Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Were it possible, Doctor Emmett Hall believed his holographic matrix would be radiating pride. The three other crew standing with him at the front of the holodeck—Crewman Li-Paz, Ensign Keith Ashmore, and Crewman Zayra Cabot—stood a little to one side, and he gestured to them, now that the rest of those who’d gathered had settled down.

"Welcome, welcome," Emmett said. "While I know you all know me quite well given I’m the one chasing you through the corridors to make your yearly physical appointments—" He paused for laughter, but didn’t allow the general lack thereof to slow him down much. "—I’d like to take a moment to ensure you’re as familiar with Voyager’s own Three Musketeers of Holography."

This garnered applause. Cabot bowed with a flourish. Ashmore remained more stoic, though he smiled. And Li-Paz frowned. 

Emmett made a mental notation in his temporary memory storage to ensure he passed on the piece of Earth literature to the Bajoran man in the name of cross-cultural literacy. 

"Ensign Ashmore and Crewmen Cabot and Li-Paz and I have been working on a project here in the holodeck with our free time for roughly two years now—"

"Seems longer, sometimes," Li-Paz interjected, this time earning laughter.

"—but as of today, our efforts are, we feel, complete enough for those of you gathered to experience." Emmett spread his arms, and the applause filled the holodeck, which Li-Paz had suggested they leave completely bare, rather than in some sort of partial, paused state, and Emmett was beginning to see the reasoning behind it. 

Their program would be all the more invigorating and awe-inspiring when they powered it up. 

"Now, before we begin," Emmett said. "We’d like to take you on a journey through the stages of artistic creation that went into the project itself."

"We would?" Cabot said quietly to Ashmore.

Ashmore bit his bottom lip, a habit Emmett had noticed the man took when feeling uncomfortable. Perhaps he didn’t enjoy public speaking. 

"Or—" Li-Paz strode forward. "We can thank Doctor Hall here for allowing us to both model some of the complex interactive characters in the program off his own core programming, as well as offering his thorough and detailed insights on the process of emergent complex intelligence matrixes, which drove a key point in the story—one I won’t ruin by telling." 

"In fact," Cabot said, moving forward and taking Emmett’s arm. "If it wasn’t for Emmett here, we’d probably still all be running through the same old programs as before, rather than having the opportunity to experience something new." She turned to Ashmore, waving him over, and he joined the other three at the front of the holodeck. 

"Kieth," Cabot said. "You want to do the honours?"

Emmett wondered if this meant his speech would not be required.

Ashmore bit his lip again, but nodded. "Computer, load program 'The Paradox Paradigm,' passive exploration mode only, and begin." 

Around them, the holodeck was replaced by the interior of a starship, specifically its Bridge, but not one like any other any of those gathered might have served on. The interfaces were familiar enough, but the MSD at the rear of the Bridge listed the vessel’s name—USS Paradox, NX-80808.

Timeship class. 

"Feel free to explore the ship," Cabot said. "It’s your base of operations throughout the holonovel, and comes complete with holographic crew in any positions your group doesn’t fill."

"You can play it solo," Ashmore said. "Like most holonovels, but we designed it for groups of six."

Lieutenant Honigsberg noticed the MSD first, and turned around again to face Emmett. "It’s a time travel story?" He rubbed his goatee. "What’s the premise?" Beside him, Captain Aaron Cavit was peering at the display as well.

"You are intrepid members of Starfleet’s Temporal Corps," Emmett said, excited to finally be able to share their work. "And our story begins with Starfleet’s sudden—and untimely—end." He grinned at his own word choice. 

"So we have to fix the timeline," Honigsberg said, exchanging a glance with Lieutenant Commander Veronica Stadi. "You think you could fly a timeship?"

"If it flies…" Stadi lifted one hand, smiling. 

"Six crew positions," Cavit said, turning away from the MSD. "The program can handle six crew all interacting with the storyline at once?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. I knew you’d be impressed," Emmett said. It had been the key reason Cabot, Li-Paz, and Ashmore had reached out to him specifically, and been the start of their long and fascinating experience as holonovel creators: finding a way to make the program multi-adaptive. 

They key, of course, had been to model things on his own programming, which by very nature of the precision required in medicine meant he was the most adaptive holographic program in Starfleet history.

"We had to program in some gentle guidance—hopefully nothing too obvious—but it functions adaptively with the idea that even if you do have all six positions held by crew running the program, they’ll be working to the same goal," Ashmore said. 

"In other words, the program will resist, say, letting you split any Away Teams," Li-Paz said. 

"Definitely good advice in general," Stadi said. "So what changed in the timeline?"

Emmett shook his head and held up one hand. "That would be telling, commander. But if in doubt, the ship’s Emergency Temporal Hologram can offer advice on where to start."

"The Emergency Temporal…" Honigsberg laughed. "Oh, I can’t wait to meet that character."

"We’ve loaded the program to both Holodecks," Cabot said. "But Emmett wanted to have something a little more formal." 

"Literature requires a launch," Emmett said.

"Speaking of launching," Stadi said. "I want to sit at that helm." She nodded a quick farewell and headed to the front of the Paradox’s Bridge, where Ensign Louis Culhane and his wife, Ensign Mary Harper, were both eyeing the controls together. 

"This is going to be great for morale," came another voice, and Emmett turned to see Doctor Jeff Fitzgerald—his predecessor as Ship’s Medical Officer—approaching, along with Dr. Li-Kes Aren, their protege and ship’s surgeon. "Holodeck programs never made it to the top of the list back when we were still in contact with Starfleet, and this will be a breath of fresh air."

"Well, I’m sure we’ll get right to work on our next holographic experience," Emmett said.

Ashmore coughed, and Cabot’s smile grew a little fixed. Her dark eyes flicked to Li-Paz. 

Li-Paz said, "We might take a brief hiatus first. Hi, love." He kissed Kes on the cheek. "Want to see what we think a timeship’s sickbay would look like?"

"I’d love to," Kes said, in her warm, soft voice, and the two of them left together. 

"I was thinking something in a more classical sense," Emmett said, turning to Cabot and Ashmore. "Perhaps something akin to an Andorian early-era classic." 

*

Fitzgerald poured two cups of Jeta-blend Ocampa tea and returned to the Mess Hall table where his husband had already sat and had been joined by the Mess Hall’s very own black-and-white feline, Marble. She’d jumped up into his lap the moment he’d sat down, which invoked the unspoken Mess Hall rule: if the cat is in your lap, no moving unless the alert level was at least yellow.

"Thank you," Cavit said, as Fitzgerald put his mug down in front of him. 

He watched Aaron check the writing on the mug—a habit so many of the crew had, seeing if the mug had come from Voyager or the alternate timeline version of the USS Venture’s captain’s yacht, the Amundsen—and then both of them finally took a sip. 

"Do you think you’ll try out the program?" Cavit said, with an expression that Fitzgerald wasn’t entirely sure he could decode. He almost looked concerned, but mostly the question seemed genuine. 

"It’s maybe not something I’d choose to experience as a plot device," Fitzgerald said, thinking that might be the cause of Aaron’s mild concern. "What with the whole…" He waved his bad hand in front of his face. 

"I wondered," Cavit said. "I have to admit, though, I’m really tempted—I want to see that multi-participant adaptability in motion. Most interactive holo-novels limit the active main protagonist to one individual, allowing for others in support roles, sure, but there’s a hierarchy…" His pale blue eyes flicked back and forth, and suddenly he was smiling widely. "And this is the part where I realize I should have this discussion with Alex or Sahreen, not my wonderful husband who will pretend to be fascinated by programming talk."

"I love you," Fitzgerald said, which was a confirmation of the assumption in and of itself, if indirect. 

Cavit smiled, and took another swallow of the tea, pausing to look at it after. "I still can’t believe Jeta came up with this on her first try."

"She’s her mother’s daughter in many ways," Fitzgerald said. "You should see her at the Conn." 

"Have I told you lately how lucky we are we have you and Cing’ta?" Cavit said. "Scott said Karden was incredible down on that planetoid when the Flyer was stuck, and Seven of Nine sent me a proposal for how we could get the last of the Pathfinder communication upgrades implemented ahead of schedule and her plan didn’t break a single protocol." 

"The new class is really hitting their stride," Fitzgerald said. "Ennes cracked a joke yesterday. An actual joke." 

Cavit laughed.

Voyager rumbled beneath their feet, a vibration that made their cups rattle on the tabletop. Marble rose on Cavit’s lap, her head appearing above the edge of the table and offered a single, confused, "mew?"

*

"There’s a massive energy wave nine hundred thousand kilometres off the starboard bow, coming this way," Lieutenant Sahreen Lan said, tapping on the Ops console and trying to do better than the vague information she currently had.

"Where’s it coming from?" Commander Ro Laren asked from the big chair. 

"I’d love to tell you," Lan said. "It’s not acting like an expansion, more like a wave—soliton, maybe?"

"Raise shields," Ro said. "V’Los, evasive." 

"Aye Commander," the young Vulcan ensign’s reply came at the same time as Lieutenant Scott Rollins’s "Shields are up."

"Ro, the wave just changed course," Lan said, eyes widening at her display data. "It’s adjusting to intercept."

The doors at the rear of the Bridge opened, and Ro glanced back to see Cavit arriving, but there wasn’t time to explain their situation. "V’Los, go to warp."

"I cannot form a coherent warp field—the energy wave is disrupting my attempt," V’Los said.

"All hands," Ro said, tapping her console comm. "Brace for impact!"

Behind her, she saw Cavit grab at the command rail, leaning against it.

On the viewscreen, the wave of energy crashed into them—

Voyager rocked gently.

—the wave passed them by.

"What the hell?" Lan said. 

Ro could relate. That was… nothing. 

What just happened?

Chapter Text

"All stop," Cavit said. "Report."

"Shields are holding at ninety-seven percent," Rollins said. "The only damage report I’m getting is some minor impact to the hull plating on deck fifteen."

Ro eyed her display. "No injuries."

The Bridge doors opened again, and Stadi and Honigsberg arrived together. Cavit nodded to both of them, and Stadi took over for V’Los, while Honigsberg settled into the Engineering station. 

"Chapman’s team is on deck fifteen," Honigsberg said. "Hull plating is intact." The chief engineer turned to look at Cavit. "What hit us?"

"No idea," Cavit said, glancing at Ro, but he could see she had no more information for him, either when she shook her head. 

"Oh," Lan said. "I’ve got something. A download." 

"A download?" Cavit said.

"The wave dropped a file into our communications array," Lan said. "Directly." The Trill woman looked up. "Maybe that was the whole point?" 

"Can you isolate the download—make sure it’s not a threat?" Ro said, and Cavit was reminded, once again, that Ro Laren was still off in some small measure. She was herself, of course, but there’d been a harder edge to her since Atara Ram’s orb shard had gone dark. 

"I’m having a hard time understanding it at all," Lan said, shaking her head. "It’s a large file—a lot of information. Computer isn’t deciphering it—oh, I’ve got an audio file." 

"Play it," Cavit said.

A burst of high-pitched screeching made everyone on the Bridge turn and look at each other with various levels of confusion. 

"UT doesn’t know what to do with it," Lan said.

Cavit lifted his chin. "Cavit to Cir."

"Cir here." The Ocampa linguist’s voice was the usual gentle timbre, but Cavit heard the concern behind it. "Is everything all right, Captain?" 

"Fairly," Cavit said. "That wave delivered a message the computer can’t decipher. I know you’re off duty right now—"

"Eru and I will head right to the lab. Transfer it there, Captain." 

Cavit shared a smile with Ro—and was pleased to see it. "Thanks, Cir," he said.

"Of course." 

He nodded at Lan, and she the lieutenant tapped in the commands necessary to transfer the files. 

"It had intent," Rollins said, and Cavit turned to him.

"Pardon?"

"We tried to avoid the wave at first, but it adjusted course to intercept us," Rollins said. "Which made me think weapon, but if that was a message not an attack, then it’s more like a… homing signal?" The large tactical officer spread his hands. 

"There’s a residual ion trail," Stadi said, turning in her chair. "I’m fairly sure I could track it back to its point of origin."

Cavit considered it, but he knew which way he was leaning already. 

Ro seemed to pick it up from him the way she always did, and said, "Lay in a course, Stadi." 

He took his chair, and Ro settled in beside him. 

"It could be a distress call," he said softly, meant to carry only between the two of them. 

"It could." She nodded. 

So why did he get the impression she was already considering a Plan B?

*

"I could have made an attempt," Ensign Nettus said. 

