Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Entering the holodeck, Kes crossed the distance of recreated Earth city street and pulled open the door to Lieutenant Honigsberg’s holographic version of the Stonewall Inn. To her surprise, the bar was completely empty, and most of the lights were off, which hadn’t been her experience with the program before.

She paused, wondering if she’d made a mistake. Crewman Sullivan, her roommate and co-worker in Sickbay, had told her to come here at this hour, hadn’t she?

“Rebecca?” Kes said. “Hello? Is anyone here?”

With a flurry of activity, the lights went up in the bar, and a small crowd of people rose from behind the long bar, cheering a loud “Surprise!” at her as they stood. Kes laughed, caught completely off guard. Sullivan was there, as were all the other Ocampa on board Voyager, joined by her fellow “cadets” Crewman Li-Paz, Stiles, Sveta, and Nelson, as well as Lieutenants Taitt and Stadi, and—to Kes’s astonishment—Nurse T’Prena, too. 

“Happy Birthday!” Sullivan said, putting a strange object in her mouth and puffing on it. It unrolled and made an odd noise, though it was more amusing than worrisome. 

“Happy Birthday, Kes,” Li-Paz said, coming from around the counter and pulling her in for a kiss. Kes snuggled into him for a moment, returning the kiss before pushing back. The others all took a moment to repeat the greeting, even Crewman Nelson, who was usually so quiet.

“Why were you all hiding like that?” Kes said. 

“That was me,” Sullivan said. “It’s an old human tradition.”

“It’s called a surprise party,” Sveta added. 

Kes found herself grinning. “Well, I liked it. Very exhilarating.” 

“I’m glad,” Li-Paz said, putting one arm around her. She leaned into him. 

“You know,” Stiles said, leaning forward and seeming to peer at something between her eyebrows. “You don’t look two. I’d say one and a half, tops.” He cracked a small smile. 

“He probably means we still look like children,” Daggin said.

“Oh no,” Stiles raised both hands. “That was all Li-Paz.” 

“I don’t remember you disagreeing,” Abol said. Beside him, Taitt shook her head and gave him a little nudge, but the Ocampa man just chuckled. 

“Anyone want a drink?” Stiles said. “I can go get drinks. Sveta? Nelson?” He was gone a second later, and Kes laughed. Given how negatively Stiles, Nelson, Sveta and, yes, Li-Paz had reacted to Kes, Abol and Daggin in their training sessions at first, she didn’t mind a little teasing aimed their way.

“Am I too late?”

Kes turned at the voice, surprised once again, slipping free from Li-Paz’s arm to greet the new arrival. The holographic doctor, who’d spent so much time training her over night shifts in the last few months, offered his odd smile, walking over with the K’tarian holographic bartender, Ziman, on one side, and the holographic performer, Cora Breach on the other. Ziman had a tray of drinks at the ready.

“Doctor,” Kes said, delighted. “It’s so good of you to come.”

“I didn’t really give him a choice,” Sullivan said. 

“It was more of a threat,” the doctor agreed, but he titled his head in good humour. “Happy Birthday, Kes.”

“Thank you.”

“There’s more,” Sullivan said, nodding behind her. 

Kes turned again, and this time, Cir was holding a single silver tray, on which was a confection of some kind, decorated in white and blue, with two lit candles on top. 

“It’s called a birthday cake,” Eru said, the pixieish blond Ocampa smiling. “Cir and I did research on what’s customary once Rebecca told us the plans. This is a traditional human recipe for birthday cake, called a ‘confetti cake.’”

“You make a wish and you blow out the candles,” Cir said. 

“What do I wish for?” Kes said, not quite following.

“Anything you’d like,” Ziman said, with a particularly weighted lift of his eyebrow. “That’s the whole point.” 

That sounded delightful to her. Kes took a moment, thinking, then said, “Okay. In that case, I wish for—”

“No, don’t,” Taitt held up her hand. “You don’t say it out loud. And you can’t tell anyone after. If you say it out loud, it won’t come true.”

“There are a lot of rules,” Kes said.

“And all of them are superstitions,” T’Prena said, though it didn’t seem particularly harsh.

Also? She was right.

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Kes said. She nodded to herself, and made the wish—A happy future with Li-Paz—then puffed a breath across the two candles, which went out. Everyone—except for T’Prena—cheered, though even the Vulcan offered polite applause.   

“I can cut this if you like,” Eru said.

“Please,” Kes said, and she and Cir took the cake to the bar, where she started to slice it. 

“Thank you for coming,” Kes said to T’Prena while they waited. “I appreciate it.” She couldn’t imagine the Vulcan would particularly enjoy this sort of party, given the frivolity and superstition it seemed to evoke.

T’Prena offered the smallest nod in response. “You are a valued colleague.” 

Beside her, Daggin beamed at her, though he dropped most of the smile when she turned to look at him, as though she sensed his attention. More than once since they’d all gotten over their quarantine over a week ago now, Kes had noticed Daggin and T’Prena spending time together outside of their meditative sessions. It made her curious, but this certainly wasn’t the time.

“There’s one tradition that crosses over in both Bajoran and Earth culture,” Li-Paz said. “And that’s the giving of presents on a birthday.”

She saw he had a beautifully wrapped box in his hand, which he must have picked up from somewhere. The paper was a soft blue, and it was tied with a gold string. 

“Thank you,” she said, taking it from him. She untied the string, then pulled the paper off the box. When she opened it, she breathed out in pleasure. “It’s a d’ja pagh. Oh, Paz, it’s beautiful.”  

The earring was silver, with a pendant at one and and a slim chain connecting it to a cuff. A traditional Bajoran piece of jewelry, Kes also knew just how meaningful it was that Li-Paz had chosen to gift it to her. This wasn’t just a birthday gift. It felt like the answer to the wish she’d made just moments ago.

Sullivan, Taitt, and Gara were hovering fairly close, having watched her unwrap and open the box. 

“It’s different than yours,” Taitt said, glancing at the earring Li-Paz wore.

“They’re specific to the wearer,” Kes said, pulling the earring from the box and holding it up. “Li-Paz explained it to me. This piece that clips at the bottom tells you who it belongs to, and these  pieces are their family, and then at the top, the cuff denotes something called a d’jarra.” 

Li-Paz nodded. He pointed to the pendant. “This names her in Bajoran script, Kes. These two smaller pieces say Benaren and Martis, Kes’s parents’ names.”

“And a d’jarra?” Gara asked. 

Cir and Eru had returned with the slices of cake on plates. They handed them out, but Eru spoke up. 

“D’jarra’s are Bajoran castes, aren’t they?” she said.

Li-Paz blinked, clearly surprised. “That’s right. How did you know?”

“There were multiple references to d’jarras when I was reading up on the history of Bajoran food,” Eru said. “Bakers were of a different d’jarra than preparers of meat. They were ascribed at birth, correct?”

“Yes.” Li-Paz nodded. “But Bajor hasn’t actually followed the d’jarras since the Occupation.” He shrugged. “It’s more like a piece of extended family history now.”

“But Kes wasn’t born on Bajor,” Gara said. “So which d’jarra did you give her?”

“I definitely took liberties,” Li-Paz said. “But that’s ih’apa, the caste of healers. It seemed right.”

“It’s perfect,” Kes said, and held it out on her palm. “Help me put it on?”

Li-Paz took it from her, and within a moment, she wore it on her right ear. She raised her hand to touch it, then smiled at him again, leaning in for another kiss.

“Okay, this is delicious,” Sullivan said a moment later. She’d started on her cake. Kes saw Cir and Eru had returned yet again with more plates of cake and took one for herself. Once everyone around them had a slice—and Stiles had come back with drinks for Nelson and Sveta—she took a bite herself, and had to agree. The texture was fluffy, and while the icing was sweet, the multi-colour-flecked cake went well with it.

*

“The sensor diagnostic is complete,” Ensign Lan said from Ops.

Captain Cavit glanced over at her. “Anything to worry about?”

The Trill woman shook her head. “No, sir. Fully operational.” She turned to the rear of her station, tapping commands into the wall display behind her. “Officially logged as complete,” she said, turning back to face him. 

Cavit caught a glimpse of the silver band around her wrist, the monitor Doctor Fitzgerald had her wearing now that her symbiont and the two offspring it was growing inside her was nearing what they assumed would be the end of its term. He had an idea. 

“Why don’t you go, Ensign?” he said. “There’s nothing else on the to-do list, and I’m sure Ensign Swinn wouldn’t mind giving you and your trio a break.” 

“Of course I wouldn’t,” Swinn said, speaking up from one of the rear Bridge stations. 

Lan eyed them both, but didn’t argue. “Thank you, sir. I’ll take you up on that.” 

Beside him, Lieutenant Commander Ro met Cavit’s gaze with an amused smile, but he didn’t let it show. Swinn took Lan’s place, Lan stepped into the turbolift, and then she was gone.

“That was nice of you,” Ro said, dropping her voice low to keep their conversation private between them.

“Doctor Fitzgerald has been reminding me to cut Lan as much slack as possible,” Cavit said, purposefully obtuse. “It’s a quiet shift.”

“Uh huh,” Ro said. “Do you think they’ll save us a slice of cake? Eru was finishing decorating it when I stopped by for lunch and it looked incredible.” 

“Oh,” Cavit said, still feigning ignorance. “Kes’s surprise party. Is that today?”

Ro just shook her head, a brief crooked smile appearing in the corner of her lips.

He shrugged, then leaned in closer. “Eru said she’d make sure of it. The cake, I mean.”

Ro smiled again.

Then the turboblift opened again, and Cavit saw her smile tighten into something less pleasant. Lieutenant Cing’ta stepped onto the Bridge, nodding at them both as he passed the command area, moving across to the Engineering station. 

“Good morning Captain, Commander,” he said. The Bolian was unfailingly polite around Commander Ro, Cavit had noticed. 

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” Ro replied, in just as carefully polite tones.

He supposed polite would have to do until he could figure out some other way to get them past what he had to admit he’d struggle with himself: Cing’ta had been placed into Ro’s Maquis cell to spy on it and ferret out what he’d been told was Cardassian influence on their activity. Cavit imagined it felt like a double-hit to Ro: not only had she been fooled by Cing’ta, but Starfleet Intelligence had solid reasons to believe the Cardassians were affecting the Maquis’s targets, too. 

Still, having Cing’ta on board was a boon. A strategic operations officer with a talent for covert communications, he’d been nothing but an asset. 

Except for when his covert nature had allowed another spy to steal the Aeroshuttle, of course.

“How’s the noise, Lieutenant?” Cavit said, not wanting to let that particular thought take root and lead him to a bad mood.

“Nothing immediately worrisome through the Cloud,” Cing’ta replied, referring to his program that piggybacked on subspace channels and sent them particularly notable packets through background noise from the communication systems the program copied itself onto. “Kazon chatter, mostly, but nothing about us as of yet.” 

That was good to hear.

“Captain,” Rollins said, from Tactical. “I just got something on sensors, dead ahead.” 

“On screen,” Cavit said, turning his attention to the viewscreen.

“What is that?” Ro said, leaning forward beside him. Ahead of them in space, a small area of the viewscreen seemed almost fuzzy.

“Magnify,” Cavit said, exchanging a glance with Ro. On the viewscreen, the area of space affected by the blurred, fuzzy whatever-it-was was no easier to see, and unless he was mistaken, the fuzzy effect was growing.

“So much for a quiet shift,” he said.

*

“This is delicious, Eru,” Stadi said, joining the smaller blond Ocampa by the bar. Stadi had eaten half her slice of cake and could only imagine her mother’s commends on the speed at which she’d accomplished it. 

“Thank you,” Eru said. “It wasn't particularly challenging to bake, but I really enjoyed decorating it. Now that I know about this tradition, I might try working it into the Mess Hall rotation. Though, with a hundred and fifty-four crew, I think I might scale it down to another dessert I read about. A cupcake, for the birthday person in question.” 

“That sounds wise. As much as I’m enjoying this, I don’t think I could handle a birthday cake every couple of days.” She took another bite. Okay, so maybe she could enjoy this every other day or so, but she shouldn’t. “So Ocampa don’t have birthday parties, I’m guessing?” 

Beside Eru, Cir shook his head. “Not birthdays, but we do celebrate adulthood, then parenthood, and when one of us passes, we gather to say farewell to the comra.” Unlike the petite Eru, Stadi had long noticed Cir’s tendency to try to soften his voice and diminish his own presence, which was no easy task. Easily the largest of the Ocampa, the tall, broadly built man with the deep brown skin had a lovely timbre to his voice when he spoke, which wasn’t often enough, in her option. 

