Star Trek - [Gateways 5] - [VOY] - No Man's Land

VIP免费
2024-12-20 0 0 309.13KB 115 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
Star Trek - Gateways 5 - No Man's Land
CHAPTER 1
chakotay sighed heavily. "I hate to say it, but I'm afraid it doesn't look good."
Captain Kathryn Janeway's blue gaze flickered to the face of her first officer. She didn't answer at once.
When at last she spoke, her voice was heavy but resigned.
"I knew I could count on you to tell me the truth." Chakotay had only spoken aloud the suspicion that
had been growing in her own gut.
Chakotay nodded solemnly. His unhappiness was plain on his handsome face. "It doesn't look good at
all."
A smile crept onto Janeway's lips. "All right, no need to rub it in," she said. "Well, as they say, noth-ing
ventured, nothing gained."
Grimly, she stepped forward and drew a cloth
over the abysmal painting, hiding it from view. "Into the replicator it goes."
"You did have some interesting usage of color over in the upper right-hand corner," said Chako-tay.
Her smile was a full-fledged grin now. "You're backpedaling. No, it was a pretty bad effort. I guess
abstract is not for me."
"It wasn't for da Vinci, either," offered Chakotay.
"And now we segue into flat-out flattery," Jane-way retorted, her hands on her hips. "Are you buck-ing
for my job, Commander?"
"When we get back I might just want a little ship of my own again."
A variety of emotions rose inside Janeway. First, and most powerful, was joy. "When" we get back,
Chakotay had said. Everyone aboard Voyager was now substituting that hopeful, happy word for the
ambiguous "if." Their brief communication with Starfleet Command, through the auspices of one Reginald
Barclay, had infused the entire crew with hope. Torres had already informed Janeway that the new
hyperspace technology and the modifications for the com system looked promising. There was now
every reason to substitute "when" for "if."
But there was also unhappiness and apprehension commingled in that thought. Tough as things had been
over the last few years, they'd faced it together, she and her crew. They'd lost some good people- and
gained a few others in the forms of the remain-ing crew of the Equinox and the four Borg children.
Janeway and Chakotay had grown very close. She hadn't even dared showed Tuvok the painting; she
couldn't have dealt with Vulcan art criticism. Janeway could open herself to Chakotay as she could to no
one else. The thought of him leaving her side, even to captain his own ship, was not one she wished to
entertain overlong.
And of course, there was always the question of what kind of welcome Chakotay, B'Elanna, and the rest
of the former Maquis would receive. The war was over, but she knew there were enough hawks in
Starfleet Command that "forgive and forget" would likely not be the watchword of the day. From the little
they had been able to gather, the Dominion War had exacted a dear cost. Some would want their pound
of flesh, and with all the other Maquis safely accounted for, they might want to extract that pound from
Chakotay, B'Elanna, and the oth-ers.
She'd fight for them, of course. With every ounce of strength she had in her small body.
"I hope you get that little ship, if that's what you want," Janeway said softly, impulsively reaching to
squeeze his muscular forearm.
Sensing the change in her, he smiled gently. "Then again, who wants the hassles of command? It's easier
being first officer."
"Barclay's changed everything, hasn't he?" She went to the replicator and ordered a cup of coffee.
Turning to look at Chakotay, she inquired with a raised eyebrow if he wanted anything. He shook his
head.
"Discipline has gone out the proverbial window," Chakotay said. "You've got a happy crew, but a pretty
giddy one."
"Let them be a little giddy. They've been incredi-ble. They deserve it."
"We all do."
"How is our little assimilation experiment going?" Janeway asked, sipping her coffee.
Chakotay chuckled. "Seven's doing her best, but she still doesn't think she's the best person for the job."
"Nonsense. Who better to help Borg children adapt to the challenge of individuality than a Borg who's
made the journey herself? It is, as Tuvok would say, the logical choice."
"Logical doesn't always mean easy."
"I'll grant you that." Janeway thought about Chakotay's commentary on Seven's schedule for the children.
"Fun" had been allotted one hour, on Seven's terms-scheduled exactly the way meal-times, exercise, and
lessons had been. And Neelix's comment about Seven's blunt statement at playtime: "Fun will now
commence."
