7 Days after First Chance:
"First Officer's log stardate 50231. The Captain and Lieutenant Tuvok are leading a negotiating team to the Akarian homeworld, to ask their leaders for permission to mine the seventh planet in this system. It is rich with Dilithium and other metals we need. While they are on the planet's surface, Voyager will continue to explore the system."
Chakotay sat in his quarters on the floor. His knees were crossed: he was staring at his medicine bundle, oblivious to the lack of light. It had been an interesting two days--in less than twenty-four hours they would be rendezvousing with the Captain and her shuttle.
B'Elanna expected repairs to the damaged port nacelle to be completed by then. Yes, it had been an interesting 2 days.
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His guide, a shaggy white wolf, waited for him by a fallen log. "Hello," Chakotay said sitting down beside her. The wolf grinned as she wagged her tail. "I'm getting the silent treatment again?"
The wolf blinked her amber eyes. "No, but these meetings go faster if I don't speak."
"Faster? There was a time you complained they went too fast."
"Still contrary. But you have learned patience." The wolf really grinned. "Your romance progresses, see what patience has gotten you."
"You're pushing it. But yes, well sort of. We haven't, well... Since that night."
"She hasn't thrown you off the ship, and she is still talking to you. Don't worry. Or perhaps you should." The wolf closed her eyes and was silent for several minutes. Chakotay had learned long ago to not interrupt her when she concentrated like that. While he waited, he looked at his surroundings. There was a small stream only a meter away, and they were surrounded by a pine forest. He noticed that there was a small lizard sunning itself on a rock: and he was conscious that something else was watching him. He looked around--but saw nothing. He looked at his guide, who was watching him with interest. "Don't worry, you'll figure the meaning out. In time. But something else is troubling you. The creature that attacked your ship perhaps?"
"Yes, I can't explain it, but it has been bothering me since this morning."
Do you know why it attacked?"
Chakotay shook his head. "No. Probably one of the usual reasons though."
The wolf looked at him. "It was necessary?" When he nodded his head, she continued. "Yet something still bothers you. What?"
"I don't know." His guide liked to ask questions.
"Have you felt this before." Now, the wolf stared at him hard, her eyes not blinking. "Think back," she added helpfully.
After a long pause, he responded. "I was eleven. I had accompanied my father on several hunting trips, this time I convinced him to let me go alone. I was tracking a deer-like animal found on Dorvan five, when I was attacked by a Dorvaian lynx." The wolf cocked her head waiting for him to go on. "I killed it and continued after the deer."
"And why did the lynx attack?" She asked.
"Who knows. My father had been pleased when I had returned with the deer, but seemed disappointed when I told my story. I was always disappointing him."
The wolf smiled sympathetically. "It can be hard to please a parent. Remember that."
"Especially me. I had this knack of not doing what was expected."
"You still do."
"The lynx. My brother later told me that Father was disappointed/upset because I had not asked the spirit of the lynx for forgiveness. I was eleven: the lynx had attacked me. It should have been asking me for my forgiveness. I'd followed the rituals for the hunt correctly, except for the lynx. Nothing bad ever happened, and I eventually started to drift away from the beliefs of my people."
"But you didn't drift away completely."
"No. I would still talk to you. Even after I joined Starfleet, you were my link to my ancestors."
"I hope you appreciate the hard work that entailed." The wolf stood and stretched, then returned to her sitting position. "You were a contrary. Just keeping track of you was difficult. And some of the questions you asked were... impossible." She reached up with her hind foot and scratched leisurely behind her left ear.
"I didn't appreciate that until I found myself here in the Delta Quadrant. Far from everything, with a new chance. But old problems kept resurfacing."
"Seska?" The wolf asked.
He nodded. "I remember the oblique warning you gave me--something about," he smiled, "a wolf in sheep's clothing. There are times when you talk too much in riddles. I didn't understand what you had been talking about until she betrayed us to the Kazon." So long ago it seemed.
"If I explained everything, what would happen to man's search for knowledge?"
They both sat in silence: Chakotay watched the rippling water as he contemplated the wolf's words. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the lizard had moved closer.
"We have company." He hoped the wolf would explain.
"An old friend." She grinned again. "There are others around, but they are too shy."
