STAR TREK - VOY - 07 - Ghost Of A Chance

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Star Trek - Voy - 007 - Ghost Of A Chance
By: Mark A. Garland and Charles G. McGraw
CHAPTER 1
Commander Chakotay's spirit guide had visited him many times in his dreams. Unlike the often arbitrary
or chaotic dreams of others, the spirit guide brought clarity through visions that helped explain the world
outside as well as the world within.
But it was not the guide that came into the mind of the commander tonight, finding him as he slipped
deeper into his dreams. It was a ghost...
The entity had no true form, though like a strong, cool wind it made itself known. It drew closer, touching
his unconscious fleetingly at first, as if unsure, or unwilling. But this seemed to last only a moment. The
ghost began to change, enriched by the encounter somehow, and Chakotay sensed a certain excitement.
Suddenly he saw into the ghost's mind.
The images were less alien than the ghost that brought them. A beautiful world full of life, and graced with
a vast, thriving wilderness. The world moved, passing his mind's eye too quickly.
When the images settled again, they revealed a huge village nestled among the trees, a place populated
by a vibrant primitive culture. He found details difficult to distinguish, but there were many things familiar
about these people and their community, and Chakotay could not help but compare them to his own
people, of perhaps a thousand years ago.
Their homes were fashioned from the materials they found all around them, as were their clothes, and he
saw no signs of suffering or war.
But this vision too lasted only for a short while. New images of death and destruction rushed into the
dream. A different place, perhaps, or a different time?
He saw the land split, saw oceans turn to steam and mountains spewing the planet's molten interior
upward into the smoke-filled skies. The world seemed bent on destroying itself and all that lived on it in a
frenzy of earthquakes and fire. Then the ghost and the images were fading from the dreams, but they
were replaced by a clearly understood message, one that echoed through the commander's mind until it
brought him shuddering into consciousness. As he sat up, the fateful pleas of the ghost seemed to radiate
outward through his skull until they reverberated off the walls of his cabin. It was a desperate cry for
help.
***
Chakotay looked directly at Harry Kim in the Ops bay as he entered Voyager's bridge. The hiss of the
turbolift doors caused the young ensign to look up from his operations and communications panels. Kim
was the youngest, greenest member of the bridge crew. Voyager's mission to the Badlands had been his
first assignment, but he had already proven himself under fire.
"Status?" Chakotay asked him.
"We will arrive at the Drenar system in eleven minutes," Kim reported.
Another ensign, who was carrying a PADD containing the updated Ops report, moved away from Kim,
then handed the report to the commander.
Chakotay glanced briefly at the data. As he looked around the bridge, his gaze lingered only twice. Tom
Paris, the young human lieutenant at the helm, regarded Chakotay with his characteristic, only slightly
arrogant smile. Though he came from a family full of admirals, his expression was born of talent and
experience, not ego.
Lieutenant Tuvok, the only Vulcan on the bridge, stood in the tactical bay to Chakotay's right, and was at
this moment paying strict attention to the screens and displays at his station--something he apparently
believed had a higher priority than idle greetings. Which suited the first officer just fine.
Because Voyager was always in unknown, uncharted space, its tactical station was perhaps the most
important on the ship.
Chakotay took a deep breath and decided all seemed to be in order, reassuringly so just now. He slowly
exhaled, letting the lingering tension flow out of him. The dreams and visions of the night before still
flickered in his mind, too real to let go of, yet clearly not real at all, and not worth dwelling on for now.
Only a dream, he told himself yet again, trying to shake off the images.
He had half expected to find some tangible evidence of his strange visions as he joined the day shift, so
real were the images. He had already gone over most of the duty and sensor logs from the previous
shifts, reviewing everything that had happened while he slept, but nothing out of the ordinary had turned
up.
Chakotay stepped forward and down, then walked slowly about the bridge's main, lower level, letting the
dreams quiet themselves, absorbing the gray-and-black reality of the walls and railings, the strangely
comforting electronic glow of many lit panels at the engineering and science stations.
"Six minutes, Commander," Kim said.
"Very well. Captain to the bridge," Chakotay called out, raising his voice to engage the intercom system.
It was a routine stop, but one that Kathryn Janeway, captain of the Starship Voyager, had been looking
forward to. She and Tuvok had devised a method of replenishing the impulse engines' deuterium tanks, at
least in theory. In just a few minutes they were going to put those ideas into practice.
