REAL LIFE
Episode 64
Part B

 

Voyager's bridge. Paris: "Captain, the particle wave we've been following is beginning to thin out."

Janeway: "Is there any indication what caused it?"

Tuvok: "I am detecting no ships, no structures, no weapons signatures."

Kim: "Wait a minute. Something."

Chakotay: "I see it too. A subspace disruption."

Janeway: "What's causing it?" Kim: "Can't tell, but it's getting more intense."

As the ship starts trembling, Janeway orders: "Shields up. Red alert." Lights dim and klaxons sound. "Tom, back us off!" Kim: "Something's coming out of subspace!" The bright flash of light as the phenomenon appears causes the crew to blink and shut their eyes for a second.

The phenomen appears. Janeway, as the starship is shaken more violently: "Tom, move us away."

Everyone has to shout to be heard above the noise. Paris: "I don't have engines!" Kim: "Propulsion is offline, so is navigational control!" Janeway, via comms: "Bridge to Engineering. We need power." Torres, via comms: "I'm on it, Captain." Tuvok: "The anomaly is bearing down on us, heading 047 mark 09."

Chakotay: "Brace for impact!" The astral eddy's force slams against Voyager. Kim: "It hit our starboard shields." Tuvok: "There's damage on deck 3."

Janeway: "Ready weapons. We're going to disperse it." Tuvok: "Phasers online." Paris: "Wait a minute." The eddy dissipates. Red alert is cancelled.

Chakotay: "Not afraid to say it: I've never seen anything like that before."

Janeway: "Damage report." Tuvok: "Twenty per cent loss of the starboard dorsal shields, and minor buckling of the hull on deck 3." Kim: "No indication of casualties."

Paris: "We've got propulsion systems back online. I think I can put some distance between us and," trying but failing to describe it, "whatever that was."

Janeway: "Maybe we don't want to. We've just witnessed a phenomenon none of us has ever heard of before, much less experienced. On a purely scientific level, I think we owe it to ourselves to investigate." Chakotay: "I'm looking at the telemetry we collected. It was an astral eddy that seems to have formed at the confluence of space and subspace." Kim: "It's highly charged with plasma. That explains the particle wake."

Chakotay: "If we could harness some of that energy, we could go off replicator rations for a while." Kim: "Captain, we don't have any idea what caused that phenomenon, or what made it dissipate. So how do we investigate it if it's gone?"

Janeway: "I suspect there are conditions in this part of space that lend themselves to the formation of those eddies." To Tuvok: "Set sensors for continuous scans of subspace. Maybe we can anticipate the next one."

Sickbay. Doctor: "l thought for a long time about what Lieutenant Torres said, and I finally concluded she was right. If I'm going to have the experience of a family it should be as authentic as possible."

Kes: "What changes have you asked her to make in the program?" Doctor: "Oh, she's already made them. She's simply added some randomised behavioural algorithms to the program I constructed." Kes: "How will it affect your family?" Doctor: "Events will simply unfold as a matter of natural evolution of probabilities within the program, but there's no way to predict what those might be."

Kes: "That could mean a few surprises. Are you sure you're ready for this?"

Doctor: "My database contains everything there is to know about paediatric care and childhood development. I can't imagine a parenting problem I couldn't handle."

Kes: "Your wife will have changed too."

Doctor: "Well, I have had some experience with romantic relationships. I don't anticipate any problems there."

Kes: "Sounds like you have it all worked out. When do you plan on meeting this new improved family?" Doctor, putting a PADD in his case: "Right now. I'm due home for dinner." He closes the case.

Doctor: "Computer, initiate Doctor's family program beta-rho and transfer the EMH to Holodeck 2."

Having been transferred to the Holodeck, he opens his home's front door. Cheerfully and smiling, he calls: "Hello, I'm......"

He tails off as he finds no one is in the living room to greet him and, worse, there is a dreadful din coming from upstairs - 'music' of some kind perhaps. He completes the sentence: "....home." But he is shocked by the change.

