Title: Absumption 1/5
Author: The Emu
Email: emu@zip.com.au
Size: 17K
Rating: R
Codes: Au of 'Timeless', A; J/P
Summary: 'Timeless' could have been worse. Someone might
have survived.

The Emu loves feedbackers. Critical discussion and
dissention *most* welcome.

Everlasting devotion to Margie, for friendship, wonderful
editing, and nagging me to do my course work.

This story is copyright to The Emu 1999, but the characters
are the property of Paramount, whom I thank profusely and
to whom I apologise for borrowing without asking. My profit
will be entirely cerebral.

==========

Absumption: (n) the process of being wasted away or
consumed


At some point the whine and creak of the settling ship had
faded, and an eerie stillness had taken hold of the bridge. No
warp vibration, no shifting air currents. No groaning of injured
crew.

Janeway sat up slowly, trying to work out why everything
looked so wrong. It was the angle. She was lying against the
conn, tangled under Tom's chair. Jarvin was lying a few
metres away, head at an unnatural angle. She should go to
him, but she couldn't move. Was she paralysed? Janeway did
a limb-by-limb check, but she could feel everything, could
wiggle all her fingers and toes. And she'd sat up. She just
couldn't move.

Could she talk? She swallowed awkwardly. "Status?"

The chair above her creaked. A moment later, "Screwed."

She looked up to meet Tom's gaze, which widened in alarm.
"Captain, you look awful. I'll get a medkit." He stood, and
froze.

"Tom?"

"Kahless."

He was sickeningly pale, swaying, so she croaked a little
louder. "Tom?"

Finally, he looked at her. "It's bad."

It was a moment before she understood. She hadn't yet
thought to wonder why she was lying under the conn. The
slipstream.

"Help me up."

Tom ignored her, fetching the medkit from behind the
command chairs. "You're not going anywhere until I check
these wounds."

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding."

Janeway checked herself over again, and discovered a deep
gash under her right rib, bleeding heavily. "I didn't notice..."

"We're in shock."

"Where's the rest of the crew?"

Tom dropped to his knees, face grim. "We need to get you
back in action before we worry about anyone else. I don't
suppose... Paris to sickbay?" Silence. Tom took a breath.
"You've done a lot of damage to your liver, but I can patch
that pretty easily in the short term." He ran a regenerator
over her. "There's not much I can do about the concussion,
but that's mild anyway. The blood loss is a problem."

Janeway looked ruefully around her dark puddle. "I don't
suppose you've got a sponge on you?"

His look was faintly incredulous, but she was too tired to give
a damn.

"If you get me to my chair, I can start running diagnostics."

"The computer's offline. Everything's offline." Satisfied with
her condition, he dropped the tricorder into the kit and pulled
out the regenerator to run over his own shoulder. "I've done
what I can. I'm going to check the rest of the bridge crew,
and then I'll be back, okay?"

"Okay." She watched him go, frowning. She was the Captain.
She didn't need her hand held like some inexperienced ensign.

Tom was wandering around the bridge, moving from person
to person far too quickly to help them. It was dark; Janeway
hadn't noticed that before. Only a fraction of the emergency
lights seemed to be working. Tom reached Tuvok, where he
slipped into a flurry of activity.

"Tom?"

"He'll be fine."

"The others?"

A series of beeps and a clunk of equipment. "There's nothing
I can do."

"You should get down to sickbay, make sure the Doctor is
online. We're going to need him."

"I'll go as soon as I finish the bridge." He climbed to his feet
and checked the remaining crew, face growing harder with
each lost cause. Eventually he returned to Tuvok, dragging
him over to lie beside Janeway. "He'll wake up on his own.
Just keep an eye on him."

Tom stood to go, and nausea washed through her. "Don't be
long."

He leaned forward to squeeze her shoulder. "I'll be as quick
as I can."

He didn't even try for the lifts, heading straight to the Jeffries
tubes and disappearing into the ship.

Janeway looked at Tuvok, who might have been asleep, from
all appearances. The slipstream had gone wrong. Janeway
had vague memories of gripping the handrests as the ship
rocked and jarred, voices shouting, all of it pointless because
it was out of their control. Jubilation wrenched away with a
sickening twist as Janeway realised they weren't going to
make it home. And sicker, now. Nobody else here was ever
going home.

This was what she'd always feared more than anything.
She'd taken a risk and woken up in a pile of other people's
bodies.

Someone was shaking her. "Captain."

"Tom? That was quick."

"I was gone for almost an hour. You passed out."

"Oh."

"I've got some blood." He clipped a flask to a hypospray and
held it against her neck.

"How does the situation look in Engineering?"

"There isn't one." His face was perfectly neutral.

"Care to explain that to me?"

"There is no Engineering. It's a wonder the core didn't
breach."