Prior to meeting Ensign Nettus, Cir had spent some time considering Denobulan culture and linguistics after learning who the survivors of the USS Hera had been. It hadn’t been much of a head start, less than a day, in fact, before their rescue, but he’d learned their culture tended toward a linguistic and emotional gregariousness, contrasted by a physical reservedness, and that their species had a long history with the Federation, fascinatingly complex familial relationships, and some interesting biological features.

None of that had prepared him for meeting Ensign Nettus, former assistant Archeology and Anthropology Officer of the USS Hera, who—Cir was a linguist, and finding the correct turn of phrase was something he took pride in, often borrowing metaphors from other species—drove him up the wall. 

The interesting biological features of Denobulans included not needing sleep except for short yearly hibernation cycles, which also meant Nettus had a habit of being omnipresent in the Life Sciences lab whenever he wasn’t needed elsewhere.

Which was rare.

"I’m fairly certain the Captain intended everyone to work the problem," Mestral said, stepping in as he so often did when the four of them were gathered in the same place. The temporally-displaced Vulcan affected Cir in a diametrically opposite fashion compared to Nettus, in almost every way. "Why don’t we start on an attempt at decryption while our resident linguistic genius works on the audio component?" 

Mestral led Nettus to the other side of the lab so casually you’d have thought it was unintentional.

I’ll never cease to be amazed at his grasp of the nuances of the emotions of others. Eru’s voice brushed Cir’s mind gently, and he aimed a loving glance in her direction. 

I never thought I’d be nostalgic for the days where it was just you and I in this room, Cir replied. 

That earned him an ever-so-slightly admonishing smile, but she sat down at her usual preferred station and he sat in the chair beside her, as always letting her take the lead in organizing the files and data they did have.

She was better at that than he was. 

"Here’s the audio," she said, and what followed likely sounded to others like something random and chaotic. 

He wasn’t others. 

Cir tilted his head.

"Already?" Eru said, with a warm smile.

"Tonally," Cir said. "I’m wager this is a distress call. There’s a quality of… pain? Perhaps desperation." 

Eru tapped in a few commands, isolating the audio components and breaking it up into waveforms. He finally activated his own console and tied in the various adjustment filters he worked with when he delved into linguistic breakdowns that didn’t work with the Universal Translator, and applied a few of them, watching the results.

"I could slow it down," Eru said, when there were no immediate results.

"I don’t think you can," Cir said. 

"You think that would change the message," Eru said, nodding slowly. 

He nodded. Some languages were like that. The same sounds—faster or slower—carried different connotations, or could mean entirely different things. Xindi-Insectoid had that quality. 

Wait…

"Can you isolate the upper and lowermost points in the vocalization range for me?" Cir said.

Eru did, and she smiled. "You don’t think they’re humanoid."

"If they are, their vocal structures will be very different," Cir said, pointing at the ranges she’d just clarified.

"That means we might want to consider nonhumanoid psychology, cultural influences…" Eru’s voice rose with excitement, and he felt his own rush of excitement matching her own. He loved sharing moments like this with his mate. New people, new ways of communicating, new societies… 

They were such a long way from the garden in the Ocampa city.

"We believe they are nonhumanoid," Cir said, leaning back in his chair to share the information to Mestral and Nettus across the lab.

"In that case," Mestral said. "Perhaps we should add Setok and Kovar to our efforts? A xenobiological point of view may be helpful."

Nettus’s expression tightened, but the Denobulan said only, "Of course."

Cir had to give him at least that much credit—Nettus had too much pride, thought far too highly of himself, and spoke down to others, but at least he knew when another specialization might be of use. 

*

"Cir’s betting on a distress call," Ro said, and Cavit turned to see she was using the small display in her chair. "And there are indications we might not be dealing with humanoid lifeforms."

Cavit felt himself smiling even as he allowed himself to consider the extra diplomatic and sociological hurdles often encountered between humanoid and non-humanoid species. "Nonhumanoid," he said, and he heard the Starfleet in his own voice.

"Is this the part where I have to remind everyone the last nonhumanoids we met tried to melt Scott from the inside out and then organized a massive invasion plan?" Lan said from Ops. 

"No, I was going to bring it up," Rollins said. 

"Aren’t you partially nonhumanoid?" Honigsberg said.

"Not every species is as benevolent as we Trill," Lan said, not missing a beat.

"The Undine aside," Cavit said, rising from his chair. "If this is a distress call, I want to make sure we’re as clear as possible in our approach—Lieutenant Lan is not wrong. It’s very easy to send the wrong message to species that don’t communicate the way we do."

"I’ve got a ship," Lan said, after her station chimed. 

"Stadi," Ro said.

"Definitely the source of the signal wave, and… I don’t think it’s doing so well," Stadi said. "I’ll keep a solid distance."

"On screen," Cavit said. 

The small vessel that appeared had a deep green cast to it, with only a few lit areas visible against the backdrop of space, but nothing that looked to Cavit like a warp nacelle. A pale-green structure that almost made Cavit think of a fly’s compound eye glowed inconsistently, and the entire design struck him as more fluid and rounded than most starships, borderline organic.

Which made him think of the Undine’s bioships. 

He banished the thought. "Lifesigns?" he said.

"I’ve got one—nonhumanoid," Lan raised her gaze with a wry smile Cavit was fairly certain denoted a complete lack of surprise in Cir’s being proven correct. "It’s faint—it’s nonhumanoid, so there’s a margin of error, but I think it might be injured."

"Hail," Cavit said.

Rollins tapped on his console. Silence followed for a few beats, and he shook his head. 

"The atmosphere over there?" Ro said, and Cavit was pleased she was guessing his next move.

"Oxygen/Nitrogen," Lan said. "But I can’t suggest beaming over unless everyone thinks they can function in a space less than a metre tall." 

"Nonhumanoid and short?" Honigsberg said.

"Very," Lan said. "We’d have to beam over lying down, and we couldn’t stand up."

"Then we’ll have to risk beaming it to Sickbay," Cavit said.

"Sir," Rollins said.

"I know," Cavit said. "But I’m not going to argue with Cir—he was already right about the nonhumanoid, and I’m more than willing to assume he’s right about the distress call. We can’t help them over there, so we’ll help them from here. Let Emmett and Kes know we’ve got inbound wounded."

"Sending a security presence to Sickbay wouldn’t be a bad idea," Ro said. 

There it is again. Cavit couldn’t argue though, and she was right. "Of course. Scott?"

Rollins nodded, already moving to the turbolift.

"It might help to get a look inside that ship," Honigsberg said, once Rollins had left. "I don’t mind lying down on the job." 

Cavit smiled. "By all means." 

Honigsberg rose, too. 

*

Emmett watched the alien arrived, beamed directly into the surgical biobed alcove, and had an experience so rare it took nearly an entire second for his program to process the impact.

Ignorance.

The alien’s dermal range shifted from pinkish in general, with deeper greens on the head and along its back. Four multi-segmented limbs, each ending with three digits, presumably provided the ability for finer manipulation. Front-facing eyes, large and compound in structure, made up most of the head alongside a long proboscis-like appendage that ended with two protruding feeler-like projections, and at the other end, it possessed a long tail. 

As the only being capable of stepping through the forcefield currently around the surgical biobed, Emmett did so, picking up a medical tricorder and attempting to scan the being.

The results might as well have been random, for all the good it did him.

"Doctor?" Kes said.

She and Nurse T’Prena waited on the other side of the forcefield. 

"I’m transfering the data now," Emmett said. "But I’m not sure what use it will be to us. The physiology is so unusual the tricorder can't make heads or tails of it. The creature's obviously injured, but I haven't a clue how to treat it or even diagnose it."

The door to Sickbay opened, and Emmett saw Doctor Jeff Fitzgerald had arrived alongside Lieutenant Rollins. 

"How’s our guest?" Fitzgerald said, coming to the edge of the forcefield to look. 

"A cipher thus far," Emmett said. "I may need your insight into potential neurological configurations—" Emmett tried to adjust the tricorder, and shook his head in frustration. "This is pointless. Our scans have no frame of reference."

"Alex is over on the ship now," Fitzgerald said. "That’s why I came—he said the interfaces on the alien ship are activated chemically." Fitzgerald gestured to the alien being’s three-digit "hands." "Biochemical secretions, maybe?" 

"A logical—" T’Prena started to say, but then the alien being twisted, violently curling before releasing in a leap that sprung it from the bio-bed.

And through the forcefield.

Fitzgerald attempted to catch the being, a reflex Emmett imagined was intended to ensure the creature didn’t further injure itself, but at the last instant, the being’s limbs snapped out, and instead of catching it, Fitzgerald was gripped by it. 

"Ah!" Fitzgerald yelped, struggling. Rollins surged forward, reaching out and grabbing at it, but not getting anywhere. He let go, and tapped his combadge. "Rollins to Transporter Room, beam the alien back to its ship! Now!"

"It’s… strong…" Fitzgerald said through ground teeth. 

Kes stepped forward as well. "I can’t reach it—it’s too afraid." 

"It’s afraid?" Fitzgerald said.

Emmett picked up a hypo, but without knowing enough about the alien being’s physiology, his ethical subroutines blanched at utilizing a sedative.

"Transporter Room?" Rollins snapped.

"I can’t get a lock," Chief Dean Tamal’s voice came in reply. "Doctor Fitzgerald would go with the alien."

"Would rather n—" Fitzgerald started, then his head snapped back as the being’s proboscis stabbed into his neck.

"Doctor!" Kes cried out.

Fitzgerald collapsed, but Emmett moved fast enough to get beneath the counsellor’s head and stop it from hitting the wall.

*

Captain Aaron Cavit strode into Sickbay and came up short at the sight of his husband on the biobed, the alien creature clinging to him, its proboscis buried deep in the man’s neck. 

"Report," he said, trying not to clench his hands into fists. 

"His heart and lungs are seriously compromised, and his kidneys are failing," Emmett said, to one side of the alien.

"The alien is secreting a paralysing agent into his bloodstream," Kes added. "That’s why he’s unconscious." 

"How do we remove it?" Cavit said. 

"We can't remove it surgically, not without doing irreparable harm to Doctor Fitzgerald’s organs," Emmett said. 

"As far as we can tell, the alien is attempting to survive off him," Kes said. "At least, I think that’s what I’m sensing." She shook her head when Cavit turned to her. "I can’t reach it—if I’m picking up its thoughts, I can’t make sense of them, and I don’t think it’s aware of me, or any of us right now."

"Doctor," T’Prena said, handing Emmett a PADD. He sighed. "There’s no way to beam it off, either." 

"Why not?" Cavit said.

"The integration of two tendrils the being is using to attach itself to Doctor Fitzgerald’s cardiopulmonary system would beam out along with it." He handed the PADD back to T’Prena. "And that’s assuming we utilized the Vidiian extractor out of storage—Voyager’s transporters would have even less luck."

"So what do we do?" Cavit said. 

"If I'm to have any hope of devising a treatment I'll need to brush up on my exobiology," Emmett said. "I’ve already got Crewman Setok attempting to collate what I might need, but it’s a massive project."

Cavit frowned. "Your database doesn’t have anything?" 

"I may be a walking, talking medical encyclopaedia—but even I don't know everything," Emmett said. "My holomatrix simply isn't large enough." He lifted his gaze to Cavit. "I was designed for emergency medical use. The mobile emitter and everything you’ve done to expand my program and my own evolution notwithstanding, Starfleet Medical could only fit so much." 

"Program," Cavit said, seeing the problem. "You’re a multi-adaptive interactive surgical and diagnostic program—but exobiology and xenobiology are massive fields unto themselves."

"Exactly," Emmett said. "Setok is well-read—and we both know what that means for an Ocampa—but he hasn’t specialized in nonhumanoid lifeforms. And I’ve already asked Seven of Nine to consider what the Borg know about nonhumanoid lifeforms, but it turns out for the most part the Borg consider them irrelevant. Setok and I will have to work quickly."

Cavit took a breath, hearing uncertainty in Emmett’s voice and not liking it one bit. They didn’t have time. He looked at Fitzgerald, saw Kes and T’Prena both quietly monitoring the readings above the biobed, and then his gaze landed on Emmett’s mobile emitter. 

And an idea occurred to him. 

Time.

"What if you didn’t have to learn," he said. 

"Captain?" Emmett said.

"What if we could make you an expert," Cavit said. "A consultant?"

"I’d be delighted, but how?" Emmett frowned. 

"We could isolate the computer's exobiology, xenobiology, and nonhumanoid data files and merge them into a an interactive matrix," Cavit said. 

"You mean another hologram?" Kes said. "Like Emmett?"

"Yes," Cavit said. 