“Do Betazoids have birthday parties?” Eru said. “We only looked at the human traditions, since Rebecca was organizing the party.”

“We do. Usually with our closest family members. There’s a tradition of passing on any family heirlooms on particular birthdays as well,” Stadi said. “But that varies family to family and heirloom to heirloom. My best friend, Alisse Genestra, received one of the sacred chalices during her sixteenth birthday.” Stadi laughed at the memory, and when Eru and Cir looked confused at her laughter, she held up her hand. “Whatever you’re picturing, that’s not it. Think of a really ugly, really old clay pot filled with…” She shook her head. “I’m not even sure what was inside it. Mold, probably.” 

“And this was considered a good present?” Cir said.

“Not by Alisse. But her father thought it was a grand tradition to uphold,” Stadi said.

“You’re not a fan of tradition, really, are you, Lieutenant?” Daggin said, stepping up to the bar with T’Prena. 

Stadi felt a little exposed by the comment, which again reminded her of her mother. She knew the tall, dark-haired Ocampa hadn’t meant to strike a nerve, though. 

“Let’s just say I try to find the balance between what can be found of value in tradition with not binding ourselves to old ways that might not be relevant any more,” Stadi said. 

“We wanted to say goodbye before we left,” Daggin said. “And thank you again for the cake.”

“You’re welcome,” Eru said.

“Do Vulcans celebrate birthdays?” Cir asked, turning to T’Prena.

“In the sense of noting their passing, and reflecting on the growth of the individual, a Vulcan’s birthday is marked,” T’Prena said. “But it is usually a more private affair.” 

Stadi resisted the urge to note her complete lack of surprise at T’Prena’s answer. Vulcans didn’t have fun on their birthday? What a shock. 

“Good evening,” T’Prena said, and then she and Daggin left the holodeck together. 

Gara came over, with Crewman Sveta. “Is it just me,” Gara said. “Or are they spending a lot of time together these days?” 

“Who?” Sveta said, not following. 

“Daggin and T’Prena,” Gara said. 

Stadi blinked, and replayed the brief conversation, then thought back to when everyone had arrived. Sure enough, Daggin and T’Prena had come together, too. 

Huh.

“He has a very Vulcan palate,” Eru said, which made the whole group turn to her with various levels of amusement. Stadi had to hold back a snort of laughter herself. 

Eru just raised her eyebrows. “He does. He likes Vulcan food.” She took a bite of her cake, clearly trying to pretend she’d merely stated a fact about Daggin’s culinary preferences. 

The door to the bar opened again, and Stadi glanced over, surprised to see Lieutenant Commander Ro enter the bar’s recreation. 

“Commander Ro,” Kes said from where she was still standing with Li-Paz and the others, opening a package that Taitt had brought for her. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

Ro opened her mouth and spoke, but what came out sounded inhuman. It was garbled, and odd, and too deep. The Bajoran first officer frowned at them, shaking her head, and held up her tricorder.

“Commander?” Stadi said, taking a step toward her. Something was deeply wrong here. She could feel Ro’s mind, but her thoughts were… inverted, or misaligned somehow. 

Ro spoke again, still frowning, but again her words were completely incomprehensible, just noise and sound. She paused, clearly frustrated, then lifted her free hand and traced a line down the middle of her face from her forehead to her chin with one finger, before turning to look at everyone a second time.

“Is this a birthday tradition, too?” Kes said, clearly unsure.

“No,” Stadi said. “Something’s wrong.”

Ro shook her head, lifted the tricorder again, and left the bar. 

Before he door had even closed, Stadi tapped her combadge. “Stadi to Bridge.”

No one replied. 

She nodded at Taitt.

The science officer tapped her combadge. “Taitt to Bridge,” she said. 

A burst of whining static answered, and they all winced. She tapped her badge again, but it didn’t stop, instead, it only grew louder. 

Something was definitely wrong.

Chapter Text

“Analysis,” Cavit said, rising.

Swinn tapped at the Ops station controls. “It’s literally changing shape, sensors aren’t recognizing the pattern.”

“She’s right. It’s not like anything in the ship’s database. It shares similarities with various spatial distortions,” Ensign Murphy said from the Science station. “But it moves like a wave.”

“It’s putting out intense EM radiation pulses,” Swinn said. 

“It’s also getting closer,” Murphy said. “Or maybe it’s expanding, sensors readings aren’t clear. Either way, we’ve got ten minutes until it hits us.” 

“Let’s back off, then,” Cavit said, moving forward to stand behind Ensign Macormack at the Conn. “Full reverse, Ensign.”

“Aye, sir,” she said, then frowned. “Sir, I’m showing the distortion behind us.”

“Swinn?” Ro said, standing.

“It wasn’t, but it is,” Swinn said. “I’m sorry, Commander, I’ve never seen anything move like this. It surrounded us, like a sphere.”  

“Is it still approaching us?” Ro said, moving to stand beside Swinn.

“That, or maybe shrinking, yes.” Swinn worked the station, clearly frustrated. “Either way, it’s incoming.”

“Then maybe we get it over with,” Ro said.

“Commander?” Cavit said, facing her.

“It’s going to hit us anyway. It might be best for us to make it as quick as possible.”

“We have no idea what it might do to Voyager,” Cing’ta said. 

Cavit glanced at him, then Ro, then back to Murphy. “How severe is the distortion? If we raise the shields, reinforce structural integrity, and hit the distortion ring at warp?”

Murphy didn’t answer right away, taking a few moments to really regard his sensor readings before replying. “If it reacts like a class-2 spatial distortion, that would work. It has a most of the same qualities, Captain, but the EM bursts and the anomalous topology are different.” The dark haired man regarded him. “Given the unknowns, I’d say Commander Ro is right: minimizing our exposure might be the safest route.” 

Cavit nodded. “Bridge to Engineering, I’m going to need everything you can give me for shields and the structural integrity field.”

A burst of static answered, then a high-pitched squeal. Cavit winced when it didn’t stop. “Cing’ta?”

“The comm system is generating a kind of self-sustaining feedback.” The big Bolian shook his head. “I’ll try and—”

The noise stopped. He blinked. 

“The EM bursts could be knocking out the comm systems,” Rollins said.

“Okay, shields up. Cing’ta, Swinn, do what you can from here to reinforce structural integrity, and Macormack, straight ahead, warp three.” He crossed the bridge, sinking back into the command chair. Ro joined him in her own seat a moment later.

“Shields up,” Rollins said.

“Sir, the warp field is collapsing before I can engage,” Macormack said. She shook her head. “Warp engines just went offline.”

“I assume we can’t reach Engineering yet?” Cavit said.

Cing’ta turned to face him, and shook his head.

“How long do we have, now?”

“I’m not sure, Captain,” Swinn said. “The rate of movement is inconsistent and our sensors can’t pinpoint the event horizon of the distortion wave, but I think we’re looking a few minutes at best.”

“Okay,” Cavit said. “Ro, Cing’ta, get to Engineering, let them know what’s going on and the moment we have warp capability we’ll punch it. If you don’t see it happen, Commander, do it from Engineering. Understood?” He blew out a breath. “We’ll keep trying from here.”

“Yes, Captain.” She nodded, and rose, heading for the turbolift. Cing’ta joined her shortly thereafter. 

*

The moment Cing’ta was inside the turbolift, Ro said “Engineering.”

The turbolift began to move. They stood in silence for a moment, Ro staring straight ahead, aware that Cing’ta was doing the same, and not feeling particularly like changing the situation. She could handle silence. 

The turbolift jolted, and she nearly fell. The Bolian grabbed her shoulder, keeping her upright. 

“What was—?” she started, and watched in stunned surprise as a wave of distortion rose from the floor and passed through them between blinks. 

*

“Thank you again for accompanying me to the party,” Daggin said, at the door to T’Prena’s quarters. 

“You are welcome,” T’Prena said, then regarded him. “And thank you for understanding my reluctance to take part in the ‘small talk.’” 

He smiled. “Honestly? Conversations that don’t really inform have always been a bit of a mystery to me.” He met her gaze. “A definite advantage to the Vulcan way.”

“Indeed.”

“Good night,” he said, nodding his head toward her, but keeping his eyes on hers. It was a habit they’d taken to over the past week since their time together during her pon farr, which had given rise to his elogium years early, and—they would soon know—potentially something far more special. 

She turned and opened the door to her quarters, stepping in, and he had shifted on his heel to go, but her voice made him turn back when she said, “Ensign?” with what passed for confusion from T’Prena. 

He took two steps forward before he could stop himself, crossing the threshold into the space after T’Prena, and then he was hit with what was, no doubt, the same source of concern that had T’Prena standing there as well.

“May I help you?” Ensign Martin said, eyeing the two of them from behind the Transporter Room controls.

“This is the Transporter Room,” Daggin said, turning around and facing the now-closed door. “How did we get that lost on our way from the Holodeck?”

“We did not,” T’Prena replied. “And Transporter Room One is not on the same deck as my quarters.” 

Ensign Martin, a tall human with thinning hair, looked back and forth between the two of them, clearly not following. “I’m sorry?” he said.

“Excuse us, Ensign,” T’Prena said, and she led Daggin back to the door. It opened, and Daggin blinked in confusion, coming to a halt before stepping through. 

“What is that?” Ensign Martin said from behind them. 

“That,” said T’Prena, in her calm, even voice. “Is a holographic recreation of Earth.” 

In front of them was the outside facade of the Stonewall Inn. 

“The Holodeck,” Daggin said, shaking his head. “It’s the Holodeck.” 

“How is that possible?” Ensign Martin said. “Where’s the corridor?” 

“I do not know,” T’Prena said. She tapped her combadge. “T’Prena to Bridge.” 

Her combadge emitted a loud squeal, and they all cringed. She tapped it a second time to cut the connection. 

“Do we go back?” Daggin said, nodding toward the Stonewall Inn. 

“Since we cannot reach the Bridge,” T’Prena said. “Yes. We should report to Lieutenant Stadi. She is the second officer.” T’Prena turned to Ensign Martin. “I suggest you remain here, Ensign. Keep trying to reach the Bridge.”

Ensign Martin nodded. “I’ll see if I can get the comm system back up and running.”

Daggin and T’Prena headed back towards the Inn.

*

“Captain!” Ensign Murphy said. Cavit glanced at the ensign, saw he was staring at the ceiling, and looked up. 

The furthest-most part of the dome above the bridge was rippling above him, and faintly translucent green. 

“Is the distortion still sphere-shaped?” Cavit said.

“The sensors suggest so,” Swinn said. 

“Okay, in that case, we want to head to lower decks. Rollins, Swinn, Macormack, reroute control to Main Engineering, then head down there and let Commander Ro know what’s going on,” Cavit looked up, noting that the spatial distortion had moved a bit further down toward them. “Murphy, and I are going to take a quick detour to Stellar Cartography and see if we can’t get a better idea of what this is, and then we’ll join you there. Understood?”

A chorus of “Aye, sir”s and everyone got to work as fast as possible. 

“It doesn’t look like shields did anything,” Rollins said, once he was done and they’d all gathered at he turbolift. 

The doors opened, and Cavit gestured to Rollins and his team. “Go ahead. We’ll grab another.”

Rollins looked like he wanted to argue, glanced up, then swallowed whatever he was going to say and stepped into the turbolift. “Main Engineering,” he said. The door closed on them and they were off. 

A moment later, the turbolift opened again as a new ‘lift arrived. Ensign Murphy followed him in, peering up at the roof of the Bridge until the doors closed again. The distortion wave was half-way to the viewscreen now.

“Deck five,” Cavit said. “Stellar Cartography.”

The turbolift descended. 

*

“Li-Paz?” Stadi said, raising her voice to be heard over the screeching. 

“Almost got it,” Li-Paz said. He had a section of the wall open, the holodeck recreation of the Stonewall Inn giving way to the present along a clean line. He was working on the exposed console, and had tugged out a few connections already. “It could be local to the holodeck, but if it is, it’s a malfunction I’ve never seen before. It’s more like a recursion of some sort, but I think I—”

The screech stopped. 

“Got it,” he said, with a little smile.

“Good work,” Stadi said. She turned to the gathered party, all of whom had been waiting, hands over their ears, while Li-Paz worked. “I’m sorry Kes, but we need to check-in with the bridge about Commander Ro, and with the comm systems down...”

Kes shook her head. “No, of course.”

