickbay. The broken part felt dangerous. He felt his form flicker slightly as he passed through the corner that didn't work quite right. He did it again; a sensation besides his program that was running too quickly. That was illogical. A hologram could not get hurt. He found himself wanting a pulse. A reaction. Fatigue. Pain. Something to justify the movement, the looping reasoning chains with no end. Slowing down was not an option.

He caught Captain Janeway's eye on lap one hundred and six. He had to stop. The ship jolting in a collision was an apt experience to compare the pace his program was running. The resulting crash left his reasoning scattered. Slowing his pace, he finally dragged himself out of the frantic simulations. It took more effort than a program with different modes should require. He could not determine if his former captain's smile was reassuring or disappointed. In his defense, he had only seen it once in person. According to his chronometer, his…guests were long gone. And so was his dignity. One hour. The Captain's frozen face was all that remained. As he turned away from the empty room for fully face the light do his viewscreen, he felt as hollow as the space his forcefields surrounded. A sudden emptiness where his thoughts had cycled just seconds before. It was a lonely feeling. The accusatory line of code that told him he shouldn't feel lonely was disregarded. He had fought his inner working enough in the past few hours.

He pressed play on the log. Rewound it to the beginning. The Captain looked tired. When he had seen her in person, she had been composed despite her disheveled appearance; held up by the steel of her demeanor. That rigidity was still present in the expression of the woman who started her speech now, keeping her expression steady despite the shadows that colored the hollows of her cheeks and the space beneath her eyes. Her steel worn to a shine.

"Hello, this message is intended to reach the United Federation of Planets on behalf of all of the survivors of our trip to the Delta Quadrant. What follows are all of my logs from the day of launch to the day we abandoned ship. Past that, we have compiled and will continue to update a series of personal and private logs from every Voyager crew member and messages intended for loved ones from both my crew and the Maquis crew. Hopefully this will serve as an explanation for the absence of crew at the very least, and possibly provide some solace to anyone we left behind…." the human hesitated, seeming to choke on the words of her obviously rehearsed speech while she blinked some of the grief out of her eyes before the mask of a captain fell back over her features, "from everyone under my care currently, we wish those of you in the Alpha Quadrant well and hope you will someday seek out our descendants. We have programmed Voyager to periodically place signal relays, and will continue to upload all of the data we can on the Delta Quadrant remotely as long as we are able…maybe someday we will hear something in return."

The log ended after a ponderous silence. Janeway had shown very clear signs of stress and fatigue- signs of fewer nutrients than necessary and a lack of healthy sleep. He stared helplessly back at her while his internal programming told him he somehow needed to fix the situation. The information beyond her health soaked in slowly. The people of Voyager weren't coming back- that much had been obvious after the first hundred or so hours of running, even if he hadn't wanted to admit it. The confirmation still left something bitter curling in his chest. However much it wasn't the fault of the inhabitants of his ship, they had left him.

For him to be active, something must have gone wrong with the ship then. He needed more information on the autopilot system the captain had referenced. The logs were still in order, starting from launch day with the last dated almost three weeks ago. The hologram pressed play and watched a much happier, much more composed Janeway fill up the screen. It was nice to have another voice he understood in the sickbay, despite the circumstances.

The first few days of logs had been fairly uneventful. The captain had tracked down a few people to help with her mission, stated what her goal was, and basically reported all systems normal. She hadn't seemed worried when they had reached the warzone for the Maquis (the EMH had learned that the Maquis were a faction still fighting a war, he wasn't very clear and who they were or what war though). Everything in her wording and her demeanor suggested this was the inaugural mission for a new ship. A mission that was suppose to last a few days and have minimal casualties. It reminded him, surprisingly, of the way he had acted when first activated. He would do his job and then fade back into obscurity.

The narrative took a turn for the worse after that. A much more harried version of the human informed him of their trip to the Delta Quadrant. Her explanations finally filled in some of the questions that had been festering since he was first activated. The crew had been privy to a quiet week after the initial Caretaker debacle, where they stayed in place around Ocampa; they tried to patch Voyager's wounds, and tried come to a consensus on what to do. Janeway had seemed optimistic, alluding to the amount of people willing to try to make it home.

That was the last log where she was optimistic. The Kazon (the people no one would tell him about when they were attacking) had come back to try to claim their territory and had brought reinforcements. A lucky shot had taken out warp drive (along with a decent amount of systems), leaving them to limp to safety, being harassed all the while. The already over-taxed vessel quickly deteriorated, leaving the engineers from both crews to work together to keep life support and basic propulsion functioning as long as they could.

Apparently Tom Paris, their criminal-turned-pilot, proved useful due to his previous medical training. It was disheartening to know he had been replaced by a guy who had just taken a few classes- he had said suitable replacement when he'd asked to be deactivated after all. Admittedly, he had to give the crew some grace in that regard, they had lost a most of the ship systems, including the EMH, when they were being pursued by their aggressors. Tom had saved a lot of people. Most of the people who were hurt, but not all. A few classes were not enough in the end for the fifteen that had died. The hologram felt a dull ache he couldn't quite explain spread from his chest. Their names would be listed, but that would just be an addition to his mental crew directory, a description to end some of his profiles. Grief for people he didn't know, people he could have known if luck had been more favorable. He should have been there. He couldn't have been, but he should have been.

By the time they had a moment of peace and the final death toll was tallied, they had been traveling for a week in the wrong direction. The crew was a lot less optimistic, and their power was insufficient for travel with a full complement- especially with the addition of their alien guests and the entire maquis crew. They took a few days to deliberate and signed their futures to the first M-class planet that seems promising. In the log, the Captain said with a very small voice after she announced their deaths, their loss of hope, in a matter-of-fact voice- too controlled to be genuine- that she missed her dog. The EMH couldn't figure out why that lodged so firmly in his reasoning programming. He felt his brow furrow into a frown as the last few logs finished. She had put on a false bravado as she explained the scavenging and reprogramming of the ship. The start of the colony. She smiled when she announced the sendoff of the refitted vessel. It was fake. She missed her dog. It was a decision left to all the survivors, but the EMH wondered if she regretted the decision.

The ship menu brought up a list as the last log petered into silence, records dictating the way the colony would be set up. The way the ship would be repurposed. Following that was the start of the longest list: personal recordings to the people in the Alpha Quadrant. Over a hundred recordings. Most had an intended receiver listed in the title. One was labeled "Baby Name Candidates." The falling feeling he had felt when he left emitter range was back. How can all of those lives be reduced to a list? A list very similar to that of their dead. To the Alpha Quadrant, that difference would barely matter.

He didn't listen to the next set of recordings. They weren't for him. None of them could have been saved by him- most were healthy from the sound of it. He felt responsible for them. Why did he feel responsible for them?

He swallowed, simulating a moment of muteness that was unnecessary, a waste of time. Silence was a show of respect, to honor a loss in various cultures across the universe. "Computer? Um, is Voyager still moving?"

Voyager gave an obliging chirp, dedicating a portion of the screen to the current velocity. One half impulse. It didn't take a pilot to know that was much slower than warp.

"Theoretically, how long would it take to reach the Alpha Quadrant at that speed?"

The window blinked out for almost five seconds. The result displayed when Voyager finished deliberating was a billion times longer than that. Over a century was longer than most of their lifetimes. Their families' lifetimes. He thought back on his pitiful handful of a few hundred hours; his week of existence was a blip in the journey Voyager would need to take at warp. the hologram couldn't even conceptualize that amount of time beyond the number.

The hologram sighed as he looked at the recordings again. The door. The recordings. His objectives programming had been ripping itself to pieces, trying to fit his new situation into a Task, a Patient, for most of his active time. It reached out with desperate tatters to the logs. The time. The ship status. Clutched them tight to itself, formed something new. Part of it told him to deactivate without a task. A larger part was redefining what a patient could be. His next patient would take a century to treat. It had more than one hundred names listed on the dim screen in front of him. Voyager needed to get home. Disappearing without a trace was the same as death. Harm?. The people were fine- they couldn't end their stories there-

The door was still open, mocking him for the last people he had tried to interact with-

No. He couldn't let the crew vanish like a holographic projection- lights fading into thin air. Be there for a measly few hours then disappear without changing anything around them….

This was a chance to do more than Do No Harm, to provide help in the only way he could. To do something to give his fluke activation meaning. That seemed selfish, but walking through the door again with what he knew felt equally so now.

He navigated to the logs again. Listened to the first with a newly critical ear. There were twenty one hours of logs describing changes to the ship. Fifteen on inventory. Thirty on navigation and reprogramming the autopilot. All information on subjects he was never supposed to engage with.

A subsystem that had been circling in loops of endless task?-complete task-no new task assigned-task?… Stretched itself to apply the formula needed to solve problems: analyze situation, gather information, apply information, repeat.

With an amused reflection that he'd learned much more without an emergency than he had doing his actual job, he played the first in a long line of records. The voices echoed back from further back in his gutted sickbay- at least it had been gutted for a reason. He would be able to double his current runtime with this. A part of his program, disagreeing with the change in course, gave him a warning about continuous activity.

He had been finding those easier to ignore as his logged hours increased.

Chapter Text

The majority of his past week has been an extended, excruciating exercise in futility. He had gotten through about half of the logs commemorating the changes made to Voyager. And that was the end of the hologram's progress. The recording had helpfully informed him that most of the changes involved him physically being present to troubleshoot. Some had even been put behind command-level voiceprints to prevent tampering.

Sometimes it felt like Voyager was taunting him, she was very passive-aggressive about his existence: turning off lights when he was unnaturally still, undoing or breaking despite his modifications, refusing to share information, keeping things just out of reach… She was as unwilling to tolerate their current situation as he was. She was also a starship. A broken one. And he shouldn't be pack-bonding with that. Exceeding his programming yet again to follow the very human impulse to be friendly to everything.

Regardless, he had very little luck when it came to the steps he could actually take with the new information he was gaining. So much for a new purpose. The pragmatic part of his program noted his power consumption. His inefficiencies. Caused him to take his gaze from the dead ends on his screen to consider the door for the umpteenth time. He didn't try to open it again, the weak feeling that spread through his matrix every time he considered it suggested it would not be worth it.

He was also gaining the new information slowly, hours ticking by at the pace of a cryostasis patient's pulse. This was for personal and practical reasons. He was not sure what would happen to any information he tried to directly download into his archive at the moment; a good portion of his own files had been corrupted- an amount that only got worse after his attempt to deactivate himself. New information may just exacerbate the problem or ruin the additions. It also was something to do. Another few voices to fill the oppressive silence of an echoey ship.

He had barely started the logs regarding the retrofitting to Voyager's programming (the last set of non-personal logs left by the crew) when an new alarm started to invade his sickbay. It was a small chime, unassuming. He barely heard it over the dry voice of a human science officer explaining the properties of the bio-gel packs (a technical log he could actually follow without effort for once).

He paused the lecture on the third insistance from the computer. Spent another two chimes trying to wrangle the monitor into a configuration that would let him see the alert. Whatever his short-term guests had done to the screen had pulled up the logs, but definitely hadn't left anything organized or set to operate from a single medical computer. Maybe it was intuitive to them, he couldn't exactly ask to find out. Voyager sounded more impatient with each iteration, despite adding to the problem. He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at the entirety of his environment.

A small function had activated, showing a minimal power drain. Data upload to memory. He thought back on the logs he had watched through, the initial one explaining the situation. The crew was still updating Voyager with information. Dutiful even with an entire galaxy seperating them from their ideals. The hologram had been uncertain if their transmissions were actually reaching the ship; she wasn't moving after all, the only evidence of her continued life were the occasional beeps she communicated in and himself. A transmission from lightyears away was something he could do- a welcome change, and maybe even progress. The colony hadn't abandoned its vessel just yet. He felt the confusing half-hopeful-half bitter feeling he was growing to associate with his missing crew cross his processor. He could try to communicate with them, show them just how badly their plan had gone awry.

That meant he had to figure out how exactly the transmission was recieved and what Voyager would send back in exchange…if anything. And that was assuming that the colony would bother to send another hail. He let out a heavy sigh at the prospect of more computer work, carrying his full three hundred hours of struggling with an uncooporative ship in its simulated breath.

The EMH had started to accept his new role as "mediocre ship engineer" instead of his intended purpose of "brilliant medical professional," but that did not mean he particularly liked they systems he was having to familiarize himself with. Nor was he particularly good at the work, his ego- still bruised from the ease that the aliens, unfamiliar with the ship's systems, had repaired and improved his viewscreen- reminded him. it was hard not to think of himself as wasted potential.

The transmission was still being recieved by the time he had found the place it was going. Terabytes of data that would typically be added to the computer daily. The download was translated along the relays that Voyager had been dutifully dropping as she progressed- she was supposed to release another a week ago, but luckily the conditions for doing so were based on distance. His home wasn't slowly being surrounded by signal enhancers. When poking around through the ship's memory (luckily not hard to access with the ship logs already pulled up), the hologram had found three previous uploads. Each contained a neatly compressed group of new logs and information on their new planetary system and the planet itself. There seemed to be no set pattern to the dates. The gap between the each transmission was longer, starting at a weekly interval but appearing closer to every few weeks now. The last report had come in before he activated.

