Sailor Trek: Voyager by Bill Harris soton@aol.com "Well, I seem to find myself on the voyage of the damned." - the Emergency Medical Hologram. Chapter 2 -- "Please state the Nature..." A low groan from the floor put a halt to any further conversation. All eyes turned to the injured ensign, who was beginning to stir slightly. He blinked several times, trying to clear his vision, then looked them over puzzledly. "Who..?" he began, obviously not sure what to make of them. After only a moment's confusion, "I'm... Ensign Harry Kim..." Anything further he was going to add was cut off by a sharp gasp of pain as he tried to sit up. "Lie still," Mercury advised him while automatically directing her visor to scan his injuries. The results were pretty much what she expected them to be -- which is to say, not good. "The alien hit you rather hard. You've got serious internal injuries." She looked to the others, "The bridge is going to have to wait. We have to get him to Sickbay and quickly!" "Unfortunately, we don't know where Sickbay is on this ship," Tuxedo Mask pointed out. "It's on... deck five," Harry said softly. "But...you... have to... Seven..." His voice faded as he lapsed back into unconsciousness. "Seven?" Mars asked perplexedly, but she wasn't the only one. "Seven what?" "Maybe something on deck seven?" Jupiter suggested. "We can find out after we get the ship's doctor to see to his injuries," Mercury said. "I just wish there was another way down to deck five. I'd rather not lug him through the Jeffries tubes in his condition." "And the turbolift is out, too," Mars said, giving a sidelong look Venus' way. As it turned out, the blonde wasn't listening, but was instead looking at the deck. Before anyone could as, she pointed at what held her attention, "How about going this way?" Moving closer, they saw what appeared to be a hatch in the floor that was clearly intended to provide access to the deck below. "This looks like a way down," she added somewhat unnecessarily. Before anyone could stop her, she reached down and opened the hatch. Everyone else instinctively took a half step backwards to avoid the inevitable fireworks, but for some reason none was forthcoming. Mars moved forward and took another look at the opening. After taking a brief moment to examine it, a wry smile appeared on her face. "Nothing electrical about it. That's why it didn't blow up in your face." Venus shot her a somewhat indignant look. "Very funny." Moments later, Sailor Moon was looking uneasily down the corridor on deck five, Sailor Mercury beside her. A few meters behind them, Mars and Venus were keeping a watchful eye out down the other way, each of them alert for some sign of the aliens that had invaded the Federation starship. In the middle, Jupiter and Tuxedo Mask were gently lowering Harry down through the hatch. "Got him," Tuxedo Mask grunted, then moved out of the way to allow Jupiter to jump down from the deck above. "Now all we have to do is find Sickbay," Mars observed. Jupiter looked up and down the corridor. "Anyone got any ideas?" "Let's just pick a direction," Tuxedo Mask suggested. "Sounds good to me," Venus agreed. "Let's go this way." She moved forward, and Mars followed. Sailor Mercury moved in behind them, scanning ahead with her visor and using her computer to map out the corridor. Jupiter opted to be the rearguard and allowed Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask, who was still carrying the unconscious Ensign Kim, to precede her. Periodically she turned back and peered down the darkened corridor, alert to any threats. The darkened state of the corridor served to hamper their progress, as well as their need to check each door. This slowed their progress to a frustratingly slow crawl, and began fraying their nerves. The dark seemed to also magnify every sound in the corridor. "What was that?!?" Sailor Moon exclaimed, jumping again at a sudden, and what seemed to be very loud, noise. Mars half turned and glared at her, irritation clearly written on her face. "Maybe it was a rat," she snapped. "A rat?" Venus asked, not catching the sarcasm in Mars' voice. "I knew we should've brought Luna and Artemis along." Mercury sighed and hoped they would find Sickbay soon. "It's nothing," she reassured Sailor Moon. "Well, we should find this place soon," Jupiter said. "It seems like we've covered most of this deck." "It had better be soon," Tuxedo Mask grumbled. "This guy isn't exactly light." Jupiter smiled. "If you think that's bad, just try carrying Sailor Moon halfway through the Negaverse," she whispered to him. Sailor Moon whirled about and exclaimed,"I *heard* that!" just before a black energy bolt struck her midsection. The blow knocked the blonde off her feet and into a nearby door. Surprisingly enough, it opened automatically before she hit it and she flew through it, the door closing just as automatically behind her. "Sailor Moon!" Jupiter turned sharply, enraged at the aliens for the sneak attack and at herself for having been taken by surprise. There was a small bit of movement in the shadows, providing her with a target for her ire. "You creeps are going to pay for that! JUPITER THUNDERCLAP ZAP!" The impact of the electrical discharge knocked the alien off it's feet and it uttered a high pitched keening noise. But in the flare of Jupiter's attack they could see that there were more of the invaders. As if to confirm that, several chittering noises could be heard, followed by answering noises from the other end. "Here they come!" Venus exclaimed just as the aliens charged. What followed could be best described as sheer chaos, as the Scouts cut loose with their own attacks, while the aliens retaliated themselves while charging at the Scouts' position. Tuxedo Mask hurriedly put Kim down and his own floral attack to the fray. The Scout's powers were cutting down the attackers, but the sheer number of them was insuring that some would get through to them. In fact, one was close enough that Jupiter was engaging it in hand to hand combat. That's when the door swished open, the light from inside spilling out into the corridor. "Hold it right there!" a voice cried out, causing the combatants to pause and look. Even though they couldn't see her clearly, the light from the room that silhouetted her figure made it plain to all who it was. "I am the champion of love and justice, Sailor Moon! I right wrongs and triumph over evil! And that means you." The aliens hesitated, uncertain as how to react to her sudden reappearance. This gave Sailor Moon the time she needed. "MOON SPIRAL HEART ATTACK!" With their leader and several others of their number cut down by Sailor Moon's attack, the remaining aliens turned and fled down the corridor. "Sailor Moon, are you --" Tuxedo Mask began, the others clustering around her as well. "I'm fine," she reassured him. "Oh, and by the way..." She gestured into the room behind her and stood to one side, allowing them a good look inside it. "...I think I found Sickbay." Mercury moved up to her and nodded. "Yes, this is it. Darien, get him in here." After taking another moment to be certain Sailor Moon was OK, Tuxedo Mask lifted the unconscious ensign from the deck and carried him inside. Standing just behind Sailor Moon, Mars grinned. "Leave it to you to find the place we're looking for by falling into the door." "I was knocked into it, *if* you don't mind," Sailor Moon said, sticking out her tongue for good measure before going back inside. Determined not to let the aliens sneak up on her again, Jupiter kept a watchful eye on the corridor, and was the last to enter Sickbay. After the door closed, she touched a control on the panel next to it. "That should lock it, if I remember correctly." Now that the door was secured, the group relaxed a bit and took their first good look around. Unlike the corridors and the cargo bay before it, Sickbay was brightly lit and the various control panels seemed to be active. However, it was also quite deserted. "Just our luck," Jupiter muttered darkly, "no doctor." "Or anyone else, for that matter," Venus added, peering into an adjoining room. Mercury frowned. Without any of the starship's medical personnel here, it fell to her to do something about Ensign Kim's injuries. And while the medical equipment was designed to be fairly easy to use, it still required the user to have enough knowledge to apply it correctly. She only hoped that her own abilities were sufficient to the task. "Get him on that biobed," she told Darien, pointing to one in the rear. The fact that it was isolated from the other biobeds indicated that it might be the one used for surgical situations -- she hoped. While he was doing that, she made her way to the computer console. Like the rest of the systems in Sickbay, it seemed to be active as well; a fact she confirmed when it responded instantly to her touch, bringing up the current stardate. "Stardate 51405.0," she murmured. "So it's been almost five years for them since we met Captain Picard." Sailor Moon watched Mercury at the console for a while, then finally asked, "What are you up to?" "Since there isn't a doctor here, I'm hoping that there'll be a medical database in the computer I could use so that I could stabilize Ensign