A few moments later Captain Janeway strode smartly onto the bridge, followed closely by the Talaxian,
Neelix. She wore her uniform trim and proper, her hair tucked up into a neat bun on the back of her
head, no strand or thread or movement out of place. She stood in stark contrast to Neelix, whose short
frame, oddly spotted face, scruffy wisps of orange hair, and bright, multicolored tunic made him seem
somewhat clownlike in her presence.
They made an effective team, however: the eager, ardent and decidedly capricious alien was Voyager's
only guide in this part of the galaxy, and Janeway's straightforward discipline, along with a certain
measure of insight, allowed her to make good use of Neelix's counsel.
Janeway, like her first officer, made a quick visual inspection as she stepped down and stood at ease
near the center of the bridge, beside Chakotay. She folded her arms with a look of satisfaction. "Report,"
she said.
"Three minutes to arrival," Kim responded.
"It's right where Neelix said it would be." Paris glanced back, raising an affable eyebrow to the alien.
"Thank you," Neelix replied cheerily, bowing briefly from the waist.
He smiled at the captain. "I think you'll find the Drenarian system will provide the perfect opportunity to
test your ideas. The system contains several gas giants, most with an assortment of moons that should
make any captain happy as can be."
"Thank you, Neelix," Janeway answered him, adding a crisp nod.
She let half a grin slip before turning away. "Bridge to Engineering."
The voice of B'Elanna Torres, Voyager's half-human, half-Klingon chief engineer came instantly back,
"Yes, Captain."
"How are we doing?"
"We're all set down here. Whenever you're ready."
"You haven't explained exactly what it is you're going to do," Neelix said, tipping his head to one side
almost birdlike as he awaited Janeway's reply.
She hadn't explained the details of the plan to anyone, really.
She had been a scientist long before becoming an officer, and she had a habit of forgetting that many of
those around her did not possess those same credentials.
"We're going to use the Bussard ramscoops to draw raw material from a suitable moon around one of
Drenar's largest gas giants.
We're hoping several of them will have rich hydrogen-methane atmospheres. We should then be able to
convert the collected material into usable deuterium slush--at least that's what Torres and I have in mind."
"A full description of the conversion process is available in the computer, should anyone wish to examine
it," Tuvok noted. "I can supply you with the file location."
Neelix, for his part, made no immediate request.
"We have reached the coordinates," Kim reported.
"Go to impulse," Chakotay ordered.
"Disengaging main drive," Lieutenant Paris said, touching points on the panel before him. The instant the
ship dropped out of warp it slammed into a wall.
***
Captain Janeway found herself momentarily pinned beneath her first officer as the two of them tumbled to
their left and were slammed down onto the deck. The ship lurched to the right then and shuddered
violently, setting off alarms. The impulse engines howled as the lights dimmed and systems began to go
down.
The captain's head bounced off the gray-carpeted deck plates, and she felt her teeth bite into her tongue,
tasted blood. She looked up into Chakotay's eyes as he tried to regain his bearings and attempted to roll
off her. Paris was clinging to his station, fighting to regain control of the helm. Behind her she could hear
Tuvok wheeze as he thudded against something hard.
The ship lurched to the left once more, sending everyone tumbling yet again. Janeway managed to grab
hold of the deck rail and steady herself briefly. She craned her neck and saw Tuvok still at his post, every
bit as tenacious as Lieutenant Paris.
"Mr. Tuvok, report!" she shouted over the wail of the emergency klaxon and the onerous groan of the
engines.
"We are caught in an intense gravitational field. I am attempting to determine the source."
"That would be a help."
"Captain," Tuvok came back almost at once. "There seems to be a star, a small brown dwarf, dead
ahead."
"I'm attempting to compensate," Paris called back. "It's really got a hold of us."
"There was no brown dwarf here before, I'm sure of it!" Neelix cried from the heap he had tumbled into
just in front of the captain's chair.
"And it's only been a few years."
Janeway looked at the main viewscreen, but even at this distance there was almost nothing to see. Yet as
she looked more closely she began to notice the star's outline, an apparent hole in space where the
brown dwarf's dark sphere blocked out the stars behind it.
"Transferring all available power to the impulse engines," Kim said, following procedure perfectly.
"Engines at full," Paris acknowledged. "It's having an effect, but we're still not breaking free." He sat up,
rigid in his chair, bracing himself as the lurching ceased--only to be replaced by a steady and rapid
shaking that quickly threatened to rattle the starship apart.
"Systems failure reports coming in from all over the ship," Kim reported, even before Janeway could ask.