Charlene rushes downstairs. There is no wifely greeting, just an irritated: "There you are! I thought you'd never get here." As she starts frantically looking for things in the living room, the Doctor follows her around, trying to interest her in him. Doctor: "It was a busy day. I was quite challenged by the task of preparing a DNA probe to test Ensign Parson's glial cells. It seems he has a microbial infection - rather unusual." Charlene, not having taken in what he said: "Tell me about it when I get home. I'm late already."

Doctor: "Late?" She hastily pulls on the coat that completes her formal ensemble, although she looks untidy as she has not got time right now to look her best. Charlene gives a huff of impatience: "Oh!" She continues testily: "It's Wednesday, remember? I'm speaking at the Bolian Embassy."

Doctor: "Ah, right. Is dinner ready?"
Charlene: "It's your night to cook."
Belle calls from upstairs: "Mom, I can't find my ion mallet!"
Charlene shouts back: "If you cleaned your room you'd have better luck!"

Their tempers are not helped by the din of the 'music'. Doctor: "What is that noise?!" Charlene: "Oh, I've had to listen to it all day. Maybe you can do something about it!" She hurries out of the front door.

Belle tears downstairs and rushes around the living room looking for her ion mallet. Belle: "Oh Daddy, you've got to help me! I'll be late for practice! Coach Morgan'll be furious if I'm late again!" Doctor: "If you put your mallet in your closet when you were done with it, you'd know where it was." Belle: "I know that, Daddy."

Belle: "Oh, tell Jeffrey to turn that off! It makes my eyes hurt!" Doctor: "Mine too."

He calls up the stairs: "Jeffrey! Jeffrey!!" Jeffrey, a surly rebellious teenager, comes out of his room near to the head of the stairs. "What?" Doctor: "What is that music?" Jeffrey: "Klingon."

Doctor: "Well, turn it down. You can't do your homework with that noise."

Belle: "Daddy I can't find my mallet!" Doctor: "I know that, Belle." Without a word, Jeffrey goes back to his room, slams the door and the sound goes down as the Doctor speaks.

Belle: "They're going to send me down to the second team!" Doctor: "Well perhaps that will teach you a lesson." Belle: "You don't understand anything!" Doctor: "Belle, you have to realise-"

There is a loud banging on the door. The Doctor opens it. Two Klingon youths are standing outside.

Larg: "Where's Jeffery?" Doctor: "Who are you?" Larg: "Friends."

Doctor: "Do you have names?" The Klingon to the left of the picture: "Larg." The other one: "K'kath." Doctor: "Well, Larg, K'kath, you'll have to come back later. Jeffrey's doing his homework." Larg: "He invited us."

Belle: "Daddy! I need my iron mallet!" The Doctor turns on her: "I....!" He recovers himself, mostly, just in time. His patience overstrained, he tells her, managing not to shout at her: "Just a minute." He straightens up and turns back to the Klingons: "I'm sorry, but Jeffrey can't see friends until he has finished his homework."

Jeffrey, at the head of the stairs: "Dad, I asked them to come." Belle: "Daddy!" Doctor: "Jeffery, this is unacceptable." Jeffrey: "It'll only take a minute. We have some business we have to do." Doctor: "Business?"

Jeffrey addresses the Klingons in the Klingon language: "HlghoS.   Tugh." (Come here. Hurry up.)
Larg to Jeffrey, as he and K'Kath enter and head toward the stairs: "NuqneH." (What do you want?)
Belle: "Daddy, where's my mallet? I need it now!"
The Doctor calls up the stairs: "Young man!" But Jeffrey and his Klingon friends ignore him.

Belle, becoming hysterical and in tears: "You're mean! You don't love me as much as Mommy does! She'd help me find my mallet!" His nerves fray at her tantrum: "I want Mommy! I want Mommy! I want Mommy! I want Mommy!"