Emmett looked doubtful. "That’s not as simple as it sounds. It would need to be nearly as sophisticated as I am. Tactile interfaces, not to mention a personality subroutine…" 

"Like your holodeck program," Cavit said. "Only more sophisticated, yes, but the basic principles…" He lifted one shoulder. "Get Ashmore, Cabot, and Li-Paz on it—and any more of Sahreen and Alex’s people you need."

"Setok was already searching for the leading exobiologist," Emmett said, sounding more excited now. "You’re right. This could work."

"Use Holodeck Two," Cavit said. 

"Monitor him," Emmett said to Kes and T’Prena, who both nodded. Then he picked up his mobile emitter and left, already tapping his combadge to reach out to Ensign Ashmore. 

Cavit stayed behind for a beat, looking at his husband. Jeff’s face was pale, and behind his eyelids, his eyes didn’t move at all. No dreams. This wasn’t sleep, he reminded himself, but paralysis.

"I know you two have very little to work with," Cavit said. "But if you can come up with other options…" He let his voice trail off, not knowing exactly what to request.

"Of course, Captain," Kes said, putting one hand on his forearm and squeezing gently.

*

Lieutenant Sahreen Lan watched Ashmore, Cabot, and Li-Paz load up a template interactive matrix and blinked at the size of the file.

"That’s your template?" she said, impressed. 

Beside her, Lieutenant Alexander Honigsberg whistled in appreciation.

"It was easier than starting from scratch with every new character," Ashmore said. His dark brown eyes looked nervous, though. Or maybe overwhelmed. "I’m still not sure this will work. We never tried to merge any extensive databases into a character—these knowledge files you’ve gathered are massive, Setok." 

"They are the full extent of Federation understanding of xenobiological study," Setok said. "Any or all of which may be required to aid Doctor Fitzgerald."

"Don’t be a pessimist, Mr. Ashmore," Emmett said. "This will be a masterpiece of holographic art."

Lan blinked. "I thought we were making a scientist?" 

"Navigating the nuances of science is not an art?" Setok said, giving her such a direct, sincere expression she nearly laughed, but held it back.

"Fair enough," she managed.

"Do you have the personality file?" Ashmore said.

"Yes," Setok said, turning back to the Arch controls. "The foremost exobiology expert in ship’s records." 

 "Got it," Ashmore said. He tapped in more commands. "All right, I’ve got the physical parameters, loading in an amalgamated personality subroutine, and it should all come online in a minute or two." He lowered his voice. "Assuming it doesn’t just crash the holodeck…" He tapped again.

A figure appeared in the centre of the room, the appearance loading first. 

Lan, curious, looked over, and felt a wash of something cold and unpleasant in her stomach when she saw the physical parameters in question were a Cardassian male. 

"Turn it off!" 

She whirled, and saw Li-Paz, flushed and glaring, pointing at the Cardassian as well. She’d been unnerved, sure, but Li-Paz looked… furious.

"What’s wrong?" Ashmore said, frowning, then winced at the view. "Oh—he’s Cardassian?"

Setok frowned. "I don’t understand," he said. "This is the leading—"

"Turn it off! Now!" Li-Paz nearly screamed the words.

"Paz," Honigsberg said, putting an arm on his shoulder, but Li-Paz threw him off. 

"Mr. Li-Paz," Emmett said, raising his hands. "If you could tell us what’s wrong?" 

The new hologram flickered once, then turned to face them.

"Hello," it said. "I am Crell Moset, Chief Exobiology specialist Cardassia Prime certified to perform all surgical procedures."

Li-Paz’s eyes widened, and he made a snorting, scoff of a laugh that held absolutely no humour, then tugged up his uniform sleeve, exposing the long, ugly burn scar beneath that Lan had seen a few times before. 

"That’s what’s wrong," Li-Paz said, his voice choking. "He’s what’s wrong." He pointed at the holographic Cardassian, and Lan finally understood what he was saying. 

Chapter Text

Cavit stood in the centre of the Bridge’s recessed command area and tried to keep his mind where he was, not four decks down in Sickbay. On the viewscreen, the alien vessel—damaged, lights fluctuating—remained. 

One thing at a time. His usual mantra wasn’t working, though. Jeff. 

"How’s it going, Alex?" he said, judging it had been long enough since he’d asked for an update from his chief engineer—and trying to force his attention on the problem he could do something about. 

"It’s not often I get to lie down on the job, Captain," Honigsberg’s voice came back over the channel with a trace of humour as well as obvious discomfort. "These interfaces are complex, and the chemoreceptive interfaces are slowing us down—but what’s really worrying me are the power readings."

Cavit agreed. "It looks like the power systems are destabilizing to us, Alex." He exchanged a glance with Culhane, who had ops, and the man nodded.

"That’s definitely what it looks like here, too. I don’t know that I’ll be able to fix it, Captain—if I had room for a team, and time to fine-tune some sort of chemical modulation device, maybe—but as-is, I’m basically using a hypospray to issue basic commands to a system that seems to be in total freefall." He paused, grunted, and said. "Seven, did that help?" 

From Astrometrics, the voice of Seven of Nine replied, "A data connection has been established. It is inefficient." 

"It’s running through a jury-rigged hypospray, my tricorder, and the best guesses of the UT, Seven," Honigsberg said. "It’ll have to do." 

"Crewman Cir and Eru are adjusting for the translation lag," Seven said. "We shall adapt."

Cavit, despite everything, felt his lips twitch at Seven of Nine’s statement. He turned to Culhane. "Keep an eye on the power over there. If there’s even a hint things are degrading past a red-line—"

"I’ll have the transporter room beam him right off," Culhane nodded.

Good man.

Behind him, the turbolift doors opened, and Ro stepped out. She glanced at the screen, then—this felt ominous—Stadi rose from the Conn, nodding to Crewman Todd Frank at one of the relief stations to take the helm. 

"You have an update?" Cavit said, swallowing past his worry. Jeff.

"Could we talk in your Ready Room?" Ro said. Her expression was closed off—in a way he’d sadly gotten used to seeing ever since they’d traveled through that Void—but it seemed even more tightly controlled than ever. 

"Stadi," Cavit said, controlling his voice through willpower alone. "You have the Bridge."

*

It might have been a delaying tactic, but he paused to replicate two cups of Earl Grey tea, feeling that this was one of those rare moments Ro had once told him about where she preferred the beverage, and frankly he could use a hit of something fortifying himself. 

Especially if she was about to tell him Jeff was even worse than before. He took a small measure of comfort in knowing Kes and Emmett would never allow her to deliver the worst news to him, but there were many shades of grey between worst and bad. 

"Thank you," she said, taking the mug, and after a brief hesitation, she joined him at the table where he sat on the upper area, between a planters currently growing some herbs they’d picked up at Travers III. 

"Do me a favour and just tell me," Cavit said, realizing his hand was shaking. He put his tea down.

Ro’s small frown was there-and-gone-again, and then her eyes widened. "Oh, Captain, no, I’m sorry. It’s not… that." 

He frowned. Relief flooded through him, but also… What was the problem, then?

Ro put her own mug down. "It’s the consultant program. It’s based on Crell Moset."

"Sorry." Cavit did his best to follow, but failed—Who? And why was it a problem? "I don’t know the name."

 Ro took a deep breath, and if he’d had to lay odds, he’d say he’d seen something like utter frustration—maybe some disappointment—on her features, but once again it had been the briefest glimpse before she’d subsumed it back under this hard veneer she wore so often now.

"I’m not surprised," she said. "He’s a Cardassian doctor. An infamous one, according to Li-Paz."

"This Doctor Moset," Cavit said, starting to piece together a darker picture. "He was part of the Occupation?"

"He was." Ro picked up her mug, and held it. "Have you ever seen the burn scars on Li-Paz’s arm?"

Cavit shook his head. The picture grew bleaker still.  

"Acid burns. They’re bad," Ro said. "Li-Paz doesn’t talk about them—has never really talked about them—though I know he didn’t have them fixed because he believed it would be like forgetting or erasing all the people who didn’t survive." She swallowed, and Cavit realized Ro Laren was working up to telling him something—that’s how worried she was about how he’d react to what she said. "Li-Paz says those scars were were made by Doctor Moset, and Doctor Moset is the reason nearly all of Li-Paz’s family died—and countless others—during the occupation. He used them for experiments."

"Oh God. " Cavit put a hand over his mouth, doing his best to imagine what it must have been like for Li-Paz to suddenly see that man from his past. "That must have been… Is he all right?" 

"Lan took him to Atara," Ro said. "Which I think is the right move, and I’ll go check on him once we’re done."

"There’s more," Cavit said, hearing the unsaid in her tone. 

Ro nodded slowly. "Emmett believes he needs the information and expertise in this hologram to move forward, and when he said so—Li-Paz threatened to delete Moset."

Cavit flinched. "Move forward" means "save Jeff."

"According to Sahreen, Emmett pointed out Crell Moset cured the fostossa virus and Li-Paz said the only reason he managed to cure the virus was because he willingly infected Bajorans and used experimental treatments until he hit on a cure—which he then used on the infected Cardassians first."

Cavit grimaced, wanting to believe the universe wouldn’t allow something so cruel to be true, but knowing full well that wasn’t how it worked. "Do we have any records of this?"

Ro frowned at him.

"Sorry, that wasn’t…" Cavit held up his hands. "I didn’t mean to sound like I was dismissing Li-Paz. I’m not. But if I do the math, he would have been a child at the time, wouldn’t he?" 

She nodded, grudgingly conceding that point, he thought. "I had Setok look into the xenobiological database files, and a significant portion of the data comes directly from Moset’s work—after the armistice and the Cardassian retreat from Bajor, apparently Starfleet Medical, Daystrom, and the Medical Exchange Program had open sharing with the Cardassian government; Moset is their lead exobiologist."

Cavit leaned back in his chair. "So Starfleet Medical accepted work from a man who willingly infected people to experiment on them? That’s hard to believe."

"No it’s not," Ro said, and Cavit blinked, genuinely taken aback.

"What do you mean?" he said.

"You’d never heard of him. The Occupation prided itself on throttling information about what was really happening on Bajor. No one who wasn’t there knows how bad it was, and Cardassia would never have handed over files that implicated themselves in atrocities." She swallowed some tea. "Further atrocities, I mean. Beyond the ones no one could deny." Her gaze didn’t break from his. "We both know the Federation had no idea how bad it was right up until the moment the Cardassians left, even though Bajoran refugees had been telling them what was happening the entire time." 

He didn’t look away. "You’re right," he said. 

She took a breath. "I need you to understand what it will mean if you move forward using the knowledge of Crell Moset."

"Okay," he said.

"Li-Paz will resign his commission—he already promised to do that if we didn’t delete the data," Ro Laren said. "I’m fairly certain Atara will as well, and perhaps more of the former Maquis—in solidarity if not being directly affected like Paz—but more to the point—" She stopped, her voice rough and raw, and Cavit realized he was being unfair. She was barely holding back emotions he was fairly sure she’d never want him to see.

Don’t make her do it. 

"More to the point," Cavit said. "Using that data is tantamount to collusion. You don’t have to say it. I’m a student of military history—humanity’s past is rife with this sort of thing, unfortunately." He heard the edge of anger in his own voice, and tried to pull it back. That thing is killing Jeff. Emmett doesn’t know how to get it off him. The only solution we have is a Cardassian torturer. His thoughts kept spinning in circles, but he couldn’t find a way to stop them.

Ro nodded. "I’m sorry, Captain."

"I need to…" Cavit bit off the words before he could finish the sentiment that had been rising up like gorge. Need to what? Say goodbye? He cleared his throat. "I need to go to Sickbay."

"I’ll do everything I can to get information out of that ship," Ro said. "If we can contact these aliens…"

Cavit nodded, but he was already moving. It wasn’t like him to not answer, to walk out while someone was speaking, but he needed to get to the turbolift, to Sickbay, to Jeff. He didn’t so much as glance at Stadi or Rollins or any of the other crew on the Bridge.

He didn’t even realize he was holding the mug of tea until some of it burned his thumb when he spilled it in the turbolift.

"Sickbay," he said. 

*

Cir eyed the data from the original transmission, and the slowly-building, but piecemeal information being transferred live from the vessel to Voyager’s interface transceiver. 

Over his shoulder, Ensign Nettus said, "The computer isn’t locking on to any commonalities."

"I think we’re looking at a completely different communication style—if not an entirely different language," Cir’s eyes flicked back and forth. "The commonalities are there, but they’re not syntactical or even vocabulary-based… They’re… the feel." He glanced at the Denobulan. "Did you read our logs on the Hisith?" 

The Denobulan nodded. "Reptohumanoids whose language had verbal, visual, and scent-based components."

