Whispers & Echoes-Part 5

Disclaimer: All belongs to the Gods on the Mount--Paramount. I just get to play chess with them. All parts rated NC-17 to be safe.

Whispers & Echoes

by Lady Janus

Part 5: Denouement and Emergence

"Ready to do the honours?" Chakotay asked with a smile as he handed her the portable unit. "All the diagnostics check out and the internal probe's on stand-by."

Kathryn returned his smile, not so hesitantly as in the last two weeks, but she wondered if they would ever be comfortable with each other again. "Yes, we'll cloak the greenhouse first, bring it back, then the house, then we'll try the entire system. Here goes."

They watched as the entire greenhouse shimmered out of existence and she went over to touch the illusion before joining him at the computer console they'd set up just beyond the bathtub, outside the cloak perimeter. "Looking good," he commented enthusiastically. "All systems on the internal probe indicate condition green. Atmosphere, radiation--everything reads normal. How do the tricorder readings look?"

She looked up from the instrument. "Excellent. There's a little bleed-off in the high delta Tarok lines, but I've compensated using the remote."

"It's still detectable by the shuttle's sensors," Chakotay reported. "Just barely, but it's there. The external quantum probe's another story--the entire greenhouse reads loud and clear, not that I think many people around here are going to be scanning for us on a quantum level."

She laughed as she consulted the remote unit again. "I certainly hope not. All right, let's activate the phasing mechanism--I'll take her out in degrees of 0.01 up to 0.12 phase difference from this quantum level. Let me know when it's undetectable by the shuttle's sensors and keep an eye on the internal probe."

"Yes, Ma'am," he quipped as he busied himself at the controls.

He really was making an effort, she thought gratefully. He'd moved back two days after their reconciliation and since then had not once made her feel like he was trying to push her into anything, be it friendship or love. In fact, he had instinctively begun treating her like Captain Janeway again. She smiled; he was waiting for her to give him permission to call her friend again--she found she was touched by the sentiment.

"All right," he called out as the remote unit showed a phase difference of 0.10. "The shuttle's sensors have lost her, but the internal probe still shows everything normal. The external probe shows that there's been a 0.04 percent drop in the quantum density."

"Ok," she replied becoming infected with his enthusiasm. "At a density drop of 0.065 percent, we should be able to pass through the matter of the greenhouse without any problem and at 0.15 not even the best sensors should be able to penetrate. Any problems with chronoton radiation?"

"None," he replied. "The density flux capacitors are doing wonderfully--you were right about the mesoquarzite, there's not even a hint of tachyon, chronoton or anti-neutrino radiation. You are definitely going to have to patent this when we get back to the alpha quadrant."

"You forget," she replied, blushing a little in pleasure at his praise. "There's a little treaty the Federation signed with the Romulans that they wouldn't develop cloaking technology. All right, let's take her out some more."

As they worked side by side, she continued to think about him and their relationship. She wished everything could be as easy as these mechanisms she designed--any problems, you just got in there with a hyperspanner and adjusted it until it worked properly. She felt a great satisfaction as test after test went off with only a few minor problems and adjustments to be made, but she hadn't really expected anything less. The greatest test was going to be between her and Chakotay--they had to make the relationship work, because for the foreseeable future, each other was all they had.

She looked up in surprise as they finished moving the last of the equipment inside the house--he approached her with two flutes of champagne. "To a good day and to success," he said as she accepted her glass.

"To a good day and to success," she answered as their glasses touched. She sipped her champagne and smiled as she sat down behind the computer. "I'd say that went off very well. We certainly have reason to celebrate--now all we have to do now is make one for the shuttle."

He sat down across from her and grinned, "How long do you think that will take?"

"Manufacturing and assembly--one to one and a half weeks, all the schematics and patterns have already been worked out and we still have the moulds for the casings. The installation will take anywhere from two to four weeks depending on how easily we can integrate it into the shuttle's systems," she answered enthusiastically. "By the time we finish all that, our treatment regimens should be completed and we'll be able to see if we can leave here--the only question is where to go?" she said softly as she covered his hand. "Voyager has had a year and four months head start on us already and is getting farther away each day. At the speeds the shuttle can manage, I don't know that we can catch up without finding some wormhole or new technology."

"What do you want to do?" he asked holding her gaze. "Would you be happy going back to live with the descendants of the 37's?"

She was silent a moment before she answered, "No, it would never be home to me."

"I know," he answered. "Me neither. Then all that's left is to try for Voyager." He smiled and squeezed her hand gently. "I must admit, it's all I've been thinking about for the last two weeks. I want to run something by you."

