ONE SMALL STEP
Episode 128
Part C

 

121Kb

The Delta Flyer inside the graviton ellipse.

Delta Flyer - aft compartment. Seven, scanning a rock with a tricorder: "The fossilised microbes in this ore appear to have had metallic membranes."

Chakotay turns to look at her: "We've speculated about the possibility of metallic lifeforms, but we've never discovered one."

Seven: "You're excited by this discovery." Chakotay: "This piece of rock is billions of years older than Earth, from a time when the galaxy was still forming. Here." Seven: "Commander?" Chakotay: "Take it."

She does so. "You're holding a piece of history, maybe even the beginnings of life itself." Seven: "Unlikely." Chakotay: "It's more likely than you think. This anomaly is as old as anything we've ever encountered. I could spend a lifetime studying the things it's collected."

Seven: "And leave Voyager without a First Officer?" Chakotay: "They'd manage. Palaeontology was always my first love. It's the reason I joined Starfleet." Seven: "Why didn't you pursue it?" Chakotay: "My sense of responsibility got in the way - first the Maquis, then Voyager. What I wanted always seemed to take a back seat. Do you remember what you wanted to be before you were assimilated?" Seven: "I was assimilated when I was a child."

Chakotay: "I knew I wanted to be a palaeontologist when I was six." Seven: "A ballerina." Chakotay: "Maybe it's not too late."

Seven: "It was a juvenile fantasy." Chakotay: "Those are the ones that stick with you."

The com. signal sounds. Paris, via comms: "Heads up, folks. I think we're getting close." Chakotay and Seven enter the cockpit. Paris: "I've isolated the module, bearing 39 mark 15. There."

They see the command module!

Seven: "It appears to be intact."

Chakotay: "I'm reading hull breaches and corrosion but all things considered it's pretty well preserved." Paris: "We weren't expecting to find a fragment this big. Can't just stow it in the aft section." Chakotay: "We'll use a tractor beam to tow it back to Voyager."

Voyager's Bridge. Kim: "Captain, the anomaly just made another course change, .003 degrees."

Janeway: "That's the third one in an hour. Something has to be attracting it." Torres: "There's nothing on the sensors." Janeway: "I think it enjoys being unpredictable." Kim: "We know it has a taste for electromagnetic energy."

Janeway: "So what could generate an EM field large enough to get its attention, but still not show up on sensors?" Kim: "An energy burst from a pulsar, a neutrino cloud...."

Torres: "Dark matter." Janeway: "Re-align the sensor array to scan for EM fluctuations." Torres: "I've got a spatial disturbance three million kilometres away. It's a dark matter asteroid." Janeway: "Bingo." Kim: "The anomaly's heading right for it."

Janeway: "Time to impact?" Tuvok: "Four minutes. Captain, we can't predict how the impact will affect the anomaly." Torres: "But it's a safe bet it won't be a gentle nudge."

Janeway, via comms: "Janeway to Delta Flyer, we've got a problem. The anomaly is on a collision course with a dark matter asteroid." Chakotay, via comms: "We've located the Mars orbiter. We're adapting a tractor beam. Give us a minute." Janeway, via comms: "You don't have it. Get out of there." Chakotay, via comms: "Captain-" Janeway, via comms: "Now!" Contact ends.

Delta Flyer - cockpit. Chakotay: "Is the tractor beam ready?" Paris: "Just about, sir." Chakotay: "Lock onto the module and take us out."

Seven: "We don't have time." Chakotay: "I gave you an order." Seven: "Commander."

Chakotay: "We're not leaving without that module." As Paris hesitates: "Tom!"

Paris obeys. He maneuvers the Delta Flyer over the top of the Ares IV command module and activates the tractor beam. The Delta Flyer heads away with it.

Voyager's Bridge. Tuvok: "Captain, both the anomaly and the asteroid are accelerating." Janeway: "They're attracting each other like a pair of magnets."

Torres: "At this rate it'll impact in 56 seconds." Janeway, via comms: "Chakotay, you've got less than a minute." Chakotay, via comms: "Acknowledged."

Delta Flyer. Paris: "The module is slowing us down."

Chakotay: "Maintain tractor lock. How long until we clear the anomaly?"

Seven: "At our current speed, forty seconds." Chakotay: "We can do it."

On Voyager's Bridge, Torres calls out: "Thirty seconds to impact. They're still not clear."

Janeway is anxious. Via comms: "Chakotay, status?" to have Chakotay reply, via comms: "We're on our way." Torres: "Twenty seconds."

The dark matter asteroid plunges into the graviton ellipse.

The impact knocks the Delta Flyer, damaging its systems including sending the tractor beam offline.

Suddenly a plasma discharge strikes Chakotay and.....

.....he is hurled to the floor!

On Voyager's Bridge, Tuvok reports: "Gravimetric distortions are increasing." Janeway: "The Flyer?"

Kim: "I've lost the signal."

The Delta Flyer is heavily damaged and adrift - INSIDE the graviton ellipse!