Chapter 3 added on 21 Dec 2001
Disclaimers are in part 1.
Rating: PG13
"Stupid Fucking Borg! What happened where are we?" B'Elanna screamed at Seven. Her head was pounding and lights swam before her eyes obscuring her vision, but it hurt and it had to be Seven's fault, if only she could remember where they were. "Do you hear me drone, what the hell have you done?"
A right hook was her answer as Seven unleashed all her anger at B'Elanna, blood streamed down Seven's head and fell down her throat, dripping to her shoulders and across the top of her bared breasts. The sheet lay tangled at her ankles its presence forgotten.
"Be warned B'Elanna Torres, if you yell at me again I will hit you with my left hand instead." She threatened her Borg hand clenching into a tight fist.
B'Elanna looked up from the floor where she lay sprawled, one hand rubbing her bruised jaw and silently thanking her Klingon heritage, without it the body part would surely have been broken. "Back off bitch" she snarled, "or else I'll have to start hitting back."
"Please try" Seven was angry, she couldn't remember ever being this angry. Frustrated yes, often with B'Elanna, annoyed at Kathryn for not taking the time to sleep or relax properly or for forgetting to mention a meeting she just had to attend right then, even angry at the enemies that threatened her collective, but never this rage. Her vision was red, literally as blood dripped into her eyes; she was consumed by the urge to hurt B'Elanna to strike her again and again.
Seven took a deep breath, "I am not the monster you see me as Lieutenant Torres, or you would already be dead, I do not wish to hurt you again, rather to ascertain where we are."
"Bring it on you coward" growled B'Elanna, "this is all your fault anyway."
Seven's hands were on B'Elanna's collar, lifting her into the air, holding her at arms reach so her legs swung uselessly, ignoring any glancing impact they had. "I will not kill you Lieutenant, Kathryn would not allow it, but I will hurt you if you continue to act in this manner." She shook B'Elanna slightly for emphasis, "This is YOUR fault, YOU barged in on us, YOU insulted us, YOU continued to interfere when you were TOLD to leave and YOU pushed as into the panel."
Seven dropped her, stalking away to the other side of the room, grabbing the sheet as she did. B'Elanna scrambled to her feet and was about to reply when her, up to now dormant, Klingon honour raised its head and pointed out to her that she was wrong, it was her fault and she was about to try and attack the Captain's naked, wounded girlfriend. Not good in anyway.
She turned away from Seven, averting her eyes from the gorgeous figure in front of her, giving Seven a modicum of privacy as she ripped the sheet into two strips and proceeded to knot one band across her chest, and the other wrapped around her legs in sarong style. B'Elanna turned her head a little, noting how bizarre the 'Beach ready Barbie' looked here in a hostile grey hospital ward, reminiscent of some 20th Century show Tom had once convinced her to watch.
"Hey?" she said, pieces coming together, "Where are we, I remember the controls exploding, then falling and…"
"Then we were here" cut in Seven smoothly, arching her eyebrow in disgust as the Lieutenant tried to pretend she was too insignificant to even look at, as she remained facing the opposite wall.
"Am I really so disgusting to you that you will not look at me" queried Seven, trying to keep her tone cool, but the emotion of the day catching up with her and adding a slight quiver to her voice.
B'Elanna noticed it, and turned round taking two steps towards Seven until her natural preservation instinct kicked in and she decided to remain out of the very pissed, very strong Borg reach.
"No Seven, I guess not, you're just…"
"Borg" Seven said the word tonelessly, "And you hate the Borg, or is it just me?"
"Damned if I know" smirked B'Elanna with just a hint of teasing in her voice, then she clamped down on the smile that threatened to break on to her face, "But odds on I'd say that you, Borg or not, would always annoy me."
"Wonderful then I have a purpose in life" quipped Seven as she grabbed the handle on the door and almost wrenched it off in the nanosecond before she realised she must turn the implement, and strode from the room.
"Great" said B'Elanna, reluctantly following Seven, "Still it's not worth it if I come back alone" she pondered out loud, "Always knew she was the Captain's favourite."
