I don't know what compelled me to write this...it's actually patterned after a scene in a book called "The Three-Minute Universe", a TOS book written by an author whose name I can't remember but deserves every credit because her scene, for which this is the basis of, is much more hilarious.
However, that said and out of the way, I would like to dedicate this story to a woman known by the name of Ragpants, a 'mom' in every sense of the word.
Disclaimer: Paramount's toys, my toy box (not very original, I know, but it gets the point across)
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Janeway ran down the corridors at full speed, Chakotay hot on her heels and Tom Paris behind him. B’Elanna came rushing from another passageway and met up with them.
What a day.
Surely the week by far was nothing to compare it to, encountering a region of space that held far more dangerous species lumped together in a conglomerate, fighting over a mere star, never mind a planetary system. Scavengers, Neelix called them, wanting and willing to scuffle over everything and every piece in their reach. Much like the Kazon sects that they’d left behind so long ago. At least it seemed like it.
She didn’t even know the race-name of the ones that had opened fire on them, preferring firepower over words in the cause of adding Voyager to their collection of trophies. All she knew was that they wanted the ship, and she was not going to give it up.
They had stopped now, thankfully, deciding that they were no match for the Federation species that had invaded their territory, but not before damaging everything they could get their torpedoes on. Power grids were blown, lights flickered through the passageways, pieces of debris and conduit were all over the floor – she tripped, and Chaktoay caught her before she would have had a nasty gash.
The worst part was that they now had a fire on board – with the fire-control systems offline.
She didn’t know how it had started, ostensibly a few panels in an unattended room, emergency forcefields had already been offline, and the flames had been allowed to spread uninhibited. With internal sensors malfunctioning, they had no idea where it actually was until they were almost engulfed by it.
There wasn’t much worry about everyone else – they were all at battlestations, which meant that the living quarters had already been deserted.
“B’Elanna?” Janeway questioned, upon their chief engineer huffing up to them.
“Engines are inoperable, even if we did want to go somewhere right now,” she gasped. “Warp coils are fried to bits, impulse engines are offline, and thrusters I don’t even want to think about.”
“We can’t go anywhere until we get this fire dealt with,” she tapped her comm badge. “Janeway to bridge, report.”
“Damage control teams are working on the fire, Captain,” Kim’s voice crackled through. “We have it narrowed down, finally. It took three teams, but we did it.”
“Where?” Chakotay barked.
The end of the corridor showed thick smoke creeping around, seeping into the air supply.
“I think we just found out!” Tom yelled, just as the doctor came puffing around the other end, dragging Neelix with him. Sickbay had been nearly obliterated, and he had been forced to set up temporary triage in the mess hall. No doubt where he had found Mr. Neelix.
“Get the teams down here, Mr. Kim! It’s about 50 feet away from us.” The Captain ordered, before turning around and running straight into the hologram. “Evacuate deck 10, NOW!”
“I wouldn’t go back there,” Neelix pointed to an orange glow that eerily flickered and lit the panels. “It was fortunate that we were able to escape it.”
“Care to tell me why you didn’t get into a turbolift?”
“And have it follow us in there?” the doctor was aghast. “Fire feeds on oxygen, which allows the flames to --”
“Give us the lecture some other time,” B’Elanna keyed the cargo bay door, herding everyone inside. “Any suggestions?”
Chakotay was grim-faced under a sweaty sheen. “Emergency forcefields should drop any minute --”
They waited. Nothing happened. “Are they still offline? We had them restored…” his voice trailed off incredulously.
“We’re in trouble!” Neelix looked scared out of his mind.
Janeway resisted the urge to slap him. “Jefferies tubes?”
Tom shook his head. “The hatches are rendered inoperable during battle, to prevent enemy forces from securing a position…”
“Right. I forgot.” Chakotay rolled his eyes.
“Captain?” a deep woman’s voice sounded. Janeway turned around to see Seven of Nine staring at them.
“Seven what are you doing in here?” she ran to one of the storage containers and opened it. Test Equipment. Heavy. Immovable. Shit. She ran to another.
“Astrometrics was inoperative, therefore I was on my way to the bridge when…”
“Never mind that!” B’Elanna was trying to rig another forcefield, but the power refused to cooperate with her. Worse, the doors now refused to close. Another glitch. She cursed in Klingon and pounded the door.
Janeway found a bin that held spare supplies of every sort – uniforms, spare necessities, toilet paper that flew out. She heard a grunt from behind her. B’Elanna ran straight into Seven and landed hard on her backside.
“Captain, by my calculations, there is not enough space for -- ”
“Seven I’m sorry, I don’t have time to empty more bins for comfort reasons!” She hauled out the last of the few little things in the bottom and motioned everyone inside. “B’Elanna come on, we don’t have all day! Doctor --”
“Captain?” he didn’t like the look on his commanding officer’s face.
“I’m sorry about this,” Tom Paris did the honors for her, ripping off his mobile emitter after a few well placed taps, deactivating him. They piled into the bin and shifted around uncomfortably.
“Look, I know you like the things but there’s not enough room for them and us in here,” Chakotay tossed the phasers that both had been carrying outside, hitting the deck with a clatter.
The lid fell closed, eliciting a yelp. “What the --”
“It’s just my fingers,” Tom’s squeak came through the darkness. Trouble was, they were all still trying to find halfway comfortable positions. Panting, sweating, and grumbling, they tried to rearrange again, with worse results.
