Condition Blue
Janeway must have had a premonition, because Bhytor and Thamas stood up just when she turned to take a peak at them on a screen. Seven tries to make sense of stellar cartography.
Computer: Attention Crew! Attention! Condition Blue! Tutorial in progress!
Tom Paris: Vice-Admiral; Computer reconfigures course on the go. I’m trying to fix it; but I get nothing. I don’t know where is she taking us. ETA is five days away.
Seven: Computer ignores Borg conduits.
Queen: Your vessel detours. My Cube was more productive.
Janeway: Seven! Search for irregularities in our trajectory.
Seven: Stellar Cartography reveals the ship is crossing a network of unchartered wormholes.
Janeway: Computer! Why have you altered our course and destiny?
Computer: Present course advances tutorial in progress.
Tom Paris: This isn’t any good. Computer is out of order.
Queen: Your crew is disorganized. My drones were more functional.
Engineering variables make B’Elanna jump out of her skin.
B’Elanna: I’m getting odd readings in propulsion. Electro-Plasma intensity is constant, but emissions from ship’s Reactor are high in frequency.
Harry Kim: B’Elanna! Did you caught that? Theta-Matrix Compositor is re-crystallizing Dilithium with Gamma radiation.
B’Elanna: I know! This is so bizarre.
Queen starts to get worried.
Queen: These features are unsafe in hands of untrained crew.
B’Elanna checks controls. She can hardly contain her excitement.
B’Elanna: Compositor also enriches crystals with hypersonic quartz fallout; keeping power output constant at high frequencies. This is... a Transwarp Drive!
Harry doesn’t take the news lightly.
Harry Kim: What? Is Voyager transwarping? Why it didn’t do so on its way to DS9?
Seven stares at her children. Bhytor smirks. Thamas zooms out to become a dazzling orb the size of a marble spinning away. Bhytor melts into thin air and chases his little brother.
Seven: Because Computer was calibrating and testing systems.
Janeway: You’re all saying Voyager makes its own wormholes. How?
Miral: Miral to Bridge! I think I know how. This ship operates like a mobile trans-warp teleporter. It’s capable of opening inter-phasic rifts by beaming itself through.
Janeway: Thanks Miral! You’re indeed resourceful. This means time passes for us at warp speeds; but when we emerge from the rift, we’d have traveled much faster.
Queen’s concerns grow.
Queen: You all could metamorphose into species at the base of the food chain due to Proton radiation.
Doctor disagrees in sickbay.
Doctor: Crew is in no danger of devolving into batrachians. Biomechanical suits protect their DNA against any type of nucleonic exposure.
Janeway: Thanks Doctor; truly comforting!
Tom Paris consents. He would hate having warty toad nightmares again.
Neelix: I also have good news; I found some more cabbage and potatoes.
Miral is amused. Queen begins to get really annoyed with Voyager.
Chakotay gets real. Safety goes first. Transwarp Protocols must be different.
Chakotay: Crew! This is a good time to report on security features.
Harry Kim: Snail Coating Armor provides depolarization matrix… equalizing velocity all around Voyager.
B’Elanna: Bio-neural circuitry is chroniton-infused to synchronize time all over the ship.
Tom Paris: Voyager’s bow possesses navigational deflecting properties to project a structural integrity field and compensate for gravitational forces.
Seven: These features are not consistent with Voyager’s compact dimensions.
Janeway reflects on Seven’s comment.
Janeway: I agree with Seven. Systems overkill safety. Why?
Chakotay: Maybe; they are intended to cover a wider range of purposes.
Queen treats everyone with disdain.
Queen: You know nothing about hasty emergencies with transwarp crevices.
They all take notice of Queen’s observation.
Janeway: If I read Queen correctly; these security systems may react in tandem to protect us against an overwhelming transwarp stress.
Tom Paris: Intriguing! What could release disruptive power of greater magnitude than gravimetrical forces of an inter-phasic rift?
Queen knows something they don’t.
Queen: Species 001! They’re capable of unleashing the Unreachable Light.
The term sounds familiar to Janeway.
Computer in charge
B’Elanna gets back at the Queen.
B’Elanna: Fascinating! What a story? Unreachable Light and the whatnots...
Chakotay: On the meanwhile, Computer is in a ballgame of its own.
Tuvok: It’s running a tutorial and in five days we will be reaching our destination.
Janeway: Computer! What’s the purpose of this tutorial?
Computer: To train crew at lighting up humanoid cultures.
Queen is tired of listening to so much nonsense.
Queen: Tutorial is unconnected to mission. Species 8472 will terminate your kind.