"They used symbology to replace the verbal and scent parts of their language in writing form—and it turned out they used a visual range beyond most humanoid’s capability to see, which made it hard for us to translate at first, but I don’t think this species’s written and auditory languages work that way." He crossed his arms, pointing at a series of patterns. "There’s an ebb and flow, sure—I’m pretty sure their audible language has an object-verb-subject construction: using Sato protocols, I get damage-suffer-ship or something close to that. But when you look at the data storage…" 

Eru, at the next station, picked up where he allowed the words to drift off. "There’s nothing as straightforward, and little to no repeating patterns. It’s more like ancient Bajoran—single symbols containing entire phrasal meanings or concepts. Instead of three sounds for damage-suffer-ship, they’ve likely got a single compound symbol that translates as a distress call, and multiple varietals offering context."

"So the trick is for us to tease out the compound components," Nettus said. "Find the building blocks of the written language."

"Which may be chemical," Cir said. "In fact, I’m betting on it—these aliens utilize a chemoreceptive control system, which means they have acute control over their own secretions and likely have sensory capabilities as well." He took a moment. "An imperfect analogy would be you or I reading via taste."

"Something’s wrong with the interface transceiver," Eru said, frowning. Cir glanced at the readout and saw his mate was correct: the data transfer was destabilizing, and it was starting to affect all the data they already had gathered in the buffer.

"There’s an overload on the vessel," Mestral said from the other side of the lab. "Lieutenant Honigsberg, Main Engineering, and Seven of Nine are attempting to stop it, but the damage to the vessel was severe, and the Chief is having little luck with repairs."

Cir locked his eyes on the data, and reached out to Eru telepathically—then called in his daughters as well, both of whom were currently on their meal break, but who slid into their smaller, quartet of a Chorus after the barest of request from his part. Bolstered by their aid, Cir impressed every facet of the data into his memory. 

*

Cavit came around the corner, saw the man waiting for him outside Sickbay, and came to a slow stop.

Crewman Li-Paz saw him, and raised one hand. The man’s eyes were red with a mix of anger and pain. "Captain, I need to speak to you—"

"Dad," Li-Nis, in her cadet blue uniform, put a hand on his shoulder, then turned to Cavit as well. "I tried to keep him in our quarters, Captain, but—"

"It’s fine, Nis," Cavit said, wishing that were true. "Paz and I should talk, yes."

Li-Nis’s expression softened, and she glanced at the door to Sickbay. 

"You can stay here, Nis, I know they need all hands," Cavit said. "We can use Jeff’s office. I’ll be back to see him after we’re done talking."

Li-Nis looked like she wanted to argue, but Li-Paz’s jaw set, and he nodded at his daughter. 

They walked the curve of the deck five corridor in silence, and stepping into Jeff’s office made Cavit’s entire body tighten with worst-case-scenarios. The beautiful round wall carving of a tree that had been a gift from the late Lora Schmidt seemed like a dark omen just waiting to pounce on him.

People die, and after they’re gone, you hang stone memories on walls. 

Cavit forced himself to gesture to one of the chairs, and took the other—not Jeff’s. The counselling office was soft, and warm, and inviting, and Jeff was dying. He put the mug down before he spilled more tea.

Li-Paz’s hands were clenched into fists on his knees. When the Bajoran man had first come aboard Voyager after they’d decided to abandon the Li Nalas, his name had come up more than once as a problem. Jeff had championed the cause of the man—and the few others like him—pointing out this was a situation that needed empathy, consideration, and teaching, not more rules and punishments.

"The Doctor Fitzgerald I know would never want the help of Crell Moset," Li-Paz said, in a voice just shy of outright anger. 

It took more self-control than Cavit had known he possessed not to tell Li-Paz what to do with his opinions of Cavit’s own damned husband, whether or not he agreed. He clenched his jaw, forcing himself not to reply, and Li-Paz seemed to take that as disagreement. 

"There was a scenario he put us through on the holodeck, way back when," Li-Paz said. "Admiral Pressman, I think his name was. An illegal cloaking device."

"I know it," Cavit said. 

"At the time, I was confused, because he was teaching us how to be better Starfleet Officers, and here was an admiral breaking all the rules," Li-Paz said. His hands continued to tremble as he spoke. "But that’s because he was teaching us that some lines don’t get crossed. That if you’re ordered to do something wrong, it’s your duty not to do it." He swallowed. "Captain, I know what I’m asking. Next to Lieutenant Russell, Doctor Fitzgerald did more for me than anyone on this ship, but—Crell Moset killed my entire family. Would have killed me. The things he did—cutting people open to burn them with nadion radiation just to see…" His breath shuddered. 

"Paz," Cavit said softly. It felt like a repeat of the moment with Ro. It was cruel to make him say these things, to open those wounds just so Cavit could hear more things to soothe the decision he already knew he needed to make. 

"No, Captain, I don’t need pity, I need you to not—"

"I’m going to delete the program," Cavit said. "And the files." 

The Bajoran man met his gaze. A beat passed. Then he sobbed, once. A wracking, pained sound that Cavit could tell had been only the tiniest slip in the man’s self-control. Li-Paz swiped at his cheek with one hand, then said, "Permission to join Seven of Nine and the rest of the team in Main Engineering, sir? I’m not so bad at getting computers to speak the same language, and I know Gavin and Kimble are working on it, too." 

Cavit managed a nod. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

I might have just decided to let you die, Jeff.  

Li-Paz paused at the door to the counselling office. "I’m sorry, Captain," he said. "I wish—" He swallowed, exhaled, then left.

Cavit rose again, then headed back to Sickbay.

*

Doctor Emmett Hall watched Crell Moset regard the alien being wrapped around the unconscious Doctor Fitzgerald. 

"Hmm," the hologram said. "I can see why you're having difficulty."

"It's physiology doesn't match any of the standard templates in our database," Emmett said. 

"My guess would be a cytoplasmic lifeform." Moset’s tone held nothing but confidence, and Emmett’s own confidence in this being the path to success rose in response. That had been his conclusion, but only after extensive study. 

Moset’s program had figured that out with bare-bones data and a glance. 

"I agree. And from what I can tell it has co-opted his vital systems," Emmett said. 

"I’m afraid I’ll need a more detailed assessment to begin to find a solution to that." Crell traced a finger along the creature’s spine. It didn’t react. "You have an isomolecular scanner?" Crell said, aiming the question at Nurse T’Prena.

"No," T’Prena replied. "We have access to standard Federation medical equipment."

"We also have a Vidiian device that is a great deal more accurate at targeting specific genetic markers," Kes added. "But even it struggled to deal with the level of integration the alien has with Doctor Fitzgerald’s biology."

"No wonder you're having problems making an accurate diagnosis," Moset said. "I suggested an upgrade to the Starfleet people at a joint medical conference, but they assumed I was just an arrogant Cardassian trying to prove his superiority. Or maybe they thought I was a spy."

Emmett shook his head, wondering at the level of ignorance required to wilfully ignore an opportunity to progress medical technology for the better of all. "I hope you weren't too offended," Emmett said.

The doors to Sickbay opened as Moset waved a hand. "It’s an unfortunate reality," the Cardassian said, turning his attention to Captain Cavit as the man approached. "Sometimes even enlightened races can't find common ground. I may be able to recalibrate your tricorder, however."

"That won’t be necessary," Cavit said, in a cold, hard voice that Emmett didn’t like one bit.

Emmett frowned. "Captain?"

"Emmett," Cavit said. "I’m going to need you to do this without Doctor Moset’s aid. There’s no ethical use of knowledge attained via torture and illegal experimentation."

"As I said," Moset said, audibly annoyed. "Sometimes even enlightened races can’t—"

"Computer, discontinue medical consultant program," Cavit said.

Moset shimmered out of existence. Emmett’s algorithms considered the set of Cavit’s shoulders, the knowledge of his relationship with Doctor Fitzgerald, and all the other data at hand and came to the conclusion the captain was completely serious.

"Captain," Emmett said. "I don’t know that I can do this without—"

"Try." Cavit looked at T’Prena and Kes. "Take whoever you need, whatever you need."

"And if what I need is the help of Doctor Moset?" Emmett said. "Captain, this is a man’s life we’re talking about." 

"You think I don’t know that?" Cavit’s anger took Emmett aback. "That’s my husband, Emmett." He pointed to the still form of Doctor Fitzgerald on the surgical biobed. "But we both know he’d never allow this, no matter what I—" He coughed, pausing. A red flush had crept up his neck. 

"We’ll do our best, Captain," Kes said. Her soft voice broke the tension in the moment, and Cavit’s arm, shaking, lowered to his side.

Emmett’s program wouldn’t allow him to ignore one final attempt. "Captain, are we sure Crewman Li-Paz’s claims are founded?"  

"He believes it," Cavit said. "And he lived it, not you, not me."

"He remembers it, Emmett," Kes said, and Emmett looked at her. He saw not a trace of doubt in her gaze. "He only told me a little, not much more than he’s told you, but if even half of it is true, then you know this it’s impossible to use his knowledge ethically."

Emmett took a breath, and faced Cavit. "We truly don’t know where to begin." 

"I know," Cavit said. "And you’re not the only ones working on this. Alex’s team is trying to download the database from the alien vessel, Cir is working on translating their language… We might be able to call for help." He paused. "Now, I’ll leave you to it."

Emmett heard the hope in the man’s voice, and the pain. 

"Kes, call for Setok, Kovar, and Miss Sullivan," Emmett said. If he was going to do this, he’d take all the help he could get. 

"Yes, Doctor."

Cavit stepped into the surgical bay. Kes and Nurse T’Prena were already moving elsewhere, and Emmett paused only long enough to watch the Captain whisper something softly into Doctor Fitzgerald’s ear before the hologram headed back to his office to attempt to construct a functional model of the alien being’s biology from the ground up.

He sincerely hoped the engineering crew were having more success than he imagined he would.

*

"Commander, I’m picking up increasing fluctuations in the alien ship's power source," Lan said from Ops. "It’s hitting our estimated redline."

"Transporter Room," Ro said.

"Energizing," came the voice of Dean Tamal. 

"We’ve got Alex," Lan said. 

"The overload is disrupting the interface transceiver." Seven of Nine’s voice from Main Engineering had grown to that even, controlled way she had of speaking when she was up against something that refused to co-operate. "Re-initialize."

"Commander," Rollins said, and Ro nodded at him.

"Red Alert," she said. "Stadi back us off."

"The power spikes are overloading the transceiver," Lan said.

"Cut the connection," Ro said.

"The power containment field is about to—" Lan began.

On the viewscreen, the vessel exploded. Voyager rocked gently, safe behind shields and the distance Stadi had put between them. 

Ro closed her eyes for a moment, then turned to Lan. "The database?"

Lan shook her head. "We got maybe a third? And the power imbalance fried the transceiver. I’m not sure if the data will be intact."

"Seven?" Ro said, raising her chin, knowing the former Borg would still be listening. 

"Much of the data is compromised," Seven of Nine said. "I do not believe we will be able to reconstruct it." 

"Cir to Bridge." Their linguist’s voice joined the conversation. 

"Go ahead," Ro said.

"Eru, Ahn, and Jeta can reconstruct the data we had," Cir said. "I’ll keep working."

"How do you intend to restore the data?" Seven of Nine’s voice sounded skeptical at best.

"I had them look at it while we still had the connection," Cir said. "They’ll do it from memory."

A soft snort of relieved laughter from Lan echoed Ro’s own thoughts. 

"Good job," she said instead. 

As far as she was aware from Emmett’s reports, finding more of these aliens was likely their only viable shot at saving Doctor Fitzgerald’s life. 

Chapter Text

Doctor Li-Kes Aren pressed one hypo to Doctor Fitzgerald’s neck, and the next to the alien being near where their scans best believed its own circulatory system was easiest accessible. She noted both the alien’s position and the human man’s still form. Neither had moved. Beside her, Nurse T’Prena watched the displays above the two beings.

"Doctor Fitzgerald’s kidney and liver stress appears reduced," T’Prena said. 

Kes considered the readings. "Which likely means we delivered some of what the alien needed."

"A logical conclusion," T’Prena said. "I will monitor the duration of the reprieve."

"Thank you, T’Prena," Kes said. 

She left the Vulcan nurse there and headed to the med-lab area of Sickbay, where Doctor Emmett Hall and Setok stood side-by-side. Kes frowned, not seeing her daughter, or Rebecca Sullivan or Kovar, then realized all three were seated in Emmett’s office.

Likely running simulations. 

"The injection appears to support our theory," Kes said. 

"The cytoplasmic life-form reduced its demands on Doctor Fitzgerald’s liver?" Setok said.

"Yes," Kes said.

Emmett called up the data from the surgical bio-bed scanners. "And the injection we gave the alien—the closest we could come to the proteins and hormones it appeared to be utilizing his liver to produce?"