The captain worked her way along the railing, hand over hand, toward her command chair. "Injuries?"
"Numerous, but all minor so far," Tuvok replied.
"We're too close. The star's gravity is too strong," Paris said, his voice straining in sympathy with the
engines.
Janeway lifted her head and shouted at the ceiling.
"Engineering, can we go to warp? We have to get out of here."
"Yes, Captain," B'Elanna replied. "The upper matter-constriction segments shut down briefly. I'm
reinitializing now. Just give me a minute."
"We don't have a minute."
No one said a word for several very long seconds. The shaking grew worse, or it seemed to, as Janeway
stood bent-kneed on the trembling deck.
"That should do it, Captain," B'Elanna announced, sooner than expected.
"Mr. Paris!" Janeway snapped.
"Warp drives engaged," Paris said, as the deck again suddenly tilted beneath their feet. Janeway's grip
tightened on the deck rail as Chakotay grabbed the chair behind him. On the viewscreen the dark circle
began to move, but it did not go way.
"It's still no good, Captain," Lieutenant Paris said, glancing frantically over his shoulder. "We just aren't
pulling away."
"Engineering, we need more power!" Janeway demanded.
"You've got everything we have," Torres came back, her voice nearly lost in the background roar of the
engine room.
Janeway turned to her officers. "Tuvok, Kim, divert everything to the engines, including life-support, do it
now!"
In an instant the bridge went nearly dark, lit only by the dim glow of red emergency lighting. The ship
pitched and shook again as yet another surge made itself felt. Janeway watched intently as the stars off
the bow began to move, taking the dark circle with them. Again, they did not go far.
"We still can't break free. We're holding position, but we can't keep that up for long," Paris informed the
captain, paying frantic attention to his console.
"Captain." It was Torres in Engineering again. "I have a suggestion."
Janeway's eyes went wide, then narrowed as her mind came around to what was very likely the same
idea. "Emergency flight rules," she said.
"Yes," B'Elanna answered. "We can add a minute amount of antimatter to the impulse reaction chamber.
That might give us the extra power we need."
"If it doesn't blow us all up," Chakotay added.
Janeway looked at him, one eyebrow going up.
He shrugged, guileless. "Don't let that stop you," he said.
"Do it!" Janeway commanded.
For a long moment the howl of the engines and the bone-jarring tremors that swept the ship continued
unchanged, then B'Elanna spoke again, "Transferring antimatter... now."
Voyager surged like a boat swept up on a passing wave.
"Hull stress climbing beyond maximum design levels," Tuvok reported calmly.
Janeway looked at him only briefly. "Keep it coming, Mr. Paris."
"Aye, Captain."
"We're pulling away!" Kim shouted, just as Janeway felt it happen, felt the ship abruptly move much
farther than before as their momentum shifted decidedly away from the darkened star.
"We've lost the warp engines," Paris announced. Even as he spoke, entire panels on the bridge erupted in
a series of bright flashes followed by curling smoke and a flicker of flames. The smell of burned circuits
filled the stagnant air. The fire-suppression systems quickly detected and snuffed out the flames while the
bridge crew scrambled to the extinguishers, then held them at ready until it was clear they would not be
needed.
"The impulse engines have dropped back to within normal levels, and are still on-line," Paris informed the
captain, then added, "For the moment."
"Proceed in-system at half impulse," Janeway ordered. "Let me know if the engines get any worse."
"Transferring power back to life-support systems," Kim said, working swiftly. As life-support came back
on-line, the computer automatically began to rid the room of the smoke and fumes. Full lighting was
restored to the bridge.
Janeway sat back in her chair and asked for damage reports as Voyager finally began to settle down.
Judging by the bridge, she expected the worst. As it turned out, she was not surprised.
"Almost everything is off-line," B'Elanna reported from Engineering, confirming the bad news Tuvok had
already begun relating. "The main computer detected stresses high enough to trigger an automatic warp
core shutdown. Warp drive, phasers, transporters, anything that uses a lot of power, is gone for the
moment. I'm using everything we've got to keep the main computer up and the impulse engines and
life-support running. I won't know how bad it is until we can run complete level four diagnostics."
The captain frowned. A long strand of thick dark blond hair had been pulled free from the top of her
head; it hung in her face now, as if intent on adding annoyance to catastrophe. She brushed it straight
back, only to have it fall again. "At least we're not dead in the water."
"No, Captain," B'Elanna said, "but go easy on the impulse engines.
After that last jolt, I don't know what shape they're in."