Janeway: Computer! Override Tutorial!
Computer: Unable to execute! Tutorial continues.
Janeway: Computer! Identify humanoids object of this training mission!
Computer: Species Unknown.
Janeway: Computer! Why is this tutorial our priority?
Computer: You’ll signal a pathway to where they couldn’t go before.
Tom Paris: Oh; boy! Computer lost it!
Janeway thinks in loud voice.
Janeway: Tutorial! Pathway! Flying about with old friends…
Chakotay: Kathryn?
Janeway composes herself.
Janeway: Chakotay! Tuvok! Come with me! Queen! Please go back to your alcove and cool-off with ice. Tom; you have the bridge.
The Tutor
Janeway, Chakotay and Tuvok join DaVinci Holo Program. Maestro quickly covers his works. Janeway isn’t in a good mood.
Janeway: Maestro! We don’t have time for tutorials. People’s lives are at stake!
DaVinci: Oh! My goodness! We must then speed up a little. Who’re you two; Venetians?
Janeway: Captain Tuvok, Security Officer; and Captain Chakotay, First Officer…
DaVinci: Officers? Hum! Magistrates! You have snooping ears.
Tuvok: I’m Vulcan.
DaVinci: Are you? You’ll save many. I like your suits! No masks? Carnival is coming.
Chakotay: Your necklace carries my tribe’s emblem.
DaVinci: Sky Spirits! What do they do? Do you know?
Chakotay: They travel across heavens showing us pathways.
DaVinci: Yes! They flutter from one instant to tanother! You see? You can also be inspiring teachers. I knew it.
Chakotay places his hand over a scroll.
Chakotay: Can we take a look?
DaVinci: Sic est! I can show you my drawings.
They look over a sketch of unfamiliar humanoids.
Tuvok: Who are they?
DaVinci: Mentors!
Janeway: Mentors?
DaVinci: Yes! Teachers! They came from a Trinary System.
Janeway: Where are they?
DaVinci: Nescio! We can’t find them.
Janeway: Who is... we?
DaVinci: You, me, us... everyone!
They all stare seriously baffled at the unmistakably features of Queen’s kind.
Chakotay: And these…?
DaVinci: Macabre! Terrore! Gargoyles… They eat others’ souls.
Janeway fixes her eyes in another scroll.
Janeway: What you got in here?
Da Vinci: My favorite! The study of drapery…
As DaVinci unfurls the scroll, layers of wave fold curtains of light spiral out, bringing on memories they haven’t yet lived. Voyager is deployed in the Briar Patch, cloaked within remains of a supernovae, conducting a Section-31 mission. Colonies of 8472s thrive in fluidic space of the Amleth and McAllister C-5 nebulas, deep inside Cardassian space. Janeway, Tuvok and Chakotay wonder behind DaVinci’s invention. They all see Seven, Veya and Lodom operating the Delta Flyer. The surveyor drifts away camouflaged as a meteoroid in the Beloti sector, just off the Talarian Republic. The plan is to energize and abduct the skipper of a small towing ship in order to gather intel.
Seven: Decoy distress signal…
Lodom: Transmitting…
Seven checks out Veya; feeling awkwardly infatuated. Veya addresses Seven.
Veya: AOR microprobic infusion affected my empathic abilities. I’m suffering from a very unusual condition.
Seven: Ensign... are you sick?
Veya: You may call it like that… a sort of a hybrid between the Phase and Zanthi fever.
Seven: Why are you telling me this? You should talk to the Doctor.
Veya: You asked... what was wrong with me.
Seven: I didn’t ask you anything... Ensign?
Her thoughts overlaps. How did Veya know?
Veya: Sorry! I’m exuding emotions and desires.
Seven: What...
Lodom: You bet! Veya’s libido is indeed way up there.
Seven: You can’t possibly read my mind.
Veya: Oh yeah; we can!
Seven feels vulnerable. Betazoids shouldn’t be able to read her mind. She’s part Borg.
Lodom: Well; I guess your 18% Borg content is overrated.
Veya: And just for you to know, you think of sex as much as Humans do.
Seven recovers her coolness.
Seven: Stop reading my mind! It’s an order.
Veya: All right…
Lodom peaks up a signal.
Lodom: That rock is hailing us.
Seven: Which one?
Lodom: Port side...
Seven reflects for a split second.
Seven: Open a channel...
Veya: On screen...
Their Talarian interlocutor shows himself distracted, offering everyone a good look at his bald protuberant frontal region of his head. He picks up a fallen cracker off the floor and with enviable aim scoop it in his mouth.
Tudor: Oh! There you are; spy apprentices...