"We’re still working on achieving clear readings on the alien being itself," Kes said. "But the compensatory hypo we gave Doctor Fitzgerald can’t account for the full amount of change."

"Which makes it most likely we’ve created something at least compatible with the needs of the cytoplasmic being," Emmett said, he smiled at the two of them. "Well done. We’ve bought ourselves more time." 

Kes watched him reach forward and tap the comm panel on the wall next to the centrifuge, and knew what was coming next. "Sickbay to Engineering. Any chance you’ve finished those upgrades?" 

"Not yet, Emmett." Lieutenant Sahreen Lan’s response—and that fact she was answering, rather than Lieutenant Honigsberg—didn’t fill Kes with confidence. "The Vidiian scanner isn’t playing nice with the medical tricorder—the same problem we’ve had since step one, we need a power conversation matrix to make them work together, but that spits out interference that affects the quality of the scan—but Alex is conversing with his inner Enaran—he thinks there might be away to adapt the power converter to siphon away the excess energy in a way that doesn’t cause interference."

"Sooner would be better than later, Lieutenant."

"I believe you’re made that clear," Lan said. 

Emmett blinked, then closed the channel. 

"Everyone knows we have to be as quick as possible, Emmett," Kes said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He might be made of light and forcefields, but she’d always found he had a tendency to take things personally; in fact, she thought Emmett’s tendency to take affront happened because he still struggled with accepting others believed him to be a person, sometimes. 

"Might it be a good idea to continue under the assumption we might never gain a clear scan of the alien?" Setok said, turning on his stool. 

"If we’re relegated to treating the alien by making assumptions based off what it’s doing to Doctor Fitzgerald," Emmett said. "Our hopes of success plummet." 

"I wish I could reach its mind," Kes said. "Or that the Chorus could." 

"I believe Emmett’s hypothesis is correct there, Doctor," Setok said. "The being is in something akin to a hibernation-state, or a Vulcan healing trance—even assuming we could reach the being telepathically, I believe right now the mind is simply… unavailable."

Kes agreed—unfortunately—and regarded the readings again. So many things were askew in Doctor Fitzgerald’s biology that they were fighting a losing battle on multiple fronts, but she believed there was a solution. There had to be.

The solution may have been the man who hurt Li-Paz and killed most of his family. 

A small part of her considered an option she knew she couldn’t take: the Moset files remained in the computer. Captain Cavit had told them all not to use them, that he would delete them, as well as the holographic personality they’d made based on the files, and she believed him—though she wondered if he hadn’t yet taken that final step for the same reason the awareness of the files were pulling on her own mind.

What if..?

It was a question Kes had learned to love over her lifetime. Imagination, curiosity—her fellow Ocampa back on her home world had often declared her desire to see more, know more, experience more her worst impulse. But after time with Voyager’s crew, she’d instead come to believe it her greatest strength.

Only now, knowing information existed that might be useful…

He’d never forgive me. Neither would Doctor Fitzgerald. 

Her sense of Li-Paz rose to the surface—she knew he’d thrown himself into attempting to help the engineering teams come up with solutions with the alien technology—and she caught a thrum of his determination.

And fear. 

"If we can’t speak with the alien, then I’d like to attempt to counter the paralytic next," Emmett said, snapping Kes away from the brief telepathic contact with her husband. 

"The paralytic?" she said, surprised for a moment, then realizing what it was Emmett thought might be gained by undoing the effect. "You want to try and speak to Doctor Fitzgerald." 

"He’s a gifted neurologist, a trained physician, and surgeon." Emmett turned to face her and Setok. "If we can reach him, he might be able to tell us more about what’s happening to his body. After all, he’s the patient himself."

*

Seven of Nine frowned as Li-Paz arrived in Astrometrics.

"Crewman?" she said. 

"Hit a wall with the coding, and Kimble and Gavin are better at it than I am anyway—so I thought I’d steal one of your side-consoles and try to work on things from another vector." Li-Paz pointed to one side of Astrometrics, where—currently—no one was working. "I’ll be quiet."

His tone was certainly less boisterous than usual.

"Which vector are you attempting to pursue?" she said. Li-Paz shared a particular quality Seven of Nine had found prevalent among the Maquis: a reliance on what they tended to term instinct. While the actual inference that humanoids processed information without conscious focus in a way that led to correct hypotheticals was not logical, the statistically significant number of scenarios where she’d noted her fellow crew placed "instinct" as the root of their original investigation led her to believe it was a phenomenon worth further study. 

"I keep thinking about how that distress signal locked onto us and followed us when we tried to avoid it," Li-Paz said. "Before we knew it was harmless. It struck me that’s the only information we have about how their communications system worked, and with everything else going on, no one has taken the time to really look at it." 

Seven of Nine paused in her work. As Cir, Ahn, Jeta, and Eru reconstructed the data from the alien vessel, she’d been utilizing Borg algorithms to attempt to aid their efforts at decryption—functionally, her progress had been slow, but she’d managed gross categorizations that had allowed them to isolate what she believed to have been the vessel’s operating system, separate from logs or other data. 

Crewman Cir had been greatly pleased by this. She intended to be useful again—the satisfaction of even a modicum of forward effort had been a balm to her otherwise frustrated state. The answer to removing the alien life form from Doctor Fitzgerald might be located in the data they downloaded. 

She’d found herself imagining Doctor Fitzgerald asking her why she’d found the situation frustrating, and considered how she’d phrase her reply. 

You are a valued member of the crew. Your loss would be great.

"I will send the data to the station," Seven of Nine said, banishing the irrelevant and hypothetical discussion.

*

Li-Paz’s arm hurt.

It didn’t, of course. Not really. It was a phantom pain, one that only tended to return when he’d what were now, thankfully, rare nightmares. Though he imagined once he finally had no choice but to sleep, he’d be due a visit from that monster.

Don’t. Focus on the data. 

He replayed the distress call energy wave interacting with Voyager, and found himself returning to the same position he’d been in when he’d started.

Complete mystification. It didn’t act like any communication signal he’d ever seen. It barely acted like a program at all. He couldn’t decide if that meant it was a complex program or not a program in the first place.

He wanted to pace, and to speak his partial thoughts out loud, but he knew Seven of Nine would hate that, and he was in her space. Also, he was supposed to be off duty now, and he didn’t want anyone to realize it.

That’s because the person who would most likely realize it is dying.

He closed his eyes, took a deep, steadying breath of the kind Atara Ram always told him he should take when he was getting angry with himself, and then looked at the data again, watching the energy wave seemingly swoop toward Voyager the moment Voyager shifted its position…

Wait.

"What if it’s not the signal?" Li-Paz said, then flinched, looking at Seven of Nine, but she stood ram-rod straight at the upper console, and didn’t so much as pause in her work. 

He turned back to the sensor logs, and slowed down the playback as much as possible, then isolated the motion of the energy wave against Voyager’s course correction.

It’s not reacting to Voyager’s vector, it’s reacting to Voyager’s wake. 

Which meant…

He stared, waiting for another thought to come, and failing. 

Then he tapped his combadge.

"Li-Paz to Atara. Do you have a second?"

"Of course." Atara’s reply came almost instantly. "Where are you?"

"Astrometrics," Li-Paz said. "Seven gave me room room to work on something—but I think I need both your opinions on what I think I’ve found."

"On my way."

No sooner had the channel closed than Seven of Nine said, "Explain."

He turned, and she’d stepped down from the main console to join him. 

"Probably better to wait until you’re both here, so I don’t sound like a lunatic twice," Li-Paz said.

Seven of Nine raised her organic eyebrow in his direction, but didn’t comment on his choice of words.

When Ram arrived, Li-Paz showed them the replay of the motion of the wave, and said, "Is it just me, or is the communication wave not actually targeting Voyager so much as it’s reacting to the wake Voyager is making in subspace—which makes it head toward Voyager?"

"You are correct," Seven of Nine said, frowning now. 

"Yes," Atara said, moving a bit closer. "Functionally that’s the same thing—it ends up honing on on any vessel creating any sort of subspace well—but it’s like using a navigational system to communicate." He shook his head. "How would you even make that work?"

"That’s why I wanted you two," Li-Paz said. "I’m a systems man—this is… Propulsion. Sort of." 

"The wave’s structure contains a discrete lattice of particles affected by changes in subspace," Seven of Nine said, applying multiple filters Li-Paz figured were probably Borg in origin. 

"And it’s stable because it’s also using subspace to keep that lattice in place," Atara said, pointing. 

"Agreed," Seven of Nine said.

"Please tell me subspace wakes and lattices are useful information," Li-Paz said. 

"All insight into the alien’s methodology for organization and transmission of information is useful," Seven of Nine said. "I will forward this to Crewman Cir. He may infer further patterns. He is a gifted linguist."

That, Li-Paz thought, was something of an understatement.

"Dauntless," Atara said. 

Li-Paz glanced at him, frowning. "What?"

"Prophets…" Atara said, his eyes flicking over the replay. "Bronowski said that Dauntless made a wake, and that’s the only reason Voyager could catch up…"

"Sorry, are we talking quantum slipstream now?" Li-Paz said, frowning at the two of them, but Seven of Nine’s brilliant blue eyes were also locked back on the data as well. 

"This could be adapted," Seven of Nine said. 

"Wait, though. Wouldn’t you need something ahead—to create the wake?" Atara’s tone turned downcast. 

"Yes," Seven of Nine said. "Perhaps the Delta Flyer could be modified."

"You’re right," Atara said. "It’s tough enough—we could split the benamite…"

"Hi," Li-Paz said, waving a hand. "Not a propulsion expert, remember?"

"Paz," Atara said, pointing. "This might mean we can adapt the QSD to work on Voyager."

"Oh," Li-Paz said, looking back at the display, where the signal once again shifted as Voyager moved. "That’s… that’s good."

But it won’t help Doctor Fitzgerald. 

*

Lieutenant Zandra Taitt stepped into the Life Sciences Lab. Mestral and Nettus remained to one side, almost discretely, while Cir, Eru, Ahn, and Jeta had a half-dozen PADDs scattered across the large table display, as well as no less than three screens of linguistic analysis loaded. 

"You wanted to see me?" she said, eying what they’d gathered but gleaning no real insight into it at a glance. Linguistics had never been a strong suit, and from the looks of things, this language—or was it languages?—looked to be particularly complex.

"Yes, Lieutenant," Cir said, nodding and rising from his chair, pausing only to pick up one of the PADDs. "I believe we’ve gained a specific understanding enough of the alien broadcast language to craft a request for aid of our own." 

Taitt looked at the PADD—what she saw there made her glance back up. "This looks like a chemical formula almost."

"You’re not wrong, Lieutenant," Jeta said, with a small smile. "The language the aliens use, like that distress call we first picked up, is a latticed subspace structure that reacts to the disruptions in subspace other vessels create, creating a collision."

"We believe ships translate the whole into a chemical compound which the aliens then interpret with their chemoreceptive physiology," Cir said. 

"Which utilizes a different linguistic structure from both their written language, their computer language, and—we believe—their audible language, though we’re not even sure they have one of those, in fact," Eru said. "The screeches might well have been the universal translator making incorrect assumptions—assigning sound instead of that lattice because most languages use sound."

"Thank you for this. The Captain was intending to replay the message we received," Taitt said, noting Cir’s "translation" included that he’d attempted to convey that they had rescued an injured alien, but were struggling to treat it. "We’d hoped repeating the distress call might bring more of their kind—this is better."

"Repeating their call would be a bad idea, Lieutenant," Cir said. "We’re still working with inference a great deal, but I’d wager the original signal wasn’t just a distress call but a warning the vessel was under attack. If more aliens arrived and found only the destroyed alien ship—"

"They might assume we were the ones who destroyed it," Taitt said, exhaling. "If we do manage to get their attention—can we talk to them? Ask them to remove the injured alien from Doctor Fitzgerald?" She knew that would be the Captain’s first instinct—and the priority. 

The quartet exchanged glances, and none of them looked particularly confident, not even Cir.

"It took us a few hours to put that together," Cir said, and she could hear the apology in his tone. "Their subspace communication language is a gestalt—you have to have the whole message, and it’s all sent at once. We could start working on something pre-prepared, and it will take time…" He held spread his hands. "But live communication with these aliens might not be something I can give you."

"Get started on it," Taitt said. "I’ll take this to the Bridge and we’ll figure out a way to create this level of precision." 

"Jeta," Eru said softly, and Taitt glanced up. 

Jeta bit her lip, but at her mother’s prompting, she said, "Given how the communication signals  react to subspace fields, I think the navigational deflector should be capable of creating the lattice signal."