Kim..." She paused and glanced over to the biobed the ensign was lying on. He seemed to be stable for the moment, but that couldn't last. "At least enough for him to survive until we can find a real doctor around here." Sailor Moon eyed her friend carefully. While she might not be anywhere near Mercury in the intelligence department, nor a psychic like Mars, she was still sensitive to the moods of others around her. She could tell that the blue haired Scout was having doubts about her ability to help Ensign Kim. "Don't worry, Amy, I'm sure you'll figure it out," she told her in an encouraging tone, and placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder for good measure. "If anyone can figure this stuff out, it's you." Mercury smiled despite herself. "I'm glad you think so, but I..." Her voice trailed off as something on the screen caught her eye. She touched another control on the panel, and accessed a particular file listed. "Now this is interesting." Something in her voice caught the attention of all present. "What's interesting?" Venus asked. "According to this, this ship is equipped with an emergency medical program," Mercury replied, indicating the screen. "Basically put, a holographic doctor." "A hologram for a doctor?" Mars asked doubtfully. "Is that possible?" Mercury shrugged. "I don't see why not, given the level of their technology. But it looks like the system is offline at the moment." Mars snorted, "Big surprise there. It seems like everything isn't working on this ship." "Not quite everything. The other systems in here seem to be fine." Mercury touched another control and brought up a diagnostic screen. "And there's nothing really wrong with the holographic systems," she said after studying for a moment, "they just need to be reset. Which I think I can do." She moved to a panel behind her and, after studying the controls a bit, entered in a series of commands. "There. That should do it." Jupiter looked around. "Nothing's happening." "I've reset the system, but we still need to activate it," Mercury explained. "I --" "Oh, you mean we've got to tell the computer to turn it on, just like on those holodecks," Sailor Moon said, recalling once again their stay on the Enterprise D. "You know, by saying 'Computer, activate the Doctor', or something like that." Prompted by her words, the computer reacted instantly. A balding man in a blue Starfleet uniform materialized next to Sailor Moon. His sudden appearance startled her, prompting her to yelp and make a rather prodigious leap into Tuxedo Mask's arms. Oblivious her reaction, the man said in a calm voice, "Please state the nature of the medical emergency," and then looked about Sickbay. "Well, it appears we have guests," he commented wryly as he inspected them, his gaze finally settling on Tuxedo Mask holding Sailor Moon. "Unless she's the one in need of treatment, I think you can put her down now," he suggested. "We brought an injured crewman here for treatment," Mercury indicating the surgical biobed as she tried to explain. "We're..." "The Sailor Scouts and Tuxedo Mask," the Doctor said, both interrupting her and finishing her statement. Ignoring the looks of surprise he was getting, the hologram walked over to the biobed and inspected the readouts. After a moment, he held out a hand. "Tricorder." Reacting first, Jupiter picked up the first tricorder she saw, which happened to be the one on Harry's belt, and handed it to the Doctor. He opened it and examined the readouts for a moment before snapping it shut again and handing it back to her with an annoyed expression on his face. "*Medical* tricorder!" he snapped. "Hey, how am I supposed to know the difference?!?" she retorted heatedly. "Here, Doctor," Mercury calmly said, handing the correct instrument to the Doctor. "Thank you," the hologram acknowledged, and began scanning Harry. "Hmmm... three cracked ribs, a concussion and various other internal injuries. Also some minor radiation exposure. Serious, especially if left untreated, but nothing I can't handle. Though it's just as well you didn't take any longer to get him here." He closed the tricorder, and selected several nearby instruments. "You're very fortunate, Mr. Kim." "Hold on a minute. You know us?" Tuxedo Mask asked. "It would be more accurate to say that I know *of* you," the hologram responded as he gave Harry an injection of hironalyn. "My program contains the cumulative medical knowledge of the entire Federation, including the complete medical logs of several of Starfleet's finest physicians. Knowledge of who and what you are is figured quite prominently in two of them." He