Voyager, in exchange, would transmit a status update; she was going to make some of her previous residents very unhappy after they recieved that. Despite his directive to do no harm, he half hoped that they would be as stressed as he was over the conditions of the vessel. A sort of revenge for the unfair situation. Perhaps they would even realize through the report that he was active- or… maybe he could let them know himself.

It would probably make the colonists much more unhappy if he figure out how to add his two cents in the next- the download time suggested an hour. There was a chance they'd listen to him, maybe even work with him, but he couldn't fully ease the doubts cropping up in the back of his protocols. The ship was currently damaged; last time the crew had seen her as such, she had been sent alone into space- he had been sent alone into space. For all he knew, they would have a similar response to discovering Voyager wasn't following the assigned course anymore. And that a rogue hologram had the run of the ship.

The hope that had started to warm in the spaces between his photons started to drain away, leaving a pit behind. As vast and cold as the void outside of his ship (when had he decided the ship was his?). Fifty four minutes. He shook himself, angry at the sudden turn of mood. Giving up would just lead to worsening conditions- there was a high chance trying to contact people who were light years away would also make things worse. But it was a chance. He found he didn't want to resign himself to years without purpose, wothmut options, as he watched his room deteriorate around him. Or worse, twiddled his thumbs while Voyager succumbed to a slow power drain and he eventually flickered out.

The EMH was designed for high-pressure situations. An hour would have to be enough time to figure out how to add a message to the transmission. Forty seven minutes. A whisp of hazy hope slowly fading away. He took a breath, collecting his scattered thoughts. If his time existing had taught him anything an hour could be a very long time. "Computer? What, exactly, can be transmitted in response to the Voyager crew?"

Ten minutes before the ship was set to send off its response to the colony, the doctor had composed, then re-composed a short message attempting to explain the situation with the limited amount he knew. Strangely, he felt like he had to justify his place on Voyager, despite it being completely out of his control; why would the people who had replaced him with a young man who had a few first aid courses care what he had to say? Let alone decide that him continuing to be active was a good use of power?

Regardless, his final draft turned out slightly clinical, while portraying the dire situation with barely concealed panic (maybe he was reading into his own writing more than he should for this), stating the problems without mentioning his own malfunctions. The first draft's tone sounded too robotic to the hologram- its own brand of irony considering the author. The second ended up longer, almost rambling in parts, on the third (somewhere in between the first and second in quality), he realized as he was about to try again that he would agonize over the words of whatever he sent until he ran out of time completely. He could only hope that he appeared genuine- he was already making one hell of a first impression by being the result of a failure in planning.

A large portion of the data Voyager sent back along the relays was text-based. Status reports and findings from sensors mainly, compressed, like everything else, to allow for a quicker transfer. It had taken a bit of time, but since he could manipulate the files for sickbay (a necessity for medical logs) he could also add a file of his own to the ship-wide status report under the guise of an update from medical. Now the EMH just had to hope that whatever corruption was affecting a portion of his memory wouldn't spread to the other data and render it illegible.

It felt odd learning how his own systems worked. He knew he needed to, but a deeply ingrained part of his programming kept insisting he shouldn't be breaking the rules laid out on a working ship. The hologram was finding self-justification a lot easier as his time running progressed, but it was still a struggle at times. He could almost ignore the sense that he was doing something wrong, that any second now he would be deactivated. He wondered what a true diagnostic would tell him. No way to know.

A small ping of confirmation told the hologram that the transmission had successfully sent. The small noise was barely a blip in the stale silence of his sickbay. Anticlimactic truly. The EMH was tempted to continue his journey into engineering- finish up the final group of logs on how exactly Voyager had been rewired and reprogrammed- but something stopped him. The idea of a ridiculous amount of hours listening to a droning voice that, he loathed to admit, spoke over his head a bit was not appealing.

The tiredness he had originally associated with his annoyance, perhaps the thought of facing loneliness during his first few days, was dogging at the rigid plan his program had set to take care of the ship. He had been able to push the feeling away at first- distracted by the information he was learning about his crew and the prospect of talking to them. But now that he had done all he could, now that he just had to wait for a response (…or lack thereof), the idea of spending more hours learning a subject he didn't care for and couldn't really affect was distinctly distasteful.

Humans needed breaks. He wasn't human. Did he need breaks? Did it matter? Something- some subsystem that had nothing to analyze but himself- told him he probably did. The bulk of his behavioral program still whirled with the only thing it knew- emergency after emergency, take after task, stopping was not something he was designed to do. Everything he was going through didn't exactly have a precedent; the joys of being a pioneering holoprogram. The crew of voyager wouldn't send a message back any faster no matter what he learned about his environment- let alone find a way to rejoin the ship and have a medical emergency. He may as well do something unrelated to engineering, definitely something unrelated to the empty sickbay he was trapped in.

With a lingering flash of guilt, the hologram exited the section of logs that had occupied his screen since he first discovered them and navigated to the larger library of information held in the ship computer. A treasure trove and an unnecessary extravagance to the exceedingly bored program.

Voyager had more books downloaded into its "A" section than the entirety of his medical library. More than enough to waste spend a few days on while he awaited a reply. A few days wouldn't hurt anything.

His next few weeks seemed exceedingly long.

Chapter Text

The hologram had quickly deviated from his alphabetical exploration of literature when he came across a play. Then another. Then recordings instead of just the writing. The genre quickly captured his attention, momentarily taking it mostly off of the two weeks of waiting (considering that nothing went wrong and the colonists believed him) that he had to endure. Instead, he was able to focus on the odd connection to soliloquies he felt. He found himself particularly amused at the thought of breaking into dramatic monologue alone in the echoey sickbay- the space would be great for it actually. The Ghost Ship's Soliloquy. He had no audience to appreciate the idea though, so it stayed just that. It was, however, a nice break from the engineering logs- something he found he still don't want to return to; giving himself to freedom to do an activity without the justification of purpose turned out to be an addictive thing.

Eventually, he did begin to be productive again, satisfying the part of his program that still insisted he be working until he was deactivated. It was a piece of himself he was finding increasingly annoying- largely because it didn't turn off when he ran out of tasks. The idea of being stuck with it for year after empty year seemed monumentally taxing. He grimaced at the idea of just…getting used to that. He would probably have to get used to a lot more than that if his plan worked. Not for the first time in the past few days, the hologram found himself wondering why he was signing up to endure the possibilities before him. He could not give himself an answer, and the shadows in the corners had nothing meaningful to add either.

Planning for the future still felt odd, wrong in the way humans felt off using their non-dominant hand for writing. In the framework of helping an individual, it was manageable. The hologram was trying to use Voyager and her myriad of logs was a compass for that; a way to act for a reason instead of for himself. However, he still had to confront the idea that he would have to take care of himself as well- treat himself with a sense of self preservation and foresight- which was completely foreign to him. He found himself drawing blanks, trying to consult human behavior and needs and wondering how they would adapt with only half of them being necessary. After a fifth attempt of trying to figure out a set list of requirements, he gave up. No matter how he framed it, his trails of logic suggested he act as though being…perpetual was a condition to be treated. Unfortunately, to options for ending said conditions largely followed the plan of deactivating. Again, which would leave Voyager to rot without intervention. Being alone and active (alive?) was not a treatable condition if he wanted to keep the memories of his crew safe. The EMH abandoned his list for other priorities. No wonder the concept of existence had so many documents addressing it.

It had taken a few days, but he eventually got the desk monitor working. Half of it at least. One half stubbornly displayed static- a component of delicate circuitry behind the screen had burnt itself out, irreplaceable, as far as he could tell. The other half had no such issues; it was an issue of finding the correct cable to replace. The static gave him a sense of kinship with the device. It reminded him of the unreadable files allocated to the back of his memory, or the corner that caused him to flicker in a very disorienting way. Bonding with inanimate objects was a concerning sign in most sapient species. The doctor decided that didn't apply to his situation after a good deal of arguments with himself. He'd lost another light source in sacrifice, but the biobeds had no other use for him. Now he could read in two locations. The hologram felt oddly satisfied with that, despite how pointless the process (and result) had been. A change to his very limited environment.

It had taken another few days to discover opera. And only a few minutes into the first song to realize just how lucky he had gotten that all his speakers seemed intact. The dramatized romance of Klingon opera quickly surpassed the previous media he consumed to be his favorite. He could almost see the scenes the music laid out so gorgeously. Almost. Imagination- if he could call his processes that- was limited to previous experiences, and his were not particularly interesting. The distractions could only do so much; he still felt oddly anxious- which he decided to define based on the endless looping his program was wont to do when he was particularly unproductive- when his thoughts lingered on the message that was probably still on its way to the colony; something that proved to be a great detractor from his newfound hobby. If he stopped for two long, he could very easily compare himself to the countless files on the ship database, lost to time with no effect on their world.

He had marked a tally for each day he had been activated into one of his few pristine walls by the fifth day of his wait to a mournful dirge about Sto-vo-kor, reflecting only slightly bitterly that the most important tool he'd had the privilege of using was a piece of shattered glass. Some part of him needed the reminder that he had done something. Even if it was just scratching paint. EMH runtime was measured in hours; in all likelihoods, his creators had optimistically assumed he would never surpass two hundred. Twenty four days was probably not what they had in mind. Twenty four neat lines (surgically precise, of course) denoted a longer existence than he'd ever imagined. They looked small, especially in the dark. Especially compared to the time he knew was approaching, unstoppable. He considered turning up the volume on the current recording, then fretted about power usage. What a way to go, wiped out by too much bass. He left the volume alone.

Fixing the lights would be a good use of his time. Something must have gone wrong with the motion sensor to keep the room in twilight despite the movement of it's resident. Or Voyager was being particularly rude about his status as a computer program. Then again, he didn't need them to see…and it was a waste of power. Maybe later.

It had only taken three operas for the hologram to learn he was prone to singing. The hobby had started small: humming along to the ballad of a story that had startling resemblances to Romeo and Juliet- apparently love was a pressing issue to Humans and Klingons alike. He found he liked how he sounded. It served as a reminder to the empty room that he was there when the walls echoed back his voice.

Singing was not included in his original programming. He had checked after the first time he hummed along to something, absentminded. No mention of it in his bedside manner. His limited active self-diagnostic revealed no problems, but the hologram found himself doubting its accuracy- it didn't catch the the corrupted files either. The first few times it happened, the EMH had stubbornly shut the new subroutine down. Eventually, he questioned why it would matter if he was malfunctioning at the moment, it's not like he had anything better to do. Afterwards, he let himself follow the music.

After a few days, he realized he actually liked the sound of his voice. Beyond some ill-fated yelling and a few impatient questions to the computer, it had gone largely unused up until this point. Singing was a nice change. He matched a baritone pretty well. The idea of being able to do something well had been eluding him since he woke up to broken circuitry and hostile creatures. Being able to match the recorded Klingon performer gave him a sense of…something- pride maybe? The hologram found he don't mind that new set of feelings.

The two weeks he was expecting to wait passed. After the first week, his logic systems had stopped shying away from the idea of repair work and the information on reprogramming. Good timing, he thought with some amusement. He was running out of classical Klingon opera- he would have to branch out into their modern period within a few weeks. More importantly, the emergency part of his program was still not being satisfied with meaningless tasks. The endless tasks had worked to trick him into a feeling of accomplishment the first dozen times, but recently, the worries of his future surpassed any job he could assign himself, leaving him in a state of worried boredom. No matter how much he cleaned or tinkered, or reorganized, he was not doing enough. Maybe he never would be- something that annoyed him to no end. He would have to exist either himself for the next who-knows-how long and he couldn't even enjoy it. …He hoped he would hear from his former shipmates soon.

The EMH found his behavioral protocols turning back to the well-worn path of contemplating the countless ways his program was maladapted to survive long-term. If a few dozen days could leave him starving for meaningful activity, how long would it take to fully break down. A grim part of him wanted to check if the corruption in his archives had spread. He found a guide on reading circuitry diagrams instead; perhaps there was some pattern to the nonsensical color-coding of the wiring behind his walls.

He researched the lighting system for sickbay, then did a few scans of his ceiling, and came to the conclusion that the fault was a programming issue rather than a (much more fixable) wiring issue. He would have to wait on that, or spend a lot of his patience on learning how to make Voyager's computer cooperate. That was unfortunate. He wondered if something had happened to the colonists or if they had very predictably given up on him. He didn't want to consider either possibility. He started the final set of logs for reprogramming Voyager with a sigh- tinged with a melodramatic flair, a consequence of his days of exaggerated stage productions. He'd put them off long enough. Soon the music that filled his space was replaced by (a much less pleasant) droning voice of a Vulcan technician.