"That’s…" Taitt blinked, looked at the PADD, then back up again. "A great idea. Thank you." Then she smiled at Eru, who gave her a proud-mother nod in return. 

"Crewman Li-Paz is the one who figured out what was happening with the communication signals," Jeta said. "Well, along with Seven of Nine and Crewman Atara."

"People are going to love working with you, Cadet," Taitt said. "You’re quick to point out collaboration, and reticent to accept praise."  

Jeta’s light brown skin darkened with a slight flush. "Thank you, Lieutenant." 

Taitt lifted the PADD again. "Let me know if you need anything else—and I know we’re all worried about Doctor Fitzgerald, but if you need to take a break…" 

"I’ll drag him out for dinner, Lieutenant," Eru said, nodding at Cir, who gave her a fond—if maybe exasperated—look, before finally nodding himself. 

Taitt left them to it. 

*

Lieutenant Alexander Honigsberg carried the scanner into Sickbay with both arms, nodding to Li-Nis, Sullivan, and Kovar in the office—the Vulcan man’s eyebrows rose, but none of the three of them made any comment—before finding Emmett and Kes standing at the lab.

"One scanner," he said.

Emmett turned, stared at him, and said, "It’s massive." 

"It’s also heavy, so if you could wheel that stand over," Honigsberg said, none too patiently.

Kes moved the trolly over, and he finally put it down with a grunt. 

"I don’t even recognize that as a scanner," Emmett said. 

"That’s because you’re looking at one of the transporter targeting scanners from the Amundsen, cross-wired to work with Vidiian isolating arrays, then all funnelled through Enaran waste energy modules—which we had to both upscale and adjust to work via one of the last Kolhari Tetryon power cells we had charged—and oh, right, this is your scanner. 

He pulled a hand-held T-shaped scanner from a side-cradle, which was attached to the bulky unit with a cable.

"It has a cord?" Emmett said, even more incredulous now.

"That cord is full of more Enaran tech to stop the interference from—" Honigsberg started, doing his best not to let his temper flare, then shook his head. "Emmett, we’ve been working on this for most of the day, and this is the only way we can get the Vidiian tech to work with a medical tricorder and our medical database, so forgive me if I didn’t prioritize the usual sleek approach, okay?" 

"Of course," Emmett said.

"Can you show me how to use it?" Kes said.

Honigsberg helped them wheel it into the surgical bay, and then powered it up while Kes held the cord and scanner and slowly passed it over the cytoplasmic life form attached to Doctor Fitzgerald. 

"I know that’s not as good as you’d get with a tricorder on a humanoid," Honigsberg began, once he saw the data loading onto the surgical biobed’s monitor. He could see there were gaps, as well as indistinct readings along some areas that he thought might be where the alien’s biology ended and Doctor Fitzgerald’s began, but he was no doctor. "But—"

"No, this is much improved," Emmett said, pointing. "Kes, look at the filaments spread through his liver."

Okay, that was a phrase that was going to live forevermore in his head, Honigsberg thought. Right up there with stolen lungs.

This was why he stuck to Main Engineering.

"It’s the same with his nervous system," Kes said. "It’s not just the twin structures we saw pierce Doctor Fitzgerald’s neck from the alien’s proboscis—" 

"Okay," Honigsberg said, clapping his hands. "I’ll leave you two to it."

He backed out of the surgical bay, but not before he heard Emmett say, "This is worse than we thought."

Shit.

*

Captain Cavit came out of his Ready Room when Ro summoned him, and sat beside her, stony-faced as Stadi and Lan worked to align the Navigational Deflector to emit what they believed would be a call for aid from more of the aliens. 

She’d read the update from Emmett. No doubt Cavit had as well. 

"Deflector is ready," Stadi said. 

Ro glanced at Cavit, but he was still staring directly ahead. Had he even heard Stadi?

"Transmit the signal," Ro said. 

"Transmitting," Lan said.

Voyager vibrated beneath them, and in space, a visible wave of distortion burst free, the stars around them appearing watery and indistinct for a moment before the wave, moving off at faster-than-light speeds, was so far gone it had no further effect. 

Ro only hoped someone would hear it. 

Chapter Text

Cavit counted the seconds it took to arrive in Sickbay. Seventeen in the turbolift, then ten more to stride down the hallway and reach the door. Five more to pass Li-Nis and Setok and get to the surgical bay. 

One to feel his heart in his chest at the sight of Jeff’s open eyes. 

"You’re awake," Cavit said, losing the count and moving to sit beside him. The creature was still wrapped around his husband, and his husband’s neck was still pierced by the being’s proboscis, but Jeff Fitzgerald was awake. 

"We managed to develop a counter-agent to the paralytic in his bloodstream," Emmett said quietly, a half-step to the side. "Doctor Fitzgerald’s insights might aid us in understanding more of what is going on, but he insisted on speaking to you as well."

"Don’t… let them…" Fitzgerald’s voice barely registered, so little breath was behind it. 

Cavit squeezed his hand, waiting for him to get the words out. The determination on his husband’s pale face was unmistakable. 

As was his exhaustion. 

"…use… Moset," his husband finished. 

Cavit glanced at Emmett, heat rising in his chest. "Emmett?"

"It’s my duty to explain all options of treatment to a patient," Emmett said, meeting his gaze without even the slightest hint of remorse. 

"It was never an option," Cavit said, turning back to Fitzgerald. "I knew you’d never want…" His voice tightened, and he had to pause and swallow. 

Fitzgerald’s blueish lips turned up in the barest of smiles. He blinked slowly. "Love… you." 

"I love you, too," Cavit said, but Fitzgerald didn’t open his eyes again, and his already weak rise and fall of his chest slowed visibly.

"He’s lost consciousness again," Emmett said. 

"Doctor," Kes’s voice made Cavit finally look away from the man he loved, though he couldn’t bring himself to let go of his hand. Not yet. 

Kes’s gaze shifted to him, and Cavit saw she was hesitating. "Go ahead, Kes," he said. "I’d rather know than not."

"Of course." Kes nodded. "I believe Doctor Fitzgerald’s latest blood results indicate he’s heading for cytotoxic shock." 

"We’ll prepare a counterbalancing agent," Emmett said, joining her. "Have Nurse T’Prena prepare more synthetic blood as well. We may need another transfusion."

Another transfusion. Cytotoxic shock. Jeff’s voice. Cavit knew full damned well they were running out of time. 

Don’t let them use Moset. 

Cavit raised Jeff’s limp hand to his lips, kissing the back of it, then lay his arm carefully back down alongside his still form. The alien’s slow undulations—Respiratory? Circulatory? He didn’t know—continued. 

He crossed Sickbay to where Setok and Li-Nis were working together by the pharmaceutical cart, both of them focused on creating a series of hypo ampules Cavit couldn’t have deciphered for anything. 

"Setok," he said. "Did you finish isolating all the data related to Crell Moset’s work?"

Setok turned, nodded once. "Yes, Captain." His delivery—so like his mother’s usual crisp, no-nonsense statements—helped cement Cavit’s resolve. 

"It’s time to delete them," he said.

"Aye, Captain," Setok said, and Cavit followed him into the medical office where, with a few simple keystrokes, Setok brought up the files—an impressive volume of data—and then Cavit reached down and consigned them to the ether. 

"Thank you, Crewman," Cavit said. "You’re dismissed."

"Sir," Setok said, nodding and leaving.

Cavit looked at the blank screen, and tried to tell himself what he’d done was about honouring his husband’s wishes, not removing his own temptation. 

*

Ro turned when the turbolift arrived, wondering if it would be the Captain and instead seeing Crewman Mestral. The temporally-displaced Vulcan lifted a PADD he was carrying when he saw she’d seen him.

Speaking of, had she ever seen him on the Bridge before? She had no idea. She rose from her seat and joined him.

"Crewmen Cir and Eru wanted me to go over these templates with you," Mestral said. "He’s still working on another gestalt message, but these two are ready." 

"What has he come up with?" Ro said, taking the PADD and seeing… well, something that looked more like chemistry than language to her, but then she’d never been much of a linguist or a chemist. 

"As near as possible, this message attempts to explain that we found the alien in a damaged vessel and it was injured," Mestral said. He tapped over to the second prepared lattice. "Whereas this one notes we don’t understand how to help the injured alien, and that it has attached itself to one of us, which is injuring Doctor Fitzgerald." Mestral’s light brown eyes lifted to Ro’s face. "I believe the third message he is constructing is a direct request for them to remove their injured compatriot from Doctor Fitzgerald with care." 

"Thank you, Mestral," Ro said, taking the PADD. "And thank Cir and Eru." 

"Commander," Mestral said, nodding and heading for the turbolift again. 

"Did you catch all that?" Ro said, stepping up to Lan.

"I did," Lan said, taking the PADD from her. Lan eyed it. "This is a lot more complex than the first message—it’s going to take me some time to set up the navigational deflector to create this pattern…" She blew out a breath. "Want me to tackle them in Cir’s order, or…?"

"I won’t second-guess his approach," Ro said, nodding. "In his order." 

"Right," Lan said, getting to work after pushing some of her dark curls back behind her ear. They always managed to escape her yellow headband a few hours into a shift, Ro noted, especially if Lan was working on something difficult and had been running her hands through her hair unconsciously. 

The turbolift opened again, and Cavit stepped out. 

She met his gaze, and he tilted his head toward his Ready Room. It wasn’t in invitation but in a silent request, she realized. 

She nodded, and he crossed the Bridge and stepped through into his private space, the door closing behind him. 

Ro glanced at Stadi, and saw the Betazoid woman had paused to look at the Ready Room’s closed door. Then her black eyes met Ro’s, and she shook her head in the barest of motions. 

Ro returned to her seat, and to break the brittle silence that had fallen, she said, "Anything on long-range sensors, Scott?"

"Nothing yet," Rollins said. 

They got back to waiting.

*

Kes’s sense of Li-Paz had already told her he was awake in their quarters, so she wasn’t surprised to see him at his desk—like hers, side by side beneath the windows—but she hadn’t expected to find him simply staring out into space, rather than working on something. 

He didn’t turn as she entered, so she walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him from behind, not sure whether she was offering comfort or seeking it. 

After a quick jolt of recognition—she realized he hadn’t even noticed she’d come through the door—he wrapped his arms up over hers. Her gaze fell to the burn scar visible beneath where he’d rolled up his undershirt sleeve. 

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"I should be asking you that." He squeezed her wrists. "You must be exhausted. Did you eat?"

"Not yet," she said, and he patted her arms, letting go and rising from his chair. 

"Katterpod soup with mapa bread?" Li-Paz said, heading to the replicator. 

"That sounds perfect," Kes said. It would be warm, quick, and filling, and then she could sleep for a few hours before returning to Sickbay. 

Li-Paz replicated two bowls of the soup and the large rounded loaf, already sliced, and started carrying them over to the table where they ate on the rare times they didn’t use the Mess Hall. 

"You didn’t eat either," she said.

"Guilty," Li-Paz said, with a falsely contrite smile. 

He hadn’t chosen that word at random, she didn’t think. Waves of guilt and anger and something far more complex radiated off him; an ocean of hurts breaking against her shore.

"Paz," she said, once they’d both sat. "Talk to me." 

He closed his eyes for a beat—he looked as tired as she felt, bruise-like smudges beneath his eyes—and then opened them again. They shone, a little wet. "If he dies—" Li-Paz choked, swallowed, and started again. "It will be my fault."

"No," Kes said, reaching out and taking his hand across the table. "We were able to bring Doctor Fitzgerald back to consciousness today, and Emmett explained the situation to him. He was adamant we not use anything Moset was involved with in his treatment." 

Li-Paz’s wince let her know that hadn’t had the effect she’d intended, and a moment later her sense of him confirmed that. 

"But no one knew about him until I spoke up," Li-Paz said. "If I’d just…" He exhaled, a noisy, angry burst of air, and then took one of the slices of the bread and dipped it into his soup, chewing it once it was sodden.

Kes followed suit, and the rich, earthy soup made her realize just how hungry she was. 

Still, once she swallowed, she said. "You couldn’t have—shouldn’t have—remained silent about Moset, Paz."

"Because it’s who I am?" Li-Paz said, and something in his voice—and a leaden heaviness that seemed to descent on him all at once in his psyche—gave her pause.

"Because it was the right thing to do," she said, after a moment. "Morally. Ethically." 

"I may have found a way to make the quantum slipstream drive work," Li-Paz said, and at first Kes thought it was a deflection, until she realized this was all, somehow, tied together in his state of mind. "Well, I noticed something in the way the alien comm signal-wave-lattice effect worked, and Ram and Seven spotted how it could be the solution to the drive, but…" He dipped his bread and chewed again. 