paused and glanced over at Sailor Moon, giving her another look. "Though your attire seems to have altered somewhat." "OK, so you know us," Mars said. "Now maybe you can --" "I'm afraid any explanations will have to wait," the Doctor broke in much to her annoyance, "I need to concentrate fully on attending to Ensign Kim, which I can't do if I'm being peppered with questions. Afterwards, I'll be glad to answer all your questions to the best of my ability. So if you would please wait outside the operating area, I'll get to work." Seeing the logic in his request, they began to leave the room as he asked, if somewhat reluctantly. "Not you," the Doctor said to Mercury. "I'll need someone to assist me." She seemed uncertain. "I'd be happy to help, but while I have some medical knowledge, I haven't had any formal training." "Not to worry," the Doctor noted as a slight touch of irony crept into his voice, "I've dealt with having Lt. Paris for an assistant. Anything after that would be a considerable relief." "There," the Doctor said in a satisfied tone some time later. He took one last look at the biobed readouts, and then nodded, smiling to himself. "Another patient successfully snatched from the jaws of death." Turning to Mercury he added, "You assistance was most valuable. You'll make an excellent physician one day." Internally, Mercury was pleased at the Doctor's compliment, but still felt slightly embarrassed. "Thank you, Doctor," she said softly. The Doctor noted the slight reddening of her cheeks, but he didn't make any comment other than to raise an eyebrow. "I think it's time we rejoined your friends. I have a feeling that there's a lot of questions they'll want answered." Mercury nodded and followed the hologram out of the surgical area. As it turned out, they found the others had gathered in the Doctor's small office, talking among themselves to pass the time. And while they appeared to be relaxed for the most part, there were varying expressions of impatience among them, being the most obvious on the faces of Sailors Jupiter and Mars. "How'd it go?" Venus asked. The Doctor smiled. "It was touch and go for a moment, but thanks to my usual degree of excellence and with the help of an excellent assistant (Mercury's face reddened further), Mr. Kim will make a complete recovery." "Good," Jupiter commented. "Now maybe you can tell us what's going on." "In a moment. But first..." The Doctor opened up the medical tricorder he was carrying and proceeded to scan them all. "What are you doing?" Sailor Moon asked, voicing the question they were all asking themselves. "Scanning you for radiation exposure," the hologram answered. "And it appears that two of you," he indicated Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury, "show signs of it." "Radiation?!?" Sailor Moon exclaimed in a slightly frightened voice. "I wouldn't be too concerned," the Doctor reassured her. "Your constitutions seem to be handling it with no problem. Nevertheless, I'll give you both an injection of hironalyn as a precaution." "It must the from those energy bolts," Mercury theorized while the Doctor was preparing a hypospray. "Both Sailor Moon and myself were hit with them." "You mean the aliens are employing this as a weapon?" After Mercury nodded in confirmation, the Doctor continued, "In that case, I should give you all an injection. And I should see about dispersing a quantity of hironalyn through the atmospheric systems for the crew." Starting with Mercury, he went around the room and gave them an injection from the hypo. "You understand, this won't render you immune to the radiation, but it will mitigate the aftereffects." "So what's the story?" Mars asked. "Who are these aliens, and why are they running around your ship?" "And why is almost everything on your ship busted?" Sailor Moon added. The Doctor hesitated, then reluctantly admitted, "Regrettably, my knowledge of the current situation is limited. I do know that we were approaching a planet to investigate a spatial anomaly detected by the sensors. Shortly afterwards the ship lurched rather violently. While Mr. Paris may be only adequate in medical areas, he is an excellent pilot. I can only conclude that the ship had come under an attack of some sort. The last thing I remember before my program went offline is hearing the intruder alert alarm sounding. That must have been when the ship was boarded." The Doctor looked at each of them. "And that is the extent of my knowledge of the current situation. I can only guess that whatever knocked my program offline is the same phenomena that brought you to Voyager." "Guess