B'lanna Torres stood at the Engineering console with a frown on her face. A few of the crew were moving around the cavernous Engineering deck performing tasks that she had assigned to them. She'd sent part of her team to take a half-hour break while she puzzled through these strange readings.
She'd been about to begin re-aligning the dilithium matrix until one last glance at the readouts showed a vibration reading hiccup that wasn't there moments before. Upon a second look, the Chief Engineer saw it was just enough of a disturbance to possibly hinder the touchy alignment accuracy. She'd have to track down its source and see if she could eliminate it or compensate for it.
She hit her comm badge. "Torres to Bridge."
"Tuvok here. Is there a problem, Lieutenant?"
B'lanna remembered then that Tuvok was in command of the bridge. The ship had spent the better part of a week looking for a region of space quiet enough to perform the re-alignment, 'quiet' meaning low background radiation and subspace noise and an absence of pulsars, nebulas or other phenomena that could disturb her delicate adjustments to the warp drive. The region was in fact so quiet that both the Captain and the First Officer had taken time off, no doubt due to the unsubtle prompting of the Holographic Doctor.
Chakotay was probably meditating; Janeway was likely somewhere with a coffee in one hand and a report padd in the other that she deemed necessary to go over before she could rest. B'lanna wondered if the Captain ever took time off, really.
"Tuvok, I've found a strange vibration that just showed up on the background noise sweep. I don't want to start the re-alignment until I can isolate the cause."
"Do you have a theory at present?"
"No, it's a very minimal disturbance. It's only showing up on the level five calibration sensors. Seems to be slightly stronger on the port side of the ship's hull. Do you read anything from up there? It is a blip repeating every 0.65 seconds." She watched the readout. It was surprisingly regular and therefore not likely to be naturally occurring, but so faint that she felt barely justified in delaying her work. Still, when it came to her engines, she was as protective as a new mother and took no chances with their well-being.
"No, Lieutenant, I see no unusual energy patterns. Go ahead and investigate, but be aware that the calmness of this region will decrease starting in three hours, after which time it will be difficult to complete your calibrations. Report when you reach a conclusion."
"Yes, Sir. Torres out."
Right. Do it, but do it fast. As if she wasn't totally aware of the time constraints! She figured that she could allow herself half an hour to solve this little mystery and still do the re-alignment with another half an hour to spare on the other end.
She grabbed a tricorder and headed towards the port side of the ship. The external sensors had come up with nothing out of the ordinary even when boosted past their maximum sensitivity. She'd have to see if she could pick up anything from inside the ship.
For fifteen minutes she roamed up and down the corridors nearest the hull on several decks. '˜This is a wild goose chase,' she thought. These readings could be some space beacon or alien probe or satellite parsecs from here that she just happened to pick up on the ultra-sensitive scans she'd been running. Better to do the badly needed alignment anyway since it had been so hard to find this still pocket of space. "One more try," she said out loud to herself.
She took the turbolift up one deck and once again began sweeping the diagnostic tricorder along the hallway outside the lift. She stopped. There it was! The same distinctive blip, this time at a slightly faster interval of 0.52 seconds. '˜Strange,' she thought, intrigued. She walked down the corridor. The reading faded out. She turned around and went back the way she had come from and the reading got more distinct. Several more passes up and down the hall and she had pinpointed the crew cabin, or more likely the hull portion behind it, being affected the most strongly by the anomalous pulse.
B'lanna stood facing the door for several seconds before realizing that the nameplate over the door entry keypad read '˜Janeway'. '˜Very odd,' she thought.
Then she heard a yelp and a crashing sound of something hitting the floor coming from inside the cabin.
Alarmed, she hit her comm badge. "B'lanna to Tuvok," she said anxiously.
"Report."
"I'm right outside the Captain's quarters where I've isolated the reading. But I've just heard a crash and sounds of distress from inside. The Captain may be in there and need help. I am requesting a security override to enter." B'lanna rushed out her words. Her adrenaline was rising quickly.