Seven: Who are you? What do you want?
Tudor: My name is Tudor. I’d like to know why are you pursuing so eagerly to be killed by our despicable neighbors.
Seven: Cardassians can’t detect us.
Tudor: Hell they can! Your name?
Seven: Seven here...
Tudor: Seven? What kind of number... name is that?
Veya: Seven of Nine...
Tudor addresses Lodom.
Tudor: Of Nine? Oh! Good! You too are cloning females. We only select for cloning the best ones at mating and labor.
Veya opens her eyes wide. Seven stays put.
Lodom: Ahem! Seven... she’s actually our superior officer.
Tudor: Hmm! We... Talarian males would never clone females to supervise us. But; I guess a kinky civilization like yours...
Lodom shakes his head in sign of objection. Veya “thumb-down” Seven and makes a silly face with her tongue out.
Seven: I’m not a clone. You hailed us. What’s bugging you?
Tudor: Cardassians are closing in your position. They also know your mothership is on the hide somewhere nearby. They suspect... she is in the Mac Pherson nebulae.
Veya: Our mothership is not...
Seven grasps Veya’s arm and gawks at her... meaning “don’t say”. Veya shuts up.
Seven: Do you have a problem with that?
Tudor doesn’t have any idea of Voyager’s whereabouts; and Seven knows it.
Tudor: We’re concerned about the welfare of an emerging intelligent life-form in those cosmic remnants.
Lodom: Oh! Good to know! You Talarian... are environmentalists.
Veya: Network of circuit nodes remains stable in the nebulae.
Seven: I don’t get your concern. You don’t posses the photonic technology needed to expand production of vertion-particles.
Tudor: We have... You got everything figure out. Don’t you? Cardassians are looking for you hard and when they find you, they’ll kill you all.
Lodom: How do you know that?
Tudor: Nothing is free!
Seven: Which are your terms? Technology?
Tudor: We don’t need... You’re too close to the Talarian border. I’ll share intel with you; but you must go away afterwards. We don’t like you.
Veya places hands on her chest in sign of deep disquietness as she forwards Seven a disturbing telepathic message: “They gave up planet Batris and its female population to the Borg Hive Mind in exchange for technology”.
Seven: Transwarp species can be dangerous; don’t you agree?
Tudor: I assume you talk out of your own experience.
Seven: What do you know about Cardassians and 8472s?
Tudor: 8472s? Hahaha Funny! More numbers; typical Starfleet’s arrogance...
Seven: That’s their Borg designation.
Tudor feels a little awkward at the sole mention of their benefactors.
Tudor: Borg... informants report Cardassians and the 8472 creatures struck a deal. Our presumptuous archenemies let them colonize fluidic realms in the Amleth and McAllister nebulas in exchange for technology.
Veya: Is that it? Nothing can be that simple.
Tudor: Yes; it is that simple. They’re hiding in there.
Lodom: Hiding from who?
Tudor: We don’t know that! They’re smart though. Cloaking devices are useless inside the Amleth nebulae due to its high levels of ultraviolet radiation.
Seven: And sensor scans can’t see trough the particles flux in the McAllister nebulae.
Tudor: Exactly... another good trench. Now; I suggest you go your way.
Seven: I also have a suggestion for you. Don’t turn your back on Borg.
Tudor: What make you think... Lodom! Don’t let them bash you around. You’re welcome in Talar anytime. We don’t have mothers; only fathers!
Lodom: Interesting! I don’t mind transgender.
Seven: Lodom...!
Veya giggles...
Tudor: Hahaha! You smart ass!
Seven would like to confirm a hint.
Seven: What about planet Batris?
Tudor: Batris? Our Batris?
Seven: Yes, your... Is it a good place to hide too?
Tudor: In a way... Planet’s flank is sort of protected by the Tholian border; and you know how disagreeable they can be. Tudor out...
Lodom: Briar Patch?
Seven: Certainly... Go through Mac Pherson! I’d like to check on that emergent species.
Lodom: Laying down a course...
Seven looks at Veya out of the corner of her eye.
Veya: Yes! You can kiss me anytime.
Seven holds on as cool as a cucumber.
Seven: I told you not to read my mind.
Janeway, Chakotay and Tuvok keep their eyes peeled and their ears tuned as DaVinci turns-off the scroll.
Janeway: I think we all know by now whom are they hiding from.
Chakotay is floored; but calmed. Janeway gives her First Officer a pat on the shoulder. Tuvok fallows DaVinci to a Yakutia chessboard.
DaVinci: You see? The idea in this game is to place your camels, carts, the lord and the boys too in an advantageous tactical position. Then; you strike. The enemy knows this... which only makes matters more interesting.
