String Theory_ Fusion (Book 2) - Kirsten Beyer [78]
The Doctor raised a cynical eyebrow and retorted without missing a beat, “So in other words, it’s a pretty light day aboard the starship Voyager.”
B’Elanna couldn’t help herself. Smiling broadly she planted a kiss on the Doctor’s cheek and said, “It’s good to have you back. I really missed you.”
Only once Lieutenant Torres had left did the Doctor add quietly to himself, “Someday someone really ought to write all of this down for posterity.”
He turned to Tuvok and thoroughly examined the notes already logged by his temporary replacement, then did his own analysis of the scans of Tuvok’s body. It didn’t take him long to see that the backup EMH had probably been right. It would take a miracle to save Tuvok now, and advanced as he was, there was no subroutine in his program that allowed for the existence of miracles.
Chapter 10
There were grim faces all around as the senior officers, minus their captain and Tuvok, assumed their places around the oval table that took up most of the space in the conference room. Chakotay arrived last and, taking the seat at the table’s head, began by informing them that a thorough search for the captain was still under way. Harry brought the room up to speed about Phoebe, and all were alternately shocked and disturbed to be told that memories of experiences with the captain’s sister spanning four years were nothing more than fabricated reality. Strangely, the more they talked about it, the dimmer those memories seemed to grow for Chakotay, as if the alien influence that created them was slowly but steadily dissipating.
B’Elanna gave a brief synopsis of the backup EMH’s evaluation of Tuvok and expressed cautious optimism that since the real Doctor had been restored, Tuvok’s prognosis must be better. Chakotay briefly described the strange rooms he had discovered aboard the array, but before he or Tom had a chance to mention the hostile creature that had attacked them, Lieutenant Rollins entered and advised Chakotay that the search for the captain had been completed without yielding any new information as to the captain’s current whereabouts. Chakotay dismissed him with a nod and briefed the others as stoically as possible.
“The computer’s logs show that approximately thirty seven minutes ago the captain left the ship. At the same time, the logs show a massive subspace dissonance field at her last known location, and that the entity we have known as Phoebe also disappeared,” he said. “Although the life-form readings aboard the array are still inconclusive, we do know that Voyager’s sensors were able to detect Tuvok’s life signs, as well as both away teams we sent into the array. So if the captain were there, we would know it.”
“Are you saying the captain simply vanished into thin air?” Tom asked.
“We suspect that Phoebe was actually a Nacene. We know very little about them or their technology, but based on what we do know, I don’t believe it’s outside the realm of possibility to suggest that Phoebe could have taken the captain just about anywhere.
“So we are faced with a choice: Either we leave the array and hope that Phoebe returns the captain to us once we’re gone, or we stay here and do what we can to find them,” he finished.
“Surely we have to stay,” Neelix said with obvious anxiety. “We can’t just leave the captain behind.”
“If there were no other dangers present I wouldn’t hesitate to agree,” Chakotay said, “But there are.”
“What dangers?” Neelix asked.
“When Tom and I were aboard the array, we were attacked by an alien creature. Our phaser rifle had no effect on it.”
“What was it?” Neelix was the first to ask.
“I don’t know. We’ve analyzed the readings from Tom’s tricorder and they suggest that there are multiphasic properties to it.”
“Commander,” Seven interrupted, “if it was a multiphasic organism, our sensors can be modified to track it. All of the potential life-form readings we have picked up from the array are difficult to analyze because they fluctuate so rapidly. If there are others like the creature you saw, and they are also