"Authorized. I am beaming you a phaser. Proceed cautiously. I am on my way."
A phaser materialized a foot away from her on the deck. She picked it up, checked that it was fully charged and set to stun, and folded herself into a defensive crouch. She hit the '˜full scan' mode on the tricorder and stepped towards the Captain's door.
The door opened and she stepped in, treading quietly as she could, a Maquis skill that Chakotay had taught her of hiding her footfalls. She moved out of the sensor range of the door and it shut, settling the room back into semi-darkness. It took a second or two for her to see that the main cabin was empty. Then she heard another cry, definitely the Captain's, come from the other room.
B'lanna checked the tricorder. 0.40 seconds. The reading was increasing its frequency. She gripped the phaser and shuffled, still crouching, along the cabin wall to where she could get a clear view of the second room and a good shot into it, if that became necessary. Her pulse was hammering in her ears. She'd had to protect Chakotay once by sneaking up like this and picking off a murderous enemy from behind.
What met her eyes shocked her and made her stomach lurch. Someone was lying on top of Captain Janeway pinning her down to her own bed and'|
B'lanna leveled her phaser at the bare backside of her attacker and prepared to fire.
Janeway cried out again, but this time in two intelligible words.
B'lanna lowered the phaser. Janeway had said "Seven'|.yes!"
In her panic that her Captain was under attack, she had failed to take in the whole scene. She looked at her tricorder. 0.38 second intervals. She looked back into the room. A haze was settling over her vision. She blinked several times to clear it. She was beginning to register the details now. Janeway's hair was a tangled mess framing her face. Her arms were flung up over her head and her hands were pushing against the headboard. B'lanna could see her biceps bulging as she braced against Seven of Nine's repetitive motion, just as she could see her calves flexing into the rhythm, her feet flat against the bed. She had her grey standard-issue tank still on and it was soaked with sweat all around the neck and down her chest, darkening the fabric.
Two pillows were slumped up against the wall on one side of the bed and a broken vase lay beside the end table. That must have been the crash she heard through the door.
Then she noticed the details of Seven. Her sight was hazing again at the edges, but crystal clear in the center of her vision was the trickle of moisture slowly threading its way down between Seven's shoulders to pool in the small of her arched back.
B'lanna became aware of the sound of Seven breathing hard, and the Captain giving a couple more loud cries and grunting rhythmically. Her hands were pushing the headboard into the wall making a steady beat: the windowed wall that connected directly with the port hull. She consulted the tricorder again and the blips, now spaced 0.32 seconds apart unbelievably matched the sounds she was hearing.
Two words came to her mind: Borg efficiency.
B'lanna crouched back against the wall on her heels, truly stunned. Who would have guessed? Well, mystery solved, she thought to herself. Then she remembered that Tuvok was on his way, believing there was a possible security emergency.
'˜I have to get out of here before he bursts in,' she thought desperately, getting a grip on herself again. She crouch-walked back along the wall to just outside the sensor range for the door.
"Computer," she whispered. "Respond in Morse code to the following question: is there anyone within 20 meters of the other side of this door?"
Her comm badge made six quiet chirps. She glanced back in the direction of the bedroom and heard the activity still increasing. She risked opening the door and darted out into the safety of the empty hallway. Relieved, she powered down the phaser and slumped against the wall.
"Restore security lock."
From the sound of things as she'd left, it would likely be only a few minutes more and she could begin realigning the matrix. Once her hands stopped shaking, that is. She took a few deep breaths.
She heard footsteps approaching and saw Tuvok come running down the corridor with another security officer, both with phasers drawn.
"Lieutenant, report!"
"There is no security threat, Tuvok. And I found the source of the strange readings." She held up the tricorder.
"Explain." Tuvok was just a little out of breath. He must have sprinted all the way from the lift.
"My quarters are just down the hall. Do you mind if we go there?" She glanced quickly at the other officer, indicating to Tuvok that she desired privacy to make her report.
"That is acceptable. Ensign, you are dismissed," he said to the other crewman.