The lizard looked up and blinked in greeting. Chakotay nodded.
The wolf, ignoring the look of puzzlement on Chakotay's face, continued, "You were going to tell me about the creature."
"We first saw it yesterday..."
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Commander Chakotay sat in the Captain's ready room, catching up on the semi-annual crew evaluations. A couple of the department chiefs were inclined to write long-winded evaluations. According to Kathryn, they also wrote wordy reports. He remembered a joke from his academy days, about how some of the professors graded papers by weighing them. The more a report weighed, the higher the grade. Old joke, but right now, he would be inclined to do just the opposite. Both he and the Captain had hinted to the two guiltier writers that less was better.
"I guess they have cut back," he muttered. The last evaluations from the pair had been about 10 pages longer--each.
It was almost lunch, and he hadn't eaten breakfast; so he decided to take a break from the reports and see what delights Neelix had cooked up.
That was unfair to the Talaxian, he thought as he walked to the mess hall. Neelix did try, and with the current shortage of leola root, his meals were actually tolerable.
"Commander," Neelix greeted him quickly. The Talaxian was busy with a minor kitchen disaster or something--it looked as if something had boiled over. (Or was trying to escape.)
Chakotay just nodded and continued down the line. He took his food to an empty table. While he ate, he continued to read.
His combadge chirped. "Bridge to Commander Chakotay." Tom's voice called.
"Chakotay here. Lieutenant?"
"We've detected a life form."
"Hostile?"
"Don't know, sir. But it has detected us. The biology people would like a closer look."
"I'll be there. Chakotay out." He looked at his partially eaten meal. Like so many other meals, this one was destined not be finished either.
As he left the mess hall, he heard Neelix call out, "Commander, you didn't finish..."
The creature was hiding behind a small moon, when he arrived on the bridge. Voyager's four biologists were looking at a console behind Harry's station.
"Report."
"Commander, it has not made any overt hostile moves, but I think it is stalking us," Ensign Rose Kieffer, head of Biology, replied.
He looked at his display terminal--shields were up. "What's it doing now?" Chakotay asked.
"Just hovering behind the moon. It's only about eight meters long, not including tentacles. The tentacles add another twenty meters." Kieffer answered. "There are no others in the area."
"Well, I'm not inclined to be something's dinner. Tom, keep our distance. Keep it under constant surveillance."
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The wolf looked at him, "Hunting the hunter?"
"I guess, for that was apparently what it was doing. A very patient creature. We monitored it for two hours, before it moved. I had returned to the reports about an hour before then..."
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"Commander, we've lost the creature," Ensign Kieffer announced over the comm-system.
The Commander quickly returned to the bridge and looked around as he entered.
"We found it. It has an incredible acceleration. It's behind us--about 10 kilometers." Kieffer responded to the unasked question.
"What happened?"
"We were monitoring it and it disappeared. When we re-analyzed the data--we were able to track it." Kieffer said.
Harry added. "I've modified the tracking-program so we can do it in real time."
Chakotay acknowledged the information. "Tom, increase our distance to twenty kilometers."
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"This went on for the next six hours. A game of cat and mouse with the creature," Chakotay told his guide. "When we left the area an hour after we had found it, it followed us. The creature was fast. And cunning. Because of the away-team on Akaria, we couldn't leave the system. We contacted the Akarians and asked for information on the creature. They knew very little. Apparently it was a predator--they didn't know what its natural prey was, but it had developed a taste for spacecraft or rather the crew."
The wolf blinked.
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It was going to be a long night. The alpha shift had retired several hours earlier: only Chakotay and Ensign Kieffer had stayed.
Then the creature had scurried away--again. Despite the modifications to the sensors, they had not been able to follow it. And they could not find it anywhere. Shortly after the creature had disappeared, Chakotay put the ship on yellow alert. He had assigned both gamma and delta shifts to go over the data and continue monitoring and scanning.
The attack came five hours later. Voyager only had three minutes warning. Just enough time to go to red alert, and fire a warning shot as the creature charged.
The shot slowed the creature, but did not deter it. It quickly changed direction and continued its assault from the starboard side.