B'Elanna stepped out into a corridor, muted sounds of intercoms and crying echoed down the hall, reverberating through paper-thin walls. Everything was painted white, now turned grey from years without cleaning; the lighting flickered intermittently and cast dully across a row of empty orange plastic chairs running down the wall. Seven had disappeared from sight, so cursing quietly B'Elanna followed the corridor, hoping she was headed in the right direction.
As she reached the end a room opened up on her left, B'Elanna peeked in and saw a young girl, 17 at most, strapped down to a bed, moaning piteously. A bag of fluid hung from a metal pole next to her bed and seemed to be running into her arm, her leg was covered in cloth wrappings, now soaked with blood and her eyes remained closed, screwed up in pain. B'Elanna gasped, the room was so barren, no decoration, no window, no medical equipment. This girl had just been left to bleed.
B'Elanna's gasp had alerted the girl to her presence, she wearily turned her head and opened her eyes, staring at B'Elanna for a moment she then whispered through her cracked lips, "Diamonds aren't for me to find". Then she started to cough, blood coming out of mouth.
B'Elanna recoiled from the sight, so desperate and cold it made her blood chill and walked straight back into another figure. Wheeling round she found Seven, now dressed in loose green trousers and shirt (scrubs a voice in her head supplied).
"Come Lieutenant, we will be discovered here and I think that it would provoke more questions for us than we can find answers." She handed B'Elanna a long white, stained coat that she had had slung over her arm, "Put this on it is less conspicuous, and keep your head ducked." Seven ordered, then turned and headed for a small grey door marked Fire Exit.
"Great" murmured B'Elanna; "Well she isn't going to get away with giving orders for long.
"I want some ANSWERS," yelled Kathryn Janeway, banging her hand down on the conference room table. Her senior staff was gathered there now, after having been woken at 0500 to find two members of the crew missing, four hours later and they were still scrambling for explanations.
Chakotay had reached the Captain first; he had found her curled up on the floor of Holodeck two, tears running down her face, the sheer black robe barely covering her. The handsome Commander had been shocked at how fragile his Captain looked, and without hesitation he had wrapped his tunic around her and gathered her in his arms. Carrying her back to her quarters, while calling for the Doctor (who had later appeared and disappeared rapidly as Kathryn made a sound closely reminiscent to a growl when he tried to scan her). The crew shouldn't see her like this Chakotay reasoned as he hurried through the sparsely populated Gamma shift corridors.
Kathryn, having realised his intent had spoken the first words he had heard since he had burst into the holodeck, her voice dry and scratchy from crying, "No, I have to stay and help"
"In a moment Kathryn" Chakotay had hastened to reassure her, "But first you should really put some clothes on, we can't have all those nice young ensigns distracted now can we?"
Kathryn had choked out a sob, "Oh Chakotay, I don't know what happened to them." Chakotay set her down as he walked into her quarters, "Who?" he asked, as Janeway headed into the bedroom. Realising he was still at a loss over what had happened to provoke his senior officer's broken plea in the middle of the night.
"B'Elanna and S-Seven, they were fighting and they crashed into the panel and then…" Kathryn reappeared now in uniform, though her face was still blotchy, "They were just gone," she whispered.
Four hours, two diagnostics and several in-depth examinations later no one had a better explanation as to what had happened.
"Well" reasoned the Doctor, trying to sound cheerful, "Though we did find blood stains, there wasn't enough biological residue to indicate that the explosion killed them. Wherever they are they didn't arrive their dead."
Everyone glared at him. The Doctor shrank back into his seat, "I thought that was a good thing."
"The sensors reveal no evidence of any known transporter technology" interjected Tuvok in smooth clipped tones, "However it would have been unlikely that such an event could have occurred at the same time as the explosion due to the unforeseen nature of the event."
"Right" said Harry, pleased to have something to contribute, "There appears to be no prior damage to the panel, they caused the explosion, it wasn't a cover for anything else. I think we can rule out the possibility they were taken some where."