“Right then,” Stadi said. “Taitt, you and I will head to the bridge. Stiles, Li-Paz, Nelson? Engineering. Abol and Sveta, get to your duty stations. Kes, Sullivan, transfer the EMH back to Sickbay, and then follow him there.” She smiled at Cir, Eru, and Gara. “I’m sorry to break up the party.”

“We’ll bring the cake to the Mess Hall,” Cir said. “There could be slices left later.” 

Stadi smiled. “That’s doubtful at best.”

Cir shrugged, offering a small grin.

Kes and Sullivan approached the panel Li-Paz had left open. The rest left as a group with her, splitting up outside the Holodeck into their two groups. Stadi and Taitt stepped into the turbolift.

“Bridge,” she said.

*

“Computer,” Kes said. “Transfer the Emergency Medical Hologram program to Sickbay.”

The EMH shimmered and vanished. 

“Okay,” Sullivan said. “Let’s—”

The EMH shimmered into being in front of them.

“Doctor?” Kes said.

The hologram frowned, looking around at the interior of the Stonewall Inn. Cir, Eru and Gara had just left, Cir carrying the cake, so it was just the three of them—and Cora Breach and Ziman, of course, but the holograms were at the bar, chatting lightly. 

“Why am I still here?” The holographic doctor’s voice rose in annoyance.

“I don’t know,” Kes said, exchanging a glance with Sullivan.

“We thought the comm system isn’t working,” Sullivan said. “But maybe the problem is with the computer’s verbal interface.” She went to the wall panel where Li-Paz had worked. “Let me try that again, manually.” 

“Please do,” the EMH said. 

Sullivan tapped the controls, and turned to watch the holographic doctor.

He shimmered and vanished. 

Then shimmered back into being.

The holographic doctor crossed his arms. “Well, this is tedious.” 

“That should have worked,” Sullivan turned back to the interface. “I’m not sure what’s going on.” Kes walked over to stand beside her, looking at the interface. As far as she could tell, Sullivan had indeed inputting the transfer command properly. 

“Should we try again?” Kes said.

“Where is everyone?” T’Prena’s voice made both her and Sullivan turn to the entrance of the Inn, where Daggin and T’Prena had returned. 

“There was a problem with the comm system,” Sullivan said. “And we saw Commander Ro and she was acting strange. Lieutenant Stadi went to the bridge with Lieutenant Taitt, and ordered the rest of us to our duty stations.”

“But we can’t seem to get the doctor’s program back to Sickbay,” Kes said.

“When I tried to return to my quarters, we found ourselves in the Transporter Room,” T’Prena said. 

“What?” Sullivan said. “You got lost?” 

“No,” T’Prena said. “But regardless, that was where we found ourselves.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Kes said.

“No,” T’Prena said again, in the same tone of voice. “It does not.”

*

The doors to the turbolift opened, and Stadi and Taitt took three steps out before both of them halted, glancing around. The rows of shuttlecraft, the wide open L-shaped two-deck space. 

“This is the shuttle bay,” Taitt said, turning around to stare at the doors they’d just entered through.

Stadi shook her head, trying to reconcile where they were with where they should be and coming up empty. 

“Oh, hello,” Ensign Ahni Jetal said, wiping her hands on a cloth. She and Crewman Vance had the port nacelle of the Jemisin open, and were clearly giving it a once over. Vance lay on the ground, up to his elbows in the nacelle itself. “Anything we can help you with?” he said, not getting up.

Stadi took a breath. “Uh, no. We were heading to the Bridge, but…” She turned around, facing the door alongside Taitt, who faced her and shook her head, clearly just as baffled. 

“Do you have comm systems?” Taitt said, glancing back at Jetal.

The slender brunette crossed to the main docking panel, and tapped in a command. The screech of noise that followed made Vance leap up from where he was lying alongside the shuttle. He cracked his head against the outer hull and let out a string of curses before Jetal managed to shut off the high-pitched whine.

“That’s a no,” Taitt said. “Same problem.” 

Jetal considered. “If the comm systems are down, it could mean all the voice-activated interfaces are off,” she said. 

“We’ll try manual,” Stadi said, heading back to the turbolift. 

“Sorry about your head, Chris,” Taitt said.

Vance shrugged. “My skull has taken worse hits.” 

The two women stepped back into the turbolift, and Stadi tapped the controls, telling the turbolift to bring them to the bridge manually. 

*

Li-Paz followed Stiles and Nelson into Main Engineering, but nearly ran right into Nelson’s back when the man stopped directly in front of him. He managed not to collide by taking a half-step to the side, but it wasn’t graceful.

“Gavin, what—?” he started to say, then stopped when he realized why both Nelson and Stiles had stopped walking.

The three of them had just arrived in the Mess Hall. Only two of the tables were occupied, with Crewman White at one with her tricorder and some PADDs, and a trio of security crewmen at another, and the kitchen was closed, given Eru and Gara were both at Kes’s party, but a few baskets of fruit were still on offer in the serving window. 

“Those were the doors to Engineering, right?” Stiles said. “I didn’t hallucinate that, did I?” 

“No, you didn’t,” Li-Paz said, turning around. “Or, if you did, so did I. We were on deck 11, I’m sure of it.” He spent most of his time down there. He knew what it looked like. 

A few of the crew were watching them now, and Li-Paz cleared his throat. “Can someone try calling Engineering for us? Our combadges aren’t working.”

The chorus of squealing noises that followed made it perfectly clear the problem wasn’t just isolated to the holodeck. It took a few seconds for everyone to get the noise to stop.

“Sorry,” Li-Paz said.

“What is that?” Nelson said.

Li-Paz turned, and saw Nelson’s brown eyes were aimed out the windows of the Mess Hall, but his head was tilted to look up. He took another step forward and shifted his own gaze, and frowned. There was a kind of rippling visual effect above Voyager. And not that far above Voyager, either. 

The rest of the crew joined them at the window, looking up. Crewman White brought her tricorder with her, and she took a reading. “It’s some sort of spatial distortion,” she said. “It’s intersecting with the bridge.”

“What should we do?” Crewman Foster said, turning to Stiles. Crewman Murphy and Crewman Larson turned away from the window, clearly waiting for Stiles to answer. 

Li-Paz realized Stiles was the only command personnel present. 

“We were ordered to get to Main Engineering,” Stiles said. “We’ll try again. I think, given the circumstances, you’d all better get to your duty stations.” He glanced up. “Let everyone know you see along the way to do the same.” He turned to White. “Can I take your tricorder? I’d like to get those readings to Engineering.”

“Of course,” she said, handing it over. 

Li-Paz turned around. “There are more tricorders in the emergency lockers,” he said. “I think we should break them all out. Take readings. Without comms, the more we all know the better.” 

Stiles nodded. “Let’s do it.” He held the tricorder up, and frowned. “And let’s hurry. I think that distortion is getting closer.”

*

Rollins stepped out of the turbolift, Swinn and Macormack with him, and then all three came to a halt. The corridor was narrow, and lacked the smooth, finished panels of the upper decks, with casings and conduits visible along the sections.

“This is deck 15,” Swinn said. 

“The computer overshot by four decks?” Macormack said.

“Apparently,” Rollins said, shaking his head. 

“The voice commands might be offline,” Swinn said. “It might not just be the comms affected by the EM bursts.” 

“Let’s try manual,” Rollins said, pivoting to get back into the turbolift. Once inside, they used the manual control to direct the turbolift to Main Engineering. 

The doors opened again, and the corridor looked right. They exited, and crossed to the door to Main Engineering, stepping through and coming to a halt as one. 

“Hi,” Ensign Sahreen Lan said, leaning against the inside wall of the Garden. The former cargo bay had been converted to an airponics and hydroponics bay, with racks and racks of various fruit and vegetables growing all around them. 

“What the hell?” Rollins said, looking around in wonder. He turned around to face the doors, watching them close behind him, Swinn, and Macormack.

Lan pushed off from the wall. The Trill woman had removed the clip that kept her long, curling dark hair piled carefully on top of her head, and it fell loose around her shoulders. “Tell me about it. I’ve been bouncing between here and the Gym for the last twenty minutes. It’s freezing in the Gym, by the way, so I suggest you hang out here instead.” 

*

Cavit stepped through the doors to Stellar Cartography, already asking the most important question. “What can you tell me about the—?”

His voice broke off when Doctor Fitzgerald stepped out of his office. “About what?” he said.

“Sickbay?” Cavit looked around. But it was, indeed, Sickbay.

“About Sickbay?” Fitzgerald raised one eyebrow. “What do you want to know?” 

“No,” Cavit held up one hand, he glanced at Ensign Murphy.

“Did we get turned around somehow?” Ensign Murphy said, clearly just as baffled as he was. Sickbay was on the other side of deck 5. 

“Aaron?” Fitzgerald said.

“We were trying to get to Stellar Cartography,” Cavit said. “See what they could tell us about the spatial distortion. But… somehow we ended up here.” 

“Spatial distortion?”

“It’s already moving through the Bridge.” Cavit shook his head. “Are the comm systems working here?”

Fitzgerald crossed to the wall and tapped in a command. “Sickbay to Stellar Cartography,” he said. 

In return, the panel started to screech at him. He stabbed at it until it stopped. 

“Maybe it’s not just the comms. Verbal interface could be down,” Ensign Murphy said. 

“Could be.” It didn’t explain how they’d walked to Stellar Cartography and ended up here, though. Cavit shook his head. He was sure he’d read the sign on the door before he’d come through it. He bit his lip. “Jeff, can you scan us? See if the distortion is influencing our sense of direction somehow?”

Fitzgerald picked up a medical tricorder and scanned them both. He shook his head. “I’m not seeing anything.” 

“That’s good to hear,” Murphy said, with a little chuckle. 

Cavit could relate. “Okay. Stay put. We’re going to try that again.” He offered his best ‘everything is fine’ smile at Fitzgerald, but Fitzgerald’s small frown in return told him the doctor wasn’t buying it. 

Still, he didn’t say anything else while he and Murphy left. 

*

“—that?” Ro said.

She blinked. The turbolift had come to a halt. She was on the floor, leaning awkwardly against the sides of the ‘lift. She rose, shaking her head. She felt oddly buoyant, like she didn’t weigh enough or the ship’s gravity plating wasn’t calibrated correctly, but otherwise she seemed to be intact. 

Then she glanced to her left and right. 

Where was Cing’ta? Had he left her behind in the turbolift? 

She shook her head, frustrated to admit to herself that in his position she might have done the same—their orders were to get Voyager moving out of this distortion field, as soon as possible, after all. She approached the door to Main Engineering and stepped through. Hopefully Cing’ta had already gotten them working on the problem. 

Chapter Text

Cing’ta stepped into the turbolift, and Commander Ro said “Engineering.”

The turbolift began to move. They stood in silence for a moment, Cing’ta staring straight ahead, aware that Ro was doing the same. He hated this. She was so formal around him now, and despite his work undercover with the Maquis, and her very reasonable reaction not to want to continue a friendship he’d treasured even has he’d built it up on something false, he wished they could find a way to at least start to bridge that distance.

He also knew he couldn’t force it.  

The turbolift jolted, and though he managed to stay on his feet, the Bajoran woman nearly fell. Cing’ta managed to grab her shoulder, keeping her upright. 

“What was—?” she started, and then a wave of distortion rose from the floor and passed through them between blinks. 

He grimaced, shaking his head. At some point, he’d slumped against the furthest wall of the turbolift, he realized, pushing himself back upright, then turning around. 

“Commander?” he said.

She was gone. The turbolift doors were open, but she was nowhere in sight. He closed his eyes for a second, a rush of something akin to vertigo making him grip the wall for support, but it passed, and he exhaled, opening his eyes again. He felt oddly heavy, like he was fatigued or his clothes were wet or his muscles had to work harder for some reason. 

He needed to get to Engineering. He wanted to believe Ro had made sure he was okay before she’d left him in the turbolift, but at this point, the mission was more important anyway. He stepped out of the turbolift, and stepped into Main Engineering.

Lieutenant Honigsberg glanced up at him. 

“Lieutenant?” Honigsberg said, and his voice seemed slightly distorted to Cing’ta’s ears. “We can’t raise anyone on the bridge. I sent Ensign Bennet to the Bridge, you must have missed each other. Sensors aren’t telling us much, and the warp drive is offline.”

He shook his head again. “There’s a spatial distortion wave—or, I guess it’s a sphere now—surrounding the ship, and it’s going to pass through Voyager. The captain wants you to reinforce the structural integrity fields as much as you can, raise shields, and wanted to warp us through it to minimize the exposure time.” Cing’ta looked at Honigsberg, who regarded him oddly, but nodded, turning to issue orders to the gathered engineering staff.