"What is it?" she asked intrigued.

"Well, we both know that the shuttle won't get us anywhere fast, but what about acquiring another ship--most of the aliens around here have ships that can sustain warp 9 or higher, and I'm sure we can bring almost any system up to Starfleet snuff," he quipped.

"How do we go about acquiring a new ship? I mean, we hardly have much in the way of valuable currency," she said sceptically.

He laughed as he sipped his champagne. "Oh you'd be surprised at what we have that can be valuable--if you take a page out of Neelix's book of value. However, I was thinking, why buy when you can salvage," he said lifting his eyebrows comically. She looked at him in astonishment as he continued. "We've passed hundreds of abandoned hulks. I know most of them are already gutted for anything useful, but I'm thinking of a ship that Voyager scanned just before we were stranded here. It was a small Talaxian ship, little more than ten times the size of the shuttle and abandoned for what looked like about three to five years, so chances are it's still there."

He returned her slow smile and moved next to her to gain access to the computer console, on which he displayed a star chart to illustrate his point. "It was drifting here--thirty hours from this system at warp 5. Now according to our records, the warp core is gone and so was the armament, but it is in surprisingly good shape--unless someone's been using it for target practise in the meantime.

"I remember Neelix being excited about it and saying that if he'd still been in his former profession, he wouldn't have minded trading in his little ship for it. It is a Reelixia Class ship, so warp cores shouldn't be too hard to come by for it. In fact, there's a Talaxian colony about a week's travel from here, on the edge of the Borodi Empire and from what I remember Neelix saying, it's a fairly cosmopolitan place and has a reputation as a pretty good trader world. The only thing that he found a drawback was that the Borodi are so vicious that even the Kazon pretty much stay clear of them--which in our case is not such a bad thing." She laughed at his joke and studied the star chart as he continued. "Apparently, they think nothing of casual gun-play in the streets and they have one particular cultural quirk that pretty much no Kazon can abide by--they're a female dominant society, what sounds like thorough amazons in every way, although their males are no longer considered chattel."

Kathryn could feel herself responding to his optimism with a matching sense of excitement. "You've really thought this through--we should be able to purchase a warp core without drawing too much attention to ourselves, although it would probably be wise if we were in disguise. It looks like the components of the computer core are still there, although probably wiped and in complete disrepair. The rest of the warp drive system seems to be relatively in tact--why hasn't someone--"

She did a double take on the stats of the ship and gaped at him in surprise. "Chakotay there's a gigantic hole in the thing--half the belly of the aft section is completely gone! No wonder no one's salvaged it."

He grinned at her and shook his head as he enlarged the view of the ship on the screen. "And for what I have in mind for her, it won't much matter--because you see, that will be our shuttle docking port," he said smiling and ran a simulation of the shuttle connecting to the underside of the ship with its nacelles sticking out.

"Elegant," she said admiringly. "A few transverse bulkheads, a reinforced structural integrity field and an array of force fields would make her space worthy. Shield configuration might be a problem though, with the shuttle's nacelles sticking out like that, but it might just work."

"I thought your sense of improvisation would approve," he replied still grinning at her. "However, it's definitely going to be a major undertaking. In addition to the warp core, we would still need an entire armament compliment. All we have are the shuttle's phasers and six standard photon torpedoes. We also need navigation systems, decent sensors--although we can probably replicate at least the circuitry components for that and we'll need a lot of miscellaneous things we haven't even begun to think about. What she has going for her is that aside from the hole in the belly, which took out the lower aft cargo compartment, she?s in good shape. The only other hull breaches are a minor one on the bridge and one in engineering where the warp core assembly was taken out.

"There are four crew berths on one side, and two on the other together with the kitchen and mess hall. The engine room is intact and spans all three decks just aft of the bridge--so we won't have far to go--while the rest of it appears to be cargo space. There are two other cargo holds in addition the lower aft one. The forward cargo hold runs under the crew quarters, spanning decks two and three aft of engineering. I was thinking that it could be our airponics bay. Meanwhile the second hold--upper aft--is just above where the shuttle would slot in and can be used to store whatever miscellaneous things we have. The bridge is fairly large--sort of decks one and two of the forward section just in front of engineering, and the weapons array is beneath it on deck three. The living area is situated aft of engineering on deck one and stop forward of the upper aft cargo bay. If all goes well about acquiring the things we need to salvage her, we're still looking at about at least six months worth of work, maybe even a year or more," he said honestly.