"I don't think Seven quite gets the whole fun con-cept," Janeway sighed.
"Sometimes I don't think her mentor does either," said Chakotay.
Janeway narrowed her eyes. "And what's that sup-posed to mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like." Chakotay sat down beside her and regarded her intently. "When was the
last time the captain of Voyager had some real fun?"
"Just last night," Janeway retorted. "I went to Fair Haven."
Chakotay was grinning. "Oh, yes," he agreed, "for all of fifteen minutes."
Caught, Janeway stalled. "Neelix wanted to see me."
"Neelix's new coffee substitute could have waited until the morning."
"Ah, but then I wouldn't have known it wasn't a success, and I'd be drinking that sludge to wake up
instead of this," Janeway countered.
Chakotay hesitated. "Look. You know and I know that we've been going nonstop. The last time we
visited a planet was hardly an occasion for R-and-R."
Janeway's stomach clenched at the recollection. On Tarakis, the crew had all been forced to relive
memories that were not their own. Janeway vividly recalled pleading with Saavedra not to massacre the
colonists, but to no avail. Some nights, she still had dreams about it.
"No," she agreed softly, feeling a vestige of the pain brush past her. "It wasn't."
"Astrometrics to Captain Janeway."
"Go ahead, Seven."
"I suggest that you report to astrometrics immedi-ately. And Commander Chakotay as well."
They exchanged glances, and as one rose and headed for astrometrics.
Seven's beautiful visage was unreadable. It usu-ally was, but the request didn't bode well. "What have
you got for me, Seven?" asked Janeway.
Quickly the former Borg stepped to her station and deftly manipulated the controls. A star chart
ap-peared on the large screen.
"This," she said. It was all she needed to say.
Janeway's heart, which had lifted a little after the banter she'd exchanged with Chakotay, sank again. She
was looking at a star chart that might have been drawn by an artist with an overactive imagination and a
bent for the depressing. There wasn't a single asteroid belt, but a whopping four of them. Over there-and,
now that she looked closer, over there and there too-was evidence of a singularity. A swirl marked the
site of what she was afraid was the event horizon of a black hole. There were two red giants. Ripples
indicated the presence nearly everywhere of gravity waves.
"I do hope you're not going to tell me that we have to travel through there," Janeway said.
"Unfortunately, the path we need to take in order to stay on course is this." Seven touched a control, and
a jagged red line appeared. It went straight through the worst areas. "We could adjust it like so," Seven
continued, and plotted an alternative course. "But that would take three weeks longer."
"And a course to avoid this No Man's Land alto-gether?"
Seven frowned at the unfamiliar term, but replied, "Seventeen months, six weeks, four days, and nine
hours. I explored all the various options before call-ing you, Captain."
"Efficient," said Janeway dryly.
Seven inclined her blond head. "Thank you. I strive to be."
Slowly, Janeway shook her head as her gaze trav-eled over the charts. She was not about to add
seven-teen months to their journey. Even if they took the middle option Seven had outlined, the one that
missed the worst of it, they were going to be in for a very rough few weeks.
With an odd twinkle in his eye, Chakotay said in a serious voice, "I hate to say it, but it doesn't look
good. It doesn't look good at all."
And no doubt Seven was left wondering if she would ever understand non-assimilated humans when
Janeway, unable to help herself, burst into laughter.
"We're calling it No Man's Land," said Janeway as the star chart bristling with obstacles appeared on the
smaller computer monitor in the briefing room.
"That is an incorrect usage of the term," said Seven, surprising Janeway. "I have researched the phrase. It
was used during Earth's First World War to describe the ground between two opposing trenches. We
are currently facing no adversary. Therefore, there can be no No Man's Land."
"But we are facing an adversary, Seven," Janeway corrected her gently. "It's the same enemy that we've
been locked in battle with ever since the Caretaker snatched us out of our own quadrant. Our adversary
is the Delta Quadrant. It's the light-years that lie between us and reaching our loved ones, between our
home and us. The No Man's Land of World War I was a bad place to be. It had a great deal of barbed
wire, it was full of broken and abandoned military equipment, and after a battle, there were bodies there
too. It was hard to gain even a meter of ground of No Man's Land, and that little amount was always
dearly bought."