again," Mars said. "I beg your pardon?" "We weren't brought to Voyager," Mercury explained. "Your program must have been knocked offline by the phenomena that brought your ship to Earth." It took a lot to throw the hologram off stride, but evidently this did. "Earth?!?" he exclaimed in a stunned voice. "Yep," Jupiter put in. "Right now the ship is sitting at the North Pole on *our* Earth." "I don't believe it," the Doctor muttered after taking a moment to mull this over. "Back on Earth again. First the wrong time frame, now it's the wrong *universe*." Something about what the Doctor said didn't sound right to Sailor Moon. "Why are you so shocked about being on Earth? I mean, you must have been there lots of times, right?" Realization struck the Doctor. "That's right... You wouldn't be aware of our overall situation. Due to some unique circumstances, Voyager is some sixty thousand light years from Federation space." "Sixty thousand light years?" Mercury exclaimed. "That would put you on the other side of the galaxy." The Doctor nodded. "That's correct. We are in the Delta Quadrant, on a course to take us back to the Alpha Quadrant. It began something like this..." Over the next few minutes, the hologram gave them a brief overview of how Voyager, while on a search for a missing Maquis vessel, had been forcibly transported to the Delta Quadrant, some seventy thousand light years from home. He also gave a hurriedly abridged account of some of the events that had happened to them over the last four years. "...and barring any shortcuts we might find, we should reach the Alpha Quadrant in sixty years, more or less," the Doctor concluded. "But at the moment, my ship has been invaded by a hostile force, and I have to assume that they control the entire ship and that they hold the crew captive. I'm aware that I'm just a hologram, but I'm still the Chief Medical Officer on this ship. I have a duty to try and retake the ship. And to do so... I'm going to need your assistance." "And assist you we will!" Sailor Moon affirmed loudly. "We'll help you clean this ship up and dump out the Negatrash! In the name of the Moon..." "...Venus..." "...Mercury..." "...Mars..." "...and Jupiter..." "...we'll punish them!" they cried out in unison. "Your enthusiasm is commendable," the Doctor noted dryly. "If that could carry the day alone, we'd be victorious without firing a shot." "Doctor, I do have one concern," Mercury said. "If I read the datafiles regarding the EMH system correctly, the holographic emitters that create your form are limited to Sickbay. If that is so and with intership communications inoperative, then how are you going to help us liberate the ship?" "Once that would have been the case," the Doctor conceded. "However, I now have a means of leaving the confines of Sickbay." He went over to where he kept the portable holoemitter stored and picked up the small device. "With the assistance of this piece of twenty ninth century technology, I now have access to the entire ship..." His smile broadened, if that were possible. "Indeed, I can even leave the ship for away missions." "Twenty ninth century?" Mercury asked, now even more puzzled. By the looks of the others, she wasn't the only one who felt that way. "I thought you were from the twenty fourth?" "We are." The Doctor hesitated, uncertain as to how to explain how he had acquired the portable holoemitter. "It's rather long tale that involves a rather complicated temporal loop, but it's not one I'd rather get into at the moment as there are more pressing matters." Mars nodded, for once agreeing with the hologram. "OK, you know this ship better than we do. So what's out first step?" "I have access to a number of sedatives that could be released into Voyager's environmental systems. If you could help me reach the atmospheric control systems..." "That's not going to work," Tuxedo Mask said. The Doctor frowned. "Why not?" Mercury spoke up. "We found one of the crew unconscious on deck four. She had traces of an anesthetic in her blood. It seems that the crew tried a similar strategy." "Hmmm..." The Doctor seemed uncertain now. "Their physiology must render them immune to certain sedatives. I should have suspected as much from my autopsy. It certainly does put a crimp into things." "Wait a minute. Autopsy?" "That's correct," the Doctor told Tuxedo Mask. "We found a derelict ship that had suffered extreme damage, apparently from these self same aliens. Among the wreckage, our away team discovered a corpse. It was brought over, and I conducted an autopsy of it. But penetrating it's chitinous skin proved to be a challenge. It was