She nodded, still contemplating the design of the ship. "But puttering around in a shuttle which only has a sustainable cruising velocity of warp 4.5 is not going to get us any where fast and it can't go any faster that warp 7. According to this, the Reelixia Class has a sustainable cruising velocity of warp 7.5. Even if it starts out an entire year later, it would still catch up and pass the shuttle in a matter of a few months. Maximum warp capability is warp 9--not bad at all. The weapon's array is reasonable, provided we can purchase the armaments to go with it, or at least adapt some . . . thing--while the shield grid seems fairly sturdy. One of my concerns is that it may be too big for just the two of us to handle by ourselves. It looks like it normally takes a crew of six to run."

"Nine," he corrected smiling at her. "The Captain has her own quarters, while the rest double up. But you must admit it is possible--and it's about the smallest ship we'll find around here with the range we need. Its warp capabilities can probably be enhanced by a few judicious Starfleet modifications and we'd also have the cloaking device. It's not as if we're going to be looking to fight any battles, but we have to make sure we can defend ourselves if we need to. With the cloak, we have a way to extricate ourselves from sticky situations, hopefully before it comes to a fight. We'll also have the advantage of the shuttle's transporters--one of the things that doesn't seem to be widespread in this quadrant. If this pans out, then the next thing to work on would be tracking Voyager and somehow catch up with her--we have her most probable path, but it's going to take some major creative thinking on our part."

"Well, Commander," she turned to him smiling. "It looks like we'll know if we have a ship in about three weeks, once we've finished the cloaking device and see whether or not we can safely leave the planet. It also looks like we're going to be pretty busy for a while."

"Aye Captain, that we are," he replied. "That we are."

****

Chakotay listened to Kathryn move around in the living room and glanced at the chronometer--23:12 hours. She really should get some sleep, he thought, but he knew that she was probably restless in view of the fact that they would be returning to the depths of space for the first time in sixteen months. He also felt a sense of heady excitement at the prospect, and it was all he could do to stay in bed trying to relax. None of his techniques seemed to be working.

Kathryn had been acting mysterious for the last two weeks as they got the cloaking device installed in the shuttle, but refused to give him any hints about what she'd been doing. Their easy bantering the last few days reminded him of the way they had been at the beginning of their exile when she'd wheedled him about the bathtub he'd been building. Now, she was definitely up to something, but no amount of wheedling on his part was going to get it out of her until she was good and ready, and to be frank, that was fine with him. Now more than ever, he appreciated every moment of laughter and the impish sense of fun that was slowly returning to her.

"Chakotay, could you come out here for a minute?" she called, and he smiled hearing that same note of laughter in her voice as he hurried out. He looked around the empty room puzzled, then went to the door, but she didn't appear to be outside.

"Kathryn?" he called, but there was no answer--perhaps he'd misinterpreted her. She was probably in her bedroom. He crossed quickly to her door and knocked gently. "Kathryn, are you in there?"

"No, I'm right here." Her voice sounded close to his ear and he whirled around in surprise to find no one.

"Kathryn?" Unease crept into his voice as he scanned the room. "Where are you?"

"Put on the pair of glasses on the table, Chakotay," her voice directed.

He picked up the pair of amber tinted glasses he hadn't noticed before and did as she requested. He gasped as her shimmering form suddenly appeared before him. She appeared to be wearing a tight fitting body suit made of pure light, her hair neatly tucked into the snug hood and her hands and feet sheathed in gloves and boots. Her face was bathed in a ghostly halo behind the glasses and only her mouth, curled in an impish smile was really defined. He raised the glasses slowly from his eyes and she disappeared, reappearing when he lowered them again. "Kathryn, what is this?" he asked excitedly as she manipulated the small control panel on her wrist and appeared before him in a space black bodysuit with hood. She drew back the hood and grinned as he continued excitedly. "You came up with a personal cloak?" he asked in astonishment as he circled her.

"Not quite," she laughed. "It's an illusion--done with smoke and mirrors if you will, more along the lines of a holographic projection than a true cloak. I got a brainstorm as we were installing the cloak into the shuttle. You pointed out that if worse comes to worse, because of the mesoquartzite in the emitter array, even if we couldn't cloak for some reason, we could probably use the system to broadcast high resolution holograms complete with false warp signatures--confuse the issue to better our chances of escape. It's the same principle, there's a mesoquarzite emitter web embedded in the fibres of the suit, but without the energy systems of a cloak, it's no more harmful than interacting with holograms on the holodeck. Furthermore, a single energy cell from a phaser powers the entire system. The glasses have an emitter array embedded in the frame to cloak the face and a band to go around the head to make sure they stay on."