By the final hour of logs, the hologram had learned quite a bit, and realized none of it was very helpful for him. The computer would not respond to him, falling for the fatal design flaw that dictated a medical hologram couldn't reprogram a starship. No one was perfect he supposed.

Voyager was supposed to be doing quite a lot on her journey home- none of which she was doing. The crew had installed passive power gathering technology onto her: solar panels and gas collection, directed towards her backup batteries. The idea was apparently that she would collect enough power at warp or brief stops to make it the last fifteen-ish years of her journey after the reserves she had at the start of her trip dwindled to none. That probably would have worked if she was still moving, but as it was, half of the ship's panels were offline- status unknown. A large portion of the front dish was giving odd readings, reporting itself as missing instead of listing possible damage. Apparently Voyager knew about as much as her holographic passenger when it came to her own status. That was probably a bad sign.

Additionally, the medical bay- like most areas of the ship- was supposed to be completely unused, which explained the ransacked condition at least. He was never supposed of be active, which still felt a bit like a personal offense, despite the sensibility of the decision. Instead, Voyager was supposed to divert all of her power to warp, autopilot, automated signaling, and, in the event of an attack, shields. She must have failed at multiple of those to end up in her current condition. Her status reports from the time were confusing, a jumble of systems coming online and offlining at random and sensor failures. Even now, long range sensors were still offline, short range were reading very little. Something must have happened but the hologram had no way to know what. The sensor dutifully tracking power levels was still pointedly informing him of the increased usage of internal power.

For all intents and purposes he was a power drain who was spending his free time finding ways to take more power from the dying starship. Great. Depending on what message he got back- if he got a message back, the best use of his system may he to deactivate again and hope it stayed permanent. The idea of that was unpleasant, despite how much logic pointed towards it. He had a few more days before he would be outside the window of time where the colony would be likely to respond to him. The wait was unsettling; he did not enjoy leaving his fate up to people he had barely met. Who, intentionally or not, had left him to face a galaxy alone.

He had added three more tallies to his wall before he finally received something. If four words could count as something. Standby. This was followed by a precise stardate, set for a week from the current and the command Comms on. At least they had messaged back, even if they had done so in the most cryptic way possible. With a hint of bitterness, he wondered if the faraway organics had tried to spend as few characters as possible. He had no way to find out.

The lack of definitive tone was worse than having no confirmed information, the hologram decided, after an hour of looking through the official data from the colony. The distraction, like increasingly many others, was not working. The feeling of anticipation, the unknown, hadn't been this bad since he had first activated. It has lessened significantly as the prospect of an indefinite amount of years stretched before him. But having a set date put a meaning on the time he was whittling away, wasting. And all he could do was standby. He ran out of new reports to read quickly, and still did not want to intrude on private messages.

With a frustrated sigh, he turned on the operas again. Back to standing by he supposed.

Chapter Text

The precise hour he was meant to open Voyager's frequencies approached at the sedate pace of a fly through honey. The week had been incredibly long, and the hologram had spent more of it than he cared to admit improving his singing. He was getting quite good, in his opinion. The idea of using idle time for what amounted to a power drain still sat wrong with him, but it had kept him sane- a way to mark time beyond his growing collection of tallies. And once he ran out of colony logs and easily repairable circuits, he was officially out of productive tasks anyway.

The EMH was very tempted to leave the communication channels unopened when the computer helpfully informed him that the precise minute he was meant to open his comms to the void had arrived. Make whoever (or whatever) was expecting him experience a fraction of his incredibly boring week. But then, he risked not receiving whatever the former crew was trying to send. Being petty was not worth that, as much as he wanted it to be. It was probably a wall of text, or an automated message, or…something anyway. Something that required an extra week of waiting. He hoped it was worth it.

It would be communication though, no matter what it was; reassurance that at least something he was doing was worth his activation. …Or maybe a message telling him the best use of everyone's time would be to deactivate again- as permanently as possible. The latter seemed more likely, but the EMH strangely hoped it would not be the case, he found he wanted to see a more permanent change than a few rewirings in his runtime. With a bit of reluctance slowing his actions, he opened the ship's hailing frequencies.

The hail was not automated. The EMH was tempted to devise a way to check if he was hallucinating when a face he recognized from his memory and the crew roster appeared onscreen.

"Ensign Kim? How are you here?" He forgot a socially obligatory hello in his surprise. The young man smiled back at him, looking a bit befuddled. Before turning to address something on his end of the screen.

"B'Elanna, the screen is still very dark," the call sounded somewhat amused. Harry appeared to be in a cramped environment- maybe a shuttle?- that definitely looked lived in. The hologram could see prominent bags under his eyes and a slumped posture usually associated with poor environment and little sleep. Kim had directed the question to someone off-screen, a name not in the crew database, but one that had popped up in the engineering logs several times.

"Well it's not on our end. Something must be wrong on Voyager," B'Elanna sounded exasperated, reminding the hologram of the way he felt dealing with Voyager's systems. That must be a universal constant.

"Yeah no kidding."

"You know what I meant Harry," the two humanoids were getting lost in their banter, and based on their long-suffering tones, the doctor had doubts that this was the first time it had turned to bickering. He cleared is throat pointedly, startling the Ensign.

"Sorry to interrupt, but what is happening? What is this about? I was not expecting a house call," the hologram had not been expecting much in all honesty, despite how much he was anticipating the communication. He felt unbalanced by the sudden appearance of living beings, unsure how to act. Especially since they appeared to be ignoring him, which was just rude.

B'Elanna finally appeared on the screen after that, looking just as tired as her companion, but definitively more frustrated, "we-" she gestured to herself and the ensign who was still politely smiling in the chair next to her "-flew out so we could directly call you on Voyager. It took about two weeks to get into range."

That explained their haggard appearances at least. The half-klingon barreled on ahead, seemingly trying to get all of her explanation out of the way before someone else got a word edgewise.

"After we received Voyager's last report, we spent some time figuring out what we could do to get the ship running and I think I found a solution that could work. We couldn't just send instructions because we couldn't guarantee the conditions onboard though. Which means I've been stuck in a shuttle for way too long with Starfleet here."

"Hey! I'm nice!" Ensign Kim looked hurt by the accusatory tone, but after he got a muttered "too nice.." from his counterpart as she wandered towards the back of the shuttle with purpose in her stride, he turned back to face the EMH. "Sorry, it's been… a long few weeks."

"I know the feeling," he replied, thinking back on his empty hours with no clear path forward. B'Elanna returned quickly to the front of the small space, wielding a padd and a look of determination.

"Okay they first thing we are going to work on is the lights. It's weird talking to a dark screen," she declared decisively.

"Oh, are you coming aboard?" The hologram could hear the surprise and excitement coloring his voice, still reeling from his first real conversation in over two weeks. Real crew members on board- even just two- would go a long way to make the ship operational; he could finally be assigned something useful to do! Or at least be deactivated so he wouldn't have go through this again. His program raced ahead with anticipated solutions, returning to the list made for the reptilian he had saved.

"Oh! No, we are still light years away. We could cover about half the distance with the shuttle fuel and rations available," she had at least looked up to answer the question. Her explanation made a lot more sense than his leap in logic had. Regardless, he was suddenly glad of the darkness to help hide his crestfallen expression, "we are going to talk you through how to do the repairs you are capable of from here so Voyager can keep flying."

"…Ah, splendid. Engineering has gone so well for my medical programming so far," the sarcasm felt like a mask, but it did a decent job hiding his lingering disappointment. He was expecting instructions of some kind, and this is exactly what he had asked for; it still felt bad in a way he could not justify. They weren't turning him off. They weren't even checking in on his program, not really. He would get the duties of a glorified repair drone for the privilege of interaction. An insignificant part of a larger repair job.

In retrospect, he should have expected as much, shouldn't have let himself get hopeful. The rules he had read on holograms clearly put him in the position of a tool, not a person.

Harry looked surprised at the remark about his past repairs. "Wait, you've been messing with the ship systems?" He asked in astonishment. He looked excited for the first time since the call began, an expression that seemed much more comfortable on him than the discomfort and sadness he was wearing when the call began.

"As much as I could at least, I've gotten control of this viewscreen, partial functionality of the office monitor, …and functionality of the door. I wasn't just going to stand around in an empty room for multiple weeks hoping someone would deactivate me," they were small accomplishments in the scheme of things, seeming smaller when conveyed to the people he was asking for help, but he allowed himself to feel proud at the human's reaction.

"That's great actually! That means we can probably explain the things you need to do more easily than we were planning!" the former Maquis had actually graced the small group with a smile at that, giving her face a break from the perplexed scowl it had been wearing.

"Happy to help," the EMH did not sound like he believed his own words. He wondered if either of the organics noticed.

"Well, I'll get out of your way, let me know if you need clarification on any of Voyager's systems," Harry gave a smile to the engineer before passing out of view, leaving her alone with her padd and her (apparently blank) view screen. He hadn't sent another glance towards the hologram. The EMH felt more like he was just a tool than he had when he had been deactivated mid-sentence. He liked to think he recovered gracefully when he addressed B'Elanna with a too-bright tone. He just needed something to do, his feelings on the matter could wait.

"…you said something about lights? I, personally, would love to get those working."

The lights, luckily, had been an easier fix than expected, considering the doctor had written them off weeks ago as irreparable. The ship was stubbornly switching herself to a power-saving mode, deciding the use of an entire hologram and lights was too decadent of an expenditure. That subroutine was easily disabled with a password from the extensive list the pair of colonists had brought with them. Apparently it took at least ensign-level clearance, something the medical program had not possessed before today, to modify a light. That seemed excessive to him, but what did he know? He wasn't even a crewman officially.

Ensign Kim, true to his word, stayed out of the way while B'Elanna relayed her instructions to the hologram. Apparently he was here for later issues that more directly involved the computing systems. Torres turned out to be decent at giving instructions as long as she didn't have to explain them in detail- he had found that out the hard way, after he asked about one too many idle curiosities that she couldn't easily put into words. He kept his questions to himself after the second murderous glare he received when he hesitated. No secret engineering knowledge for him he supposed.

He did however, learn quite a bit medically about his temporary companions. His diagnostic program, despite the changes it made to itself, still was performing adequately- cataloguing the roughness in their voices, the tension in B'Elanna's posture, the way Harry's smile never quite reached his eyes. It appeared Janeway was not the only one who was unhappy with their new circumstances. And their long trip had not helped. Both of them needed to get out of their small shuttle; small environments for long periods of time were bad for the human psyche. He should know- his own situation was not comparable. Failing to do that, they at least needed sleep and food, and both probably could do with a shower.

Despite their obvious health concerns, the duo managed to work with him for five hours. After their success with the lights, progress had slowed significantly. The office monitor was deemed irreparable, missing a component that would need to be replicated, leading to the frustration of all three involved and a wasted hour.

Hour three and four ended up being dedicated to solidifying some of the EMH's past repair jobs, making it to where the spliced wires would not burn out quite as easy. This had been the most frustrating for Torres. She was unhappy with his methods for fixing things- again, rude- and they both had to spend a solid few minutes trying to find ways to make them better. Eventually they realized that the seal on the edge of the door was a great insulator when removed.

It just happened to be very hard to remove when one's hands disappeared if they went too far past the doorjamb and the only available tool was a piece of glass. The hologram prided himself at hiding his nerves every time he watched parts of his extremities fade, able to play it off as frustration instead of revealing his program's odd aversion to the sight; unfortunately this still slowed down the painful process. Their dialogue- consisting mainly of a short instruction followed by some clarifying questions if necessary- that had been going fairly smoothly for the beginning hours was growing choppy, with the EMH adding a few muttered passive aggressive remarks and the engineer growing shorter and snippier in response.

Harry started chiming in when necessary as their fourth hour bled into a fifth, which immediately led to raised hackles from contradicting instructions, inadequate information, and once, a ten minute argument over what they should do next where the doctor almost turned off the call to avoid listening to them (and to see if they would even realize). Overall, it just confirmed the necessity of rest for human and half-human alike. After B'Elanna snapped at Harry- only a measly thirty minutes after their large argument- for eating (at least that was one less thing with worry about) too loudly, which caused him to look frustrated enough to reignite their squabble, the EMH couldn't watch them continue running on fumes any longer.

Both the humanoids had been at a boiling point since their call had started four hours ago, and Torres has been yawning for the last hour. He knew trying to slow down their task would further exacerbate their frustration, but if he had to listen to one more series of petty gripes getting passed back and forth while he was ignored completely, he would be the one on the verge of going ballistic. Which would make the painful situation much worse.

"When is the last time either of you slept for more than four hours?" he knew his tone was pointed, but he tried to keep it non-hostile, not wanting to get dragged into another shouting match himself. The two looked at each other for a long moment before the ensign finally replied.

"Since we left the colony."

"No wonder you two are so snippy. You are both severely sleep-deprived and it is taking a toll on your health. Are there two places to sleep on the shuttle?" He felt his brows furrow, a display of equal parts concern and frustration.