Tuvok comes to a realization. DaVinci is a Great Master in deep calculations.
Tuvok: Vice-Admiral; I think he expects us to help him… by completing this tutorial.
Janeway: All right Maestro! What shall we do to light up a culture?
DaVinci: You first observe if folks know pottery and bake bread from wild crops.
Tuvok: Bread?
DaVinci: Yes; Bread is always a good sign. Seek also for their expertise.
Chakotay: A unique know-how?
DaVinci: Exactly! You must also ask yourselves if they’re constructive.
Tuvok: As in making strength out of a disadvantage...
DaVinci: Yes! If they’re not; forget about it!
Janeway becomes more involved in DaVinci’s project.
Janeway: My mother advised me to always keep a positive attitude towards life.
DaVinci: Caterina! Your mother was a mastermind.
Chakotay: Okay; so, we got pottery, bread, expertise, constructive…
DaVinci: And you’ll see them bursting a dream!
Janeway: Do we need to bring anything with us?
DaVinci: Yes! Vision! Oh; and don’t forget an archivist to glide the Sphere.
They wonder what sphere DaVinci can be talking about.
The Sphere
Harry gets good news from his crew.
Harry Kim: Vice-Admiral! Cargo Bay 1 is accessible. Gates are unlocked.
Janeway: Good! This “waiting” is over. Tuvok! Deploy your tactical officers.
Tuvok: Gutierrez! Proceed cautiously to secure perimeter.
Harry Kim: Collins! Don’t touch anything; we’re on our way.
Janeway: I want a full report in two hours. Maestro! We’re not finished here.
Maestro: So I wish! Go and hinder Soul Eaters from conquering ahead of time.
DaVinci fades away. Janeway, Chakotay and Tuvok are fully aware storm is coming.
Inside Cargo Bay 1…
Janeway: All right team! Tell me about your findings!
Tuvok: We got ourselves a revamped hangar.
B’Elanna: Glittering roof and gates are gassy versions of alloys found all over the ship.
Harry Kim: Hangar is set up to facilitate operations of take-off and reentry.
B’Elanna: I need some more time to figure what these devices do. They might be part of a clearance verification system.
Janeway: What about these terrific spacecrafts?
Tom Paris: Our old Delta Flyer is now transwarp capable and equipped with two Type-3 Disruptor Canons.
Tuvok: Romulan thermal-shock weapon...
Janeway: We’re far away. They won’t mind us breaking any Arms Treaty.
Seven: Hera Vectors are single-seat escort crafts, outfitted with a warp drive and four high-yield phased-plasma drones. They are extremely maneuverable.
Doctor: Just in case; I strengthened their drones with a cyber-virus-module to spread mayhem among enemy’s organic defenses.
Janeway: Good work! What’s behind those dividers?
Tuvok: The Sphere…
They go around the dividers…
Icheb: This Sphere is a surveyor and a space library on warp-civilization. It’s capable of teleportation and it may download our AI entities for assistance.
Seven mutters…
Seven: Flying capabilities…
Icheb: Oh; that’s right! It is equipped with an impulse drive and orbital stabilizers. It is hull-fortified to negotiate extreme atmospheric conditions.
Janeway: Great! So; it does fly.
Icheb: Oh yeah! If I’m getting this right, all I have to do is…
The sphere elevates and wings down left-sided; bumping into a wall. Icheb struggles a little bit to get it steady.
Icheb: Don’t panic! I got this!
Tom Paris: Much better; top-gun!
Janeway: Hi Bhytor! I didn’t know you were there. Do you have anything to report?
Bhytor: Yes! I do. Thamas is playing seek-and-hide.
Janeway: Does he? With whom?
Harry Kim: Vice-Admiral! I’m getting strong bioelectrical readings.
Tuvok: Gutierrez! Hold your fire…
Type-F shows up again out of thin air, pointing at the Sphere.
Type-F: Tiqanga kahu-tiaki; tiqanga hanaki piaki-papu onganalo awelawe.
(You’re the archivist) (You’ll glide sphere to help in orbit)
Bhytor: Type-F says Icheb was born to be an archivist!
Tom Paris: Really? Isn’t that something?
Thamas gets out of his hidden place making Marusos’ faces to Type-F. He runs joyful with a bottle in his hand. Type-F cracks laughing.
Type-F: Quamarike! Iqawiru piaki-papu ghatuqura!
(Kid!) (I guard sphere of knowledge)
Type-F slowly fades away dancing his music in short steps.
B’Elanna finally gets it.
B’Elanna: The big guy s in charge of clearance.