She laughed again as he gave a great yell and swooped her up into a big bear hug and continued her explanation as he put her down. "It's not a true cloak by any means, although I've managed to mask our life form signals with a few tricks, and it offers a little more protection than our normal clothing. I tried to install a version of a personal shield, but the systems were incompatible--besides, body shields are pretty tricky and dangerous to organic tissue if anything goes wrong. Practically anyone can detect it if they put their minds to it, but I designed it from the perspective of making a quick get away from a sticky situation--which I have no doubt we are bound to have once we start to interact with people again. Since there are only the two of us, we'll need every edge we can get." He gazed at her admiringly and she blushed in embarrassment as she picked up a bundle from the chair. "Why don't you go try yours on and I'll make sure it's in working condition," she suggested softly.

Chakotay accepted the bundle and hurried back to his room. He listened to her running commentary as he hastened to put it on with trembling hands.

"I figure we can wear them under light loose clothing that's easily discarded, and the boots are sturdy enough for everyday use. I used a variation on that bonding glaze you made--it didn't need to be heated and made the fibres tough, while still leaving them supple and the cloth as breathable as cotton. It won't cut or tear easily and I don't think a small tear will be noticeable. We will however, have to turn it off in order to get a transporter lock, although you'll be easy to track on the shuttle's sensors."

Chakotay smiled at her as he hurried out, quickly pulling the hood up over the snug band of the glasses. "Well, how do I look?"

She grinned at him appraisingly and answered, "Very handsome indeed."

****

He accepted the cup of coffee from her as he kept one eye on the shuttle's navigational display. "How is everything?"

"Still so far so good," she replied, sitting next to him and sipping her coffee. "Except for slightly elevated stress levels, everything's fine--no sign of the virus or any symptoms in either of us." He nodded happily. They'd spent the last two days on the planet's moon, setting up and camouflaging a sensor net to detect ships as they entered the system and neither of them had showed any signs of the disease. Now they were on their way to find the abandoned Talaxian ship.

"We should be coming into sensor range of the ship in about five minutes, if it's still there," he reported and smiled inwardly at how well she looked in the body hugging camouflage suit.

He could sense her excitement as she turned her attention to the sensor display. "I have a feeling that it's going to be there." After a moment, she looked at him a little uncertainly. "Do you think we can really pull this off, Chakotay?" she asked softly.

He returned her gaze honestly. "A year ago, as we started to build a life here, I would have said no. Your research seemed almost futile--like looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack, but look at all we've accomplished. We're cured Kathryn, and that is by no means a trivial feat. We have a sensor web on the moon, cloaking devices, these suits. We've accomplished a lot--you've accomplished a lot, Kathryn--so yes, I do think that we can pull this off. It's not going to be easy, but hey, where's the fun in easy, huh?"

She nodded, still holding his gaze. A small current of understanding passed between them and she shivered.

The beeping of the sensor panel interrupted the silence between them and they turned reluctantly to their controls. "There she is," Kathryn said softly. "Heading one-four-seven--mark two." She met his eyes with a shy smile. "Thanks Chakotay," she said softly.

"And thank you Kathryn," he replied smiling before turning his attention back to his display panel. "She's coming into visual range now," he reported after a few minutes. "I'll take us on a few quick cursory passes to check her structure more closely, then I'll see if I can manoeuvre us into the breach."

Kathryn chuckled softly. "Right now that is the most beautiful sight in the quadrant," she said. "There doesn't seem to be any new structural damage from the outside, but still, she certainly is a mess. Quite a bit of her shield emitter array also seems to have survived. Port side weapon's array seems the hardest hit. I wonder what her cargo had been to make someone take out the cargo hold like that. Surely a breaching pod would have done a better job."

"It looks like they just cut the floor out and took whatever was there," he returned. "I'm not reading an atmosphere anywhere or any power, but she's still in sound shape. Once we've sealed the breaches, it should be easy to maintain the atmosphere. Well are you ready to go aboard and survey the damage from the inside?" She nodded briefly as he began manoeuvring into the aft hull breach.

"Disengaging phasing mechanism, mooring field clamps are activated," she reported. A moment later they experienced a slight shudder. "Mooring complete. The cloak is still engaged--no problems." She took a deep breath and looked at him.

He winked at her and she laughed as they rose. "Well, let's get into the evac-suits and see what we have."

Ten minutes later, they were on the bridge surveying the damage. He watched her standing silently at the forward viewscreen, proud and erect even in the bulky evac-suit, and he knew this was where she belonged--on the bridge of her ship out among the stars.

The End.

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