She turned again to regard the ominous star chart,
took in its visible, predictable dangers, and won-dered for a brief moment about the dangers they weren't
even aware of yet. "No, Seven. I'd say No Man's Land is a perfect way to describe what we're up
against."
Seven pursed her full lips in a gesture that Janeway had come to recognize meant she didn't ap-prove,
but it didn't matter. No matter what they chose to call this, it was bad news.
"I don't want to head into that space until we're performing at peak ability. Status reports," she
re-quested.
Torres went first. "We're presently performing a level-one diagnostic. Everything seems to be all right.
Engineering's ready to tackle it, unless the di-agnostic reveals something unexpected."
One by one, they gave their reports. Paris reported that the helm had been performing more than
ade-quately, and added that he had just done something he called a "tune-up" to the Delta Flyer. Tuvok
was prepared to run a series of drills to make sure tactical was up to par. Harry Kim had nothing to
report about ops. The Doctor reported treating only two minor injuries in the last week.
"One of which Mr. Paris incurred in what he describes as a minor disagreement with Seamus in Fair
Haven," he added, in a disapproving tone of voice.
"Which won't happen again," Paris insisted a little too vehemently.
Janeway sat for a moment, absorbing the informa-tion. She hardly dared believe it, but it seemed as if
they were ready to venture forth into No Man's
Land. If that were so, then why did she feel so strangely reluctant?
She had just opened her mouth to order that they proceed first thing in the morning, but Chakotay spoke
first.
"There is one thing, Captain."
"What is it, Chakotay?"
"There has been an egregious lack of fun on the part of the captain and the crew," he said in a
com-pletely serious voice. "That could have severe repercussions if the crew is not in as good a shape to
tackle the challenges of No Man's Land as the ship is."
She raised an eyebrow. "I see. What do you rec-ommend?"
She could tell he was fighting to keep from smil-ing, but largely succeeding. He rose, went to the screen,
and touched it. At once, the image of a planet appeared. It had blue oceans, brown-and-green
land-masses, and swirling white clouds. It looked so much like Earth that she felt an unexpected pang of
homesickness.
"While Seven of Nine is exemplary in her execu-tion of her duty, she needs to develop a little
imagi-nation."
Seven bridled. "I am not accustomed to evaluating situations with regard to-their fun factor."
"My point exactly. This planet is located directly on our way to No Man's Land. It's a perfect class-M.
No life, other than plant life, although there are mi-croscopic organisms in the planet's oceans.
Some-one's many-times-great-grandfather, no doubt, but for the present moment, we won't have to
worry
about the Prime Directive. There are beaches, moun-tains, rivers, oceans, rain forests, deserts-you name
it. It sounds like an excellent place for shore leave. We could then tackle No Man's Land refreshed and
renewed." He looked over at Janeway. "Captain? What do you think?"
Some decisions, Janeway thought, were just easier than others. "Mr. Paris," she said, rising and striving
to maintain an authoritarian demeanor, "lay in a di-rect course for that planet. We could all use some
R-and-R."
For once, Chakotay didn't have to do any arm-twisting to get his captain to enjoy a bit of shore leave
herself. Janeway was in the second group of people to transport down. Tom Paris, B'Elanna Tor-res,
and Neelix, along with seven others, had already gone on ahead. They had reported that the planet's
climate was every bit as nice as Risa's, though, ac-cording to Paris, the lack of scores of beautiful women
was keenly felt. Janeway wondered if Torres had overheard that last comment, and if so, what her retort
might have been.
Ensign Lyssa Campbell, usually a little shy around her captain, positively grinned at Janeway when she
came in lugging her paints, palette, and easel.
"Going for a few landscapes?"
Janeway returned the smile. "Absolutely. Accord-ing to Seven, there are some exquisite mountain ranges.
She also went into great detail about how the location I have selected will produce an optimal
con-centration of particles in the air, resulting in an in-creased profusion of shorter wavelengths of light."
Lyssa Campbell regarded her blankly. Taking pity on her, Janeway explained, "That's Seven's way of
saying the sunsets watched from the beach ought to be particularly colorful."
