BASICS
Episodes 42 and 43

Part O

 

Suder, Kazon phaser rifle at the ready, quietly enters Main Engineering through the Jefferies tubes.

He rushes out and fires as many as nine times, killing all the Kazon there.

He stands amongst the slaughter, horrified.

With laboured breathing, he walks slowly, almost stumbling, toward a control console.

For a moment he pauses, resting on the console, head down, trying to cope with the mass murder.

Then Suder starts activating controls to take the backup phaser couplings offline.

He does not realise that one Kazon is not quite dead. Suddenly a phaser blast strikes him.

Letting out a cry of pain, Suder slumps. But as his body slowly slides down from the console, in his last second of life he reaches for the final control to activate.

With a supreme effort, he manages to press the final control.

As he falls to the floor and dies, Suder knows he has at last achieved his wish "to do something for the ship".

USS Voyager.

Kazon engineer: "I have it on the scanners. It's a Federation shuttlecraft."

Culluh fumes. It is the shuttlecraft that was supposedly tracked down and destroyed. "Lock phasers. Destroy it."

Kazon engineer: "Primary phaser power is down." Seska: "Switch to backup systems." Kazon engineer: "Confirmed. Phasers are locked on."

Culluh: "Fire!" Kazon engineer: "I don't understand. I'm showing an overload." The explosion catches Seska and she is thrown backwards to the ground.

Paris, in his shuttlecraft, watches as the overload shorts out other ship's systems.

Paris sees the explosions. Paris: "Yes, Doc, yes!" Via comms: "Paris to Commander Paxim. Stand by. I'm going to start transporting your people to Voyager." Paxim, via comms: "Standing by."

Under the glow of the Bridge ceiling's flashing red alert lights, Seska regains consciousness. She is badly injured. Hearing the baby crying, she struggles up as much as she can and crawls into the Ready Room where the baby is.

Culluh regains consciousness to see the Bridge is heavily damaged. He sees Seska crawling to the Ready Room. "Seska! Seska!"

She reaches the baby.

But then she collapses and dies next to him.

Culluh, who has followed her in: "Seska?" He realises she is dead. Grief-stricken, he moans: "No."

Paris and Paxim beam onto the Bridge. There is no resistance. The Kazon there are either dead, or injured and unconscious.

The com. signal sounds. A Kazon crewman reports via comms: "Engineering to Maje Culluh. We're being boarded." Culluh, in despair: "Abandon ship."

He lifts his son and carries him away.

On the Bridge, Paris sits at the helm, back at his post. Paris: "I'm sealing off the Bridge manually. I've got to get the computer back online." He observes from readings: "All Starfleet voice access has been disabled." Paxim, at Ops: "I'm reading a Kazon shuttle leaving the ship. There are also escape pods being launched." Paris: "Forget them. We have more important things to do."

Kazon graphic web work by me. About the Kazon graphic / How to use the image map (pop-up)