"Well, yes, but-"

"But we can't! We need to get this done," so we can go home was left unspoken, but the EMH heard it all the same in B'Elanna's interruption. It stung a little, knowing he qualified as more of an inconvenience than a sentience in need. It had been implied in every interaction the two had with him so far, but hadn't been stated outright. A wrench in their plan. He felt the bitter resentment he had valiantly held back with every time he was ignored or talked over for the past day start to overwhelm his other protocols. If they could just listen to him one time! He rolled his eyes, well if they were expecting an inconvenience anyway…

"I will not do another thing to this ship until you both rest. And eat," he wasn't sure if the idea had come from the festering anger, the necessity of care his program was insisting on, or both; either way, the humanoids needed to stay alive long enough to fix the ship and he needed a break from them. B'Elanna sent him a look that could curdle blood, if he had any. Harry looked ready to argue too, his eyes darkening with a mix of confused indignance.

"You can't do that!" He sounded horrified at the prospect, most likely not used to computers rebelling.

"Why not? How are you going to stop me?" He gave them a smile with too many teeth, all frustration and a strange sense of glee. With a sense of vindication, he realized that for the first time in their hours of talking, he finally had both of the organics' full attention. B'Elanna scowl had morphed into a snarl, only emphasized by the fatigue in her gaze.

"Computer…de-"

"You cannot guarantee my activation again if you turn me off. And you would be doing me a favor in all honesty, I would love to not deal with more of your bickering," he interrupted, speaking quickly to beat the engineer to her newfound goal as Voyager's newly working speakers chimed obligingly- that traitor. He wondered for the first time what adrenaline felt like as subsystems in his program started or quickly structure arguments for keeping him active- alive. It was a dizzying rush, a mix of resentment at the situation and fear of the undecided outcomes.

A beat of silence passed. B'Elanna took a deep breath, appearing to make an effort to push the anger out of her posture, "look, if you can disobey direct commands from a crewman of Voyager, you have some kind of- of fault in your system. We cannot trust you with the entirety of Voyager for the next three quarters of a century if we cannot even guarantee you will work. I- we need to keep working so this stupid idea has a small chance of working."

"So what? Are you going to travel another few weeks just for me? Or maybe take time out of your planned timetable to properly diagnose my program? You didn't seem willing to do either thing a few hours ago," he knew he sounded petulant, but he found he did not particularly care. "In eight hours I will be happy to do whatever you ask of me, but I cannot in good conciense condone these working conditions. And frankly, I need to have some time away from people who can't even talk to me like I'm worth their time when trusting me with their future."

The hologram felt less gratified than he expected to as he watched the fight drain from the pair's expressions, first B'Elanna's then Harry's. He tried to ignore the cautious distrust that he saw in their eyes. He was not sure if he imagined a flash of regret. Some kind of fault in his system.

"Fine. We cannot disconnect the call, otherwise we may not get it back so you'll get a very boring few hours," Harry almost sounded sheepish, but that may just be his lack of sleep finally catching up to him.

"Don't worry. I'm used to it." His final reply to the organics sounded flat.

The colonists were out within seconds, leaving the doctor to huff at their stubbornness. The quiet got to him a few minutes later. He had refused to follow orders. Had undermined the wishes of his organic crew. Gone against programming that had been deemed unnecessary a few weeks ago. There was a weight to that, almost as formidable as the mentioned three quarters of a century that had lodged in his processing.

The crew that wanted to turn him into a new autopilot from the sound of it- not that they had told him directly until he had the audacity to try to help. He knew the length of time a trip to the Alpha Quadrant would take prior to that, but it was just sinking in that he would be awake for every second of it. And that his program was...broken?- changing?

He almost laughed at the fear that brought; company so far had gone very poorly for him- as just very clearly evidenced. Yet the idea of facing hour after hour, year after year with only four walls for company, with no way to know if he was still himself…

The hologram circled his room, tracing the well-worn path he took when he needed to pace out his worries. In the new light of his sickbay, he surveyed the defaced biobeds, the scratches on the far wall. Broken and abandoned. The words from the engineer seemed to echo in the space with no other voices to conceal it. Faulty.

The falling feeling, which he had pushed away for weeks, invaded again. He thought about the corruption that had not spread, the holoemmiter that caused him to flicker when he passed. His program felt delicate, like it was balanced precariously between failure and….something new. Unplanned for by his creators. The EMH wondered if it could even last the journey to the alpha quadrant, then felt foolish for not even considering that before announcing himself to the former crew of Voyager.

He had eight hours to kill and pacing was doing nothing for him. The hologram ignored another flurry of accusations about his degrading program from his internal systems as he muted the call on his end. The sleeping passengers did not need to know he had a penchant for singing on top of disobedient streak.

Chapter Text

True to the EMH's expectations, the duo on the shuttle needed more than eight hours of rest to recover. Ensign Kim woke up after nine, while Torres stayed dead to the world until hour eleven had passed. Harry, somewhat understandably expressed worry about this, citing a startling lack of sleep as she puzzled out anticipated problems during their two-week excursion. After the ensign had been thoroughly assured that yes, she's ok, she's going to be fine, she's just an idiot, he started to look more generally worried instead of focusing on his crewmate.

"Hey, about yesterday. Is your program doing ok? Because we can run some checks on it while we're doing everything else if we need to, y'know, while we're still here," the human looked strangely scared to ask the question, like the hologram was going to do something unpredictable and destructive in response. It was almost amusing, considering the most he could do was disconnect the call. Frankly he was tempted to just because of that.

"I assure you I am fine Mr. Kim. More than anything I am annoyed when I am ignored," he replied with a bit of ice in his voice. He was not going to apologize for using the ship as leverage against them. They had deserved it. He decided to leave out the issues he had observed in himself- a little bit of control it a weird way. It was a problem, but it was his problem.

Harry, to his credit, did look a little regretful at the EMH's accusatory tone, "sorry, I will try to do better about that?"

"You could start by not phrasing that as a question."

The halfhearted apology was probably the best the hologram was going to get. A part of him wanted to hold onto the outrage still left over from eight hours ago, but he knew he had to work with the ensign for the foreseeable future. And conversation was hard to come by in his situation. Might as well have them while he can.

"So, how is the crew of Voyager settling into colony life?"

By the time B'Elanna woke up, the doctor had learned Harry now had the role of organizing shifts, housing, and resources for the burgeoning colony. They named the planet Tzinti, a suggestion from the Maquis captain, Chakotay after a popular vote. The hologram's job had officially been taken over by Tom Paris, who was doing his best to train another person, Kes, to help lighten the load of an entire colony while still teaching himself. He graciously suggested he could consult on non-urgent cases while he was still in range of the uploads from the planet. Something he would be able to do well at least. While they conversed, the human walked him through a few comms tricks that would make the uploads smoother and allow him to send whatever he wanted in response. It made the future long-distance communication scenario more real; but also gave him hope that he could communicate in some way.

The engineer, once she woke up, still looked tired, but was definitely better-rested than when she was forced to sleep based on her motivated expression. That marked the end of their idle chatter; Torres was eager to continue her plan. The EMH did notice, with some satisfaction that she was paying more attention his input now. Amazing what a little extortion could do.

A few more small systems had to be repaired before the next step. The two spent about an hour and a half trying to make the exhausted holoemitter stop its slow decay. The device was hard to work on, all things considered; ultimately the former Maquis had to pinch the bridge of her nose to ward off annoyance and conclude the hologram needed better tools to fix the small transistor that had burned out. He would have to live with the flickering. He would have to live with a lot.

The tool issue was unfortunately recurring. After their failure with the emitter, they had a string of devices that would not cooperate. Both machine and organic had reverted to their base state of slightly snippy with one another by the third- a suspect environmental sensor that could lead to false alarms if left to deteriorate. This time the hologram didn't bother to hold back when replying (why would he? He couldn't do worse than the day before), which strangely, seemed to help the two work together. This went against most of the social logic he was programmed with, so the hologram could only conclude humanoids were confusing to work with and impossible to understand. After a fifteenth scan of the various circuits behind the walls, the pair finally decided that could not force the sickbay into a space that was any easier to work with. B'Elanna deemed the sickbay "as ready as it could be," for taking on the larger part of her repair strategy.

For the more complex ship-wide issues, Torres' idea was much odder than a few wiring repairs. She had not provided the most clarification on the issue, seemingly expecting him to follow the instructions given blindly instead of asking about them (much to his annoyance), but even the hologram could recognize he was stalling when he asked the question for the third time. The idea of changing his voice was… unsettling. He was not sure why he was so attached to it; it was simulated. Technically- as the engineer planned to take advantage of- he could have whatever voice he wanted, but he had gotten used to this voice for weeks- the entirety of his experience.

"Would that actually work? She barely responds to my text commands and won't even consider my voice commands" the doctor could hear his hesitation. He was not an engineer- pretty obviously, according to his conversations with the half-Klingon, who had berated and praised his work in the same breath while modifying her own plans at an astonishing pace to accommodate the changes he'd made- but the solution sounded about as nonsensical as some of the ancient Victorian medicinal practices designed by humanity.

The former Maquis rolled her eyes, moving her entire head slightly with the motion. In a method that seemed equally vexing to program and humanoid alike, Torres had adopted an increasingly condescending tone and a few more sentences of explanation each time she explained what he was supposed to do, a trend that continued with her newest response."Yes it should still work. When we set Voyager up for extended autopilot, we cannibalized her initial coding and modified what we needed to into it," she had not gone into detail about the ship in the past, and this was the first time the hologram had heard the changes laid out so plainly. In other words, you lobotomized her. He felt a vague symptom similar to food poisoning invade his physical form as the engineer continued her explanation, despite all the trouble the starship had given him the past few weeks, he did not think she deserved the fate she was handed. B'Elanna continued her explanation.

"Since it was a waste of time to remove and we had no need to manage unnecessary systems, most of her initial command codes for those systems were left intact. That means- hey stop making that face! You're a hologram doctor on an empty ship, we thought you weren't essential!" She also hadn't snapped at him about his expressions in the past- he personally felt it was uncalled for. Apparently remote engineering was just as frustrating today as it was on much fewer hours of sleep the day before. The EMH did not fault Harry for staying out of it. He bit back a well if you just told me the entire plan the first time, we wouldn't be here, instead taking the easy bait she had provided him. Telling her to treat him like a person (sentience? intelligence that was deserving of some level of respect?) had not worked the last time he tried it, instead leading to a brief break in communication while the engineer cooled off and Ensign Kim talked him through power reallocation.

"I'm a non-essential hologram so why do you care what face I make?" He snapped back, embarrassed that he was wholly unaware of the horrified expression he was still wearing. The insult had barely registered- not telling him anything he hadn't concluded for himself- but he was happy to let the assumption slide. Being this attached to the shell of a ship was…faulty of him and B'Elanna seemed to dislike him without extra reason as is. …He was not sure why he wanted her to not dislike him, but some part of his program greatly disapproved of their conflicts, despite helping to perpetuate it. The half Klingon in question let out an aggravated sigh that bordered on a growl before continuing.

"Ok, whatever. What I meant to say earlier was that as long as you can get the voiceprint to work, you should be able to command changes to ship programming. Your own programming would be more complex and would involve you being deactivated so I can't talk you through anything there, but you'll at least be able to see what happened and if the ship can move again."

"Great. Now I have to be a pilot as well as an engineer. Are you aware that I am able to perform surgical tasks impossible to attempt with an organic doctor? My potential is absolutely wasted here," the waspish tone in his voice was likely uncalled for. He regretted it, slightly, when he saw the tired look in her eyes.

B'Elanna just let out another growl-sigh that seemed long-suffering enough to border on insulting before giving a final "just do it, doc."

"I will if you go eat," she needed to anyway, she didn't need to know it was so he could figure out his voice modification programs without an audience.

"Fine."

Some broken part of his bedside manner protocol compelled him to stubbornly glare back at the now unoccupied screen for a few moments before complying.

"…computer access voice customization for the Emergency Medical Hologram-" he was almost disappointed when the computer immediately responded with a cheery chirp- "based on the recorded logs available, can the EMH's voice be modified to match Captain Katherine Janeway's?"

Another affirmative chime. The were unable to make the computer's voice work, but the hologram still thought she managed to portray a weird smugness at the situation. He sighed.

"Well that's perfect. Computer, please modify the Emergency Medical Hologram's voice to match Captain Janeway's."

He unmuted the call again.

"Well? Convincing enough?" He sounded precisely like the logs that had been his only company for weeks. The hologram suppressed the urge to simulate a flinch; he felt like he wasn't talking despite the evidence to the contrary- a sense of detachment he hadn't felt since he first came back online to red alerts. He wanted to get this over with quickly.

"Very convincing! We'll see if it's enough to convince Voyager," she seemed amused, which annoyed him. She did seem much more approachable when she smiled though. He elected to not try to read Kim's reaction, the human was just beginning to be tolerable to him.

"Good. What do I need to do now?"