"Have the crew got a forcefield in place?"

Tom sat back, tossing the hypospray into the kit angrily. "No.
There is no forcefield. There is no crew. We're not going
anywhere, ever."

"It can't be that bad-"

"Ken Dalby and Jen Delaney are searching the rest of the
ship for survivors. Vorik is paralysed, but I think he'll pull
through. There's no one else."

"What about the Doctor?"

"The sickbay computer is offline. The holoemitter seems fine,
so we might be able to retrieve him later, but right now..."

"Right now, it's not an option." Janeway was already feeling
clearer. "Finding survivors is our first priority."

"I've got Ken and Jenny doing a search of the major centres,
assessing the damage as they go."

"Then I need you to get me to Environmental Controls. We
need life support back online before we lose the remaining
heat from the warp core. Can we leave Tuvok here?"

Tom ran the tricorder over him. "It will be better to wake
him. Not ideal, but it should be okay, now. I think." He
pressed a hypospray to the dark neck, waiting tensely until
Tuvok stirred.

His eyes opened slowly, taking in his companions before he
attempted to speak. "I take it our slipstream experiment
failed."

Tom helped him sit up. "In a big way. The ship is virtually
destroyed. Most of the crew are dead."

"My condition?"

"You've got some pretty severe cranial injuries. I've stopped
the bleeding and eased the pressure, but you'll need to have
the Doctor look you over. Can you walk?"

"I believe so."

Janeway leaned on the conn to stand, glad to find the
dizziness was only slight. Tom pulled Tuvok to his feet and
wrapped a supporting hand around his waist. They began the
long journey to Environmental Controls.

	=/\=

Janeway's hand slammed against the panel.

"I fail to see how jarring the circuitry will improve matters."

"Do you have a better idea, Tuvok?"

He'd been full of helpful suggestions as to why everything
she tried wouldn't work, and little else.

"Problems?"

Janeway looked at Tom, who'd appeared in the doorway.
"You could say that."

"It's starting to get cool in here."

"There are ruptures all through the system. It'll take days to
get even minimal life support back online - and then only if I
can lay my hands on a powercell. Do we have any
powercells?"

Tuvok shifted. "Most of the powercells were stored in
Engineering. There may be a small number stored in cargo
bay one."

Tom moved closer. "So what do we do in the meantime?"

"We gather together, choose a base. Have you seen the
shuttle bay?"

"Not yet. It's heavy going through most of the corridors. A
machete and a pith helmet won't get you back that far. The
mess hall is probably our best bet. It's intact, there's food, and
there's no one there." He stopped, thinking. "You know, Ken
made some crack about starting a bonfire; that may not be a
bad idea."

"Excellent thinking. I want you to gather some environmental
suits in case the temperature drops too far, and meet us in the
mess hall. I'll get back to this later when we can drag a
powercell up." She pushed herself to her feet, swiping her
jacket from the floor and pulling it on. The last of the heat
from the warp core was already fading into the cold
outdoors.

Tom looked at her companion in concern. "Will you be able to
support him on your own, Captain?"

"Your concern is wasted. I will need minimal assistance."

Janeway just raised her eyes to the ceiling at Tom's puzzled
look. Tuvok had been terse since he woke.

Tom moved to leave, and Janeway sucked in a breath. "Tom!
Did you find anyone else?" She pretended her fingers weren't
digging into the console.

He didn't need to answer. "Not yet."

When he'd gone, Janeway moved to Tuvok's side but he
refused the offered hand, leaning on the wall for support
instead. When he finally seemed ready, she took his arm and
tugged him towards the door.

The sound of pounding footsteps pulled her to a halt.

"Paris! Lieutenant!" Dalby rounded the door. "Oh, Captain,
have you seen Paris?"

"He just left. Have you found someone?"

"There's a whole bunch in Stellar Cartography, but they're in
a bad way. Megan Delaney's there."

"Tom's on his way to collect some environmental suits. Send
him to Stellar Cartography, but I want you to get three suits
to the mess hall before you join him. That's our new base of
operations."

Dalby nodded. "I'll meet you there. And Captain - I'm glad
you're alright. You, too, Commander."

Tuvok straightened, waiting until he'd gone. "Crewman Dalby
has developed a talent for insincerity."

Janeway stared at him in appalled surprise. "Did it ever cross
your mind that he meant it?"

Tuvok started forward, forcing Janeway to keep up. "It is
doubtful."

	=/\=

Just finding Stellar Cartography was an impossible task.
Janeway had dropped Tuvok in the mess hall with a tricorder
and an order to find something flammable. Now she was
searching through a ship that should have been more familiar
to her than her own body, but debris made many corridors
impenetrable, and a couple of the Jeffries tubes had been
sheared clean away. Occasionally she would come across a
body, and try to move past before she recognised it, but she
always did. Allyn. Mannick. Neelix. Henley.