“This is an inefficient use of space.”
“Seven, how the hell can you use something inefficiently that isn’t there to begin with?” B’Elanna snarled.
“Hey Chakotay, could you please move your knee?”
“I would if it was my knee, Paris!”
“Sorry.”
“I appear to be wedged against the side,” Seven commented.
Gasp. “No, just me.”
“I do apologize, Captain.”
“Who has the doctor’s --” Crunch. “Guess that answered that question.”
“Neelix, turn your head. Your whiskers are going up my nose.”
“Damn it, turn it back! Now they’re in mine!”
“I’d would happily do so, Commander, but I, ah, I can’t seem to move.”
“Would the p’tak with the roving hands kindly get them off me?”
“My utmost apologies, Lieutenant.”
“You know, when this is over, I’d like to feel my legs again.”
“Shut up, Tom.”
“What the -- ”
“Chakotay, I don’t know what you think that is, but it most likely isn’t!”
“Oops. Sorry Captain.”
“I suppose a few songs to pass the time would be out of the --”
“Neelix, BE QUIET!” Everyone roared.
“Seven, when this is over, we need to talk about those shoes.”
“Commander?”
“Your heel is in the back of my head.”
“I apologize.”
“No need. It’s just cracking my skull.”
“My entire body is cramping.”
“Neelix, move over. That’s a direct order.”
“Ah…yes Captain.” He turned to the side and promptly smacked into someone else. “Ouch.”
“First person to pass gas gets thrown out.”
“I fail to see the relevance of gas being used in our particular situation…”
Audible groans.
“This is worse than being on one of those cadet shuttle trips.”
“If the person that has an elbow on my bladder doesn’t move it, we’re all going to be sorry!”
“Captain, to provide a more efficient use of the limited resources we seem to have encountered…”
“SHUT UP SEVEN!”
“B’Elanna move your face down a couple of centimeters.”
“Tom, not here!”
Someone’s communicator shrilled.
“Is that mine?”
“No, I think it’s mine,” Chakotay attempted to turn over, ending up straddling something he didn’t want to think about. “Trouble is, my arms are pinned down.” Something ripped. “Damn.”
The chirping continued rhythmically.
“Remind me never to suggest a game of sardines again.”
“Captain,” it was Seven of Nine again. “I appear to have encountered a piece of equipment that would no doubt assist us.”
“What are you…”
A palm beacon flashed and lit up the confines, strobe-lighting everything into a series of eerie shadows. And effectively blinding everyone.
“Oh my god I’m blind.” Tom Paris said in a voice of wonder.
“You’re not the only one, Tom. Did anyone survive that?”
“Barely.”
“As fine as a half-Klingon could packed into a crate with the rest of you.”
“Let’s hope no one mistakes us for the equipment that was in here.”
“Can anyone reach that comm badge now?”
“We’re not even sure it’s yours Chakotay.”
“I hate to remind everyone of this,” Janeway was growing exasperated, “but we don’t exactly have an unlimited air supply. So for the final time, be quiet. That’s an order.”
Time passed. Someone shifted. Someone gulped, someone else panted, and still someone else tried to move, resulting in two people shifting downward as rapidly as could be done in their situation. There was a yelp, a bump, and all was silent, except for the damn comm badge that chirped in cycles.
“Have we been in here long enough? B’Elanna?” Chakotay sounded as plaintive as one could.
“I don’t see any harm in taking a look,” she replied. “The sides don’t feel any hotter than they did when we first got in. Can anyone reach the lid?”
There were various fumbles, and the sound of nails shrieking against metal prickled Janeway’s scalp. More groans and shouts of “Knock it off!”
Scuffling. “Captain…”
“Yes, Chakotay?”
“Did you happen to make sure there was a latch on the inside?”
In the darkness Janeway would swear to anyone that the heat rising in her face was from their situation, NOT her embarrassment. “Er…”
“I can tell you the answer. Because there isn’t one.”
“What do we do now?” Neelix sounded panicked.
“Can anyone reach that comm badge yet?”
“I can sure as hell try.”
“All right, on three, everyone try to get to a comm badge. It doesn’t have to be your own, just don’t violate anyone’s privacy.”
“I believe that has already been accomplished.”
“One…Two…Three!”
They spent an indeterminable amount of time shifting about. “Should we yell for help now, Captain?” A panting Tom Paris asked.
Before anyone could, there was a hiss and a squeak, and the lid was flung open to again blind everyone with the normal illumination of the cargo bay. Janeway squinted through the gaggle of bodies to find herself staring at Tuvok.
“Captain,” he said by way of greeting. “And…company.”
Chakotay erupted from the bin, then reached down and pulled B’Elanna out after him. He found out he’d been the one with an elbow in her bladder. Next came Seven, then Tom and finally Neelix. Janeway was the last to emerge. “Report.”
“The blaze has been extinguished, Captain,” he said, with no more reaction than an upraised eyebrow. “Well before it became necessary to take action against your position.”
“Tuvok, I hate to ask,” Tom quipped, “but how did you find us? Internal sensors?”
“Internal sensors are still offline, however that was of no consequence.” His eyebrow raised even higher.
“Then how?” Chakotay questioned.
“The matter was simplified greatly as you failed to close your comm line to the bridge.”