"Okay, in theory, Voyager is acting the way she is because there was a complete system lockout of essential functions when she got hit. If you use Janeway's command codes to override it, we should be able to access her full systems," it sounded feasible at least. For once the hologram didn't grudge that he was not considered essential enough to be shut down. B'Elanna grabbed her padd again after she got a nod of confirmation from the EMH.

"For unlocking the system, repeat after me: 'computer, return system status to general operation authorization code Janeway-Lamda-3,'" the hologram dutifully followed along, hearing Janeway's voice fill the space. Voyager beeped reproachfully at them. Denial.

"Why isn't it working?" The captains voice took a sharp edge when she was frustrated.

"You didn't match her intonation maybe? The voiceprints are sensitive. Try to- I don't know, sell it?" Ensign Kim chimed in.

"Sell it? Try to act like her?" the hologram felt ridiculous enough as is.

"Yeah, you watched her logs right? It shouldn't be too bad- acting isn't hard, don't worry," Harry gave him what was probably meant to be a reassuring smile, but it was undercut with amusement. The doctor rolled his eyes in response.

"I know how to act, I've just never had to do it before," he snapped, knowing he was being a bit harsh for the situation, but not really knowing how to stop himself. He took a simulated breath, "Give them to me again and I'll try my best."

On the fifth frustrating try, the hologram was able to successfully mimic the voice print. Voyager turned out to be a harsh critic of performances, something that surely boded well for the other command codes he needed to input. The first code reactivated all of the systems that went offline, leading to a sudden thrum of activity around him; all the systems behind his walls or out of view waking up to their post-collision reality. He immediately was informed of an urgent power drain in the sickbay by some newly-onlined sensor. Very useful, he would probably have to disable that.

The group made it through the second one, a series of commands to put the ship through a full diagnostic and report on all of her critical systems, much faster. Once the EMH had nailed his impression, which he was oddly proud of despite how strange it was to speak with his previous captain's voice, the computer accepted the voiceprint on the first try. All they had to do was wait as results from the diagnostic slowly trickled in- a meticulous report of every surviving system at a painstaking pace- to see what they had to do next.

"For a program that was chatty all morning, you've gotten very quiet," B'Elanna observed when one of her barbs met open air instead of a witty response, "is anything wrong?"

"Are you asking because you're bored or because you actually care?" He stiffened as he heard the captain's tone become rueful, he hadn't meant to ask that question out loud. The half-Klingon scrunched her eyebrows at the question.

"Um, both I guess? I am still worried your program isn't behaving correctly and since Harry is asleep there's not much else to do," she seemed genuinely confused by the question. The doctor scoffed a bit to himself, no change of heart in the humanoid despite their time working well together today.

"Well, I doubt you'll understand, but talking with someone else's voice is very…odd. I find it unsettling," he decided to focus on the easy to complain about issue (and not the prospect of decades stretching before him, the way it still bothered him that the two humanoids talked over him in favor of each other, the-).

"That doesn't make sense, why would something easily in your capabilities make you uncomfortable?" why can you be uncomfortable? She sounded vaguely accusing, but the hologram was starting to think that was a base state for her. He pinched the bridge of his nose, a pointless action that he had accidentally picked up from Torres -as he was sure both he and the engineer realized- as he tried to think of how to explain.

"The only way I've heard the voice I currently have is through logs saying I'd be alone on a starship for the foreseeable future. How would you feel if a ghost spoke through you?" he hesitated a second before meeting her eyes with a pointed glance, "and I don't particularly care if that makes sense. I didn't ask to be this way and I'm already tired of justifying my right to be here and it's been less than two days."

Something softened in her expression at that. She pinned him with a searching stare, studying something about him. He felt like he was being measured on some kind of metric only she knew. Something close to sympathy crossed her expression before morphing into a bone-deep tiredness.

"That does make sense actually." It was not remotely an apology, but something told the doctor it was akin to one. The silence was more comfortable after that.

The diagnostics informed the trio that Voyager was still capable of flying and utilizing short-range sensors, minor audio-visual systems (pretty obviously- see evidence: rogue hologram), and shields (with compensation for a lost emitter). One large issue was her long-range sensors, which according to the computer, were completely missing. However, her autopilot was, as B'Elanna had suspected, the main problem. The sensors could be compensated for by distance, a new complex computing system could not be. She had completely scrambled what amounted to her cerebrum, crippling her motor functions and decision-making abilities. Meaning if the starship was going to have a one-in-a-million shot of getting to her destination, she needed a new brain. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on who you ask) her autopilot wasn't the only intelligent computer program aboard.

Ensign Kim, fresh off a stint researching Voyager's emergency capabilities, took over to help explain how this was as close of ideal as they could have hoped- for the organics at least.

"It's really interesting actually! Since emergency piloting and control stations can be routed to any system at all, too many instances where captains couldn't led to a system development for it, so we will be able to activate a second hologram of the stations you need to run the offline systems-" all of the systems "-and route the inputs to control the ship," the genuine excitement radiating off of the young man was infectious, a solution finally in reach. The entire group found themselves wearing some semblance of a smile in response.

"Does that mean I actually get hologram control? Maybe I'll raise an army in my spare time," B'Elanna rolled her eyes at his flatly delivered joke.

"There's no need, you're going to have full ship control in a few minutes anyway." The hologram did not know how to feel about that. The years before him seemed to lengthen. More control meant more options, and also less. A bittersweet victory over stagnation in favor of a fixed, uncertain path. The Vulcan philosophy of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few was preprogrammed into his behavioral algorithms. He wondered if any of Voyager's previous crew would accept the same fate. Glorified autopilot indeed.

He wondered silently if it would be better than an eternity still and directionless. While the humanoids celebrated their small victory.

Chapter Text

It took the better part of another day to set up a console configuration that fit into the sickbay and convince the computer that another hologram was actually a beneficial addition to the health of the ship. The small group had reached a comfortable rhythm: Harry had thrown himself into the arduous task of explaining the various controls to the inexperienced program while B'Elanna worked out the best configurations for controls and wrestled with the eccentricities of the ship's fried systems (with minimal cursing). Their momentum carried them to the final product; left them to slowly stop as the reality of their success set in. Voyager was ready to do as her name suggested and the two organics had to return to the alien planet they didn't want to call home. …and he had to pilot a starship. Something that "wouldn't be that bad," according to the people who had benefited from entire courses on the subject. The victory seemed hollow. Tainted by the reality of their situation now that there was no immediate problem to solve.

"Remember you will need to keep an eye out for any power sources along the way hom- ..along the way to the Alpha Quadrant," it was the fifth time the Ensign had informed him of this.

"Yes. You told me."

"And-"

"-and both of you need to go back to your colony before you run out of rations," he interrupted the next reminder. Before I get too used to company. They, annoyingly, but true to their workaholic tendencies, didn't immediately heed his advice. If the crew had wanted the opinion of a professional doctor, they would have tried harder to separate him from Voyager he supposed. Still the hologram knew they had enough sense to know he was right, and were just putting their return to their isolated colony off as long as they could. A health risk for a little bit of hope. B'Elanna cleared her throat, seeming awkward.

"…are you sure you're good to go?" She had warmed up to him in the past few days, based on the slight regret that twisted her features. He thought he would miss her, despite her abrasive (and often dismissive) demeanor.

"Does it really matter what I answer?"

"…no I guess it doesn't." Maybe the two would miss him too. It was a nice thought.

"Go home. Sleep. And tell Paris to write me to I can teach him to be a proper doctor while I still can," humans often got choked up when emotional. The hologram was not sure if this instance qualifies as "emotional," but it was definitely effecting his internal programming; he half-wished he was capable of the organic inconvenience, instead the words flowed easily despite feeling like lead weights. Final. The duo looked worried when they ended the call, filling the sickbay with an oppressive silence for the first time in a week. The EMH did not like it, was left as unbalanced as he was with the sudden influx of socialization a mere three days ago.

The silence hung in the air as the shuttle slipped out of comm range.

He took a deep, pointless breath and surveyed his setup one more time instead of filling the emptiness immediately; it felt wrong to replace the humanoids that quickly. After some debate, they had placed their improvised design in the office area, projecting buttons onto the existing desk and turning the entire area into a control room. The placement of the console seemed awkward in relation the the working screen- and in truth it was, but it also allowed the hologram to still navigate the entire space instead of having to phase through objects to traverse the main medical bay. And now, he could pretend he had two separate rooms, which was something.

The EMH ignored the sinking feeling in his chest as he faced the control panel- well, three panels which had been placed onto the same console for convenience. He knew what the buttons meant, but the amount in front of him was still intimidating. Power Allocation, Piloting, Tactical. Each with options and functions that branched to countless solutions. Functions he was never supposed of worry about. He hoped he could avoid using the last one beyond shields. He updated his neglected group of tallies, then reflected he really needed to get better about avoidance. Then questioned why he needed to.

"Just you and me now I suppose," he muttered to the ship, garnering no response.

Ship status, according to all the metrics starships were measured on, was extremely poor. The crew would have had no choice but to abandon ship by now if they hadn't decided to do that for themselves anyway; life support was gone, two decks had depressurized, and the computer was unresponsive at best. Because of that, some of B'Elanna's last advice had been to start working up speed slowly, and to stop accelerating at the first sign of structural failure- well, further structural failure. There was a small chance that moving at warp speed could shake apart the frame and leave a scattering of Voyager parts for light years; the fact that this scenario was only a small risk and not a guarantee did very little to reassure the hologram. That would be a very sad end, all things considered.

Regardless, after a few moments of consideration, he decided it was the better alternative to continuing to watch the vessel rot in its random section of the Delta Quadrant. Unnoticed and unchanging. Ensign Kim had said piloting was easy. This would be easy. If he reminded himself of that enough, maybe he could reprogram it into his personality. He keyed in the command for one quarter impulse. Voyager responded immediately, seeming almost eager as her engines thrummed to life. A machine meant to move which had been collecting dust for too long. At least the ship seemed to know what she was doing. That made one of them.

The hologram had been told exactly what he needed to do, but practical experience, as he was finding out, was a lot different than theoretical. His medical knowledge did not prepare him for anything he had faced in his past hours of life. With the sudden change of speed, he suddenly needed to worry about four different numbers that started to flash new data with each kilometer forward- they weren't particularly important numbers unless he wanted to identify a certain thing in his surroundings, but they were distracting all the same. More of his program was occupied by them than was probably warranted; trying to find similar patterns that would be applicable in a sickbay: heartbeats, brainwaves. The hologram almost didn't hear the pointed reminding chirp to turn on deflectors. Apparently deflectors were important. Something about space debris. After too many seconds trying to locate the button for deflectors, the computer brought up the importance of inertial dampeners. The displayed sensor data continued to change despite the noise.

Luckily no more alarms sounded once the proper safety precautions were observed. The EMH scolded himself for forgetting silently- a slip-up like that could have killed a patient in a different setting. The stray thought that maybe he was too broken to do everything he needed to crossed his mind; he pushed it away with effort, he had too much to do to worry about that right now. Focus. He watched sensors carefully once he finally remembered all of the functions he needed to activate just to go to impulse speed. The setup the group had managed allowed for proximity awareness, energy signatures, temperature, and radiation. In other words, a very fancy radar with a little extra information to point him in the right direction. This could be paired with the records in the computer to some level of accuracy, giving him an approximate position and direction. The humanoids had told him how to program in a proximity alarm and an alert for possible power signatures- considering he would need to find some (a large amount of) power on his way to the Alpha Quadrant. What was one more thing on a very long list?

Basically he was flying a starship the way twentieth century humans piloted their submarines; it was an odd experience. Controlling everything around him but knowing very little about the effects of his actions. Right now they were in the clear, but the devices could only extend about forty astronomical units- apparently an abysmal range for traversing between solar systems, given that it could only capture about half of a said system in one sweep. One quarter was slow enough to prevent collisions easily, but going faster would present issues. He just had to hope his reaction time was quick until he found a better solution. Being a hologram meant he could react much faster than most humanoids- if he was working correctly- but even he wouldn't be able to account for much below microseconds. He sincerely hoped he could find a better solution…somehow.

One quarter hadn't immediately led to an explosion, and so far he hadn't hit anything despite flying blind. In an odd attempt at reassurance, on of the humanoids had told the EMH that space was very empty; something he just had to believe without being able to get Voyager's external cameras working. There was some sort of irony to having only lived in space and being unable to see stars. He didn't know if he liked knowing there was less beyond Voyager's bulkheads than he assumed- if that was somehow better than an overwhelming amount he could never reach. He wouldn't have to care about that if he was only active for less than twenty hours. He wouldn't have to care about much at all if that was the case.

The starship's sensors confirmed that he was indeed not directly in the path of anything, so he elected to believe them. Half impulse, then impulse. Proximity alarm. Back to half impulse. Raise shields. Was he supposed to raise shields when that happened?-he didn't know what happened. It would make sense though. He forced himself to move enough to look at the viewscreen again, realizing only afterwards that he had tensed in place instead of having a useful reaction. Why would an emergency device have a preprogrammed freeze response?