Stellar Cartography was hell. A third of the floor had been
pushed halfway to the ceiling, trapping people in so far that
they couldn't be reached to treat if they were treatable at all.
Vorik was lying on a litter, propped on his elbows to run a
regenerator over Ensign Ashmore. Ensign Ashmore needed a
lot more than a regenerator. Ken and Jenny were digging
through the rubble, while Harrison tended to someone who
seemed to be pierced straight through with a long shard of
metal.

At the centre of it all was Tom, hurrying between the three
patients that had been laid out along the wall, clipping out
orders to whoever would listen.

"Could you use another set of hands?"

"Captain, did you bring another medkit? Good. Hand it here
and start digging."

Janeway joined Jenny, who was scanning a particularly deep
pile of debris. "How's Megan doing?"

"She didn't make it. She died before Tom got here."

"I'm sorry."

Jenny moved a little further along. "What's one more?"

Janeway watched her, trying to read accusation in the
indifference, but Jenny was already absorbed in her work.

For what seemed like hours they tunnelled through the broken
lab, hauling aside pieces of wall and chunks of console and
things that seemed to belong to nowhere at all.

Janeway took a step back to stretch her muscles and push
the hair off her face. There was a patch of uniform in the
corner. "I've got someone." She pulled aside the metal
girders, barely noticing as another pair of hands joined hers to
heave the heavy bars out of the way until they could see his
face. Half-crushed.

"Jerron." Janeway sat back, wondering when she'd dropped
to her knees. "What was Jerron doing in Stellar
Cartography?"

Jenny let the bar rest back across him. "Probably looking for
me. He's been trailing me around a lot, lately." She picked up
her tricorder and moved on.

By the time they were sure there was no one left in the
rubble, Harrison's patient and one of the crewmen by the wall
were dead and Tom looked ready to collapse. Or cry. They
didn't have time for either.

Janeway retook control. "We need to get these people to the
mess hall. Everybody take one end of a litter except Tom."

"Captain, I'm fine."

"Tom, I want you to collect a couple of extra medkits and
meet us there. Is there anything you need from sickbay?"

"I could use a few things. Nothing I can't carry."

"We'll see you soon."

	=/\=

The mess hall was unrecognisable. A large section of the
floor was bare, the carpet rolled into sections and piled
against a wall near a reasonably-sized fire. Most of the tables
and chairs had been pushed to the side, a few left for the
remaining crew and a number of tables bound together to
serve as medical beds.

Tuvok stepped up to the kitchen counter, though he was
leaning heavily for support. "It appears that Voyager's carpet
is an ideal fuel. I have built the fire under a Jeffries tube to
act as a chimney, but it we are to settle here permanently, I
would suggest we adapt the tube accordingly."

"Agreed." Janeway and Delaney settled Vorik onto one of
the improvised beds, while the men lifted Nozawa's and
Powell's unconscious bodies onto the others. "We're going to
start a deck-by-deck search - where there are decks -
checking private quarters and anywhere else we can find.
Tom will be here soon. I want him to get some sleep. Nerve
pinch him if you have to. He's our only medic, and I need him
alert."

"You need to eat."

"We don't have time."

"A sick Captain is of less use to her crew than a dead one. I
have collected a number of ration bars, and you will each
consume one before leaving this room."

Janeway met his firm gaze, and then caved. The crew had to
eat.

	=/\=

Hunger sated and loaded up with a fresh medkit, Janeway
took the starboard side of the habitation deck with Harrison.
Room after empty room, hauling each door open manually,
stepping through scattered possessions, taking down the
names of the bodies on a PADD, collecting extra clothes
when they realised how quickly the temperature was
dropping.

She almost moved past her own door, but the search had to
be methodical, and there were some schematics in there that
could be useful. She clamped the manual release onto the
door and pulled it open, sweating a little even in the cold. She
barely looked at the room. It was much as she expected,
shattered goods, just like all the others.

She quickly tossed through the pile of PADDs in her desk
drawer. Personal letters, crew evaluations, supply manifests.
Mostly irrelevant. Through the door to the bedroom, where
the rest had been left on her bedside table. Now they were
lying across the floor.

Harrison hesitated in the doorway, looking strangely at her
bed. It annoyed the hell out of her.

"Yes, Crewman, I sleep in a bed. I do sleep, I'm human."

"Have you come across Mannick, Captain?"

Janeway's sorting slowed. "Yes. Yes, I did. I'm sorry."

A loud breath. "Oh. I... I guess it's good to know. One way
or the other, I mean."

She scooped up the entire pile. "Let's keep going."

===
end 1/5

-- 
The Emu's Feathers
X-Files and ST:VOY fanfiction
http://www.zip.com.au/~emu/genfic.html