Campbell blushed. Janeway winked at her and stepped onto the platform. The plan was for her to have
several hours of uninterrupted painting time-a rare luxury-before Chakotay transported down with a
picnic basket. Janeway knew herself pretty well, and realized that she sometimes didn't take the time she
needed to truly relax. Well, Chakotay couldn't call her on it after this.
She was still smiling as she dematerialized.
"The smell of the sea is the same everywhere," said Tom with a sigh of contentment. He and B'Elanna
had walked hand in hand by the ocean for about an hour. She had spotted the little cave a short climb up,
and now they sat contentedly watching the huge golden sun set over orange and scarlet waves.
"That's poetic license," murmured Torres, who, even though she was arguing with him, still had her eyes
closed and was languidly inhaling the afore-mentioned ocean scent. "Every planet has different organisms.
Therefore, the smell-"
"Is always enchanting," said Tom. "Just like you."
She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. He reached for her, thinking that this would be a lovely little
place for a tryst, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.
He turned his head and frowned. "There's some-thing out there. In the ocean. Look."
She looked where he pointed. For a moment, he thought his eyes had been playing tricks on him. But
then it surfaced again. It was small, dark, and defi-nitely alive.
"But that's not possible," said Torres. "This planet doesn't have any life more developed than amoe-bas."
"That's definitely a life-form more advanced than an amoeba," said Tom, scrambling to his feet. "And it
looks like it's drowning."
CHAPTER
2
driven by a potent combination of urgency and curiosity, Paris and Torres hastened down the rock face
as quickly as possible. Tom tried to keep one eye on the struggling creature in the water. They were
close enough now to see that it wasn't a humanoid, but that didn't slow him down one bit. Paris had a
tremendous fondness for both animals and children, as long as he wasn't responsible for either for any
great length of time. The thought of some innocent animal drowning before he could get to it spurred him
on.
"Do you see it?" The anxious cry came from Neelix, who had been wandering barefoot along the shore
looking for interesting rocks. He had been looking forward to collecting seashells until Paris had gently
reminded him that if there were no life-forms, there would be no shells of life-forms on the
beach. Now the Talaxian raced with surprising speed toward the spot where the creature was likely to
come ashore.
If it came ashore. Even as Tom watched, the crea-ture went down again.
"Dammit," he swore, and jumped the rest of the way to land heavily on the soft, powdery sand. He and
Neelix hit the water at the same time, with B'Elanna only a stride behind them.
Tom struck out for the creature. The water was in-credibly clear and he could see it now. It was about
half a meter long, its thick, dark fur floating about it like wings or tendrils. Other than the languid
move-ment of its fur, it was motionless and was starting to sink toward the bottom. He took a deep
breath and dove for it, kicking as hard as he could. His arms closed about it and he struck out for the
surface.
"Keep its head above the water," he gasped to Tor-res, who immediately obliged. Neelix had almost
reached them, but now he turned and headed back to the shore. He had been so agitated that he hadn't
even taken off the jacket of his heavy, colorful suit. Tom was grateful that he and Torres, anticipating a
day at the beach, had opted for more traditional swimwear.
With one arm around the animal (God, is it still alive? Please let it be alive), he struck out for the beach. It
seemed so far away now. The creature in the crook of his arm was still warm, at least, and as Paris's feet
dug into sand and he stumbled ashore, he felt the beast twitch. It squirmed vigorously, and Paris let out a
short, quick laugh.
The animal leaped from his arm to plop on the sand. There it coughed, vomiting up seawater, and
trembled pathetically. It made no attempt to flee. Rather, it looked up quizzically at the three Voyager
crewmen.
"I've n-notified the captain," said Neelix. He was shivering in his sodden suit. "Sh-she's on her way."
"What is it doing here?" asked Torres, voicing the more pressing question rather than the all-too-common
What is it? Chances were they'd never re-ally know what it was, but maybe they could deter-mine why
it, a developed creature, was on this allegedly uninhabited planet.
Neelix squatted down. "Poor little thing," he said softly. He extended a hand. The creature sniffed at it.
Paris regarded it in more detail. It was small, weighing only a couple of kilos. All that hair, which had
weighed it down in the ocean, probably made it look bigger than it was.
"It looks like some kind of canine," he said.