Cing’ta took the moment to rub his eyes, and try to shake off some of the odd lethargy he was feeling. A moment later, someone touched his shoulder, and he opened his eyes to see Honigsberg’s concerned gaze. 

“Sorry,” Cing’ta said. “Something happened in the turbolift. I think we may have passed through the distortion.”

“You sound strange,” Honigsberg said. “Are you okay?” Once again, Honigsberg’s voice was off, like maybe Cing’ta was listening to him from down a long corridor or something.

“You sound strange to me, too,” Cing’ta said. 

Honigsberg grabbed a tricorder and scanned Cing’ta, but shook his head a second later. “There's a slight variance to your neural pattern, but this isn’t a medical tricorder. Do you feel okay?”

“Well enough. We’ll worry about it later, right now we have orders.” Then, realizing something, he looked around, but only engineers in gold uniforms were present. “Did Commander Ro already leave?” 

“She hasn’t been here,” Honigsberg said. He’d gone back to working the auxiliary systems panel, and frowning. “Internal sensors aren’t responding. I’ll see if I can—”

“Lieutenant?” Lieutenant Nicoletti called from the warp core. The woman’s voice had the same, oddly “far off” echo to it Honigsberg’s had. “I can’t restore the warp engines.”

Cing’ta turned. Sure enough, the warp core’s light was dim, and the flow in the chamber looked subdued at best. 

“It’s the distortion,” Honigsberg said, crossing to stand beside her. He worked the console, then glanced over his shoulder at Cing’ta. “I don’t suppose the Captain gave you a back-up plan if we couldn’t get to warp?” 

Cing’ta blew out a breath. “No. How far from the ship is the anomaly? It was minutes from reaching us when I left the Bridge.”

“McKenzie?” Honigsberg said.

Crewman McKenzie crossed over to the auxiliary control panels, bringing up the sensors. Cing’ta hadn’t worked with the man much, but he was clearly a steady hand. 

“Sensors are having a hard time making out the topology of the distortion,” McKenzie said, frowning at the results of the scan. “But there’s already contact on deck one, sir. And it’s progressing.” He glanced up, clearly unnerved. “Lieutenant? I’m not actually reading the Bridge via external sensors at all.”

“Any signs of explosive decompression? Or anyone still on the bridge?” Honigsberg said.

“I can’t get access to the internal sensors,” McKenzie said, frowning. “Every time I request a scan of the Bridge it’s showing me Main Engineering. But I’m not seeing signs of hull breach from the external sensors. It’s just not there. If I could get the internal sensors to work…”

“I’m having the same problem with the S.I.F. interface,” Honigsberg said. “I can reinforce structural integrity here, but I can’t seem to access anywhere else remotely.” He turned around. “What do you want to do, Lieutenant?” 

Cing’ta took a second to consider. “If we can’t reinforce the structural integrity remotely, we do it manually,” he said. “As much of the ship as we can reach, and spread the word. If we have no way to push ourselves through the distortion then at least we can increase our odds of withstanding it. It’s the closest I can come to the Captain’s orders.” 

Honigsberg glanced at the group around him. “Okay. Let’s break out the engineering kits and get to it, people.” All the vowel sounds Honigsberg spoke seemed swallowed to Cing’ta’s ears, though. 

Cing’ta frowned. He was pretty sure whatever was happening to him, it was getting worse. 

*

“Okay, I don’t get it,” Lan said, crossing her arms and letting every ounce of her frustration leak into her voice. “Every time I left the Garden, I ended up in the Gym. And the Gardens are on deck 11. How are we now on deck 12 when we didn’t use a turbolift?” 

She, Rollins, Swinn and Macormack were standing in Navigational Control, a smaller room where a nonplussed Crewman Darwin sat up in surprise at both their arrival and Lan’s frustration. The trim, brown-skinned engineer had a lower panel open and seemed to be conducting a routine maintenance check. 

“Sir?” Darwin said, eyeing Rollins.

“I don’t know how we’re here, but this is better than the Gym,” Rollins said, nodding at Darwin. “There’s some sort of spatial distortion affecting Voyager. Can you get us the current navigational sensor readings?”

“Of course,” Darwin said, closing the panel and sliding into the lone seat at a station in a room that spent most of its time occupied by a single back-up officer stationed for emergencies only. He logged in, then frowned. “I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” he said.

Lan and Rollins joined him, doing their best to fit to either side of him in the small space. 

“It looks to me like the wave you were talking about is… infiltrating the ship,” Lan said, pointing at the ovoid traces of spatial distortion showing up in odd patterns around the ship, especially the upper three decks. “At least, that would be my guess if I was interpolating from those circular shapes, they look like branches, sort of like ivy.”  

“What kind of spatial distortion does this?” Rollins said. 

Lan shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“The Captain wanted us to reinforce structural integrity and warp through it,” Macormack said. “But the warp engines went offline.”

“They’re still offline,” Darwin said. “But I can call—”

“Don’t!” the others chorused, but it was too late. Darwin initiated a comm channel and the small room echoed with the shrill feedback of the offline comm system. He cringed, closing the channel as fast as he could. He looked at them, blinking his brown eyes with embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“We’ve all done it,” Lan said, with a little smile. 

“We need to get to Engineering,” Rollins said, frustrated. 

“Well, whatever that distortion is doing,” Lan said. “It’s clearly messing with the geometry of Voyager, somehow.” She looked around the room, then her gaze landed on Darwin’s engineering kit. “What we need is a map,” she said, bending over to pick up the tricorder. “If we can get enough readings to figure out what the distortion is doing to Voyager, we might be able to work our way to Engineering.” 

“There’s another tricorder in the emergency kit,” Darwin said, nodding at the panel beside the entrance to the small room. Rollins crossed over and opened the panel, pulling it free. 

“Okay,” he said, opening the tricorder and setting it to scan. “Darwin, stay here. If anyone else wanders in, let them know what we’re trying to do, and aim them at Engineering. At this point, I don’t care who gets there first, as long as we can let Honigsberg know the plan.”

“Aye, sir.” Darwin nodded.

“Let’s go mapping,” Lan said, and the four of them stepped through the door, leaving Darwin behind them. 

*

Honigsberg grabbed his kit, stepped through the rear exit to Engineering, and slammed directly into a mostly naked Ensign Nozawa. The tall, muscular Ensign didn’t topple over, but he did cry out in shock, and Honigsberg’s fumbling attempt to grab a hold to keep himself upright failed once he realized he’d grabbed the man’s torso. Letting go, Honigsberg hit the ground with a grunt, and stared up at the Ensign, who looked down at him with a mix of alarm and confusion.

“Lieutenant?” he said.

At least he was wearing undershorts. Tight undershorts, but undershorts. Also? Honigsberg hadn’t known just how nicely Ensign Nozawa was built.

Honigsberg swallowed from his position on the floor. “Uh, sorry, Ensign.” He struggled back to his feet, grabbing the engineering kit, which he’d dropped, and glanced around. “I… wasn’t supposed to be here…” He shook his head. “Where are your quarters?”

“Sir?” Nozawa was flushing a bit now, and he took a second to grab a short robe, which he wrapped around himself. 

“What deck am I on right now?”

“Deck four, sir.” Nozawa tied the robe.

“That’s impossible,” Honigsberg shook his head. “I literally stepped through the door from Main Engineering.” He turned around, but of course, the door had closed. He sighed. “There’s a spatial distortion in contact with Voyager’s hull,” he said. “I think it might be safest for you to stay put, Ensign.”

“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere, Lieutenant,” Nozawa said, with a tiny smile. 

“Right,” Honigsberg said. “Well, uh, stay put. I’ll leave you be.” With that, he walked out of Nozawa’s quarters…

…and right back into Main Engineering. He had time to turn around and share a stunned glance with Nozawa, who could clearly see the warp core through the open door of his quarters, and then the door closed behind him. 

“Wurr d’joo indup?” 

Honigsberg turned, frowning, and found Lieutenant Cing’ta standing in front of him, with McKenzie on one side of him and Nicoletti on the other. 

“I’m sorry?” Honigsberg said, frowning. Cing’ta’s voice was even harder to understand than it had been a few minutes earlier.

“Wurrd jooin dup?” Cing’ta was clearly speaking slower, but it was no clearer.

“I think he’s asking ‘where’d you end up?’” Nicoletti said. 

“Crew quarters,” Honigsberg said, not quite meeting anyone’s gaze. He eyed the room. “What happened to you two? And where’s everyone else?”

“We’re the only two who’ve came back, so far,” Nicoletti said. “I tried to go to deck fifteen, but I ended up in the Mess Hall, and there were a lot of other confused officers there, too. I explained about the spatial distortion and I told what we were trying to do, but they said when they left, they ended up back in the Mess Hall. I did what I could for the local structural integrity systems there, but my access from the kitchen wasn’t the best. When I tried to leave, I ended up here.” 

“Same, only I ended up in the Life Sciences lab,” McKenzie said. “And it was just me and Ensign Bronowski. He said he’d been trying to leave for half an hour, but kept ending up back in the lab, but when I tried to leave, I came back here.”

“Fo-ksh Heee-ruh.” It was Cing’ta, again, and it took Honigsberg a few seconds to get it. 

“Focus here,” Honigsberg said, nodding. “Understood.” He exchanged a glance with Nicoletti and McKenzie. “It sounds like we’re lucky to be back here, and shouldn’t leave. If we’re staying put, then we’re going to do everything we can to make sure Engineering survives contact with this anomaly. Let’s start by locking down every nonessential system we can, and re-routing whatever that gives us to the S.I.F.”

The two nodded at him, and then got to work. 

“We can barely understand you,” Honigsberg said quietly to Cing’ta, once they were both working.

Cing’ta picked up Honigsberg’s engineering kit, pointed at his chest, and then pointed out the doors. 

“If you think you’ll have more luck than us,” Honigsberg said. 

In reply, Cing’ta pressed his hand against his own chest, grimacing in an expression Hongisberg couldn’t really read. “Huff-e.”

Honigsberg shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t get it.”

Cing’ta shook his head, and started for the door.

“Good luck,” Honigsberg said. 

He had no idea if Cing’ta understood him, though.

*

“Captain?” Crewman Santos said, standing up as soon as Cavit and Murphy entered the Armory. 

Which should have been a full deck below where they were. 

“Crewman,” Cavit said, offering a quick nod. 

“It’s not just the rooms, is it?” Ensign Murphy said, turning around. “It took far too long to circle deck five to where Stellar Cartography should have been.”

“And the door said Stellar Cartography,” Cavit agreed. 

“Is everything okay?” Santos said. 

“There’s a spatial anomaly affecting Voyager,” Cavit said. “It’s like the interior of the ship has been… rearranged, somehow.” 

“Rearranged?” Santos frowned at them. One of Ro’s former Maquis crew, he was a taller man, and, if Cavit remembered correctly, according to Rollins, he had a real head for security systems. 

“It doesn’t make much sense,” Murphy said. “But doors aren’t leading to where they’re supposed to lead.” He shook his head. “It’s like everything changes as soon as there’s a liminal space.” 

“I don’t think we’re going to get ourselves to Stellar Cartography. Let alone Engineering,” Cavit said. 

“Let’s hope the others had more luck,” Murphy said. 

The door opened, and all three turned to see Commander Ro step inside. She eyed the three of them, but then kept looking, as though she was searching for something or someone else.

“Ro?” Cavit said.

Ro faced him, then spoke. But what came out of her mouth was noise, not language. 

“I need a tricorder,” Murphy said, glancing around.

“Here,” Santos said, handing him one from beside the main Armory access panel. 

Murphy scanned the first officer, who stood still long enough for him to do so, but kept her gaze locked on the Captain. 

“She’s been affected by the spatial distortion, Captain,” Murphy said. 

“Can you understand me?” Cavit said to her.

She tapped her ear and shook her head.

“I guess not,” Cavit said. “Affected how?”

“Her brainwaves,” Murphy said, showing him the reading. “Remind you of anything?”

It was a similar pattern to the one they’d gotten when they’d first scanned the anomaly. 

“What’s happening to her?” Cavit said.

“I’m not sure, but she seems to know what she’s doing,” Murphy said.

Ro lifted her hand, which held a tricorder of her own. She pointed to it, then traced a finger down the centre of her face. 

Cavit frowned. He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

Ro paused, then, she pointed to Murphy’s shoulder, tapping the material there twice. Then she touched her neck, where the one hollow pip and two solid pips denoted her rank of lieutenant commander, and covered the hollow pip with her thumb. 

