Shaking her head, Kathryn followed him out into the sleek interior of the ship's main business hub . . . the bridge. This was her ship, and a powerful thing it was . . . Interprid-class with sustainable cruise velocity of warp factor nine point nine-seven-five. Originally its primary commission was to enter the badlands and apprehend the Maquis leader and his crew . . . and apprehend them they did, much to Kathryn's delight. Sitting in her chair, she glanced at Chakotay, taking in his handsome features, the strength he offered her crew and his loyalty, with one sweep of her eyes. She hadn't realized she had let a little satisfied sigh escape her lips until he glanced up at her, uncertainly, and questioned, "What?"
"Captain, I'm reading some sort of anomaly," Ensign Harry Kim interrupted. "I can't pinpoint its main location . . . but it's . . it's . . it's . ."
"It's what, Mr. Kim," Kathryn turned slightly frustrated. She hated not being in control of things, not capable of understanding what was going on, and though she didn't fault Harry for that which he couldn't control, her irritation at the lack of information was evident in her words.
"Something is messing with the flight pattern," Paris, who had returned to the helm, pursed his lips together. "Its entering information into my main console," he remarked, surprised as the rest of them, and pushed back in his seat, his arms lifted as if an electric tentacle might reach out and grab him.
"What the hell is going on," Kathryn growled as she stood. She took one step forward before the ship suddenly shuddered violently throwing the senior staff to the floor or left them dangling from the rails in a last minute grip to stop a fall.
"Captain!" Torres voice filled the bridge's com system. All around, consoles were flickering and sparks were flying.
Catching her breath she glanced at her crew, who were climbing to their feet, before she pushed herself up off of the bridge floor. The ship shuddered once more, an aftermath, and Chakotay quickly steadied her with his hand before releasing her to respond to Lieutenant Torres.
"Life support is down," Harry's worried voice carried as he looked frantically from his Captain and Commander before the lights went out and they were left with only the illuminations of Red Alert. "Shields are out."
"B'Elanna, status," Janeway barked as she moved over to Harry's console of Operations tapping her fingers wildly across the system.
"Engineering is a mess Captain. We're making sure there are no microfractures in the Warp Core but there is interference with main controls, not unlike a scan but, not exactly . . . " there was a pause as static filled the background. All was silent as a flash of grey light illuminated the entire ship, causing people to dive to the floor in agony. Though it lasted only five seconds, it took a while for Kathryn to become aware of her surroundings. She stood up slowly.
"B'Elanna?" Kathryn's eyes searched the air around her waiting for a response. Finally it came. "Here, Captain," Torres said, her voice filled with a level of energy that Janeway was accustomed to.
"Lieutenant, this anonymous anomaly is hitting us with everything it has. Can you get us out of here?"
"We don't even have main thrusters. We're stuck . ." The Chief Engineer sounded anything but happy with that status. B'Elanna had always taken any form of Engineering failure as a personal one and this was one of those times she couldn't let it slide.
"Captain," Tuvok's calm and unaffected tone rose above the chaos that was moving throughout the bridge and rest of the ship. "If we were to use secondary power sub-units to remodify our shields that would eliminate the breaches and perhaps give us time to get the main warp core online."
"'Perhaps,' Mr. Tuvok?" Kathryn's inquiry was surprisingly lighthearted set against their reality, but the crew had come to rely on those moments as little pushes when 'weird . .. and deadly . . .was part of the job.'
"Having limited information on this anomaly, the most logical solution would be to take the most immediate path of avoidance of further attacks and ship-wide damage, but as always with the 'unknown', nothing is ever certain." he stated the obvious.
"Agreed," Janeway turned, and stepped down from Harry's console heading towards the viewscreen. "B'Elanna, did you get that?"
"Aye, Captain . . ." static once again filled the vast room, "already rerouting . . ." as soon as she had said it, the emergency lights flickered into existence and she took a deep breath as Harry announced that life support was back online.
"I want a full range sweep of the ship by security teams, make sure we didn't have any unwanted guests arrive while our shields were down," she told Tuvok and turned to Chakotay. Even a nod of reassurance from her Commander at a time like this was a saving grace.
"Send out repair crews to decks five and twelve, they're the most heavily damaged" Chakotay gave his own orders. He knew that Kathryn wouldn't mind, in fact they worked well as a pair, always anticipating and acknowledging, without disappointment, that the other was in tune with the decision making process.
"Harry," she turned to the young Ensign and made a silent note of how his eyes always looked like a deer's in headlights when faced with situations like this. That didn't disrupt his capabilities but it only reminded Kathryn of how very young Mr. Kim was. 'Too young to be lost in space,' she thought sadly to herself before getting on with things. "I want you to work full time in engineering with B'Elanna. We have to make sure we've cleared that anomaly . . . with or without warp drive."
"Aye, Captain," he stated with conviction.
"Tom, see to sick-bay, help the EMH with the wounded . . . there's bound to be plenty of that," she stated grimly.
"Commander, you and I will work on getting some much needed information," she gathered up PADDS and moved forward. "Senior staff will reconvene in the debriefing room at 1800 hours. I want answers people."
CONTINUED IN PART 3!
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