"No big bad wolf, that's for sure," said Torres, joining Neelix in reaching out a hand. The creature sniffed
her, its dark purple nose quivering, then ex-tended a black tongue and licked her hand. She laughed,
surprised.
"It's either fearless or has been domesticated," said Neelix.
"Step away from it," came Janeway's brisk voice.
"Oh, Captain, it's harmless," said Neelix.
"Not until my tricorder says so," Janeway replied. She was dressed in an outfit Paris had never seen her
in: a long shirt and baggy pants. It looked very com-fortable and there were lots of colorful splotches of
paint on it. And some colorful splotches of paint on his captain as well, but he thought it better not to
mention it. So this was Captain Janeway at leisure. It was a good look for her.
She was all business now as she knelt near the an-imal and scanned it with the tricorder. "Canine," she
said. Paris threw Torres a told-you-so look. "Carni-vore. No signs of disease. Well nourished and
com-pletely healthy."
The creature lowered its hindquarters. If it weren't for the orange and red fur, the purple nose, and the
slitted eyes, Tom could have sworn it was a dog.
"And friendly," Janeway admitted, breaking into a smile and petting the creature's sodden pelt. "The
question is, my friend, what are you doing here, hmm? How is it that you're well nourished on meat when
there's nothing here big enough to catch your eye?"
She straightened. Neelix picked up the creature and cuddled it. It ducked its head against his chest,
seemingly completely at home in a humanoid's arms.
"This has got to be somebody's pet," stated Paris. He didn't know how he knew, he just did.
"I'm inclined to agree with you, Tom," said Jane-way. She tapped her combadge. "Janeway to Voy-ager"
"I was just about to contact you, Captain," came Chakotay's voice. "We detected a sudden, brief surge
of energy. Did you see anything?"
Janeway glanced at the creature in Neelix's arms. It was shivering and, Paris thought, not very happy
about being soaked to the bone.
"We did see something, but more on that in a minute. We noticed no surge of energy. Where was it
located?"
"Approximately ninety meters northeast from
where the four of-wait a minute, I'm detecting an-other Me sign. It's right on top of Neelix!"
"That was the other thing I was going to tell you about. It's harmless, but it's raising a lot of questions.
Tom, Torres, Neelix-any of you see anything?"
Paris felt his face grow warm. Until they'd spotted the dog-alien-thing, he'd been far too engrossed in
B'Elanna's warmth and the scent of the sea to have noticed anything short of a Borg cube. "Negative,
Captain."
Neelix also looked uncomfortable. He'd probably had his eyes glued to the sand, on the lookout for
some interesting rocks. He, too, shook his head.
To his relief, Janeway seemed as annoyed with herself as she was with them. "I was concentrating on
mixing cadmium red with thalo blue myself."
"I'm not surprised," said Chakotay. "The energy pulse only registered for a second or two here. It might
not even have been visible to the naked eye."
"Captain," said Paris, "we saw the dog drowning in precisely the spot that Chakotay had indicated. This
thing couldn't have evolved naturally on this planet. I'm certain that the energy pulse has some-thing to do
with why it's here."
Janeway nodded. "I agree with you, Mr. Paris. It could have been a transport of some kind."
"What kind of monster would deliberately trans-port a little dog into the middle of the ocean?"
ex-claimed Neelix, cuddling his new friend closer.
"It's not a dog," Janeway said, "and I suggest that you not get too attached to it."
"We're not going to leave it here?" interjected B'Elanna. Tom turned to her, surprised and pleased.
It wasn't like B'Elanna to champion puppies. She looked uncomfortable with the outburst. "I mean, it
didn't evolve here. It couldn't survive."
"Yeah," put in Tom helpfully.
"Look at this little face, Captain," urged Neelix, lifting the animal to within inches of Janeway's nose. "He'll
die if we abandon him. He'll starve to death-a slow, agonizing, heartless, cruel-"
Janeway lifted a hand in surrender. "All right, you've made your point. What I want to know is what
created that energy pulse. If we can find who did it, then maybe we could figure out who this fel-low
belongs to and-"
Paris's blue eyes widened. They had all turned to face the spot where Chakotay had told them the pulse
had manifested. Right before their eyes, a thin, horizontal line appeared from nowhere. It grew in length,
then shunted downward at a right angle until there was a large rectangle extending into the sea. It was as
if someone had taken a knife and carved the sky like a jack-o'-lantern, revealing only darkness beyond.