“You’re looking for a science lieutenant?” Murphy said. “Does she mean Taitt, maybe?” 

Ro drew a line down her face again, and Cavit got it. He touched the fabric of Murphy’s shoulder. “No, she means blue. Blue and a lieutenant.” He drew a line down the middle of his own face, and saw the grin spread on Ro’s.

“You’re looking for Cing’ta,” he said. “He’s not here.” 

Ro seemed to pause, clearly happy she’d gotten the first part of her message across. But then she paused for a few moments, and held up the tricorder, then closed it, purposefully. She shook her head, and crossed her wrists in front of her in what he could only call a “No” gesture.

“Any ideas?” Cavit said, not sure what to make of the whole. 

Murphy shook his head, but Santos spoke up. “Was Lieutenant Cing’ta supposed to be doing something? Because to me, it looks like she’s asking us to stop him.”

“I sent him to Engineering to try and reinforce structural integrity and warp us out of here, but Ro was with him,” Cavit said. 

“But they were together,” Murphy said.

“They’re not any more,” Cavit said. “They must have split up.” He tried to think of a way to express back to Ro that he understood, but he didn’t think he had any way of doing anything about it. 

He settled on nodding, and saying, “I understand.” 

Ro looked relieved. She clipped the tricorder to her waist and then held up both hands, palms out, her fingers spread. 

“She wants us to stay put?” Murphy said.

“I think so,” Cavit said, though he had no idea why.

He nodded again. “We’ll stay here.” To make it as clear as he could, he sat down at the main console, and turned the chair around, putting his feet up on the railing. “Gentlemen,” he said to Murphy and Santos. “Have a seat.”

They did. 

Ro grinned, and then left through the armory doors. 

*

Hard shapes.

Ro shook her head, but she couldn’t get the idea of the words out of her mind. It wasn’t a voice, exactly, so much as an impression, and it felt her feeling even lighter than she already did, like maybe she’d had a few too many glasses of spring wine. 

Though she didn’t feel drunk, exactly, either. 

She’d been walking the corridors of Voyager, and trying to make sense of what she was seeing: glimpses of the crew moving through the corridors, but many of them didn’t see her, and they often vanished as they passed under a bulkhead. More, the very corridors around her were shining with a soft, greenish light that she wasn’t sure she was seeing to much as feeling. 

Hard shapes.

The image/impression returned again, and with it, a sense of foreboding. Whatever hard spaces was, it wasn’t good, and while she had no idea what was happening to her, she didn’t doubt for a moment that whatever hard shapes was, it was a bad idea. 

Now if only she could get to Engineering.

It was almost as though the thought itself had an effect on the corridor ahead of her, and she nearly stumbled. What had just been the door to the Holodeck was now a door labeled Main Engineering instead. 

Was it that easy? 

The foreboding sense struck her again, and she had to pause at the doorway, which was now not green but a kind of rusty-red, and gave her the oddest impression of anticipation or…

She shook her head, and stepped through.

Main Engineering was a wreck. Panels had obviously exploded, black scorch marks lined the walls where most of the displays had burned out, smoke filled the air, and worst of all, there were four figures on the floor. She saw Honigsberg by the now-dark warp-core, and raced over to him, checking his neck for a pulse and closing her eyes when she felt nothing. 

Hard shapes.

Crewman McKenzie and Lieutenant Nicoletti were the next two she turned over, and the third was Lieutenant Cing’ta. He was still gripping a spanner.

They were all dead.

Chapter Text

Ro stared down at Cing’ta’s corpse.  

Hard shapes.

The reddish glow was back, seeping around the edges of the room, but not encroaching in the slightest. It almost looked like it was being held at bay. 

Hard shapes. Will be.

The sense of anticipation and dread struck her again, and Ro stumbled back.

Will be. Hard shapes. 

In between blinks, Main Engineering was gone, and she was standing just inside the Holodeck. Honigsberg’s recreation of the Earth bar was running. Ro crossed the space, pushing her way into the bar, and saw a group of people standing around, eating cake. All the Ocampa were present, as were Lieutenant Stadi and Lieutenant Taitt, and the EMH. She noticed Li-Paz, Stiles, Sveta, and Nelson, too, and then it struck her. 

Will be. Hard shapes. Will be.

Whatever happened in Engineering hadn’t happened yet. 

Someone was trying to communicate with her, trying to warn her. 

Hard shapes. 

She understood. Whatever was happening to Voyager, reinforcing the structural integrity fields would only make it worse. It would cause the disaster she’d just seen. Ro had no idea who she was talking with, but she couldn’t escape the sensation they were being honest. Their voices, their thoughts, were just too raw not to be honest.

She needed to find Cing’ta.

“Have any of you seen Lieutenant Cing’ta?” she said.

They all turned to look at her. Stadi frowned and said something back, but instead of her voice, what came out of her mouth was a strange, oblong sort of noise. 

Other place. 

Fantastic. How was she supposed to stop Cing’ta if she couldn’t talk to anyone? She took a second, then drew a line down the centre of her face, like the bifurcation of a Bolian. “Cing’ta?” she said, holding up her tricorder as though she was scanning for something. 

Clearly they didn’t understand her. Well, it didn’t matter. Cing’ta wasn’t here.

Ro turned and left the holodeck.

She didn’t know how much time she had, but she knew she was running out of it.

*

“This makes no sense,” Li-Paz said. He, Stiles, and Nelson stared at the outside of the holographic recreation of The Stonewall Inn in a line. 

“We can try again,” Nelson said, turning around to face the holodeck doors. 

“No,” Stiles said. “Let’s go inside, see if anyone else is here, and if they’ve learned anything. It took us twenty minutes and two turbolift rides and all we’ve seen are corridors that don’t make sense. 

“Tricorder doesn’t make much more sense of it,” Li-Paz said, trying to make heads or tails of the readings, and coming up with nothing. “But the holodeck computer might help.”

The three went inside, and were brought up short again. 

“Welcome back,” Sullivan said. She was sitting at one of the tables, and she wasn’t alone. Kes and the EMH were still present, but more than a dozen other crewmembers were present, including Crewman White who’d they’d seen in the Mess Hall earlier, T’Prena and Daggin, who’d left the party early, and now about a dozen others from various departments of the ship. 

Lieutenant Russell, a human with brown hair starting to grey a bit, was the ranking officer present. He wasn’t in uniform, but a simple grey shirt and black trousers, clearly having been off-duty. He stepped forward, noting the tricorder Li-Paz carried. 

“Did you map how you got here, Li-Paz?” he said. 

Li-Paz nodded. “Yes.”

“I can try adding it to the map,” Crewman White said, taking it. 

“A few of us grabbed tricorders when we realized something was going on,” Russell said. He was a methodical sort, and one of the junior command officers who usually worked the night shift on the Bridge, sitting in the big chair while the Captain and Commander Ro and the rest of the senior staff were asleep. Nelson and Sveta had often told Li-Paz he was pleasant to work with, and for a Starfleet officer, hadn’t been as obviously uncomfortable with the Maquis crew as some of the others.

Li-Paz let Nelson and Stiles fill Russell in on their strange trip around Voyager’s corridors, more eager to rejoin Kes. She opened her arms, clearly happy to see him again, and after a comforting hug he pulled back to look at her. “Are you okay?” he said.

“We couldn’t get the holographic doctor back to Sickbay, so we decided to go ourselves and try to transfer him from there. We ended up in the Crew Lounge. When we tried again, we were back here.” Kes shook her head. “There were a few off-duty officers there, and they hadn’t realized anything was wrong, but the comms weren’t working there either, so we all tried to get to duty stations. Except the only place we seemed to be able to get to was back here.” 

“Same, only it was the Mess Hall, and on our way back…” Li-Paz shook his head. “At one point, we passed crew quarters, labs, and deflector control all on the same floor—which isn’t possible.” 

“Crewman White mentioned she’d seen you.” Kes leaned on him again. “I was worried.”

“Me too,” Li-Paz said, wrapping one arm around her. 

“Are we expecting many more guests?” The holographic barman, the K’tarian, said.

“I’m surprised you left the program running,” Li-Paz said, ignoring him. 

“We can’t shut it off,” Sullivan said, joining them. “We tried.”

“The tricorder data is uploaded.” Crewman White and Ensign Ballard were at the computer interface they’d opened in the Stonewall Inn Program. White had made the announcement. Russell moved to join them, and Li-Paz took a few steps to get a better view of the results.

“That’s… impossible,” Crewman White said, pointing at the display, which looked less like Voyager and more like some sort of oscillation pattern—which was even now visibly reducing in overall volume. 

“It’s imploding,” Li-Paz said, looking at the arrangement of the paths, and how everything was turning in on itself. 

“What do we do?” Kes said.

Russell turned his head to the room at large. “I’m open to ideas.”

A second later, the door to the bar opened again, and Lieutenant Cing’ta strode in. Li-Paz swallowed what was still a reflexive dislike of the Bolian, who’d been such a congenial friend to most of the Maquis before admitting he’d been placed undercover with their group by Starfleet Intelligence. The Captain had managed to confirm Cing’ta’s claim when they’d briefly made contact with the Equinox—their tactical officer had known him, apparently—so now Cing’ta was the fourth highest ranked officer on the ship after the Captain, Lieutenant Commander Ro, and Lieutenant Stadi. 

Frankly, Li-Paz liked it better when Cing’ta wore a lowly crewman’s uniform, just like he did.

Cing’ta opened his mouth, and started to speak, but what came out was more noise than voice. 

“Cing?” Sullivan said, exchanging a glance with everyone else. 

Cing’ta shook his head, frowning. He tried speaking again, but again it was more or less random tones and reverberation.

Or was it?

Li-Paz grabbed a tricorder and opened it. He walked up to Cing’ta—deciding to put aside his dislike of the Bolian and be a problem-solver—and said, “Say something else.”

Cing’ta frowned, clearly not understanding him, but said something in return. Li-Paz recorded it, then set to work seeing if the tricorder could make sense of it.

The holographic doctor, T’Prena, Sullivan, and Kes moved to Cing’ta’s side, with another tricorder, though not a medical one. They started scanning him, and the EMH was staring straight into the Bolian’s eyes, saying something about the big blue guy’s pupils. 

“I’m trying to reach him telepathically,” Kes said. “But it’s like he’s removed from where I can usually feel people in front of me. It’s like he’s… not quite here.”

“Is it the spatial distortion?” Sullivan said.

“It’s possible it damaged his neural pathways, perhaps his speech centres,” the holographic doctor said, eyeing the tricorder results. “But what I’m seeing isn’t making a lot sense.”

Li-Paz was looking at something just as confusing. Maybe it would help, though. “The sound of his voice passed through a highly localized distortion effect,” he looked up to see all three were regarding him in return. “And when I say highly localized, I mean skin-tight. It’s like he’s walking around inside his own personal distortion field.” 

Cing’ta let out another string of noice, but this time it sounded borderline annoyed. His facial features looked frustrated. 

“Lieutenant Commander Ro had the same thing, at the party, remember?” Kes said.

Li-Paz nodded. “Maybe the distortion hit the bridge? Did something to the bridge crew?”

Cing’ta moved away from them, and they followed him. He stepped up to where White and Ballard were working on the model of Voyager’s impossible topology and started working the interface. 

“He’s accessing the Structural Integrity Fields for the surrounding sections,” Ballard said. “He’s trying to re-route whatever he can to them.” 

“Take over for him,” Russell said. 

When Ballard started to work beside him, Cing’ta paused long enough to watch her work. He smiled, nodded, and pointed at everyone in the room, then back at the screen.

“I think he’s asking us all to work on the SIF,” Li-Paz said. “I don’t think he knows we can’t seem to get out of the holodeck.”

“Here,” Kes said. She picked up a napkin and put it on the bar, getting Cing’ta’s attention. She pointed to herself, then put a glass on the napkin. Then she moved the glass from the napkin, sliding it along until it left it, then moved it to the other edge and slid it back on. 

Cing’ta watched it, then her. She pointed at the door to the bar, and one side of the napkin, then pointed at the door again, and pointed at the other side of he napkin.

Cing’ta nodded, his expression falling.

“I think he gets it,” Kes said. 

Cing’ta eyed them all, gave them a thumbs up, and turned to go.

“Should we let him leave?” Li-Paz said.

“He’s the ranking officer,” Russell said. “If he wants to go, I can’t stop him.”

A moment later, the Bolian had left the bar. Li-Paz wanted to be relieved he was gone, but instead, he was all the more disturbed.

