ONE SMALL STEP
Episode 128
Part D

 

Delta Flyer - aft compartment. Chakotay is on the biobed. Paris is scanning him with a medical tricorder.

Seven enters. "How badly is he damaged?" Paris: "He's got a severe concussion and internal injuries. We need to get him back to Voyager." Seven: "That may not be possible. Communications, shields and propulsion are still offline." Paris: "He's stable for now. I'll give you a hand." Seven: "We can repair the shields, but the engines are unsalvageable."

Paris: "It can't be that bad."

Seven: "It's worse. The anomaly's showing signs of returning to subspace. We have less than two hours."

Later, Paris hears signs of Chakotay coming to, and turns to look from making repairs at a maintenance access panel. "He's regaining consciousness."

Chakotay tries to get up but pain strikes.

Paris takes hold of him and helps him lie down again. "Easy, easy. Lie still."

Chakotay: "It feels like I went ten rounds with an Andorian." Paris: "More like twenty. You were hit with a plasma discharge. The gravimetric surge from the asteroid caught us at the edge of the anomaly and tossed us back inside." Chakotay: "The command module?" Paris: "It's adrift, 300 metres off our port bow." Chakotay tries to get up again: "Then we can still salvage it." Paris makes him lie down again. "Not so fast! We can't get engines or shields back online, not to mention a tractor beam. We'll be lucky to get out of this in one piece."

Chakotay: "I can help." Paris: "You're in worse shape than this ship. You want to help? Lie in the bed, doctor's orders." The ship trembles. Seven: "Another gravimetric surge."

Paris: "I'll see if I can reinforce the structural integrity field." He leaves for the cockpit.

Chakotay: "You might try drawing power from auxiliary life support." Seven, her voice hard and barely suppressing her anger: "That system was damaged as well." Chakotay: "What about the secondary relays?" Seven: "They're offline." Chakotay: "That doesn't leave us many choices. Try re-routing the phaser couplings." Seven: "We explored that option while you were unconscious." Chakotay: "Then maybe you can bring me up to date." Seven: "There's no time. I suggest you recuperate. We have the situation under control."

Chakotay: "It doesn't look that way from here. I'm still in command of this mission. I want to know what's going on."

Seven: "Very well." She turns to confront him. Harshly: "We were ordered by the Captain to leave this anomaly, but you chose to disobey that command. As a result of your obsession with the module we are now trapped along with it. In all probability we won't survive without-" Chakotay: "Point taken. Now why don't you continue, without the attitude."

Seven hands him a PADD. "An inventory of the damaged systems. Read it for yourself."

Chakotay reads the list, then: "I made a mistake. I put the mission at risk." Seven: "You put our lives at risk."

Chakotay: "Well, if we don't make it out, someone's bound to come looking for us in a few hundred years." At her look: "Defusing a tense situation with humour, remember?"

Janeway, via comms: "Voyager to Delta Flyer." Her voice is distorted due to problems with transmission. Seven: "They're using a probe as a transmission relay." Janeway, via comms: "Voyager to Chakotay, please respond. We can't detect you." Chakotay, via comms: "Captain, we can hear you."

Seven: "I'm matching their frequency." The alteration made, via comms: "Voyager, this is the Delta Flyer. Respond." Janeway, via comms, her voice now reaching them clearly: "Are you alright? What's your status?" Chakotay, via comms: "We've sustained heavy damage, Captain, but we're alive. It's good to hear your voice."

A conference is held over an open comlink, with Janeway, Kim, Tuvok and Torres in Voyager's Briefing Room, and with those on the Delta Flyer. Kim: "We could install the same shielding on a class two shuttle and take it in."

Paris: "It took us hours to make the modifications to the Flyer. We've only got 82 minutes before this thing disappears into subspace."

Tuvok: "It may be possible to modify a tractor beam to cut through the gravimetric interference." Kim: "You'll never be able to get it all the way to the core." Janeway: "Start working on it anyway." Torres: "You said all the energy conduits are fused?"

Seven: "Correct. We can't get power to any of the primary systems." Paris: "If the replicators were working we could whip up a new plasma manifold and be on our way."

Torres: "What if I could get you an old manifold?" Paris: "Excuse me?"