There was thump and slight shake as the creature tried to wrap its five tentacles around the ship. The shields held, the creature swiftly retreated.
Tom yawned as he entered the bridge. Chakotay watched as he took his usual place at the conn. "Commander?"
"Try to keep some distance between us and it. Ensign Kieffer, anything in the data we can use to our advantage?"
"It is apparently a true deep-space creature. The data suggest that it may be oxygen intolerant. A lengthy exposure to air might be fatal. It has a unique mechanism for converting food to energy--completely different from anything..."
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Chakotay looked at his guide and grinned. "Here we were, threatened by this creature, and Ensign Kieffer was starting a lecture on its energy consumption. I didn't have to say anything: she realized what she was doing and went back to her data. I thought Tom was going to laugh. The creature attacked twice more. The second time we wounded it. It retreated, and we did damage control. Fortunately that time it was minor. We learned the creature could use an electric discharge to disrupt our scanners, that's how the creature had been able to hide from our sensors. We modified them, and were able to track the creature. It hadn't left, it was quietly shadowing us..."
^^^^^
The creature shadowed Voyager for another four hours. It was incredibly patient, Chakotay thought. He had managed to sleep for three of those hours in the ready room. He had been up too long. The three hours helped, barely. He glanced quickly at the most recent data. He was convinced it was intelligent, which led him to wonder if the creature knew they were tracking it. Its hunting technique reminded him of how a pack hunts. Wearing down their prey, and then going for the kill. Voyager wasn't going to tire but the crew would. And what was more important, sometime tomorrow the Captain's shuttle was scheduled to return. The shuttle would probably be a more tempting target.
The Commander yawned. He decided to chance a shower.
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A shower?" His guide asked.
"I'd been up for over 24 hours. A shower, coffee, and adrenaline were all that were keeping me awake. I would have preferred water, but there was only a sonic shower. It helped. I went back out on the bridge. The creature attacked 15 minutes later. It had apparently learned something from its initial attacks. It was able to maneuver between the phaser blasts. It again tried to attach its tentacles to the ship. This time it generated an electrical discharge--rather like an electric eel..."
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"Commander, shields are down to fifty percent," Harry announced. The ship shook violently.
B'Elanna's voice came in over the comm-system. "Commander, That creature is trying to rip apart the port nacelle. I can release a high energy burst to dislodge it."
"But?" Chakotay asked her.
"We would be without warp for several hours."
"Acknowledged. Do it on my mark. Harry have phasers set for maximum. Fire as soon as the creature is dislodged."
Both acknowledged the orders.
"Now." There was a flash of light, and the creature floated away from the ship. Harry fired three times--the creature vanished. Disintegrated.
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"We scanned the area for an hour. Nothing. We stood down from the red alert and I finally left the bridge, leaving Ensign Kim in command."
"So, what bothers you?" The wolf asked.
"I suppose it was destroying a unique life form."
"That was endangering the ship..."
"Yes." There was silence.
The wolf stared at him. "As a predator, I can tell you that one of the hazards is that your prey may strike back. It is expected. That's why my kind tend to go for the sick and injured." She looked at the lizard and nodded. The lizard scurried away. "I have to be going."
"You haven't answered my questions."
She grinned. "According to you, I never do. I'll probably be seeing you soon." She stood and walked of into the woods, with a great deal of dignity.
Chakotay continued to sit on the log after she had vanished, trying to remember forgotten rituals from his childhood. He looked around. "Whatever you were, I don't remember the words to do this properly, but you left me no choice..."
^^^^^
When the shuttle docked, Chakotay was waiting. The four members of the away-team disembarked: the Captain and Tuvok were last. The others left, leaving the Captain and Commander alone.
"How did the negotiations go?" He asked. She looked tired.
"We got permission--what did you do to my ship?"
"I thought I would redesign it." He grinned. "B'Elanna says the port nacelle has been repaired--we have warp capability. We're still working to bring the shields back to full strength."
"I'd like to see the data on the creature, but right now I'm going to take a bath and sleep. You look exhausted."
"Yesterday was a long day," he replied. There was a pause, they both just stood there. "We need to talk."
"I know, but not now. We both need some sleep." She smiled at him.
He watched her leave and again wondered about the significance of the lizard.