*

Hard shapes. Safe circles. Silent wanderer. Safe wanderer.

The images and feelings from whoever was communicating with Ro were getting more complex, but she was still struggling to make sense of most of what was being imparted. She knew she needed to find Cing’ta, and she knew she—and perhaps Cing’ta, too—had been protected in some way. 

Safe wanderer.

That was her, she thought. That’s me, isn’t it?

Safe wanderer.

She needed to find Cing’ta, and stop him from modifying the Structural Integrity Fields. But moving through the ship felt different now—she saw afterimages of the crew, glimpses of different people, but they weren’t there long enough to follow—and she didn’t see the person she was looking for, which was Cing’ta. 

And then she did. Briefly, in the corridor, going somewhere. She moved forward quickly, but he seemed to wink out of existence just as the door he was stepping through opened and she found herself in the Armory, of all places. 

She frowned when she saw Captain Cavit and Ensign Murphy were there, alongside Crewman Santos, which did made sense, but then kept looking, frustrated. Cing’ta wasn’t there.

Cavit spoke, but just like before in the Holodeck, she couldn’t make out whatever it was he’d said. If anything, it was even more distorted.

Ro faced him, then tried, as carefully as she could to be clear. “I’m looking for Cing’ta,” she said.

Their stares made it clear she wasn’t making sense. Murphy said something, and Santos handed him a tricorder, and started scanning her.  

She stood still, letting him get his reading, and turned her gaze to the Captain. She had to figure out how to let him know what they needed to do.

Safe circles. 

Ro concentrated while Murphy and Cavit made unintelligible noises among themselves and at her. She sapped her ear and shook her head, and they chatted amongst themselves again.

Safe circles.

A hazy green aura surrounded the Armory for just a second, as the thought/impression repeated itself.

Safe circles.

Ro understood.

Now she just needed to get the rest of the crew to follow suit.

Ro lifted her tricorder, pointing to it, then traced a finger down the centre of her face. 

Cavit frowned. He shook his head, said something.

Okay. She needed to try again. She glanced around, then smiled. She pointed to Murphy’s shoulder, tapping the blue material there twice. Blue, like a Bolian. Then, trying to get them to think of Cing’ta’s rank, she touched her neck, where the one hollow pip and two solid pips denoted her rank of lieutenant commander, and covered the hollow pip with her thumb. 

Blue. Lieutenant. 

Silent wanderer. The thought/impression repeated, and the sense of urgency returned. She was the safe wanderer, Cing’ta was the silent wanderer. What was the difference?

She waited while Murphy, Santos, and Cavit seemed to try and figure out what she was saying. Finally, Cavit touched the shoulder of Murphy’s sciences uniform, then drew a line down the middle of his own face

Ro could feel herself grinning, and even though she didn’t understand what Cavit said in response, his grin in return was everything she needed.

He knew who she was talking about. 

Now she just needed to make sure he understood not to do what Cing’ta wanted to do: the very thing they’d been sent to accomplish. She gathered her thoughts, then held up her tricorder and snapped it closed. Turning it off. She shook her head, and crossed her wrists in front of her in what she hoped would be a clear “back-off” gesture.

Cavit said something, eyeing Murphy and Santos. 

Murphy shook his head, but it was Santos’s distorted voice that replied. Cavit replied to whatever he said, then Murphy, then Cavit again. She watched them, hoping and helpless. 

Finally, he turned to her and nodded, speaking again. 

He got it. Or at least, she was mostly certain. It would have to do.

Safe circles.

She clipped the tricorder to her waist and then held up both hands, palms out, her fingers spread, urging them to just stay put. 

Murphy and Cavit had a brief exchange, and Cavit nodded again, speaking to her. Then, with exaggerated obviousness, he went to the main console of the Armory, turned the chair around, and sat down, putting his feet up on the railing. He said something to the others, and they sat, too.

Ro grinned. Clearly her message was received.

Time to go. 

Ro headed out through the Armory doors, and into the vast, twisting corridors of Voyager, feeling the ebb and flow of the distortion around her, and knowing she was moving through it like a cork bobbing in a stream.

Safe wanderer.

She needed to find Cing’ta.

Silent wanderer. Hard spaces.  

“Working on it,” she said, though she had no idea if there was anyone on board who would understand her.

*

“The S.I.F. is as strong as I can make it, Lieutenant,” Nicoletti from behind him.

Honigsberg turned away from the master display, where he’d already seen the results of her work, and forced a confident nod. “Good work.” McKenzie stood with her, so he added, “both of you.”

They offered wan smiles in return. 

“And now?” McKenzie said.

“Now we wait,” Honigsberg said, rubbing his goatee. “For the spatial distortion to reach us on its way through the whole ship, and hope what we’ve done is enough.” It wasn’t exactly the most inspiring speech, but it was the truth. 

The three engineers stood there awkwardly for a moment.

“I ever tell you about the time I was assigned to Admiral Patterson’s first visit to Voyager, back when we were getting the last dry-dock upgrades? After the shakedown, but before we left for DS9.” 

“No,” Nicoletti said, clearly willing to indulge him.

“Well, until now, I’d say it was probably the most tension-filled do-nothing-and-wait of my life, waiting for that man to arrive.” 

Nicoletti and Honigsberg both laughed, which Honigsberg imagined was McKenzie’s intention. He was glad McKenzie was here: the man was a solid, steady influence. Nicoletti tended to want to do, much like himself, which made moments like this all the harder to handle.

Unbidden, he thought of Joe Carey, his original assistant engineer, who’d died when Voyager had been dragged to the Delta Quadrant. He’d been another steady, by-the-book engineer, which was part of why the two of them had found such an easy rhythm together—they complemented each other. 

Thinking of Carey made him think of Mendez, who’d also died when the Caretaker had pulled Voyager to the Delta Quadrant. Young, enthusiastic, Voyager had been his first posting. Since then, he’d lost Ensign Kozlowski, too, and though he had it on the authority of two time-displaced Ocampa that things could have been so much worse, Honigsberg found himself dwelling now, because how many more people might they lose if what they’d done to the Structural Integrity Field didn’t work? And what about his staff who’d left Engineering to reinforce the S.I.F. fields elsewhere and hadn’t returned?

“Lieutenant?” Nicoletti said. 

“Sorry,” Honigsberg said, coming back to himself. “Pardon?”

“I offered to get us all something to drink,” McKenzie said. “I’ve got replicator rations to spare.” 

Honigsberg forced another smile. “You know what? This round’s on me. Though I think it’s probably best if we stick to coffee?”

They nodded, and he went to the replicator. 

While the mugs materialized, he realized in his maudlin musing, he’d forgotten the fourth Engineering officer he’d “lost.” Lieutenant Durst. But he hadn’t lost Durst—Durst had betrayed them all, stolen the Aeroshuttle, and taken it to be with the Kazon. They’d had no sign of him in ages, and it occurred to Honigsberg that if Voyager was destroyed, then Durst would be the only one of them left in the Delta Quadrant. 

“We’re going to get through this,” Honigsberg said, with real iron in his voice. He picked up the mugs, carrying them over. “We’re going to be fine.”

Because while he could accept many things were out of his control, Alexander Honigsberg refused to be okay with Peter Durst being the single survivor of their crew.  

*

Ro saw him. Cing’ta. The blue of his skin, the red of his uniform. She tried to move faster, feeling the corridors of Voyager changing around her, twisted into impossible angles and growing smaller and tighter.

Silent wanderer. Hard shapes.

He had his back to her, and was ahead of her in the endless, recursive corridors. She reached for his shoulder…

He vanished again.

Ro found herself on the Bridge. It was empty, and it warped and twisted all around her, though she herself remained okay.

Safe wanderer. We speak. You listen.

“I need to stop him,” Ro said.

Silent wanderer. Hard shapes.

Ro waited for the twisting, warping Bridge to be clear enough for her to step into the turbolift. The doors opened, parting with ripples as though they were partially liquid, and she stepped inside. 

It didn’t matter where she told it to go. She was understanding that now. It was herself, in motion, that mattered. And where she put her mind.

Safe wanderer.

“Deck fifteen,” she said, and he turbolift began to move. Almost immediately, she stepped forward, and was once again among the corridors of Voyager, all of them at once, and yet nowhere in particular. 

“I think I’m getting the hang of this,” she said.

Safe wanderer. 

Chapter Text

“We’re being herded,” Lan said, looking at the map she and the others had put together via the interface on the Garden’s wall. It had taken a few trips back and forth from the Gym—if she travelled alone—or to Navigational Control, if they left as a group. “Somehow, the spatial distortion is using the liminal spaces against us, connecting them into an ever-smaller series of outcomes.” She waved at the strange, twisted, oscillating version of Voyager their tricorders had attempted to interpret through their scans. “And the options are decreasing because Voyager is imploding.” 

“What can we do?” Rollins said, crossing his arms and regarding her. He kept his voice pitched low, just like she did, and she glanced back at where Swinn, Macormack and Darwin were standing, speaking amongst themselves by a rack of marob root. 

She shook her head, turning back to him. “From here? I honestly can’t think of anything. But did you notice since we brought Darwin back with us when the distortion started moving through Navigational Control we can’t get there again? Now it’s just the Gym, assuming I go alone, or right back here if any of you come with me.” 

Rollins nodded. “Herded.”

“I hate to say it, Scott,” Lan said, staring at the warping, twisting image of Voyager. “But I think our options are quickly turning into wait-and-see.” 

He sighed.

The door to the Gardens opened, and Cir, Eru, and Gara walked in. Cir, the largest of the trio, was carrying what looked to be half of a birthday cake on a tray. 

“Still not the Mess Hall,” Gara said, her voice bordering on sarcastic. 

“At least I can put this down,” Cir said. The large, dark-skinned Ocampa placed the cake on one of the work trolleys they used in the room. 

“Where did you come from?” Rollins said.

“The Holodeck, originally,” Eru said. “But when we tried to get to the Mess Hall after Commander Ro showed up and Lieutenant Stadi asked everyone to get to their duty stations, we got… lost.” The small, pixieish blond woman blushed a little, as though the admission was embarrassing.

“There’s a subspace distortion that’s affecting the ship,” Lan said. “It’s not you.”

“We ended up in the port landing strut maintenance area,” Cir said, with both eyebrows raised. “When we left there, we couldn’t seem to find a turbolift. We walked in circles for a really long time, then started trying doors and finally, this one opened.” 

The door opened again, and this time, Lieutenant Walter Baxter joined them. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt and what appeared to be workout pants and shoes. 

“Finally,” he said. 

“Where did you come from?” Lan said.

“I was working out in the gym, and something went wrong with the environmental controls, but I couldn’t contact engineering, so I thought I’d let them know. I feel like I’ve been walking around for hours, but all I managed to do was end up in the Transporter Room with Ensign Martin. This is my fourth attempt to go anywhere else.” He shook his head, clearly unnerved. “What’s going on?”

The door opened again, and Lan glanced back at the display while Rollins explained what they understood of events to Baxter, and the two new crewman who’d arrived.

Whatever was happening, clearly it was funnelling more of the crew into certain spaces first. She bit her lip. Despite the randomness, she couldn’t shake the idea it felt methodical. 

Her stomach growled, and she sighed. She was hungry, and given the symbiont and its two offspring seemed to be demanding more and more of her energy, she needed to deal with it. She eyed the various fruits and vegetables on the racks around her, then turned around completely.

“Hey, Cir?” she said. “What kind of cake is it?”

*

Cing’ta pressed a hand to his chest. The sense of weight was increasing, and he wasn’t sure what it meant. And, given how no one else but him seemed to be able to understand him, it wasn’t like he could ask. Also, even just walking through the ship was becoming an exercise in a strange sort of concentration.

Luckily, he was a Bolian. His brain was wired to do two things at once, unlike most humanoids, who had their hemispheres interconnected in more direct ways. It was one of the reasons he was so good at interpreting signals: he could let the part of his mind that dealt with patterns pay complete attention, even while the other part of his mind looked for anything of non-mathematical interest. And right now, both parts were noticing two different things.

One, the strange distortion that was affecting Voyager seemed to be bending around him in some way, like he existed in his own personal force-field. 

Two, he seemed to be able to affect some sort of control by virtue of concentrating on where it was he wanted to be. 

Walking the corridors felt like walking all the corridors at once, and though the exits had originally seemed to react to his thoughts, the more time passed, the more he kept hitting some kind of barrier. He couldn’t get to the Bridge, or the Mess Hall. He’d tried Deflector Control, but that, too, seemed to resist him.