"Helm?"
"Sluggish but responding, Captain," Paris came back.
"Understood." She turned slightly to her right. "Mr. Neelix, I'd like another word with you."
The alien appeared to be quite shaken, as he stood straightening his colorful tunic, his narrow fingers
shaking noticeably.
"Captain," he said, "I must go to Medical and see that Kes is all right."
"Of course, but first I'd like to know anything you can tell me about that brown dwarf. Anything at all."
"Which would be nothing, Captain, as I said. It's as much a surprise to me as it is to you. Had I only
known--" "Understood." The Talaxian was not a liar. The captain was going to have to figure this one out
on her own. "Very well, you may go."
Neelix turned and rushed through the open door of the turbolift.
Nothing happened.
"It seems you will be staying on the bridge a while longer," Tuvok said with a dry Vulcan finality that
Neelix was apparently not inclined to emulate.
For the first time in several minutes Janeway smiled. She let it fade.
"Mr. Tuvok, contact Medical, find out how Kes has fared and let Neelix know. The rest of you, get to
work on restoring these systems.
Mr. Paris, set a course for the system's largest gas giant. I don't see any reason just to sit here and sulk.
Mr. Kim, I'll want full sensor sweeps, the best you can give me.
Start with that brown dwarf, and then scan the entire Drenar system. I want to know everything. Transfer
all available data to my ready room.
I need to figure out just what the hell is going on."
CHAPTER 2
As her officers acknowledged her commands and went to work, Janeway breathed a heavy sigh. She
gazed at the viewscreen once more. The Drenar system contained a G-class star and eleven planets, and
appeared quite ordinary in most respects. Clearly it had never been a binary system, the positioning of its
planets was indication enough of that.
With luck, the system would provide some interesting astrophysical data, and with a little more luck, they
would be under way again in a few days' time.
But in truth, just at this moment she didn't feel very lucky.
She left Chakotay on the bridge and headed for her ready room.
For now Janeway's only hope, and Voyager's, was that her crew was equal to the task of getting the
starship up and running again, or at least in a condition that would set them once more on their journey
home.
There would be other star systems, places where at least some aid might be found, where proper
supplies could be procured--Neelix had assured her of that. But with nothing but a badly crippled ship
between the crew and the harsh, endless night waiting all around them, none of those tentative safe oases
mattered.
Out here there was no hope of assistance from anyone familiar, no starbases to turn to, nowhere to run.
It was a truth everyone onboard tried not to think about very often, though just lately such thoughts had
become impossible to avoid.
Janeway blinked the darkness from her thoughts and went back to concentrating on the data displayed
before her on the ready room terminal. The brown dwarf was moving through space undisturbed, and its
trajectory was easy to mark, a path that had taken it through the middle of the Drenar system. Its effect
on Voyager had been profound, and she was just beginning to explore the more serious consequences
that its preceding path implied. She was still deep into the exact calculations when the door chime
sounded. She glanced up. "Come in."
The door slid aside, and Commander Chakotay stepped into the opening.
"We are in orbit around the largest moon of the sixth planet, Captain," he said. "The impulse engines
seem to be holding their own, and we still need fuel--more than ever, in fact. I don't see any reason why
we shouldn't go ahead with your original plan. With your permission, Tuvok and Kim would like to begin
collection procedures."
"Agreed, and thank you," she said. She had intended to discuss that very possibility with her senior
officers; it pleased her to find them way ahead of her. "I'll be right there."
"Have you seen the casualty reports?"
Janeway held her breath. "No."
"Nothing serious, mostly bumps and bruises. We did have one broken arm, though. Fortunately it
happened in Sickbay."
"Ah, good." Janeway nodded, glancing down at her screen again.
"The bad news is, it was Kes."
Janeway's head snapped up again. Kes was an Ocampa, a species that had a life span of only nine years;
at just over one, Kes was already an adult, but she was still young enough to heal very quickly. No doubt
she was in better shape than Neelix so far.
Chakotay shrugged. "At least we managed to get the turbolifts working again, so Neelix is with her
instead of with us."
Janeway touched her comm badge. "Captain to Sickbay. How is Kes doing?"
"Quite well, as a matter of fact," the holographic doctor said.
"Though I'm sure the other patients would be happier if she were able to assist me again. I can tend to
only one patient at a time. She is a great help. I..."
Janeway waited, exchanging a glance with her first officer in the unexpected silence.
"I understand," Janeway said. "She is remarkable."
"She'll be back to work tomorrow. A little stiff, perhaps, but otherwise..."
