• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Neelix quickly repositioned himself on the other side of the biobed, noting with faint relief that Naomi’s small face was returning to a more normal color thanks to the oxygen infusion she was receiving.

“Aha!” the Doctor said as the final results of the neural scan appeared on the monitor before him. Without another word he moved quickly to a storage cabinet and removed a small neural stimulator.

“It’s a good thing I equipped sickbay with emergency medical equipment specific to the needs of a human and Ktarian child shortly after Naomi was born,” he said as he returned to the child’s side.

He then placed the neural stimulator on the left side of Naomi’s forehead and began carefully resetting the small components that controlled the stimulator’s programming.

“What are you doing to her?” Neelix asked quietly.

“I am repairing the damage to her brain.”

“Her brain?” Neelix asked, as if this was the last thing he had expected to hear.

“Yes, Mr. Neelix. Naomi has suffered a series of collapses in her neural pathways. I am attempting to stimulate new pathways that will restore the normal functioning of her respiratory system.”

“But why?”

“Because it is the only way to save her life.”

“Of course,” Neelix said, “but what could have caused such a thing?”

“At the moment, I have no idea,” the Doctor replied, “although as soon as Naomi’s condition is stabilized, I do not intend to deactivate myself until I find out.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Neelix asked.

“Yes,” the Doctor answered. “Please contact Naomi’s mother.”

Neelix nodded and made his way on shaking legs toward the door. News such as this had to be delivered in person.

Chakotay was faced with a complicated task. According to the schematics provided by Seven of Nine, the array they were approaching contained hundreds of kilometers of corridors and other spaces to be searched on foot. Had all of Voyager’s roughly 150 crewmen been at his disposal, a thorough search of the array would take weeks. Given the fact that at least one-third of those crew members would be required to maintain Voyager’s systems, rotating duty shifts with the other two-thirds to allow minimal time for them to eat and sleep, apart from the senior officers that left less than forty people at his disposal at any given time to form his search teams. This meant that they might easily spend at least three months aboard the array and still not see everything there was to see.

He was every bit as intrigued by the possibilities of the array as the captain and Seven of Nine were. The power reserves alone were worth a thorough examination. At no time since Voyager had left the Alpha Quadrant had all of their reserve systems been completely replenished. A few months of less restrictive replicator rationing would go a long way toward boosting crew morale. He even let himself hope that some of the technology they were sure to find could be adapted to Voyager’s. Obviously they would not have access to the primary source of power, the elements found in the singularity at the center of the array. But most of those elements had existed in normal space before they had been sucked in by the immense gravity of the black hole. The array’s most valuable asset would be the converters used to transform simple elements into complex fuel sources. With that at their disposal, Voyager’s return to the Alpha Quadrant might still take decades, but they would be comfortable decades.

The difficulty in assigning and scheduling the away teams lay not in prioritizing their goals. First they would find Tuvok, and then they would begin a thorough exploration of the array’s power systems.

The problem would be Kathryn.

They had been faced in the past with opportunities to settle on hospitable and welcoming Class-M planets. Invariably the consensus was that returning home outweighed the comfort and ease of the life they could easily have built for themselves anywhere in the Delta Quadrant. Time and again the crew had pushed themselves to the brink of oblivion rather