Torres, going over to the wall-mounted screen: "The command module may be three centuries old, but the power distribution system isn't that different from the Flyer's."

Torres calls up a schematic of the command module's engines: "Right here. This control panel in the main cockpit. It was called an ion distributor. With a few tweaks it could be modified to channel warp plasma."

Seven: "Even if it were possible, we have to obtain the object before we can adapt it." Janeway: "Do you have enough power to beam one of you to the module?" Paris: "Yes, ma'am. I'll go." Janeway: "Not so fast, Tom. If another gravimetric surge hits we'll need you at the helm. Seven." Seven: "Are you encouraging me to volunteer again, Captain?" Janeway: "You read my mind."

Later, in the Delta Flyer cockpit, Paris is working the helm to maneuver the ship. Paris: "Come on, just a little closer." He talks to Seven, via comms. She is in the aft compartment. She has put on an environmental suit and is sorting out the equipment to take. "That's it for thrusters, but I got us within transporter range. Ready?"

Seven: "Stand by." Contact ends.

Chakotay to Seven: "Ironic. You're doing what I've always dreamt of. Remember, when you set foot in that module, you'll be stepping into history." Seven: "History is irrelevant."

Chakotay: "Irrelevant? Do me a favour. When you're over there download whatever you can from their database, and also, take a minute to look around so you can tell us what it was like." Seven: "There may not be time." She sees from his expression how much it means to him. She relents. "But I'll try." Chakotay: "Good luck."

Seven beams into the Ares IV command module.

The three of them conduct their conversation via comms. Paris: "What's it like in there?" Seven: "Dark. The ambient temperature is minus 260°. There appear to be fractures in the aft bulkheads."

She sees an arm. The sleeve is embroidered with the Ares IV mission patch - it is the dead Lieutenant Kelly.

Paris: "Is the cockpit intact?" Seven: "Yes. I've brought the main computer online." Kelly: "-lost contact with the team on the surface, and I can't get a fix on my position." Seven turns off the playback of Kelly's log.

Paris: "What was that?" Seven: "There's an active datafile. It appears to contain log entries."

Chakotay: "Can you play them for us?" Seven: "I believe so." Chakotay: "Consider it my last request." She reactivates Kelly's log.

The log plays as Seven starts work on retrieving the ion distributor.

Kelly: "-can't get a fix on my position, but I'm alive and the CM seems to be intact. I'm inside this whatever it is." Paris: "Could you hear that, Chakotay?" Chakotay: "It's amazing. Everyone assumed he was killed instantly." As Kelly's log is played, Seven works to detach the ion distributor. Kelly: "....what I've gotten myself into. It's very calm, like in the eye of a hurricane. It's a little spooky but the way I figure it, if there's a way in, there's got to be a way out. I'm gonna fire up the spectral imager before I initiate another engine burn, collect as much data as I can. Jeannie, I may not be bringing you back the Mars rock, but I promise you, I'm going to do everything I can to get home." His words strike a chord with those listening - they too are doing everything they can to get home. "Ares IV, mission record, October 23rd. Starting to feel like Jonah. How long was he in the belly of that whale? Three days? I got him beat by a day or two already." He sighs. "The EM interference is disrupting communications and LIDAR, and I can't see the stars. There's no way I can get a fix on my position. If this thing's moving as fast as it was when it pulled me in I could be a long way from Mars by now. The imager's been working overtime cataloguing all the matter in here, but a lot of it defies analysis. I think we're going to need to make room on the periodic table. Where the hell am I? Power levels have dropped another fifteen percent since my last systems check."

Hearing a sound, Kelly takes himself over to the port-side window.

"I think I just saw another spacecraft. Either that or all this dehydrated food has gone to my head."

Kelly manages to activate some sensor controls. "Got it. The hull's made of some kind of alloy. I can't make heads or tails of it. I shouldn't have been so dismissive. I remember giving Kumagawa a hard time when she claimed she saw a UFO over the Gulf. I told her it was a meteor or another piece of MIR. I guess I owe you an apology, Rose."

Seven is beginning to be affected by Kelly's log.

Chakotay marvels at hearing history being made and feels a part of it.