She waited for him to finish, taking a smaller bite of her own. 

"But?" she said. 

"But if I figured out a way to get us home out of the thing that leads to him dying, how does that make me any different than Moset?" 

There. That was the pull on the tide of all those dark feelings.

"For one thing, you didn’t choose to sacrifice Doctor Fitzgerald to learn something," Kes said. "For another, you had nothing to do with the reason he’s in critical condition in the first place." 

Li-Paz’s eyes were wet again, and she held out both hands to either side of their bowls. 

"Paz," she said.

He blinked twice, a tear escaping, before he took both her hands, squeezing.

"None of this is your fault," she said. 

"I think…" Li-Paz said, another tear sliding down his cheek. "I think if he dies, I’m never going to believe that." 

"I’ll help you," she said. And she would. 

He managed to nod, letting go of he left hand to use his napkin to wipe his face. 

"And it starts with eating, and getting some sleep," she said. 

When they did, though, he had nightmares, waking her with sharp cries. She held him, and he held her, and in the end, neither of them got very much sleep.

*

Seven of Nine applied another filter to the reconstructed data, considered the results, and appended the changes to the ongoing live file Ensign Nettus was working with in the Life Sciences Lab. 

Behind her, the doors opened, and she frowned, turning. Crewman Telfer had already reported in before heading to Stellar Cartography, and no one else was scheduled to use the space during the night shift. 

Seeing Lieutenant Commander Veronica Stadi at the entrance, her jacket unzipped and her hair released from its usual tight knot, wasn’t exactly a surprise upon reflection, but she realized what it foreboded and found herself marshalling a defense.

"How about we skip the part where you tell me how, as a Borg, you can keep working for hours longer, and I skip the part where I remind you Doctor Fitzgerald would be the first person to remind you you need to regenerate, and instead we go to the Mess Hall, have a very late dinner, and then we both turn in for the night?" Stadi said. 

"You utilized the computer to determine my position," Seven of Nine said, given there shouldn’t have been anyone beyond Crewman Telfer aware she might still be at work in this space.

"I did," Stadi said. "There’s a human saying, 'it takes one to know one,' that probably applies here."

Seven of Nine frowned, but believed she’s parsed the intent of the sentiment well enough. Lieutenant Commander Stadi also had a tendency to continue past officially sanctioned periods of duty when the situation was important, resisting the urge to concede the helm to another. 

"That," Stadi said, nodding. 

"There may be more information to be gleaned from the reconstructed alien logs," Seven said. She knew the statement—while true—also included some prevarication even as she knew that the Lieutenant Commander would see right through it, owing to her heritage. 

Because in truth, her desire to work was as much about avoiding thoughts as having them. 

No doubt Stadi would know this.

Indeed, the pilot paused, then said, "I’m not sure I can explain the nuances between not using Moset’s knowledge and how often we use your Borg knowledge, Seven, but I think the short answer is your intent—you, Seven of Nine, as opposed to the Borg Collective—was never malicious."

Seven considered that. "The Borg are accused of assimilating information with no regard for life," she said, nodding to concede the point. "Doctor Moset did the same, and yet his behaviour was tolerated."

"Right," Stadi said, taking in a breath, and then chuckling. "Can we do this with mocha?"

Seven dipped her chin.

Once the two were settled at a table in the Mess Hall, where the lights had been dimmed for the night shift and Marble lay sleeping on her small round bed in the windowsill, Stadi lifted the beverage—Seven had tried it once, and found it both too bitter and too sweet—and took a sip before gathering her thoughts. 

They also had bowls of steamed chadrekab with salsa, which crewman Gara had prepared for them. 

"Okay," Stadi said. "With the understanding that I am tired, and this is a very complex topic to discuss, I think the salient points are this: one." She held up a finger. "I don’t believe Starfleet Medical had any idea how Moset gathered his data—the Cardassian government was brutally efficient at covering up as much of their atrocities on Bajor as possible. Two." She held up another finger. "The Cardassian government also wouldn’t have cared what atrocities Moset visited on the Bajorans, so long as he got his breakthroughs—which is vile." She paused to lift her mocha and take another sip. "Three, and I think this is maybe the most important thing, once we knew better, we acted better." 

Seven of Nine tilted her head. "Explain."

"We listened to Li-Paz. Believed him—though, to be clear, there’s no doubt behind any of his claims, this isn’t a leap of faith." Stadi forked off some chadre’kab, pausing before taking a bite. "He remembers what happened."

Seven allowed herself the respite of some ingestion as well to frame her own thoughts. "I believe I understand," she said. "I often find myself in the position of adjusting my actions based on new data. Becoming an individual." She didn’t need to spell it out further, given the conversation was with the commander. Among the Borg, she’d never had choice. Nor intent. She’d been, functionally, no more a part of the decisions made in the Collective than a hyperspanner in the hands of an engineer. 

Now was different.

Again, the sheer ease of communicating with Lieutenant Commander Veronica Stadi was a comfort. 

Stadi nodded. "Exactly." 

Seven and Stadi ate in silence for a few more minutes. The same sharing of a meal with Doctor Fitzgerald often included similar lengths of time with silence, though when she dined with him, they were more often caused by questions and discussions that had led her to examine uncomfortable or confusing emotional states. She often found them an extremely frustrating experience, tiring in a manner unique to being an individual.

If the doctor did perish…

…she would miss them.

She paused, her fork half-way to her mouth. It made little sense.

"We haven’t given up hope yet," Stadi said. 

Seven nodded, and returned to eating. 

*

Lieutenant Dennis Russell sat in the big chair, regarded the PADD in his hand, and then looked up at Crewman Gavin Nelson, who had the operations station. 

"It looks correct to me," he said. As far as he could tell, the simulations showed that the navigational deflector would create the correct lattice in subspace to hold the second message to the required cohesion. "Well done."

"Two down," Nelson said, blowing out a breath. "One to go." 

It was so nice to see the man engaged, despite the circumstances. Russell imagined Nelson’s relationship with Doctor Fitzgerald was no small part of his motivation, but was pleased to see it regardless. 

"I’ll lock down the pattern in the navigational deflector," Ensign Tricia Jenkins said from the conn. "Shouldn’t take too long."

"I won’t mind the break," Nelson said. 

At Tactical, Ensign Steven Niles said, "I still haven’t made any headway with what damaged the alien ship in the first place."

"No luck with our scans of the vessel?" Russell said.

"None," Niles said. "Cir says their distress call said they were under attack, but I can’t even point to a broad style of weapon damage—disruptor, phaser, isokinetic…" He shook his head. "The materials of their ship are so chemically complex, Velar and her team are still trying to give me some answers as to what the hull was even made of, let alone what was done to it."

"We might not get an answer, Steven," Russell said. "But if you’ve nothing more pressing…"

"I’ll keep at it," Niles said.

The turbolift opened, and Russell glanced over his shoulder to see Gara arriving with a large flask and mugs on a tray, the way she always did at this time of the night shift. 

"Bless you," Nelson said. "Perfectly timed as always." 

"Fresh batch of Trabe firenut, from the latest crop," Gara said, holding the tray out for Nelson to pour himself a mug. "Didn’t you already work today?"

"I slept during the swing-shift," Nelson said. 

"These lattice structures are fiddly," Russell said. "Gavin, Sahreen, and Kimble have been very protective of them." 

Nelson snorted into his mug. 

"And here I figured it was because it involved using a ship’s system in a way it wasn’t designed to—a Maquis speciality," Gara said.

"That, too," Russell said, more than willing to give credit where it was due.

Gara had just come down to offer the tray to Russell when a chime from Nelson’s station took his attention away from the mug.

"Someone just ran into our original message," Nelson said. "At least, I think so? I’ve lost my lock on the expanding lattice in that area."

"Agreed," Niles said. "Long range sensors picked up… something." He tapped his controls. "A ship. Maybe. It doesn’t read as a warp signature, but definitely something like it."

From the conn, Jenkins said. "Not warp, soliton. It looks like a soliton wave to me." 

"These aliens don’t do anything the way we do," Nelson said. "But I’d say they’re coming our way."

Russell finished pouring, nodding to Gara as she headed to the conn. "ETA?"

"Four hours, maybe?" Niles said. He didn’t sound certain.

"Soliton waves don’t read well on long-range sensors," Russell said, remembering an experiment he’d witnessed on the Enterprise D that hadn’t gone well at all. "But the acuity should increase as they get closer. I think we can let everyone sleep. When we think they’re an hour out, I’ll call the Senior Staff. That’ll almost give them a whole night’s rest." He took a drink of his firenut. "In the meanwhile, Gavin, let’s see if we can get the third message locked and loaded before then."

"Aye, Lieutenant." 

Russell took a swallow of the drink, letting it warm him. 

Had the aliens had gotten their message, or was it someone else? And if it was the aliens, would they be able to communicate well enough to save Doctor Fitzgerald’s life?

Chapter Text

"They’re on approach," Rollins said. "Same configuration as the other vessel we saw. Captain—they haven’t answered any hails, and compared to what we saw of the other vessel, I’m reading quite a deal more energy activity. It could be weapon systems." 

"Wait—" Lan said. "I think I’m getting a directed signal—it’s not high enough power to be a weapon, it’s closer to a traditional comm signal, though it’s coming from what I think are their soliton generators…" 

As she spoke, Cavit caught a soft but growing noise, tilting his head. "I hear it."

It grew louder, quickly, and the screech was soon uncomfortable.

"Can we maybe turn that down?" Stadi said.

"It’s a vibration aimed directly at the hull," Lan said. 

"Cir?" Cavit said, turning his head to look at where the Ocampa man. He stood at the Command rail. The man’s dark eyes were troubled.

"Agitation," he said. "Fear, perhaps?"

"Send our prepared messages, one at a time," Cavit said, raising his voice to be heard over the screeching.

"First message away," Cir said, tapping on the console. The thrum of Voyager’s navigational deflector creating and releasing the lattice of the message was an unusual sound beneath his feet. 

"Roni?" Ro said, raising her voice as the screeching increased in volume again. Cavit knew what his first officer was asking. Using the navigational deflector as a communications dish meant they wouldn’t have quick access to bringing it back online for its usual function. 

"I’ve got thrusters on standby," Stadi called back. 

"Are you getting anything from them, Stadi?" Cavit said, though he felt like he already knew the answer given she’d not volunteered anything already. 

"Presence, perhaps?" She shook her head, still yelling to be heard over the noise. "Not much else."

The screeching cut off. 

"That coincided with the lattice reaching their vessel," Taitt said from the Science station.

"Hopefully they understand," Cavit said. 

"Sensors are picking up another massive energy wave—only now I know it’s a soliton lattice communication," Lan said.

"They’re answering," Cavit said, leaning forward. 

Voyager rocked gently as the reply brushed past them with even less issue than the initial distress signal had. 

"I’ve got the download," Lan said. "Sending it to you, Cir."

Cavit watched Cir’s expression as he worked at the small mission operations console. The big man’s forehead creased, and he shook his head. "I’d need more time, Captain." He sounded apologetic.

"Send the second pre-prepared message," Cavit said. "Let’s assume they’re asking for more information about what we’ve already told them: that we found their injured friend. The sooner they know the injured alien attached to Doctor Fitzgerald, the better." 

"Sending second lattice," Cir said, nodding. Then he lifted his gaze again. "I do feel them, Captain."

"I can tell you’ve got a clearer sense of them than I do," Stadi said. "Do you think you can make functional contact?" 

"I’m not sure," Cir said. "Perhaps with the Chorus—they’re so different." 

"Our second lattice has reached the alien vessel," Taitt said. 

Cavit bit his bottom lip. Come on. Come on. We tried to help you, now you help us. 

"Captain!" Rollins said, a moment before an energy wave lit up between the alien vessel and Voyager. Voyager rocked, but it wasn’t immediately damaging—then the lights flickered.

"Report," Cavit said.

"It’s some combination of a tractor beam and an energy dampening field," Lan said. "It’s draining power."

"I can’t maneuver," Stadi said. 

Another lattice washed over Voyager. 

"I think that was identical to the first message from before," Lan said. "But I’m not sure."

"It is," Cir said, a moment later. "I believe they’re frustrated—it’s possible they asked us a question and our reply didn’t include the answer they wanted." 

"Send the third lattice," Cavit said. "Maybe we’ll get lucky and that’ll have the answer they want. Raise shields, Scott, we need to block that beam."

"Raising shields," Rollins said. He frowned. "The drain is affecting the shields."

"Rotate the shield frequencies," Ro said. "That might buy more time."

"Aye, Commander," Rollins got to work.

"Third lattice is away," Cir said. 

"Captain, I’ve got two more vessels on scanners, they just appeared on lateral vectors at high soliton speeds," Lan said.