Where else could he interact with a significant portion of the Structural Integrity Field? 

He had an idea, and let the part of his mind paying attention to where he was going take the reins again. 

The door opened, and he smiled. 

*

“We’re back. Again. Any luck?” Zandra Taitt said, ducking her head into the Jemisin through the opened back access door. The Type-6 Shuttle was powered up, and Ensign Jetal and Crewman Vance were in the seats, working the consoles. 

“Depends. By ‘luck’ do you mean there’s a wall of distorted space closing in us from all sides?” Vance turned his head to look back at Taitt, displaying a crooked smile on his rough face.

“Not really,” Taitt said, aiming a similar smile back in kind. “Stadi and I tried to go, but we keep ending up here. She’s talking to everyone else.” 

“We’ve had eight more crew since you left.”

“I saw. Come on. Let’s see what everyone’s learned.”

They joined the rest of the crew, leaving the shuttle powered up on stand-by, and they all gathered by the main Shuttlebay controls. There were nearly a dozen crew there now.

Stadi nodded to Taitt as she approached, her dark Betazoid eyes wide with something akin to amusement. “It’s not just us, Zandra, that’s for sure. Everyone here had the same problem. Doors leading to the wrong places, corridors connecting the multiple decks. Turbolifts arriving in random places.” 

“Liminal spaces,” Taitt said. “Every time we pass through an opening, the opening seems to be misaligned with somewhere else, spatially.” 

The doors to the Shuttlebay opened, and everyone turned. Lieutenant Cing’ta arrived, carrying an engineering kit, and he waved at them. 

“Lieutenant,” Stadi said. “Do you know what’s happening?” 

Cing’ta blew out a breath, looking more-or-less like he was on the edge of laughing, then started to speak, only his voice was completely distorted and made no sense. The tonal range was off, too. Taitt had never heard someone make that kind of vocalization, and she realized what was going on almost immediately. 

“The spatial distortion,” she said, stepping up beside Stadi. 

“Is he okay?” Stadi asked.

Cing’ta shrugged and passed them by, going to the control board and calling up the interface for what appeared to be the structural integrity fields. 

“What’s he doing?” Stadi said. “His thoughts are all jumbled. Even more than usual for a Bolian.”

“He’s re-routing power to structural integrity, locally.” 

“Should we let him?” Stadi said.

Taitt blew out a breath. “I mean, if there’s a massive spatial distortion coming out way and we can’t get out of its path, it’s not the worst idea.” 

Everyone watched Cing’ta work. When he was done, he stepped back, gave them all another what was nearly a jaunty little wave, and left the Shuttlebay. 

“Okay, how come he gets to leave?” Stadi said.

Taitt could only shake her head. “Maybe he—”

The door opened again, and a visibly annoyed Lieutenant Commander Ro appeared. She glanced at all of them, frowning when she appeared not to find who—or what—she was looking for, then walked up to Stadi and Taitt. 

“Commander?” Taitt said.

Ro shook her head, tapping her ear and then covering her mouth. 

“Her thoughts are all jumbled up, too. Just like Cing’ta’s,” Stadi said. “I can’t make out what she’s thinking.”

Ro pointed at the shoulder of Taitt’s uniform, then covered the first pip on her rank insignia. Taitt frowned, wondering if Ro was asking about her—a science lieutenant, albeit a junior grade one—right up until Ro drew a finger down the centre of her face. 

“Oh. She’s looking for Cing’ta,” Taitt said.

Stadi glanced at her. “She is?”

“Blue. Lieutenant. Bifurcated face.” 

“Ah,” Stadi said.

Taitt nodded, and Ro looked pleased, glancing around. Taitt tried to think of a way to communicate what they’d seen Cing’ta do, ending up settling on taking Ro by the arm to the display and showing him the changes Cing’ta had made to the Structural Integrity Field. Then she pointed at the exit of the Shuttlebay.

Ro tilted her head back, and although every noise she made was distorted and inhuman, Taitt would have put money on it being an impolite word. Ro went to work undoing what Cing’ta had just done, and then turned to Taitt, pointing at her, and then the screen.

“You want me to finish restoring the Structural Integrity Fields back down to normal?” she guessed. 

Ro gestured at the panel.

Taitt started doing just that, pausing after she’d undone the first of the rerouting paths Cing’ta had implemented. 

Ro nodded, patted her shoulder, and left.

“This is fun,” Stadi said, coming up beside her. “Do you have any idea why she wants you to undo everything he did?”

“No,” Taitt said. “But she’s the first officer. Can you handle the S.I.F. relays on the upper level?”

“Sure,” Stadi said, joining her and helping her work.

*

“We’re going to run out of chairs,” Ziman said. The holographic K’tarian didn’t sound too put-out, but his voice made Li-Paz turn away from the diagram of Voyager’s current state and look at the entrance to the holographic bar. 

Sveta and Abol were back. Sveta looked beyond frustrated, the tall brunette had both hands clenched into fists, and beside her, even the usually unflappable Abol didn’t look particularly pleased. 

“Where are you coming from?” Russell asked, in a now familiar refrain. The holographic bar was full of crew. 

“Oh, we’ve been trying to get anywhere since we left the party in the first place,” Sveta said. “It was just endless corridors out there.”

“There were doors marked from nearly every deck of Voyager, even though we never left deck six,” Abol added.

Li-Paz let Russel explain the spatial distortion, turning his attention back to the display. Beside him Ballard and Vorik had joined him, and the three of them were all coming to the same conclusion. 

“If the pattern continues to progress at this rate,” Vorik said, finally saying what they were all thinking out loud. “We have less than an hour until the distortion has crossed through the entire ship.” 

“I agree,” Ballard said, and Vorik gave her an odd little nod, as though he was pleased she’d verified his statement. 

“Lieutenant?” Li-Paz said, biting the bullet and getting Russell’s attention.

He joined them at the display, passing a quick look across all three of their faces.

“So, you’re not about to give me good news, are you?” 

“No, sir,” Ballard said. She pointed. “Our best guess is in about an hour, the whole ship will have passed through this distortion, and I’m not sure there’s anything we can do about it.” 

“How long do we have here?” Russell said, lowering his voice to be heard just among the four of them. 

“I’d say considerably less,” Vorik said. Li-Paz was about to ask him what gave him that idea, when he noticed Vorik was looking right past Russell’s shoulder, at the holographic entrance to the bar. He turned, following Vorik’s gaze, and saw the beginnings of what appeared to be a shifting translucent green pattern of light, behind which the holographic bar shifted and twisted.

The spatial distortion had arrived.

It didn’t take long for the rest of the crew to notice. 

Russell raised his voice. “Everyone? Stay calm.”

Li-Paz shared a glance with Kes, and she joined him. Crewman White had a tricorder out again and was scanning the distortion, but she closed her tricorder and stepped back, shaking her head.

“It’s moving closer,” she said. “And it’s blocked the entrance to the holodeck.”

*

There were no pathways left that seemed to want to take him anywhere he wanted to go, so Cing’ta decided to go back to where he knew he had the best chance. Holding the idea of Engineering, and feeling the weight around him grow all the harder to move through, he pushed himself forward and doors parted in front of him. 

A few steps later, and he was greeted by the sight of Honigsberg, Nicoletti, and McKenzie, all of whom turned to face him with something close to relief on their faces. He held up his hand, still holding a spanner, hoping to get them to understand he’d done all he could. 

A hand dropped on his shoulder, and he jumped, turning.

Ro Laren faced him. “Finally!” she said. “That was worse than chasing a Cardassian vole!”

“Commander?” he said, surprised he could understand her.

“Wait,” Ro said. “You can hear me?”

He nodded. 

“Can you hear them?” Ro said.

“Them?” He shook his head not following.

“Silent wanderer,” Ro said. “That’s what they meant.” She shook her head. “Never mind. We have to fix whatever you did here, or we’re going to lose Engineering.”

“What?” Cing’ta frowned. “Who are they?”

“It doesn’t matter. Look, we…” But Ro’s voice trailed off, and her eyes moved past him.

Cing’ta turned. Beyond the warp-core, the furthest wall of Engineering had started to ripple with an odd greenish translucent effect. But as he watched, the colour shifted to something closer to a gold, and then deepened further, to a reddish tint.

“We’re out of time,” Ro said.

Chapter Text

Hard shapes. The impression/thought came with an edge of impending doom. Time was running out, and fast.

“Cing’ta, listen to me. You have to undo the reinforcement of the Structural Integrity Fields, now.” Ro moved to the main console and started working. Someone touched her forearm, and she looked up to see Lieutenant Honigsberg, his lips set in a grim line, one eyebrow raised. 

He said something, but of course, she couldn’t understand a word of it. 

“The Captain ordered us—” Cing’ta started.

“I know. And it was my idea, but it was wrong!” Ro shook off Honigsberg’s hand, met his gaze, shook her head and pointed at the controls. They’d rerouted everything they had access to in Engineering into the S.I.F., and it wasn’t going to be easy to take it all down. 

Honigsberg frowned, and shook his head. He didn’t get it.

“Cing’ta, the aliens warned me—they showed me—what will happen if that distortion wave keeps interacting with the reinforced fields. Everyone in this room will die,” Ro faced the big Bolian, who stared back at her, still frowning.

“What aliens?” he said. 

Silent wanderer.

“You can’t hear them,” Ro said, beyond frustrated. “Look, I don’t know why you can’t hear them, but they’ve been helping me get to everywhere you’re been to undo what we thought was a good idea.”

“But if this is an attack…” Cing’ta said.

Ro cut him off. “They’re communicating, Cing’ta. If they’d wanted to destroy us, they could have done it already.” She faced him, took a deep breath. “I know you’re not a fan of me, but right now I need you to respect the chain of command here and just do as I say. I don’t know if I can undo everything Hongisberg and his crew have done here.”

He met her gaze.

*

“It’s getting closer,” Kes said. She eyed the curtain of distortion, tilting her head. “And I think it’s moving faster than before.”

“It is,” Russell said. 

“I believe we are reduced to a final option,” Ensign Vorik said. 

Li-Paz glanced at him. “What’s that?”

“Inaction,” Vorik said. 

Li-Paz let out a little chuckle, though he wasn’t actually amused. “Sit back and see what happens, you mean?”

“Indeed.”

Thing was? He couldn’t help but agree. They were out of options and time. 

“Zandra is on the other side of that,” Abol said. He’d been sitting with Sveta and Nelson, but he rose. He took a deep breath, and faced Lieutenant Russell. “I’m going to stand by the distortion and let the effect pass over me. It does not seem to be affecting any of the holodeck systems, force-fields, or the atmosphere, and it’s going to happen eventually anyway.”

“I’m not sure that’s a great idea,” Russell said.

Abol offered a small shrug. “The faster I’m through it, the faster I can get to Zandra. I hope.”

Russell nodded, turning to the holographic doctor and Crewman Sullivan. “Can you two keep an eye on him, doctor?” 

“We can try,” the EMH said. 

Abol crossed the holographic Inn, the EMH and Sullivan a few steps behind him, and stood a centimetre or two in front of the wave. He glanced back at them, then turned to face the distortion. 

It didn’t take long, and within moments, their view of the Ocampan man was wavering and shifting as the distortion crossed past him. The EMH held up his tricorder. “I’m not getting readings beyond the effects of the distortion, but visually I’m not seeing any signs of trauma.”

Li-Paz reached out his hand, offering Kes as supportive and calm a smile as he could muster. She took it, and nodded at him. 

Then they turned, and waited. 

*

“I have nothing but respect for you.”

The Bolian’s words took her by surprise, and Ro fumbled a command on the console, having to re-enter it. She turned to him. Behind her, the glow of the distortion field trying to permeate Engineering was still reddening, still becoming oddly warm and nearly painful to look at, and it was spreading around the walls surrounding the warp core. 

“Take down as much of the S.I.F. enhancement as you can. Start with anything near the warp core,” she said.

He nodded once, and then joined her at the console.

*

“It’s no good, we can’t beam out.” Taitt said, once Stadi had once again rematerialized inside what space remained to them in the Shuttlebay. Most of the large L-shaped space was now cut off by the ever-encroaching curtain of spatial distortion. The group of them had gathered in the space designated for maintenance, eyeing the approach of the greenish, wavering light.

Ensign Jetal had suggested they try beaming out with the shuttle’s transporter, but no matter where they targeted the arrival point, they beamed right back here.