"Gentleman" barked Janeway, "You have told me what they aren't, where they aren't but you still haven't told me where they ARE." She turned away from the table, looking out across the reassuring star field that now hung stagnant as the ship maintained position as the crew tried to solve the mystery.
Chakotay spoke up quietly, "All holodecks have been taken off line, but we can find no evidence of anything unusual there. When the explosion occurred holodeck two terminated the program automatically, since then we've had no other holodeck activity."
"So where are they?" Tom whispered, his voice almost as choked as Kathryn's had been, "Damn it that's my wife who's missing."
"No." The fire was back in Janeway's voice, "That is a reckless Ensign who barged into a situation she had no right being in and has provoked a tragedy. When we get them back I'll have a hell of a lot to say to Ensign Torres before you get to see her."
No one missed the implied demotion, and no one quite had the courage to ask exactly what she had interrupted. "Find them. Dismissed" ordered Janeway and the worried and chastised senior staff trailed from the room.
Tuvok paused to look at Janeway, trying to judge her mind, but she turned away from him quickly.
"We will be on the bridge" he said, "The crew will of course assist you however we can" Tuvok softened his posture just a touch, wordlessly expressing his 'dissatisfaction' at events.
Kathryn nodded stiffly, controlling her emotions now as rigidly as any Vulcan might, scared to fall apart.
"So where are we?" B'Elanna asked, coming to a halt. Seven had led them out of what appeared to be a hospital down a series of back alleys. It had been dark, but what the intermittent street lighting and glow of the moon had revealed was a serious of red brick houses, densely packed, garbage piled down each alley next to over flowing trash cans and the occasional cat meowing in the shadows. There had been muffled engine noises, but no people, no open shops or bars, no sign that anyone lived in this ghost town.
Eventually they had left the rabbit warren of lanes and entered a poorly tended park, again with no life apparent. B'Elanna finally lost patience and stopped, sitting on a broken park bench and wrapping the thin Doctor's coat tighter around her. If she was cold, Seven must be freezing.
Seven realised B'Elanna had stopped, and quietly relived she too sank down on the bench, but not before shooting B'Elanna a dirty look at the supposed delay.
"We are in a city Lieutenant," announced Seven
"No shit Sherlock" quipped B'Elanna, "But which city? Where? And how did we get here?" she shot her own dirty look at the obviously clueless Borg.
"From what we have seen I would suggest an Earth city, 1920's, however with obvious irregularities." Seven was puzzled, "I do not believe this is actually Earth."
"Agreed" said B'Elanna, "There are no people, its nothing like Tom's holo-simulations."
"Which of course are completely factually accurate?" sneered Seven, then hurried on quickly before B'Elanna could reply and provoke another confrontation. "The lack of people is not unusual considering the late hour and the evidence that this is a less than salubrious area. What is unusual are the posters."
"Posters?" asked B'Elanna puzzled, and still smarting over Seven's dig at Tom. Sure he was an idiot, but he loved her and went out of his way to try and show her and include her in things he did rather than just blithely going off on his own like he had once. "What about the posters?"
"They are for films," said Seven patronisingly
"So?" B'Elanna's tenuous grip on her own fiery temper was slipping.
"The posters are for, respectively, 'Star Wars', '2001', 'Galaxy Quest' and something called 'Austin Powers'
"Hey, I've seen all of them" B'Elanna realised, "On the holodeck with Tom"
"Indeed" Seven looked completely under-whelmed at the information, "What is important Lieutenant is that each film was not created until over 50 years after this time period."
"So why would they be here?" B'Elanna caught on. "Still, I don't think we're going to find any answers tonight, perhaps we should find somewhere to stay?" she suggested, still puzzling over Seven's little revelation.
"What do you think I have been trying to find?" Seven raised her eyebrow. Did the Lieutenant really think that she hadn't already thought of that? "There appears to be more activity coming from the other side of the park, I believe that we may have more success there."
"Tomorrow we'll need new clothes." Ha, thought B'Elanna, I bet brainiac didn't think of that.
"Indeed" replied Seven, "But that is hardly our most pressing concern" she sent one last barb in B'Elanna's direction before she stood up and resumed walking.
To be continued....