highly resistent to my laser scalpels." "Are you sure it's the same aliens?" Venus asked. "Reasonably certain. However..." The Doctor made his way over to the stasis tubes, and opened one. As the slab slid out from inside, "You're the experts on the aliens running around the ship. You tell me." The Scouts gathered around for a closer look, but they didn't need long to verify things. "It's the same kind, alright," Tuxedo Mask said. "Except this one has orange colored skin," Venus noted. "The ones we saw outside were green." "That may be indicative of ranks among them. Or it may simply be a racial variation of the species," the Doctor said. "I had just finished performing the autopsy when all hell broke loose." He paused, then closed the stasis tube once more. "I must say that I'm somewhat surprised that the ship is still in one piece." "Why?" Mercury asked. "It was a Borg ship they had attacked earlier." That caught their attention. "Oh." "Oh, indeed." The mention of the Borg reminded Sailor Moon of a question she'd been wanting to ask. "By the way, what's with the Borg equipment in that cargo bay?" The Doctor seemed puzzled by this for a moment. "Oh, you must mean the Borg alcoves in Cargo Bay Two. It's serving as the quarters for the newest addition to our crew, Seven of Nine." "Seven of Nine? What kind of name is that?" "That must be what he was trying to tell us," Jupiter said, jerking her thumb in the direction of Harry. "He wanted us to find this 'Seven' person." "That seems likely," the Doctor concurred. "But that still doesn't explain about those Borg alcoves," Mars said. "It's really quite simple," the Doctor started to explain just before a clanging sound echoed from the access hatch to the Jeffries tubes, effectively interrupting him. At once the Scouts each took a defensive stance around it, while Tuxedo Mask readied a rose to throw. Not to be outdone, the Doctor snatched up a hypo and got ready to use it, after checking the contents. However, he soon sighed in relief as soon as he saw who was emerging. "I'm certainly glad to see you, Seven," he said to her, helping her up. "I see that I was wrong in my assumption that all the crew are incapacitated." Seeing that the Doctor knew her, the others relaxed. "To my knowledge, the majority of the crew is unconscious. However, we still control the bridge and engineering," she curtly explained. "Lt. Paris sent Ensign Kim and myself to the armory by way of Cargo Bay Two. We were to retrieve phaser rifles and modify them to be more effective against the aliens. We were attacked us along the way, and had to separate." "Lt. Paris?" The Doctor seemed perplexed. "What happened to Captain Janeway? Or Chakotay? Or Tuvok?" "Captain Janeway was incapacitated during the transition to this universe," Seven explained. "Commander Chakotay and Lt. Commander Tuvok were on an away mission when the aliens boarded the ship. We did not have time to retrieve them before the transition occurred." She paused, aware now that the Doctor was not alone in Sickbay. "The Sailor Scouts," she observed after giving them a quick once over. "Then the dimensional anomaly we went through brought us to their universe." "Ah, I should have realized that you would be acquainted with them," the Doctor commented. "From what they've been telling me, they are much more effective against the aliens than our weapons have been. I was hoping that with their assistance, we could drive the intruders off the ship." "A logical strategy," the former Borg concurred. "Their abilities in concert with the modified phasers should be adequate to the task." Meanwhile, the Scouts were still taken back a bit by Seven's casual recognition of them. "It seems like everyone on this ship knows about us. We must be required reading at Starfleet Academy," Venus quipped. "Nah, there's got to be at least a course on us by now," Jupiter added. "I can just see it now, 'Sailor Scouts 101'." "It's not that," Sailor Moon stated flatly. Though her face was pale, she was staring at Seven evenly and her voice remained firm, "She recognizes us because she's a Borg." Several jaws dropped at this. "Borg!?!" "I was once part of the Borg collective, yes," Seven stated in her manner of fact way before the Doctor could act. "Once Sailor Moon was assimilated into it, her knowledge and experience was added to it as well. Therefore, I am aware of your existence." The Doctor could feel the tension among the Scouts elevate instantly as they confronted the former drone. "This is *not* a good beginning." Next time: Seven explains what has transpired on Voyager in the next chapter, "Intruder Alert!"