It was a stray comet, according to the computer's recognition of speed and mass, not close enough to do damage. He couldn't help but feel the ship's loud reaction was a bit overdramatic, even though she was just doing her job. In her defense, he had probably overreacted too, working with the nerves surrounding new situations and uncertainty. He felt a bit foolish for questioning himself on shields- for freezing up- over a passing rock.

Half-impulse again. The hologram found himself flipping through his archives of medical studies as the ship accelerated again. A familiar distraction to counterbalance. There was a subspecies of Andorian was completely blind, relying instead on their telepathy and strong electromagnetic senses to navigate the universe. Telepathy didn't apply, but the hologram wondered if Voyager was experiencing a similar sensation to their everyday experience. He had no real way to ask. Belatedly he realized with a half-disappointed sigh that he had given up on not personifying his home at some point; the EMH could not decide if, like he had asked earlier, it really mattered. Being programmed or behave like a human would suggest a need for some kind of connection anyway.

The EMH felt he had finally gotten the hang of reading the radar after an hour of trial and error. As far are he could tell, Voyager had ended up perched in a wobbly orbit at the edge of a solar system (which? the computer had three guesses) when she crashed. He had slowly directed her towards the center, curious about how a star would look on his haphazard systems. Had he ever felt curious before? Did outraged confusion count? In the meantime, he had passed nearby to a very large object- he was assuming a planet, something the computer confirmed. The size of just that was intimidating; fifteen thousand times larger than the ship he couldn't fully conceptualize, ridiculously larger than his small holomatrix on its own. Voyager already had all of the reference points necessary to decide what exactly an object was based on their information- with dubious accuracy- but the doctor was still learning, still wondering just how large the things beyond his walls could get.

Beyond their few close calls with unsuspecting objects, being a pilot turned out to be surprisingly boring- or maybe that was due to the sedate pace the hologram had set. It took three anxiety-filled hours for Voyager to successfully stumble her way to a close enough range to recognize the star at the center of his first solar system (temperature: hot enough to give fifth degree burns and beyond degrees Kelvin, size: way too large- red dwarf apparently).

The hologram managed to put the ship in a slightly unsteady, but stable orbit, finally letting his program wander to other priorities. He only became aware of the time after a few microseconds of self-diagnostics. Three hours was ridiculous. He needed to stop jumping at every alarm and pick up the pace- for his sanity if nothing else. At this rate, he could reach the Alpha Quadrant in the next few millennia. His program would be a wreck by then. If it was still surviving.

The computer helpfully identified the star- a string of letters and numbers in English- based on her archives and subsequent extrapolations of location. He decided the name didn't fit in any way. …Not that he could judge considering he himself was an acronym. However, a string of data was very unhelpful for finding a more fitting name. He had no idea what he should call it instead. What does one name a star? It should be something grand, unique, able to capture it's qualities… Not knowing how to name things was probably not the best quality in a lone explorer. He hoped that wouldn't become a trend.

After the hologram was satisfied that he could probably identify a star in the future- a few minutes of watching the data vary- and he has recovered from the overwhelming amount of incoming data from his first piloting attempt, he directed the starship to impulse speed; tried his best to ignore her immediate complaint that she had passed within a lightyear of something or other. The alarm was grating. A second one almost overlapped the first.

"…computer, give me your best Klingon opera," it was worth a try. Something else to focus on.

He needed to see if Voyager could handle warp. Another unknown. The EMH had never experienced warp speed. The ship was always below light speed when he was activated. He would have no way to know whether it was going wrong or right. The uncertainty was not pleasant, knowing the possible outcomes. Possible scenarios built up, spiraled into a mess of possibility in his decision-making system. He let out a frustrated sigh- something he was pretty sure he picked up from B'Elanna- as he saw more than felt his hands freeze on the keypad. With an effort largely fueled by frustration, he jabbed the unsuspecting button denoting automatic system preparation for warp travel. At least he could use frustration.

The ship immediately shook. Oh well- as the Klingons say, today is a good day to die. He activated warp engine before he could talk himself into traveling the entire Delta Quadrant at impulse speed- or simply stop traveling entirely. A new number appeared on his screen: warp bubble status. Great. With a noise very similar to docking clamps, the nacelles raised. No going back now.

Warp engines, as it turned out, rumble. Not within even his hearing range, but he felt the air change. The floor plates vibrate at a new frequency. The engines had activated very suddenly after their initial preamble, taking the proximity alarms with them (they ran out of things to notice between the star systems, thankfully). A sudden leap defined by a slight change in gravity and the electric air. The first seconds of warp speed passed slowly, filled with a tense focus as the doctor noted very shift he felt in the metal surrounding him, every possible hitch that could be the starship's final breath.

After one minute the rhythm of the engines smoothed, reaching some kind of equilibrium. It took another two for the tension to drain from the hologram's form. He felt a smile grace his features, sharp in its victory despite the fatigue slowing his subsystems. Feeling tired with no physical signs was…odd. It seemed like it should be fake based on the criteria he knew. His diagnostic criteria acknowledged it all the same. The pride set in slower, replacing the anxiety with each surviving moment. He could warp. He did warp! Successfully! He successfully piloted a starship, exceeded his programming… He had a chance!

Warp one was slow enough for a few hours of downtime before he hit anything. Warp two would be faster, but he wanted a little bit to enjoy his small victory. After a few moments of consideration, the hologram set the next star system in the correct direction as his destination. It would be a good way to test if Voyager's archives and extrapolations were correct. He didn't want to admit that he was chasing the curiosity he felt with the first star yet. It felt outside of his qualifications to…want that.

He had a few hours to wait as long as nothing went wrong. Perhaps he could find a better sound for his proximity alarm.

Chapter Text

Over the course of the next week and a half, the EMH managed to coax Voyager up to warp four point five. It was four point eight for a few very successful days, but when he had felt a bit too confident, he had tried warp five. The ship very quickly disagreed with that course of action by trying to violently eject one of her nacelles. A very nerve-wracking deceleration to impulse followed. And a day of letting the meagre solar panels attempt to charge off of their fourth encountered star. Technically, the starship gained very little from the effort- the panels were at about fifteen percent functionality, mirroring many of the ship systems- but it made the hologram feel better about the delay. Some sort of usefulness out of his anxiety. And now she stubbornly stayed within the lower warp four range. That's what he got for trusting himself he supposed- or maybe for trusting his environment. For thinking any part of this process would work out as smoothly as the plays he listened to. At least he knew the Voyager's limits now.

Warp four was not extremely fast, all things considered- about two centuries of travel if he never slowed. And he would have to slow to pas through any system, both to check for fuel sources and avoid running into an unsuspecting planet. It was still lot more expedient than full impulse, but definitely not ideal considering he was already bored despite the new tasks filling his time. The first few days had been terrifying, but now the hologram found himself wistfully remembering the excitement. In humanoid psychology, fear and excitement were almost the same feeling, so it sort of made sense- despite him not possessing any of the chemicals necessary to make them so similar. If he had to give credit to Dr. Zimmerman in some way, he would grudgingly admit he made very convincing emotional responses, for better or for worse.

On the subject of his high-strung reactions, he had made a very important modification to his environment. Maybe the most monumental and groundbreaking change he had ever made. The proximity alarm was less annoying now. It gad taken him roughly an hour to figure out how to change it (alarm sounds took lieutenant or higher command codes to modify, something about proper emergency procedures and safety regulations. Luckily he had all of the command codes saved- a parting gift from the shuttle duo). And another five to test new sounds out as the ship flew. The winner was a clinical beep, something actually originally used as the biometric readout noise for the first few enterprises' sickbay equipment. It was familiar to his archives but new it his own experience. A confusing comfort. Passing through systems became much more enjoyable when he could avoid the aggravation that had grown with each new object.

Voyager's computer turned out to be correct; he still had to set the coordinates and do the actually flying, but he could rely on her to give him a correct estimate of direction. Small blessings as the humans say. And as far as he could tell, she had an accurate idea of what they came across- not that he had any experience to fall back on the matter, if her addled systems claimed an object of a certain size was a planet, he would happily leave her to it. Armed with that knowledge, the EMH had categorized six stars and loosely categorized about seventeen other astronomical objects (mainly planets, but the odd comet or asteroid belt showed up occasionally). He was quite proud of that, it was a good show of his progress forward; a record to prove his journey would benefit more than just the colonists now countless lightyears behind him.

The stars were easy to track, being very noticeable on the radar, but the planets were harder to nail down exactly. The furthest scans he could do reported that he had, in fact, encountered them, but getting close enough to learn small details like atmosphere composition took a level of precision that the hologram still shied away from. He'd rather miss out on a few unnecessary readings than accidentally crash into a moon or something. He loathed the idea of losing his newfound purpose and he wasn't that bored yet. Still, the cautious decision bothered him for some reason; he felt like he was leaving his explorations incomplete whenever he moved it a new system. It wasn't a thing he needed to be doing, he had no reason to chart more than the bare minimum but he found he wanted to. For a program designed to follow orders or fix immediate issues, he found the curiosity that now ran as an undercurrent through his behavioral algorithm addicting; starting to affect his decisions, change his judgement. Another way his program was mutating… or breaking. Some kind of flaw.

For the large amount of planets he'd vaguely encountered, the area of space he was passing through was oddly uninhabited. It was a stark contrast to the logs that he had hoped would be a more accurate preparation for this trip than they were turning out to be. Voyager had definitely covered more space in her first month of life- more chances to encounter life that way- but he had been expecting something to happen after a week of travel. Instead there were no looming threats of Kazons, no caretakers…not even another group of those mysterious reptilians. One thing had registered on his radar as refined metals and a warp signature, but as his larger starship had passed, the small vessel had turned tail and fled. No hail to return. It was frankly unnerving. Maybe for the best though. He still didn't technically have a set directive in whether he could interact with any other species- not that he was expecting clarification, frustratingly. He toyed with the idea of drafting up a formal request for permission on the issue when the next colony transmission came through, but the long wait time made it seem pointless. Maybe he was simply lacking a rule of hailing etiquette that Delta Quadrant travelers followed.

Maybe the next system would be more….normal? Interesting? He found himself hoping for any kind of indication that the area he was in was safe. Or at least capable of harboring life. The dead silence from the unknown planets and the lack of possible residents made for unnerving companions. Maybe living on a ghost ship had changed his program in more unexpected ways, made the silence feel dangerous. He spent the past days not letting the silence sit for long.

The tallies were growing to fill a decent chunk of his chosen wall. He scratched the forty-fifth to make a neat block while Voyager cruised steadily through the gap between two systems (he decided the system they left would be Barak-Kadan, after the lead signer of the opera that he was listening to as he had entered the system; not particularly creative, but better than leaving a trail of unnamed landmarks behind him in his journey). Three by three. Nine groups of five. There was no significance to the number. But the hologram found it circulating through his memory as he looked around his empty space. Unchanged beyond the hologram's control panel. The irregular distribution of the universe theoretically left a very large stretch of empty space until his next goal. Nothing on sensors for the next few days according to the Star charts. And he had been alive for forty five days. That was almost seven times his recommended time limit.

The pattern of wait-work-wait again was growing familiar. Encounter a Star system, scan for dilithium to slow the power hemorrhage Voyager was a victim of (so far with very little luck), see if there was anything of interest at all, then name the system something stupid- usually related to whatever he happened to be listening to at the time, and then leave. Rinse and repeat ad Infinitum. Leaving nothing behind except and new addition to his own memory- his memory he still could not trust. This wait time was an exception. A break in the cycle. His first real down time lasting longer than a few hours. Perhaps the day amount coinciding with the change made it stick with him. Highlighted the way the square seemed so small, the way inevitable creep of the marks was growing to encompass a larger portion of the wall as his active hours continued to accumulate. A contradiction of feeling very young and being around so much longer than he was ever supposed to be. A part of his processor- the part that still was waiting for the next emergency, that could not conceptualize the downtime- still was whispering that he had been around too long.

He'd run out of space eventually.

It wasn't important, but he had started to put stock in the wall. Marking time. Having some record that he successfully ran- survived? Lived? for day after day. The incomprehensible necessity humanoids placed on being remembered; another unnecessary gift of program realism. His behavioral algorithm focused on the issue while he double checked the charts, the sensors, the status of his holographic interface. No change from the last check. No change to anything. Nothing to change. The room seemed smaller than usual. Emptier.

If he went offline, the ship would keep running unheeded until she ran into something or ran out of power. Voyager was fairly apathetic to his existence as long as she had some direction to follow- it did not matter to her how long she would have to follow the same one. If his ship happened to give up too, if this happened when he ran out of walls to cover, there would be no way to know how long he had managed. No way to know he was there- that he had experienced anything at all. Impermanent as dust. Photons. The grim scenario hinged on too many hypotheticals to be realistic. But with nothing better to do, it expanded, gathered momentum with nowhere to go. He found the music that had entertained him for the past few weeks falling flat. Insubstantial voices providing sparse company to a collection of force fields and light.