Janeway found herself waiting again.
He sounded cheerful enough, which was almost unusual. The holographic medical assistant program that
had been pressed into service as Voyager's only doctor was doing a splendid job, and Janeway couldn't
have been more pleased, but his attitude and bedside manner were sometimes difficult to manage.
"Yes?" she prodded.
"Captain," the doctor replied, his voice just above a whisper, "if you could please find something for Mr.
Neelix to do, and someplace else for him to do it, I would be extremely... grateful."
"We'll see what we can do," she replied, suppressing a chuckle, then signing off.
"I'll add that to my list," Chakotay said. He was grinning as he left the ready room.
Janeway stayed at her panel for a moment, working with the ship's main computer, completing her
reconstruction of the rogue star's recent path. The brown dwarf had passed close enough to Drenar
nearly to make this a new binary system. An interesting place to study, given sufficient time, which was
something Voyager simply could not afford to spend.
Still, enough raw data could be collected to provide for countless hours of analysis in the months, or
years, to come.
After another moment she shook her head. She didn't need to be here right now. She told the computer
to continue, then rose and followed Chakotay out.
"Mr. Tuvok," she said, stepping onto the bridge.
"Ready, Captain," the Vulcan answered. "The main deflector has been reconfigured, and approximate
calculations have been completed."
Kim nodded confirmation from behind the Ops consoles. "Thrusters are at station-keeping," he said. "I've
diverted just enough impulse power to do the job."
Janeway took to her captain's chair, then rested two fingers gently against her chin. "Then let's begin."
"Activating Bussard ramscoop fields," Tuvok said. Janeway watched on her own monitor as the
electro-magnetic fields, designed to be used for emergency collection of interstellar hydrogen during warp
travel, began to expand outward, stretching in front of the ship from both of the warp nacelles.
"Deflector field wrap initiated," Kim said, working at his own console.
"Field overlay achieved, Mr. Kim," Tuvok said. "You may begin bending them downward."
"Commencing... now."
On the display, the captain witnessed the results as the two EM fields wrapped themselves around each
other to form a tighter, more cohesive funnel, one that began to bend down and away from Voyager at
nearly a forty-five-degree angle, an energy funnel theoretically capable of channeling the hydrogen-rich
material of the moon's upper atmosphere back toward the collectors located in the warp nacelle caps.
"Take us in a little closer, Mr. Paris," Chakotay told the helmsman, and Voyager slowly, gently
descended.
Gradually the mouth of the funnel began to fill with tenuous clouds of hydrogen-methane as the twin fields
skimmed the atmosphere's surface, drawing in material the way a draft drew smoke from a room. Paris
brought the ship down another hundred kilometers, as dose as he dared to get while using the thrusters
almost exclusively, but within seconds the ram fields started to collapse as the increased volume of gases
leaked through.
"Too much," Janeway told him. "Back us off a bit."
As the ship slowly rose again, the fields reestablished themselves.
"The process seems successful on a limited scale," Tuvok reported.
"Thank you," B'Elanna Torres's voice said over the intercom.
Janeway looked up from her monitor and smiled. "I think we can live with that. B'Elanna, how long can
we sustain the fields at this level?"
"Approximately twenty-seven minutes."
"Good. We might try this again later. Meanwhile, as soon as we're finished here I'd like to complete our
preliminary scan of the rest of the system. The astrophysical data I've seen so far are quite remarkable,
but I know there's more."
"Agreed, Captain," Chakotay said. "Actually, some of the early data would suggest the need for a more
thorough survey as well.
The fourth planet appears to have an extremely rich biosphere.
It could even provide a good source of food. And..." He stopped himself, then shook his head.
"What?"
"Nothing," he said.
She sensed there was definitely something more. She stood silent for a moment, studying her first officer
and feeling more certain. "You're not telling me something."
"May I have a word with you in private?" Chakotay said, suddenly pensive.
A rare mood for this man, Janeway thought. She nodded once.
"Tuvok, you have the bridge," she said. Then she turned.
摘要：

StarTrek-Voy-007-GhostOfAChanceBy:MarkA.GarlandandCharlesG.McGrawCHAPTER1CommanderChakotay'sspiritguidehadvisitedhimmanytimesinhisdreams.Unliketheoftenarbitraryorchaoticdreamsofothers,thespiritguidebroughtclaritythroughvisionsthathelpedexplaintheworldoutsideaswellastheworldwithin.Butitwasnottheguide...

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