Crewman Vance crossed his arms. He’d found a spot to stand by himself, Taitt noticed, apart from the others. A light sheen of sweat had broken out across his forehead, and Taitt wondered if he was okay. The rest of the dozen or so officers around them seemed to be holding themselves together a bit better, but Vance looked close to snapping.

She discretely joined him, doing her best not to draw any attention. Stadi exchanged a quick glance with her, and offered her the tiniest of nods, and started speaking to everyone else, drawing the attention away from their quiet corner.

Clearly the Betazoid knew Vance was struggling, too. Of course she would. She was a telepath.

“You okay?” Taitt said, keeping her voice low. 

Vance scowled. “That obvious?” 

Since he’d come aboard, Taitt hadn’t interacted much with the pilot. He was one of four of the former Maquis who’d been a member of Starfleet beforehand. An enlisted man, she knew, and that was about the sum of her knowledge. He had a face that her mother would call “lived in,” and he kept himself very fit, but that was all she had to work with, really. 

Hopefully it would be enough.

“Between you and me?” Taitt said. “I’m about ready to just run right through it.” 

He faced her, surprised. “What?”

“We’re out of options,” she said, shrugging. “And I can’t help but notice none of the containers on the far side of the wave have changed at all—I mean, it’s hard to see through the visual distortion, but they appear to be fine. Some of them have organic material. And the first three shuttles seem fine.” She met his gaze again. “The evidence is stacking up that we’ll be fine. But I’m a scientist. Give me a theory, and I want to start testing.” 

“Maybe I should have been a scientist, not a pilot.” Vance blew out a breath.

“We’re going to be okay,” she said.

“In theory,” he said.

She smiled. “In theory.” 

He nodded. “My brain doesn’t always do positive outlook,” he said. His voice lowered even further, until it was almost as though he was speaking to himself, though he glanced at her to include her. “Doctor Fitzgerald says it’s a perfectly normal response to trauma, but since we’re doing the ‘between you and me’ thing? Everything in me wants to grab a phaser and just shoot it.” He held up a hand when she opened her mouth. “I know it wouldn’t do anything. But sometimes? My brain doesn’t care.”

“I wish Abol was here,” Taitt said. 

“I wish Tricia was here,” Vance said.

She turned to him, eyebrows rising. “You and Jenkins?” 

He managed a wan smile. “It’s new. But yes.” 

She whistled. “Well, I guess we both have a reason to make it through this.” 

“Yeah,” he said. He swallowed. “Thanks.”

She frowned a little.

“For the talk,” he said. “I needed it.”

“Any time.” 

They turned back to face the distortion wave, waiting.

*

“Honigsberg’s work is a knot of fredd’rik bypasses,” Cing’ta said. “He’s upped the S.I.F. by nearly four times the regular output.”

Hard shapes. 

“Tell me about it,” Ro said. She looked up. Honigsberg, Nicoletti, and McKenzie were watching them. She gestured at the panel, and Honigsberg came over, looking at her. Behind him, a spark flared along the wall by the turbolift exit, and she flinched. 

How fast would it happen when it finally happened? The distortion effect had wrapped nearly halfway around Engineering now, but it was held back, the soft greenish glow darkening to the raw, angry red. 

She undid another bypass, and then looked up at Honigsberg. 

The man shook his head, reaching for her hand but she took his instead. Then, holding his hand away from the panel, she keyed in another command, but used his finger to actually activate it. 

He frowned, watching as the S.I.F. dropped a few percentage points.

She pointed at the display, then him. 

Behind them, another spark lanced across the space by the warp core.

*

“The plants seem okay,” Lan said. 

Their group lined the wall of the Gardens furthest from where the distortion wave had started to approach, at almost a forty-five degree angle near the ceiling. It had progressed most of the way through the Gardens now, and the trailing edge had passed through multiple racks of fruits and vegetables.

And Kes’s cake. 

“Here’s hoping we fare as well as the plants,” Baxter said.

“I’d like to think I’m a little more complex,” Lan said, “but I can’t keep plants alive to save my life, so who am I to say?”

Cir, who was tall enough that he was already crouching a little, chuckled. He had a deep laugh, much like his voice, and Lan exchanged an amused look with him. Humour as a coping mechanism crossed multiple species. 

“I think we should sit down,” Rollins said. “Put our backs to the wall. Not to delay the inevitable, but if the distortion makes us dizzy we could injure ourselves.” 

They sat as a group, leaning, and waiting. 

“For the record, Eru?” Lan said. “That was the best cake I’ve had in ages.”

“Thank you, Sahreen,” Eru said. 

They looked up. It was so close now, and moving faster than before. 

Cir closed his eyes. 

Lan could understand. He’d be the first, given how tall he was.

*

“I think… I think they want us to drop the Structural Integrity Fields back to normal,” Honigsberg said. 

“Are you sure?” Nicoletti said. “It seems to be holding back the spatial distortion wave.”

Behind her, a panel sparked. She winced. 

Honigsberg watched Ro and Cing’ta work. “That’s what they’re doing. They’re releasing the bypasses.” He took a second, then shook his head. “It’s what they’re doing. So it’s what we’ll do. Undo everything you can.”

“Aye, sir,” Nicoletti and McKenzie said in unison, and they all set to work. 

Ro spared him a momentary glance. She nodded at him twice, gripping his forearm and squeezing, and then getting back to work herself. 

The distortion around them slowly dimmed from red to something closer to orange-gold, then yellow, and then, just as they were about to undo the last of their modifications, it turned a soft translucent green and washed through the entire room so fast it was on him and past him in the space of a blink. 

Hongisberg didn’t even have time to yelp. 

*

Other place. Safe circles. Safe wanderer. Our footsteps. Warm gratitude. Genuine pleasure. 

Simple gift. Silent stills. Gentle hope. Your voice. Good will.

Ro leaned against the Engineering console, breathing as the images, impressions, and thoughts ran through her mind in a series of brief connections, then drew silent and pulled away. The odd buoyancy she’d been feeling since she’d stepped into the turbolift faded. 

“You’re welcome,” she said, wondering if the aliens could even hear her any more.

“Commander,” Honigsberg said, smiling. “I can understand you.”

She smiled at him. “I can understand you, too.” She glanced at Cing’ta. “How are you doing?”

“The weight is gone,” Cing’ta said. He shook his head. “But I feel better.”

“What happened?” Honigsberg said. 

Ro took a breath. She wasn’t even sure where to begin. “Do we have the comms back?”

Behind them, Crewman McKenzie was already tapping on the screen. “Yes, Commander.”

Ro tapped her combadge. “Commander Ro to all hands. Return to your duty stations. Senior officers report to the bridge.” She glanced at Cing’ta and Honigsberg. “Follow me. I’ll do my best to explain.”

*

“They were aliens, and I think that’s how they explore the galaxy,” Ro said. She stood in the centre of the Bridge, still too overwhelmed at her experience to sit down. “At first, they couldn’t quite communicate with me, but over time, it got easier.” 

“And the effect on Voyager?” Honigsberg said, standing at the rear of the Bridge while she spoke. 

“It’s how they move, how they speak. Their footsteps, they called it.” Ro said. “Once they knew it would be confusing and disturbing for us, they tried to get Cing’ta and I to help herd people into spaces they’d keep stable until the very end to minimize our fear.”

“But I couldn’t hear them,” Cing’ta said.

“They called you the ‘silent wanderer.’ I’m not sure why you couldn’t hear them.” Ro shook her head.

“The Bolian brain is pretty unique,” Doctor Fitzgerald offered. “It’s possible your neurology had something to do with it.”

“You were definitely better at navigating the altered space than I was,” Ro said. “I chased you all over the damn ship.” 

The big Bolian shifted his feet. “Sorry, Commander.”

Ro shook her head.

“Captain,” Taitt said, from the Science station. “Twenty million gigaquads of new information have been input into the ship's computer.”

Cavit, who’d been seated while Ro explained her experience with the aliens, rose. “What is it?”

“It’s… a bit confusing, but I think most of it might be star charts. Of a sort. And it looks like our own database was accessed as well.” Taitt glanced up. “They read the whole library.”

“So it really was a first contact,” Rollins said. 

“Our footsteps,” Ro said. “Right at the end, they sent me this series of… ideas. “It felt like they were wishing us luck on our journey.” 

Everyone took a moment with that. Then, Cavit took a breath, heading back to his seat. “Well, speaking of journeys, we should get back to ours. Course laid in, Stadi?”

“Aye sir,” she said from the Conn.

“Engage,” Cavit said. 

*

When her door chimed, Ro glanced at the time, a little surprised, but she was still awake and reading a PADD of the information the aliens had transferred into the computer, so she said “come in.”

Cing’ta stepped in. He was still in uniform, too, even though both their shifts had ended hours ago. 

“I just wanted to stop by to apologize,” Cing’ta said.

Ro put down the PADD. “For what?” 

Cing’ta took a breath. “That’s a good question.” 

“Have a seat,” she said, nodding at the couch across from her desk, and turning around on her chair to face it.

Cing’ta sat. “When you work in Intelligence, there’s a certain level of awareness, all the time, that anything you do is eventually going to end.”

Ro waited, not sure where he was going with this, and not sure she wanted to go there with him, but knowing they both needed to get there. When he didn’t continue, she said, “You didn’t expect to end up trapped on a starship with the people you were ordered to infiltrate.”

“That.” Cing’ta nodded, then offered a rueful smile that reminded her of what he’d so often been like as her friend during their time together in the Maquis, and that was the problem right there. She’d considered him a friend. 

“Intellectually, I understand,” Ro said. “I know you followed orders. And as galling as it is personally to me that Starfleet Intelligence thought Cardassians were somehow manipulating the Maquis, well… like I said, I understand why you were assigned to us.”

“I meant what I said in Engineering,” Cing’ta said. “I respect you. I know it doesn’t help, but my role as an informant in your cell was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, and that was entirely because you—not just you, but all the Maquis—are good people. I just wanted you to know that.”

She nodded, letting the words sink in. 

“Good night, Commander,” he said, rising. 

When he was at the door, she rose. “Cing?” she said.

He turned.

“It does help, actually.” 

He nodded, and stepped through the door, nearly colliding with Cir.

“Sorry,” they said in unison, and then Cing’ta was gone. 

“Something I can help you with?” Ro said, when she realized the broadly-built Ocampa had clearly been approaching her door as well. 

“Yes, if it’s not too late,” Cir said. Like Cing’ta, he had a way of speaking that Ro thought was deliberate: like he was trying to make sure his large size wasn’t matched with an intimidating tone. Honestly, she found Cir the most relatable of the Ocampa, in that he struck her as the sort who kept his head down and got his work done. 

“Of course,” she said, waving him in. This time, she sat on the couch with him.

“I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but… Did you know Lieutenant Taitt gave me access to the linguistics and A&A databases?” 

“Yes.” Ro nodded. She’d had to approve the access request. But when both Rollins and Taitt had pointed out that Cir had already taught himself half a dozen languages, and both he and Eru were interested in anthropology, she’d seen the potential to it. 

“I’ve been going over the information the spatial distortion aliens left behind,” Cir said. 

Ro smiled. “Me, too.”

“There’s a message in the map. Or, rather, the map is a message, too.” Cir handed her the PADD he was carrying. “They communicate in a kind of pairing of language and concept. It reminded me of both the Cairn and the Tamarians.” 

Ro blinked. “You’ve definitely been using your access.”

Cir nodded. “The universal translator struggles with those more abstract linguistic concepts, but look at the way these co-ordinates are paired with the language notations and the narrative string.”

Ro stared at the map, and saw… a map.

“Cir,” she said. “I think you’re are already one of the most skilled linguists I’ve ever met. If you want to just tell me what you think this says, I trust you.”

The dark skinned man seemed taken aback—and almost bashfully pleased—but he nodded. “It’s this part. Simple gift. Silent stills. Gentle hope. Your voice. Good will. Five notations around a particular sector, and denoted in a kind of chain. Simple gift, silent stills, gentle hope are all in a position of suggestion and ultimate result: it’s… a ‘please go here,’ though I’m not entirely clear about the ‘silent stills’ referencing the ringed gas giant. The bigger picture here is the way they all reference to ‘Your voice.’ These aliens don’t differentiate between voice and being, so when they say ‘your voice’ they mean ‘your beings.’” Cir paused. “Or, ‘beings like you.’ And this time, the ‘voice’ isn’t referring to you specifically, Commander, but to Voyager’s voice in general.” 

Ro looked down at the map again, and back up at him. “You’re saying they’re telling us to go here, to find… what, exactly?”

Cir’s dark brown eyes met hers. “I think they’re telling us to go to that system to find humans, Commander.”