The hologram suddenly didn't like the way the way the dramatic ballad echoed against the only metal he had ever known. A dirge instead of a love song. It felt empty. Cold.

He circled the room again. Hummed to the tune. Tried to ignore the wrenching way his program insisted he open comms, find some sort of connection to the empty universe beyond his sickbay. His small sickbay, already wiped of its original purpose. It felt eerily similar to the brief emptiness accompanying his trip into incorporeality through the door. A new kind of nonexistence. He wondered if Harry and B'Elanna made it to safety. Then tried to decipher where that unrelated line of questioning had originated from. He shouldn't have a developed enough program to experience loneliness. That would just be cruel.

Nothing would happen if he tried to hail the void. He couldn't even receive anything expected from the colonists for another week or two. Trying would make the lonely trip feel more real; he was tempted anyway. He turned off the opera instead, cutting off a gorgeous finishing note. Shame. Alone with the biobeds. The dispassionate numbers scrolling across the screen. With the programming he was questioning and criticizing more with every new change it created for itself. Forty five days.

Would his memory logs survive if he went offline? They were likely not meant to expand very far. The remaining files of his archive were still uncorrupted. He checked every few days; he was the only patient he could apply his attention to beyond the ship after all. The EMH regretted that he avoided mentioning the corruption when he had the chance. That he had been prideful enough to ignore his one chance at preventative care. Regretted the possible way he could still fade into thin air with only indecipherable memories to show for his time. Despite everything.

A new kind of death he couldn't prevent. The morbid thought spurred an inexplicable need. Some way to show he was. To be remembered at all.

The hologram could not decipher why it mattered to him if he lived on beyond his theoretical "death." …The idea of deactivation itself still seemed appealing in some aspects. Another contradiction to complicate his program.

After deliberating for much longer than he needed to, he opened the small collection of chief medical officer's logs. His predecessor (if he could be called that) only wrote a few- none about the Delta Quadrant, a courtesy of his sudden end. Paris hadn't bothered to record to the same group of files, if he had recorded anything at all. Yet another glowing sign of his competence. There was plenty of room to add a few files of his own. A backup.

The EMH already felt foolish with the idea, annoyed that he was following the whim of his new concern. It was unnecessary. Maybe even disrespectful to the previous user. All so he could know he would be acknowledged in some way. Feelings should not have this much sway on his behavioral choices. But it would be something to do. He was running short on things to do. With a put-upon sigh, a mix of defeat and anger at his strange shift in mood, the hologram keyed the command to record.

"…this is the chief medical officer's log, but I, frankly, don't think I qualify. I don't know what I would be considered now-" he hesitated at that. Maybe he needed a title. He had no idea what his title would be. Temporary engineer? Underqualified pilot? Emergency hologram with no emergency? Prisoner on a ship that felt smaller every day?

"Either way, these are the logs I can add to without extra effort, and I am trying to get Voyager to its home...not my home I suppose, but I don't know if she'll survive otherwise. And I wanted- decided. I decided I should make a record of my progress. So there's a full record of what happened to the ship and its previous residents," his reasoning felt flimsy even to himself; he wondered if this was selfishness, tried to decide if it mattered to anyone beyond himself whether it was or not.

"I suppose I should start at the beginning…."

Chapter Text

Contrary to the hologram's expectations, it only took a few days for his log entries to become more eventful than a vague collection of his thoughts and observations. This was largely due to the power situation. By the time he had fifty total days of runtime, he had used a decent amount of power- the crash probably helped, in his defense, but holograms were not known for their efficiency and Voyager was running two while also battling a number of failing systems- so in other words, their dilithium availability was getting direly low. Once B'Elanna had realized the majority of their passive power collection options were stubbornly offline (either by damage, or by the computer no longer recognizing parts of her own system), she put a large amount of effort into finding ways to collect dilithium without the ability to leave Voyager. The EMH had been left with a laundry list of procedures including precise coordinates, ways to use the transporter incorrectly, and ways to trick the computer into refining what crystals could be collected into a useable product.

Unfortunately, all of those procedures would be useless if the ship keeled over before they muddled their way to a dilithium source. The EMH finally decided trying to skim closer to the occasional planets he came across was worth the risk of his poor piloting after the computer helpfully informed him that twenty percent of the crystal supply was registering as incompatible. This probably would not have been an issue if Voyager had bothered to register it before she was down to her last forty seven percent of useable dilithium, but alas, she had a flair for the dramatic. And now he was running out of time to find more much sooner than expected.

To add an extra layer of suspense to the soap opera that was his new daily life, he was also losing some of the data he had been relying on. Voyager was officially past the point she had originally been transported to- and heading the opposite direction of her subsequent manned flight to the crew's colony. Now unmanned, Voyager was in space she had never gotten the chance to scan on her long-range sensors, reducing the accuracy of her predictions of the area to a disappointing sixty three percent or lower. The hologram found he had to lengthen the amount of time he was spending in every solar system to confirm there was nothing he could use before moving on. While this came with the benefit of decreased the amount of time he had to spend idling between systems, his progress forward stagnated greatly as a result. He found that irksome. And worrying. Increasingly worrying as his dilithium stores continued their slow creep towards zero. If he couldn't even survive a few months, how was he supposed to go for a year? Fifty? The impossibility of a century? Would he even make it that far?

Orbit was a skill that took a considerable amount of reflexes and skill- one of which the doctor was lacking severely. His first two tentative attempts had almost ended in disaster; the first (a completely fruitless attempt to get close to a planet that turned out to be a gas giant- useless for any possible mining) led to an altercation between the hull plating and the atmosphere, the quick change of course back towards emptier space, and the painful loss of one of his few working solar panels. The second did not lead to any direct damage, but was still shaky enough that the hologram did not trust it for longer than it took to get an accurate scan. It also turned out to be a small rocky planet with nothing useful- not even an atmosphere.

…He chose his targets for exploration more carefully after that, limiting himself to objects Voyager could definitively classify as rocky planets. He also took the time (and one point three five percent of his precious power supply) to gather and read as much information on where the elusive mineral could be found as he could- finding little rhyme or reason to its distribution beyond its rarity. He was beginning to understand why the crew had hoped to rely on the solar panels. His best options at the moment were be lucky enough to find some crystals in a random asteroid- then be able to mine them successfully in a way that hasn't been tried, hope that the method yielded viable crystals, and count on his faulty ship to process and use the new fuel correctly. Or try to make it to a nebula that could provide power- an arguably worse chance, based on the lack of clear positional information. Another layer to his very slow journey. Much like a sickbay, starships were meant to be run by multiple beings. The EMH found himself bitterly wishing for some sort of help to divide the workload.

The hologram was starting to grimly contemplate ways he could reduce power- wondering if reducing his size by three percent was worth the one percent power save (and the inconvenience), if he should finally give up music and stew in silence for an extra few hours of fuel- when the dilithium detector finally gave a cheerful ring. He was, surprisingly, between systems and had already written off the empty space as a useless break for him to contemplate his fate; he had not expected to run into anything, let alone the one thing he was looking for. A small rogue planetoid had crossed his sensors, reading enough dilithium to fill his stores and most likely an entire cargo bay for extra measure. He slowed Voyager to almost a coasting speed, waited a second for the numbers to change- to go to a more expected unusable planet. The amount itself felt too good to be true. He still was unsure of both his own changing program, and even more so of Voyager's senses; this turn of fate felt more like the delusion of a breaking and desperate algorithm than a happy coincidence. The starship's momentum carried them into a closer range, revealing a clearer confirmation of the rare material. The detector chimed again (somehow seeming impatient), reminding him he was wasting time. Power.

The EMH managed not to crash into the planet's surface. In fact, he almost got the orbit right (if a bit eccentric) on the first attempt. He had to acknowledge with a tinge of pride that he was definitely improving, that his surgeons hands weren't completely wasted. Step one of…fifteen? -roughly fifteen steps completed. That was a good sign. Manageable even.

Transporters were run on a polar coordinate system with the center of the ship as their origin; that meant the hologram needed to know how far away an object was from the aforementioned ship to lock on-especially since he was trying to lock into something without a recognizable pattern. The medical transporters (which miraculously were still functioning) were meant for humanoid patterns, organic materials, and life forms (with the exception of preprogrammed exceptions like clothing). Dilithium- really any type of rock- would register as an unexpected contaminant and be rejected from the transported matter to avoid inconvenient issues like organ contamination. It made perfect sense from a practical standpoint. Less energy and processing power expended at the sacrifice of being able to transport anything at all into sickbay. The hologram would find this feature useful if he was in any other circumstance.

As it was, he was going to have to meticulously convince the computer that dilithium was an exception that needed to be transported. It was a well-documented material so at least that part wouldn't be too difficult. Thirty minutes to input the complicated molecular structure. His orbit appeared to be holding steady as the time slowly passed. The dilithium readings still showed positive.

The hologram was more worried about the next series of instructions he was supposed to follow. He had to refine whatever he managed to transport somehow. Apparently the impulse reactor could theoretically work as a refinery- for all the good that did him while he was stuck unable to make the changes necessary to successfully modify it. The much more realistic method that the engineer and hologram had eventually settled on was more…creative. They were already misusing the transporters, so what was one more violation of its functions?

Refined dilithium was often put through the devices when starships were stocked. The necessary pattern was stored in every computer archive, including Voyager's. If- and it was a big if- the doctor could convince the transporter to give him the desired output with the material coming in, he would in theory be left with a pile of the precious refined ore.

…Or the transporter would create a pattern that was slightly off and explode, giving Voyager and her autopilot a violent demise. Or it would simply not work. He could tell the computer whatever he wanted, but whether she would be able to fulfill the task was yet to be established.

It took a full four hours and three engineering clearance codes to convince the skeptical computer that changing around the molecules of a transported object was a normal request (for some reason, the computer found the idea of organic matter not ending in the same configuration it began distasteful, who would have thought). He also received a harsh warning of the possible dangers once the computer caught onto his plan, stating in no uncertain terms that a dilithium explosion could destroy the entire ship- and probably the planetoid for good measure. Great. He scanned the planet again, tried to push away his program's reminder that he was in no way equipped to deal with this.

He was at seventeen percent power. And was unlikely to find a conveniently refined source floating anywhere nearby. So he either tried to provide his ship - his? it was his ship now he supposed- with the power both he and it needed or he waited for her to slowly lose the little life she had left. Frankly he wasn't sure which he preferred, but one gave him slightly more control over the situation. Or the end of the situation.

Further scans of the rogue planet revealed it had pockets of nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, Class M. Not that it mattered for his situation, but it would be very good for physical mining if he had that option. The dilithium itself proved to be harder to define than the air pockets. The hologram assumed this was due to it being surrounded by similar materials, but he had no way to be sure; regardless, vague coordinates of the area when combined with the specific isolation of the crystal's structure should bring up something. Probably.

Hopefully.

A large deposit of the ore was located a mere two hundred meters below the surface. Based on his skimming of the information on dilithium, that was unusual unless this planetoid was once part much larger planet. It was suspicious- or maybe he was paranoid. With a sigh of annoyance, the EMH realized that he should have spent more time researching the subject instead of worrying about himself. He only had one job and he was somehow managing to be mediocre at best at it. His power hadn't dipped further, but the low amount still taunted him.

He keyed in the vague coordinates, aiming to extract a square meter of whatever happens to be in the area. A test. Hopefully not an explosion. The hologram had realized by now he couldn't let himself idle and think about things if he wanted to actually do them- he hit energize before he could talk his way out of it.

Waited for the sequence finish.

…gave it a minute longer to be sure.

Nothing. Nothing presented a problem he hadn't foreseen. Did he code the transport wrong? It was entirely possible. Worse, was the ship simply incapable of the operation?

"Computer, run a level two diagnostic on the transporter system," he pinched the bridge of his now as he broke the perplexed silence, taking the time himself to re-examine the careful molecular pattern he had input. It looked like he did everything correctly. Followed his instructions to the letter. Still failed. If it was something he couldn't fix… the diagnostic would take a few minutes. Hopefully it gave him some idea of how to make the frankly stupid plan work. In the meantime, he pulled up his file of dilithium information.

The hologram did not get the chance to find out the result of his diagnostic. Instead, his search for alternative solutions was interrupted jarringly by another disused alarm. One kilometer proximity. Much closer than anything was supposed to get to Voyager in her current condition. Refined metals, even force fields, and most worryingly, a buildup of focused energy- he'd just found his second ship. And they appeared to not like his proximity to the (supposedly) dilithium-rich planet.

"Of course, why wouldn't everything happen at once? I didn't have enough to worry about with the just the transporters…" the hologram mutter darkly to himself as he worked to change his screen space to focus on tactical information. Should he.. hail them? Raise shields? Attacking did not seem like the correct option, but he also did not know how they would react to any other option.