"If we’re done chatting, I wouldn’t mind restoring the nav deflector," Stadi said.

"Do it," Cavit said. It’s falling apart. Cavit looked at the vessel on his screen. They don’t know we’re trying to help, or they don’t care, and Jeff is going to die—

"Sir, the Chorus?" Cir said, and Cavit turned to look at him. 

"Cir, we have no idea if you can—" Stadi started.

"I’d like to try. I can’t do it fast enough this way," he gestured at the mission ops console. "But up here…" He tapped his temples. "I have more of an understanding of them." 

Cavit didn’t know if it was wise, but in the moment, he didn’t care. He nodded. "Go ahead."

Cir’s gaze drifted into the middle distance. 

"Rotating the shield frequencies is lowering the rate of drain," Rollins said. "Shields at seventy-four percent."

"How long until we don’t have a decent vector of escape from those other vessels?" Ro said.

"Assuming we can break free from the tractor effect," Lan said. "Fifteen minutes at best."

Cavit nodded to her, agreeing with her unspoken question. 

In less than fifteen minutes, they’d go. No matter what that meant.

*

Emotion, thought, chemistry, structure, memory, scent/taste, construct.

Cir took a position at the lead of the Chorus, a place he’d only ever attempt to position himself once before, on the planet of the Silvers, and found it as difficult as ever, even with Daggin, Setok, and Jeta grounding him among the others. Abol led him to the alien vessel, and Kes, Gara, Eru, Ahn and Li-Nis did their level best to keep the wash of thought-feeling-scent/taste from washing him away.

It wasn’t just their written communications and logs that functioned in complex, concrete fashion, it was their very thoughts. 

Can we do that? The thought came from Setok. The complexity of holding all that information as one symbol, one moment…

First we have to hear them and understand them, Cir replied. 

Cir, I’m not sure— Kes began, but Cir led them forward. 

Doctor Fitzgerald’s life was in the balance. He’d felt the Captain’s worry on the Bridge. This was their last possible recourse. 

Cir opened his mind to the flood, and felt the rest of the Chorus leap in, doing their best to help him remain Cir in the face of the overwhelming, complex structure threatening to replace him.

Aravik had taught Cir how to hold onto his sense of self, and he leaned into that now, even as he tried to allow the rest of his consciousness to simply accept the massive thought-memory-experience-structure that slammed into his mind. 

*

Cir grunted, and leaned forward, gripping the railing with both hands.

"Cir?" Cavit rose from his chair.

"It’s hurting him," Stadi said. "The Chorus is trying, but Captain—"

*

Seconds became minutes, then hours. 

Days.

He felt Eru with him, though from a great distance, her voice nearly lost to the vibrating/sonorous/bright/hard/sour whole he faced. Together, they pried at each individual piece, registered that the alien mind was aware they were in contact, and believed that the alien minds did understand to some degree that their presence was another form of communication not entirely unlike the one they used between their own kind.

Telepathy was not chemistry, but to these alien beings, the transfer of complex information between beings was sill a concept they understood. 

It would do.

Release. Injury. Bond. Connection. Unconsciousness. Presence.

The greater concepts fell into place, but it wasn’t language yet, only what came before.

Kes’s concern reached him. She and Li-Nis were trying to reach him, but he couldn’t afford to shift his focus. 

With the Chorus, he slowed things further. More time. He needed more time. 

There was order here, and he could find it. 

Injury was first. Then Connection and Unconsciousness. Bond followed… Presence and Release were the final pieces, but they were formed differently. Not declarative, but something else. Imperative?

*

"—Kes thinks he’s suffering neurological damage," Stadi said.

Cavit rose from his chair. "Cir, let go."

Cir’s grip on the mission ops console tightened, and he didn’t seem to notice when a drop of blood fell from his nose and struck the panel. Cavit started up the ramp.

"Cir? Cir!"

*

No! A request! It’s a request…

The whole of the construct slid into clarity, and Cir’s mind aligned with what he was seeing.

Our brethren is injured and cannot end the injury response, they are unconscious and in a healing bond; we can join them but only if they are present among us—then we can release your brethren.

Kes’s mind broke in: Cir, you have to stop! Now!

Tell Cavit, Cir replied.

I will, now stop!

Cir let go.

*

Cir collapsed, and Cavit just barely managed to wrap his arms around the man’s chest before his head struck the panel.

"Bridge to Sickbay," Cavit said. "I need someone up here for Cir!"

At the same time, Kes’s voice sounded. "Kes to Bridge! You need to beam Doctor Fitzgerald and the alien over to the alien vessel—they can only make the injured being release him in person."

"Is there a space large enough on their ship?" Ro said, turning to Lan. 

"Working on it," Lan was already tapping on her console. "There are eight nonhumanoid lifesigns there but… four of them are arranged with a space between them on a lower deck that was damaged on the original vessel."

"Do it," Cavit said, still cradling Cir’s still form. Blood leaked sluggishly from his nose and his left ear. 

Behind him, the turbolift doors opened and Rebecca Sullivan and Li-Nis arrived together. Li-Nis had dark shadows under her eyes, and looked rough. 

"Are you—?" he said, frowning at her.

"I’ll be fine, Captain," she said, as she and Sullivan opened their med kits. 

"Transporter room has a lock," Lan said. "We’ll have to lower shields."

"Do it," Ro said.

"Transport in progress," Lan said.

"They dropped their beam," Rollins said.

Cavit watched Li-Nis and Sullivan work. The medical tricorder Sullivan held issued a high whine.

"We need to get him to Sickbay."

"I’ll carry him," Rollins said, stepping out from the Tactical station. "Ro?" 

She slid into his station. 

Cavit forced himself to rise. He was the captain. "Status?" he said.

"I’ve got a lock on Doctor Fitzgerald," Lan said. "The bio-signs are still mixed, but—wait, no…" She lifted her gaze. "I’ve got a single human life sign, faint, but it’s not occluded any more."

"Transporter Room," Cavit said. "Beam Doctor Fitzgerald back directly to Sickbay." 

Behind him, Rollins, Li-Nis, and Sullivan were stepping into the turbolift, Rollins carrying Cir.

Voyager rocked, and Cavit glanced at Lan.

"Another communication lattice," she said. "No idea what it said."

"Captain," Stadi said.

He looked at the viewscreen, and the vessel was turning away. 

"Maybe it was thank-you?" Stadi said. 

A moment later, a greenish-grey wave flared around the vessel, and it was gone. 

He turned to Ro.

"Go," she said.

"You have the Bridge," he said.

*

Doctor Emmett Hall moved with all the speed his holographic matrix could handle, rushing ahead of a wave of systemic collapse happening in the brain of his patient, and speaking in short, clipped, direct requests to Nurse T’Prena, who—as always—reacted with the precision and speed on which he’d depended for years.

Even so, nearly an hour later, he remained unsure they’d accomplished their goals. 

In the main surgical biobed, Crewman Cir lay beneath the sensor arch, his readings depressed and slow, but present. 

"That’s all we can do for now. Keep him on the cortical stimulator," Emmett said, though he imagined the verbal instruction was unnecessary for T’Prena. Still, he’d found speaking realities aloud often aided him in concretizing his more illogical, emotional algorithms into obeisance. "The more pressure we can take off his autonomous nervous system the better."

"Yes, doctor." T’Prena moved to initiate a full diagnostic on the device attached to Cir’s temples. 

"I’ll return soon," Emmett said, and then left the surgical bay, stopping at the first bio-bed, where his second critical patient, Doctor Jeff Fitzgerald, remained in the induced coma they’d decided was their only option. He, too, had multiple medical devices attempting to take strain off his overtaxed systems, though in his case renal, circulatory, and hematological in nature. 

With a little luck, they wouldn’t need to replace either of his kidneys, though Emmett believed that would remain to be seen. Similarly, they should be able to restore his liver to full function given enough time and focus spent on ensuring recovery time did not tax the organ at all. 

He’d sent Kes and Li-Nis to her quarters, but Crewman Sullivan sat in a chair beside Fitzgerald, offering him a small nod he took to mean no changes of any note had occurred, and he returned the gesture as he headed into his office, where the captain and Crewmen Eru, Ahn, and Jeta awaited news. 

"They’re both stable," Emmett said, starting with the most important piece of news. 

Eru, standing between her daughters, let out a soft sob, and her daughters pulled her into a three-person embrace. The Captain closed his eyes, taking a breath before opening them again.

"Thank you, Emmett," he said. "What are we looking at, in terms of recovery?"

"It will not be quick, nor easy, for either of them," Emmett said. "If any of you would like to go over this in private…" He hesitated, his ethical subroutines noting the situation called for consent on their parts.

Cavit exchanged a glance with Eru, and she shook her head. She was by no means unaffected either, shadows beneath her eyes pronounced even moreso than they had been on Li-Nis. Her daughters, similarly, seemed ashen. 

"It’s fine, Emmett," she said. "I’d rather the Captain know." 

"Same," Cavit said. "If it wasn’t for Cir and the Chorus…" He didn’t finish the sentiment.

"All right," Emmett said, and began.

*

Kes leaned against Li-Paz’s shoulder, the dull ache between her temples better when she was sat up rather than lying down, and he put one arm around her. 

"Is there anything I can do?" he said.

"No," she said. Her sense of him felt a step removed, and she knew that came from the hypo Rebecca had given her—had given the entire Chorus—to reduce her psilosynine levels, which had been nearly twice normal after the taxing attempt at telepathic contact with the alien beings. Still, she felt his worry, and—again—the guilt beyond it, and wished she could convince him none of this was his fault. "We’ll recover," she said, speaking not only for herself, but Li-Nis, who’d already retreated to her quarters to sleep. 

She hoped her declaration was true for Cir as well—what he’d done, how he’d held the alien thought in his mind, a mind not designed to think the way the aliens did—had nearly re-written his neurology. 

The door chimed, and Kes fought the urge to groan out loud.

"I’ll get it," Li-Paz said, and he gently placed pillows behind her head on the couch before rising, not rushing, ensuring she could remain upright but resting, and she smiled at him. She truly felt leaden.

"We won’t stay, we just wanted to drop this off," came the voice of Atara Ram, and Kes looked up to see Atara and Steven Niles had both arrived, with what looked to be trays from the Mess Hall. 

She smiled. They were good friends. 

"Thank—" Li-Paz said, and Kes frowned at his sudden pause. 

Then Kes felt something change in him. 

"Oh," Atara said. "Oh."

"Ram?" Niles said. 

*

"It’s not just Cir. Gara and Eru need some time to recover as well," Celes said. She’d brought the usual suspects to the Mess Hall, as well as a few others, and smiled at them all. "So I’m hoping you’ll be willing to offer your efforts on a more regular basis in the meanwhile?" It came out like a question—like so much she said these days—but she knew these people. They’d step up.

"Of course," Crewman Augustus "Gus" Emmanuel was the first to agree.  

"We all will," Crewman Jon Djanrelian said, nodding. 

"I can handle some of the night shift," Ensign Ikuko Kyoto said. "Easy enough to come here after a shift and put together a meal."

"If that means more of her soba noodles, I volunteer for night shift, too," Ensign Caroline Brooks said. 

Celes smiled. "Thank you, I really…" She blinked, losing her train of thought as something inside her shifted.

"Tal?" Gus said.

*

"You wanted to see me?" Ro said, stepping into the Ready Room, and pausing at the sight of the Captain putting something in one of the rounded Starfleet-issue duffels. 

"I did," Cavit said, nodding to the chairs on the upper level. She noticed there were two mugs already there, and a teapot. As she sat, she caught the scent of earl grey. 

"I need you to take over," he said, once he sat. 

She stared at him. "Take over?" 

He nodded. "Jeff is looking at at least a month of critical care time, and then step-down and…" He waved a hand, his voice rough. "I… I need to take a leave of absence." He swallowed, hard. "I know that’s a lot to ask, but—"

Something bloomed inside her. She gasped, leaned back in her chair, and pressed a hand to the centre of her chest. What was happening to her? A warmth—no, a light—no, a certainty. 

It’s back.

"Laren?" Cavit said. 

"They’re back," she said. "They’re back."

He shook his head. "Sorry?"

*

Atara Ram opened the small wooden case he’d carved, knowing before he looked what he’d see. Feeling it deep in his chest, a well of something he thought had run dry once again full.

Inside, the orb fragment shone with the light of the Prophets. 

"What does it mean?" Niles said, one arm around his waist. 

"Hope," Atara said. "It means hope. For all of us." 

*

Unconscious, and unseen in the quiet of Sickbay in the middle of the night shift, Doctor Jeff Fitzgerald frowned in his sleep.