STAR TREK: A Long Road (Voyager Fix It Quest)

Kar frowned, slightly.

He had an idea.

"Show her the stars..." he muttered as he reached down and started to program in course changes.

He had enough delta-V.

...maybe.

"How long will it take?" Kes asked as she sat back in her seat, fidgeting her legs together.

"It likely is the same as it was the last time you asked, Miss Kes," Tuvok said from where he was perched. The shuttle's agrav systems had been shut down, so he had taken the most logically convenient spot - out of the way and relatively comfortable for himself. The fact that it meant he was now upside down compared to Kes and Torres - something that made Kes's ground-born stomach flip flop every time she noticed him - was no nevermind.

"Actually, the constant harassment makes me work faster. It reminds me of the Captain," Torres said, her voice dry as she frowned, then shoved herself away from the wall. "No, not really." She said, before Kes could ask the obvious question. "But I actually have a situation report to give."

Tuvok arched an eyebrow.

"It's verklempt," Torres said.

"An appropriate state for a piece of technology designed by a human," Tuvok said, his voice dry.

"We could fix it if we had the power to run the replicator, but since the thing that's broken is the power cells, and my spares aren't enough to finish the patching, we're on low energy systems. Air cyclers, subspace transmitter, the lights." Torres gestured around herself in the shuttle's cabin. "And it's not like we can send a subspace message without the Ogla noticing us."

Kes groaned. "Fuck."

"We have to consider the possibility that our only option is to signal the Ogla," Tuvok said. "While they will take us prisoner, the Captain can then negotiate for us to be released. While embarrassing and costly in a material sense, it is better than losing our lives."

"Ugh," Torres said.

"I don't particularly look forward to being interrogated by Sept Ogla. Do they even have fast penta?" Kes asked, frowning. "They might just resort to beating us with rubber pipes."

"That'd actually be a relief, fast penta makes my nose itch," Torres said, wiping some grease from her hands.

Kes snorted.

Tuvok pursed his lips. His eyes lifted and he frowned as he peered out of the glassy cockpit of the shuttle. They were in a very slow spin since the micrometeorite impact had disabled them. It was one of the one in a million situations that happened more often in space than people liked to admit - and normally would have been merely startling, rather than potentially lethal. The only difference between shields fizzling for a second and a deflector screen gently flicking the chunk of zipping rock or metal away was that this hadn't been a simple chunk of rock or bit of space dust. They had been hit by some fragment of dilithium crystal, hissing through space at a fraction of C. It had bored through their shield, blown through the nacelle, and exploded out the other in the time it took Torres to open her lips to say what the hell is that? as the sensor picked up the unusual energy/mass readings.

"If the stuff wasn't so damn useful in engines, we'd be shooting it at each other," Torres muttered as she looked out the window at the nacelle again.

"Do you see that, Kes?" Tuvok asked.

"Looks like a...huh, it's gone," Kes said.

"That appeared to be a fusion torch flare," Tuvok said, nodding slowly. "Relatively close, short burst." He turned his head to look at her. "I know that clairsentience is relatively short ranged-"

Torres started grumbling under her breath. "Space is too damn big."

"-but can you attempt to perceive what, if anything, is out there?"

Kes gulped, nodded, squared her shoulders, closed her eyes, and focused. She frowned while Tuvok waited patiently and Torres started to fiddle with a piece of machinery she had pulled from the wall. The tiny, quiet click click click of metal on plastic and the faint shifting sound of Torres against the floor was the only sound beyond the hiss of the air vents and the sound of Kes' breathing. Kes scowled. "I can't..." she said.

"Here," Tuvok said. He placed two fingers on each of her temples. "My strength to your strength. My mind to your mind. I will be the current. You the river." His eyes closed and he focused. Kes closed her eyes tighter, her hand reaching out as she touched her fingers to the glass. They remained perfectly still and silent.

Torres looked between the two of them.

She was roughly as psychic as a rock.

It felt kind of like being next to two orchestral musicians playing their hearts out when you were deaf. She didn't hear anything and...it kinda looked a little goofy without the context. She went back to futzing with the attitude control unit - when Kes gasped, opening her eyes. "It's a Kazon ship."

"Ah shit," Torres muttered. "A Ogla scout craft?"

Then.

"Wait, why the fuck would they be using a fusion drive? Not impulse?"

"It's not a Ogla scoutship," Kes said, shaking her head as Tuvok removed his fingers from her temples. Her frowned. "It's...I...I don't know what kind of Kazon it is."

"We can assume that we've yet to learn every detail about the Kazon people," Tuvok said. "Each of their septs is different. It is to be assumed that within the septs, there is yet more difference, yet more complexity. Torres, can you bring our sensors online?"

"Sure," she said. "It'll cut our life support time down by a day, but, hey, if I'm spending two weeks in here with you two, I'm going to space someone first, and that'll bring us back up by the loss." She started to plug cables in, while Tuvok nodded. A few moments later, the screens flickered on and then the Kazon ship appeared before them - a blunt, ugly looking brick, covered in engines and solar collectors. It appeared to be mostly reaction mass tanks - as required by it's preposterously primitive engine. But despite looking like it came from the 1990s, it still had a subspace transmitter antenna, which doubled as a replacement for radiators, bleeding off waste heat into subspace, like most modern ships did.

"Maybe he's a reenactor?" Kes suggested.

"Should we try and com him? Directional lasers may be mind bogglingly primitive, but they're hard to pick up when they're point to point," Torres said.

"Do we have a directional laser communication system on the shuttle capable of uplinking with a vehicle of that primitive nature?" Tuvok asked.

"Damn it, Tuvok, this is a type-8 shuttlecraft, not a Belter party bus!" Torres said, scowling. "Of course we don't have a directional laser communication system on this shuttle that could talk to that thing." She grinned. "I'm just a really good engineer."

"There's...another method that might be even stealthier," Kes said. "...I mean, a clear and a teep working together can chuck their thoughts really far."

"A teep!?" Torres asked.

"That is an Okampan term for-"

"A teep!?"

"Yes, it-"

"A teep!" Torres shook her head. "That's the worst term for a telepath I've ever heard."

Kes grinned. "Well, yeah, we have to keep teeps in their place. Don't want them to think they're hot stuff, just cause they can read your mind and spill all your dirty secrets."

"Teep..." Torres pushed herself to the back of the shuttle. She pulled out a type-2 phaser and started to take it apart. "What do you call a telekinetic?"

"Teek, duh," Kes said, then looked back at Tuvok.

Tuvok looked as stone serious as she'd ever seen him. "I happen to prefer kine and path," he said. "As those are the different parts of the word."

Kes inclined her head.

---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0
CURRENT TRAITS: None

What do our bold Starfleet officers do

[ ] Risk cobbling together a laser com
[ ] Risk a subspace com and hope the Ogla don't listen in
[ ] Try telepathic communication
[ ] Write In