RENAISSANCE MAN
Episode 170
Part F

 

Zet and Nar's (stolen) Hierarchy ship.

Nar is trying to repair a piece of equipment. Suddenly he gets an electric shock and drops the tool he was working with. He picks it up. Janeway is watching him. Janeway: "You might try disconnecting the phase discriminator." Nar: "I've rebuilt dozens of these units but I've never seen this configuration before. Do you know I could stabilise the ion flow?"

She signals him closer. He takes the unit over to the cell. Janeway: "That looks like the charge inverter." Nar: "Thank you." Janeway: "You're welcome. Your ship must need a lot of replacement parts." Nar: "Oh, those aren't for this ship. I've been collecting and repairing spare engine parts for years. This is from an old impulse drive. Would you believe I found it sitting in a waste depository? I'll be able to find a buyer now that it's working."

Janeway: "These parts could be worth a small fortune." Nar: "That's exactly what I think. I'm going to use my quarter of the profits to establish an outpost specialising in obsolete engine components. I'm certain there's a demand for them." Janeway: "My chief engineer is always looking for spare parts. She might be interested in acquiring your entire inventory."

Zet arrives. "Captain. Tut, tut, tut, tut. You're not truying to take advantage of my subordinate, are you?" He snatches the engine component from Nar. "No one's ever going to buy this junk. It's almost as useless as you!"

An alert sounds. alert signal "There's a ship approaching." He pushes Nar toward the control console to deal with it.

Doctor: "This is the Delta Flyer. I've got the warp core but you're not getting it until you release the Captain."

Zet presses some controls on his species' equivalent of a PADD.

His ships fires at the Delta Flyer.

Doctor: "Are you insane?! You almost destabilised the core. Both of our ships would've been destroyed!" Zet: "This isn't a negotiation! Release your tractor beam, now!" Doctor: "Alright." He does so.

As soon as the Delta Flyer's tractor beam is released Zet transports it inside the Hierarchy ship. Nar reports: "It's in the cargo hold."

Zet to Doctor: "Lower your shields and we'll beam your Captain to you." The Doctor does so: "Ready." Immediately he is transported into the Hierarchy ship's detention cell, next to Janeway.

Doctor to Zet: "We had an agreement!"

Zet: "To spare your Captain. As you can see, she's still alive."

Janeway to Zet: "Let the Doctor go. I'm the more valuable hostage."

Zet: "Actually you're not. We'll leave you in the Vinry system. The inhabitants are mostly harmless. The Doctor'll be working for us now." Doctor: "I'll do no such thing." Zet: "I''m sure you'll feel differently after I make a few adjustments to your program."

Nar goes over to the prisoners. "I had no idea he was going to do this. I'm sorry." He leaves and goes about his duties.

Janeway: I hope you realise you've stranded Voyager in the Delta Quadrant." Doctor: "What did you expect me to do? Let them kill you?"

Janeway: "I expected you to follow my orders." Doctor: "You might as well have been ordering me to put a phaser to your head. Voyager can survive without a warp core but not without a captain." Janeway: "Now it doesn't have either."

The Doctor and Janeway in the detention cell.

Tuvok: "Chief tactical officer's log. Stardate 54890.7. With internal sensors offline I have had to ask for a section by section search for our missing crewmembers. Until main power is restored Voyager remains immobilised and defenceless."

Paris and a member of the engineering staff force the doors of the morgue open.

They manually open the drawers and find Chakotay and Kim.

Paris scans them with a tricorder. Paris: "They're just unconscious." He presses his combadge. "Paris to Tuvok. I've found them."

Tuvok and Chakotay are walking along a corridor. Tuvok: "It is logical to assume the Captain never returned from the away mission." Chakotay: "Any idea where the Flyer is?" Tuvok: "The Doctor masked his ion trail." Torres via comms: "Engineering to Chakotay. We're ready to restart the impulse reactors."

As soon as main power is restored the sound of solo piano music, a version of the Blue Danube waltz, is heard over the comm. system. But some of the chords are wrong.

Seven can hear it in Astrometrics.

Tuvok, checking ship's status on a wall computer interface: "It's playing on every comm. channel on the ship." Chakotay: "Computer, pause music." Computer: "Unable to comply." Chakotay: "Didn't the Doctor play this at his recital last month?" Tuvok: "Yes, and as I recall he performed the piece flawlessly." Chakotay: "Maybe the recording was damaged by the power loss." Tuvok: "Or maybe the Doctor altered the music deliberately." Chakotay: "Why would he do that?" imperfectly-played waltz

At a meeting in Astrometrics Seven reports: "I've performed a Fourier analysis on the recording. The harmonics have been modified."

Kim: "Could be a carrier frequency." Seven: "Unlikely. There's no carrier wave." Paris: "I could be wrong but it looks like a warp signature."

Kim: "The power utilisation curve would be about right." Chakotay: "Try scanning for it."

Seven: "I'm detecting a matching signature. Distance 6.7 light-years." Tuvok: "We can't follow them at impulse." Chakotay, replying to Tuvok: "You and Tom take a shuttle." The two men leave the Lab.

The Hierarchy starship, towing the Delta Flyer in a tractor beam.

Janeway starts to tinker with the Doctor's mobile emitter. Doctor: "What are you doing?" Janeway: "If I can amplify your matrix I might be able to disrupt the forcefield."

Doctor: "I'm sorry I put us in this position, Captain." Janeway: "You said you wanted us to spend more time together." Doctor: "This isn't what I had in mind. Maybe, if we get back to the ship, we could try socialising a bit more."

>Janeway: "This really isn't the time to be talking about this. Besides I don't do a lot of socialising." Doctor: "You have meals with Commander Chakotay and you play Velocity with Seven."

Zet and Nar appear. Janeway: "We're going to have to discuss this later."

Nar: "I need to upload your first assignment." The Doctor steps through the lowered forcefield which is then immediately re-activated.

Doctor: "You want me to infiltrate the Hierarchy surveillance complex!" Zet: "The data stored there is worth a hundred warp cores." Doctor: "How do you expect me to get past the security perimeter?"

Zet: "I'm glad you asked." Doctor: "I trust this won't be permanent." Nar: "I've given you the rank of a class 1 overseer. You'll be able to walk into central command without anyone noticing. I've also uploaded several other holographic templates you might find useful."

Suddenly the Doctor's program fritzes and he almost vanishes. When he comes back online the class 1 overseer and the Doctor's features have merged. Janeway: "What's wrong?" Doctor: "I'm not certain." Zet: "The compression algorithms are breaking down." Nar to Zet: "I told you his program couldn't handle that much data." Doctor: "What have you done to me!"