The dog-thing wriggled in Neelix's arms and let out a sharp, loud sound that reminded Paris of a bark.
"It-it looks like a doorway," said Torres, her voice quavering only slightly.
"Yes," breathed Janeway, "but a doorway to where?"
Shore leave was abruptly terminated. Janeway, who moments before had been utterly absorbed in her
painting, could barely spare the time to put the caps on the tubes of paint before she hastily ordered
them, along with herself, directly transported to her quarters. She dressed quickly, groaning a little as she
realized she'd gotten paint in her hair, and quickly scrubbed it out. Her mind was racing a thousand
kilometers a minute.
The bridge was monitoring the strange door. It was reportedly stable, for the moment. The energy spike
had been like nothing they'd ever seen before. Chakotay's voice wafted to her ears through her
combadge, penetrating her thoughts.
"Our sensors can't penetrate inside," he was say-ing as Janeway brushed at her damp hair.
"I want a closer look at it."
A sigh. "I was afraid you'd say that. We can ma-neuver a probe down-"
"No. I want to see it for myself."
"That could be dangerous."
"Understood. We'll take a probe with us. And if it's safe, I want to go through."
A heavy, laden pause. "Captain?"
"Chakotay, it's the only conceivable way the dog could have gotten on that planet. If it's safe enough for
the dog, it's safe enough for us."
"So you're calling it a dog now too."
Briefly, Janeway glanced over at the holophoto of her beloved Molly and her once-beloved Mark. There
was still a pang when she looked at this image of them, captured forever in time, when Molly was young,
Janeway was home, and Mark was desper-ately in love with her. As she had been with him.
It was Molly she was looking at now, though, not Mark. She recalled finding her at a pound on Taurus
Ceti IV, saw again the pup's lively enthusiasm, her
spunk, her spirit. There hadn't been room in her life for a dog at the time, but she'd made room.
Surprising herself, Janeway blinked back tears at the memory of housetraining the puppy, of watching her
ungainly ambling wobble mature into the sleek, graceful gait of a purebred Irish setter. Molly was
beautiful, calm, obedient, and loving. She had so wanted to be present at the birth of Molly's puppies.
Molly would be growing older by this point. Were there white hairs on that long muzzle? Stiffness in the
liquid joints? Even her puppies would be well into their adult years. Time was harsher on some than
others. Janeway forgave herself for the quick rush of tears, gone as soon as they had arrived.
And now this little bundle, which was currently quarantined in sickbay, had appeared on the prover-bial
doorstep. Was it so wrong to call it a dog? It was of a similar species, had clearly been domesticated,
and had a nature as sweet as Neelix's. Which was actually saying a hell of a lot.
"Yes," she stated. "I'm calling it a dog." Her curios-ity was aroused by the creature and the mysterious
doorway through which it had likely arrived. "Have Lieutenant Paris prepare the Delta Flyer and fetch
our little friend from sickbay. We're going back down."
Paris met her in the docking bay a few moments later, carrying the "dog" and a crate in which to con-tain
it once they boarded the shuttlecraft. It looked much happier and considerably drier than when Janeway
摘要:

StarTrek-Gateways5-NoMan'sLandCHAPTER1chakotaysighedheavily."Ihatetosayit,butI'mafraiditdoesn'tlookgood."CaptainKathrynJaneway'sbluegazeflickeredtothefaceofherfirstofficer.Shedidn'tansweratonce.Whenatlastshespoke,hervoicewasheavybutresigned."IknewIcouldcountonyoutotellmethetruth."Chakotayhadonlyspok...

展开>> 收起<<
Star Trek - [Gateways 5] - [VOY] - No Man's Land.pdf

共115页,预览23页

还剩页未读, 继续阅读

声明:本站为文档C2C交易模式,即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载,本站只是中间服务平台,本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间,仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理,对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私,请立即通知玖贝云文库,我们立即给予删除!
分类:外语学习 价格:5.9玖币 属性:115 页 大小:309.13KB 格式:PDF 时间:2024-12-20

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务
/ 115
客服
关注