Once inside her quarters, B'lanna didn't know how to even start to explain. Tuvok raised an eyebrow at her silence.
"Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine were responsible for the energy readings. It seems the Captain knocked over a vase, which explains the crash I heard."
"I fail to understand how the Captain and Seven could have caused the anomalous readings you reported." He looked disapproving of her over-simplified explanation.
"They were'|." she trailed off. She looked at the recording device in her left hand. She tapped a couple buttons on the tricorder and handed it to Tuvok.
He hit the replay button and B'lanna wrinkled her nose in discomfort as the guttural sounds replayed themselves into her quarters. It was a few long seconds before Tuvok comprehended what he was seeing and hearing. Then he immediately shut off the replay and dropped his hand down. He looked at the ceiling, then at Torres before speaking.
"Lieutenant Torres, that was inappropriate of you to have shown me this, not to mention to have recorded it in the first place! Nevertheless, I do see your point. It is possible that this'| activity '| generated the vibrations that were transmitted along the hull and to the sensitive Engineering sensors."
"The frequency matched exactly'| sir. I think we have the mystery solved. I'd like to start on the dilithium now, if you don't mind." She looked sheepish and clearly wanted to get away from the entire port side of the ship as quickly as possible.
"Of course, and I trust you will not relay any part of this incident to anyone, Lieutenant."
"Of course not! I won't tell a soul. And can we please keep this just between us? I'm pretty sure they were unaware of my presence, and I'd like to keep it that way. I wouldn't want the Captain to ever know what I saw. I didn't mean to'| I thought she was in trouble. Other wise I never would have'|." Her eyes were troubled thinking of Janeway finding out what she'd witnessed.
"I will exclude you from the story, but I must make the Captain aware of the concern her actions caused. This is the exact type of situation the use of Protocol 47 was designed to prevent."
"Protocol 47?"
"Yes, informing the computer of Protocol 47 indicates that you will be engaging in physical activity that may be misconstrued as distress if overheard or monitored by the computer. This is particularly important during a tactical or security alert for intruders, when the computer automatically monitors the normal functioning of the crew for its own safety and security. You should already be aware of this Protocol if you are living aboard a starship."
"Guess I missed that lecture."
"Indeed. Proceed with your realignment. We have wasted enough time here."
B'lanna hastened out of her quarters, not waiting for Tuvok to follow.
* * *
Tuvok stood at attention before the Captain's desk in the Ready Room. The dilithium had been successfully realigned and they had been cruising uneventfully at Warp 6 for several hours. The Captain had a steaming mug of coffee on her desk.
"You look troubled, my friend, what is it?"
Tuvok thought to himself that she looked unusually relaxed and content. "I regret to inform you of a recent oversight in protocol on your part, Captain. I only mention it as a matter of security."
"Well, let's have it then," she prompted, after a moment of silence on Tuvok's part.
"You are no doubt aware of Protocol 47," he stated.
"Protocol 47'|," she said slowly. "Oh. Yes, I am." Her open, inquisitive expression indicated to Tuvok that she had not caught the drift of what he was getting at, as it related to her.
"It would seem that your failure to issue such a command to the computer earlier today caused a significant delay in the maintenance of the Warp Drive, Captain." She looked like she thought he was joking except that they both knew he did not '˜joke'. "A level five sensor sweep picked up the activity in your cabin and I was called to locate the source of the unusual readings before Engineering could proceed. It seems that you were ever so slightly'| shaking the ship."
Tuvok could see she understood what he was talking about now, as there was a slight pink to her cheeks, and she had creased her brow in consternation. He was relieved to not have to forward any further explanation.
"Well, thank you for bringing this oversight to my attention. I assure you it will not be repeated, Lieutenant. Was there anything else?"
"No. That is all."
She nodded, and Tuvok turned and left the Ready Room.
Janeway took a sip of her coffee. The blush was leaving her face and she could feel her cheeks cooling. She tilted her head slightly to one side and raised her eyebrows.
"Impressive," she said to herself and smiled a small smile.
End.