The hologram gave up trying to keep track of what directives he would have to violate- if they would outweigh the loss of Voyager. He was getting ahead of himself; all he knew about this ship was that they were getting steadily closer. Three hundred meters. No life signs registered- but then again, the entirety of the small vessel had evaded his sensors until they were much closer than they should have been. He was hesitating. He could not hesitate. Hesitating could destroy the ship- the logs. …him.

Shields. Shields were a good first option, they gave him time to decide what else to do. His worked at about sixty percent capacity- better than nothing. He winced at the immediate power drain. Fifteen point nine three percent remaining. Shields apparently were not sustainable, weapons were probably out of the question (he hated to admit he was relieved by that).

The unwelcome ship, in response, slowed its approach. Then continued forward. The energy buildup was growing. Maybe he should have hailed- breaking the prime directive. Did the prime directive matter more than his objectives? Was he allowed to decide that? He hesitated on the button to open comms. The buildup disappeared, mirroring a sudden jolt to the ground around him- shields down to forty percent. And now he knew what weapons fire felt like. It was more instantaneous than he thought it would be. He realized distantly, beyond the shock of getting shot at, that he had flickered quite severely for a microsecond. Even if Voyager could take a few more hits, he might not be able to. He found, to his surprise, that he did not like the idea of deactivating anymore.

The alien vessel was building up another beam- or whatever they were using- snapping the doctor out of his concerned loop. He could think about the nature of his existence later. Hailing. He needed to try. It was that or trying to attack. A fundamental part of his program blanched at the prospect of the latter. To hell with the prime directive. Federation technological secrets weren't worth this. He opened comms.

Chapter Text

Diplomacy was off to a solidly mediocre start. The enemy ship refused to answer until he had hailed three times. But at least their weapon had a cool-down time- they had only shot at him twice. He still had shields. Barely, but still. He had lost too much power to afford another hit. The hologram felt more than consciously noticed his form sag in relief when the other vessel's position slowed to a stop curiously. It worked. They did not power down their weapon, but it was a start. Frankly, in the doctor's opinion, he'd be happy with any response that wasn't a hull breach.

Visual contact caused the hologram to suppress a sympathetic wince as his diagnostic program went into overdrive trying to diagnose all the immediate problems he saw. The aliens were obviously unhealthy. He would have been able to tell that from just the labored breathing coming across the audio, but the added patchy- and strangely incongruent- skin and hair that seemed to melt across and obscure the pair's features looked painful. The one on center screen locked what appeared to be his one good eye (based on the clouded and unfocused view of its mate) on the hologram on the other side of the call with a coldly assessing gaze. The EMH had received more scrutinizing glances than he would prefer in his short life (and pitifully small collection of interactions), but this one felt by far the most…predatory. Like he was being sized up as a subject dissection rather than being measured as a problem to fix. He did not like the chill it gave him.

While both were breathing quite raggedly, the shorter of the two, who had yet to focus fully on the screen, seemed to be producing the bulk of the worrying audio on his own. Despite the hostility of the situation, the EMH found himself attempting to assess the situation to see if he could help. Automatically noting the sores, the unsteady stances, the desperate light in their eyes. There was very little chance he could actually help without any equipment, but his medical knowledge might be useful to these people. Maybe he had a bargaining chip he could work with; if he could convince them he could assist them perhaps they would be willing to consider an exchange.

…His moral program quailed at the idea of using his expertise as a form of exploitation instead of a guarantee, but the part of him that could viscerally relate to the desperation he saw on the pair's faces gave the idea momentum. Despite his inability to feel nauseous, he managed to feel sickened with the line of reasoning, but he needed dilithium. And they definitely needed help.

"Thank you for responding. Did I intrude into your territory?" The EMH tried to work off of his initial assumptions of the situation. They were either attacking him for territorial concerns or as a way to ward him away from what was apparently the only nearby source of dilithium surely. He could not think of another reason they would be risking their ship in their condition. Both situations were less than ideal, but lined up well with what- admittedly little- knowledge he had about the various petty disputes organic beings seemed prone to so far. The individual who had been watching him with an unsettlingly unblinking gaze tilted his head in a vaguely birdlike motion, revealing a jagged seam of reptilian and scales, tan skin.

"That is where we are stationed, yes, but dilithium is not our primary goal," the calculating look was briefly eclipsed with a strange look of smugness before he once again seemed to narrow all of his attention onto the hologram on the other side of his screen, "it is very strange…you do not appear to be here according to my sensors, you must have remarkable cloaking technology."

The turn in conversation was a little unexpected, but the doctor could understand the confusion. He swallowed down a believe me, sometimes I wish I wasn't, figuring that was a bad start to a friendly conversation. He was unsure of the best way to proceed; would explaining he wasn't real lose him credibility? Would the duo thinking he did have some sort of incredible technology give him some kind of advantage? Surely honesty was the best policy; he could not imagine lying about a medical condition to a patient without good reason after all. With a silent apology to the prime directive part of his programming, he made an effort to give a patient smile to his conversation partner, "ah, that is an understandable confusion. I am a hologram, meaning I am not alive, just a collection of forcefields and photons."

The explanation seemed to disappoint the man, but regardless, the interest did not leave his eyes, "interesting. Are you a manifestation of your vessel then? What became of your…living crew?"

"I am a part of the ship, but not a manifestation of her. Merely an emergency program," he hesitated on his answer for the second question- the same part of his program that was raising simulated hairs was insisting that telling the strange alien that his crew was alive and traceable was a bad idea, "…I am unsure what happened to my crew. There were not present when I activated and I do not know their whereabouts or conditions now."

Not technically a lie. The alien seemingly accepted that with no issue as he moved on, leaving the hologram to thank his luck that he was not modelled off of a Vulcan.

"What species were you based off of? I haven't seen anything similar in our databases."

"Human- they are from far away- but I have programmed knowledge from a large group of species," he answered that question easily enough with some confusion; he had expected more questions about his ship and its location than himself, his motives in trespassing even. The seemingly positive interest was refreshing, but each mundane question felt like a further waste of his resources. And like he was missing some kind of motive behind them. He needed to get the sickly being back on track: "so do you need me to leave? Or could we discuss some kind of exchange for some of your dilithium?"

The second alien finally looked up at that, fixing watery eyes on the screen, looking as though he just noticed their visitor- maybe had just registered his previous responses, "unheard of species? This could be a chance for us!" He seems to forget the second question in his excitement as his mangled features spread into a slightly horrifying smile with a strangely healthy set of teeth. The excitement radiating off of him seemed to barely move his companion, who looked faintly annoyed in response.

"Not a chance for you. You need a replacement immediately, not in theoretical fifty years."

"A chance?" The hologram was beginning to think humanoids had some kind of compulsion to ignore him in favor of each other. He did not appreciate that particular quirk.

"Apologies…Dareth is my Honatta. It is currently his job to look after my well being," at least the second alien looked chagrined as he wheezed out an apology, gesturing towards his taller companion. "I am currently suffering from a particularly bad stage of the Phage, a terrible disease that has plagued the Vidiians."

There was no information on the Phage in the doctor's database- or Vidiians for that matter. Both must be confined to the Delta Quadrant. The new information piqued his curiosity, a problem that wasn't power or coordinates. One he was actually meant to fix. Besides if he could help it would be a great opportunity to have a fair trade- one more blow to his ethics programming- he was supposed to help anyone in need, not help conditionally. Not…not this. He was half tempted to offer his help freely, just to ease the wheeze of the amicable Vidiian.

Nine percent power.

"I cannot say I am familiar with the Phage. What does it affect?" the curiosity in his voice was genuine but he couldn't help but feel that he was lying to the man who stared back with a strange amount of hope- a large contrast from his companion…and every other interaction the hologram had had.

"Oh, it affects everything," the man in question seems to deflate at the question, "I'm currently losing my heart, and your vessel has been the only contact we've come across. I regret I've gotten to where I am…I never wanted a Honatta. I was an outspoken pacifist before the pain got too bad… Now I just want to live long enough to see some kind of hope for my species."

If Voyager had organic residents what would you have done for your pain? Something in the phrasing of their answers, the calculating gaze of the Honatta set the hologram ill at ease. The alien continued, oblivious to the change in mood of his listener.

"Our greatest scientists have claimed the disease is incurable, but we keep searching with every species we come across," he turned his scarred face away from the camera, instead looking towards his employee for the first time since he began talking, "if you have the information you say, maybe you could give me- give us- that hope."

The EMH had never heard a politician before, but the cadence the sickly alien spoke with gave him the sense he might be one. Regardless, his request seemed innocent enough, and was something the hologram could luckily oblige.

…if he should oblige it. Transplants were a common treatment, but distasteful if only one party consented. The strange mix of hope and desperate despair in the humanoids' demeanors suggested they may not be following the carefully programmed ethics the doctor was used to. Or perhaps any sort of ethical code at all, giving up their scruples in the face of their needs. If his information could give them a cure, that may save a lot more than their species…or lead them right to some new unwilling donors stuck alone on a planet. The crew he had lied about- that he was still responsible for in a way. He supposed he could lie again, claim a complete lack of useful information- that he was unreliable due to the low power, or…something.

At the rate his decision making was going, that might not be a lie for much longer. Both options felt wrong. He needed power. He was trading his medical care for immeasurable harm- or good he supposed. It could be good. it would be good for him. And maybe the dying race. And could he really judge them considering he was doing the same thing they might be doing? Giving up his programmed morals to let himself survive a few more days?

The hologram was reminded for the nth time that he was not equipped to handle the strange series of situations he was forced into. Deciding the outcomes of ethical dilemmas without all of the facts was not his job- and negotiating definitely wasn't. He wouldn't get much further on nine percent power. He could help- frankly he wanted to help. He just also didn't want to do harm- especially not to the few people who had somewhat respected him.

"I would be amicable to trading my information for some dilithium," he hesitated after that before tacking on "-I would appreciate knowing what you olan to do with it though."

"We don't owe you transparency in our research," the first alien spoke up again in what was almost a growl with his damaged voice, sounding strangely defensive. His working eye glared at a point past the doctor as he continued, "our people have been suffering for centuries and we don't have to justify our desire to live!"

"Dareth, I believe he is merely curious."

"It is a computer on an empty starship! What's to stop us from just taking the information?" In retrospect, sharing the nature of his existence may have been a mistake. Being called an it was something even B'Elanna had avoided though. the hologram felt a surge of anger ag the man who had treated him civilly until it was inconvenient. His dilemma over whether he could withhold medical information suddenly seemed easier to solve.

"It can lock all the systems on the ship and set a self-destruct protocol if it feels there is a sufficient threat to the ship," he practically spat before the taller alien could continue arguing his point. The second Vidiian shot a quelling look to his employee before answering the original question himself.

"We would simply study what you gave us, and try to see if any of the DNA sequences or antibodies could be replicated. Since it appears there would be no …donors to provide samples, we would do what we could with the information and our technology," the way the alien said donors suggested said subject may not survive, further confirming the hologram's initial suspicions. Luckily, according to them, his donors were dead and gone.

"I think my programming will allow that, "he replied flatly, letting a hint of sarcasm drip into his voice, "How much dilithium would you be willing to trade in exchange?"

The Vidiians had agreed to enough dilithium (luckily already refined!) to get Voyager up to half capacity- more than he had honestly expected, especially with Dareth still bitterly stagnating the process. The pair also had given him their wealth if information on the phage; a gesture that seemed more hopeless on their part, considering the state of his sickbay.

The other alien, Maluth, was, in fact, a politician. He explained that's how he could get a Honatta (apparently, they only went to the most important people on their planet). The EMH wished he could do more to solve the man's immediate problem as the alien rubbed at roughly where his heart was (an automatic response to pain as far as the doctor could tell) while he did his best to happily explain the past culture of his species he hoped to see revived in what remained lifetime.

The hologram did not care much for Dareth, but he found himself hoping Maluth would be able to succeed. Or that he could simply do his designed job and help the man himself.

The small vessel did an unceremonious about-face back towards its small planet after the dilithim was safely beamed aboard Voyager (he had to explain that no, the Vidiians didn't need to bring it aboard- in fact he would prefer they didn't- because despite their apparent advances in medicine, the aliens had no concept of transporters). Presumably they were going to study or send what he provided to an expert of some sort- the complete database of genetic and immunology information for the Federation species as requested. The end result has been friendly, but the hologram could not ignore the sinking feeling that followed their disappearance from his sensors. The chilling look that had never quite left Dareth's eyes did not suggest that he would give up if a new species could provide him with a novel opportunity to hunt.

The hologram made it to the next system- a white giant- before he deciding to delay the next signal extender Voyager was set to drop- due for a few lightyears of travel beyond his current position- by another solar system. Less risk of the colony being traced to him, for better or worse. Longer before he got any communication from them. Despite his much safer power level, the EMH couldn't help but feel he had somehow lost out on his first diplomatic endeavor.

At least he had a lot to retell in his logs. and new information to study.

As he programmed in the next system, he gave a rueful smile at the open file. Perhaps someday he would be able to use his increasingly latent medical programming again. Maybe.