A Real Hot Coffee Night, part four
by Jennifer Ferris
For disclaimers and author's note, see part one
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As the music segued from one song into another, and then another, Kathryn leaned back a little to look at Chakotay. He ran his thumb down her back, lingering at the sensitive spot just near her spine. "You ready?"
Janeway looked at her first officer with eyes just a little too bright. "Oh, I think so."
"Finish your drink," Chakotay murmured. "It's probably a good idea if you're a little intoxicated. For what I have in mind."
Kathyn smiled lazily and took another sip. "That sounds...interesting. Let's go. Maybe you can--"
Her comm badge chirruped discreetly.
Janeway fished it out of her pocket, her expression suddenly switched to neutral. "Janeway here."
"I'm sorry to interrupt, Captain," Tuvok said. He didn't sound very apologetic, she thought crossly. "The virus we detected earlier appears to be spreading. I believe we will need to institute a ship-wide sweep to ensure decontamination. There is...some urgency to the matter," he added with characteristic understatement.
"Damn. All right, Tuvok. I'm on my way."
She broke away from Chakotay and hurried over to the bar. The relaxation of a minute ago was gone. "I need a Vack," she ordered, naming the alcohol neutralizer (nicknamed "Vacuum" for some impenetrable reason) commonly used in Starfleet.
Sandrine, the hologram, was programmed efficiently. There was no flirtatious banter now. A stim shot materialized on the bar.
Chakotay was at her side. He picked up the hypospray. "You won't need this, Captain. You didn't even finish your drink."
Her eyes flickered to him. "I didn't finish this drink."
"Oh. Okay. Hold still."
Janeway turned her head slightly, exposing her neck. Chakotay injected her quickly. She frowned a little. "Let's go."
As they headed for the door Chakotay hesitated. He touched his comm badge. "Chakotay to Tuvok."
"Tuvok here."
Chakotay kept his voice down. "How bad is the damage? Should we clear out the holodeck?"
"That is probably not necessary," Tuvok answered. "But as a precaution...I would recommend it."
Janeway answered for them both. "Understood." She turned back to Chakotay.
He nodded. "It's done. Go on, I'll be there in a minute." He turned back to the room at large. "Computer, eliminate music and holographic characters.
Instantly half the population was gone. "People. We've got a problem."
Tom Paris pushed his way through the group. "What's up?"
"That damn virus is replicating itself through half the systems on the ship. We don't know the full extent. You're with me, Tom. We're needed on the bridge." Chakotay's eyes sought Torres in the rush of murmuring crew. "B'Elanna--"
Torres moved forward. "On my way. I'll coordinate from there."
Chakotay nodded. "Right. Ayala--where are you--okay. You're for sickbay. Sigrid--head down and give the Delaneys a hand. Make sure SC and sensors are locked out of the main grid. We'll work on it from the bridge too. That's a priority. Um--everybody who needs one, grab a Vack. Then check in with your section chiefs. We might not have much time. Move it, people."
The crowd scattered. "Tom, let's play this safe." Chakotay trotted toward the turbolift, Paris beside him.
"Okay," Tom nodded. "How do you mean?"
"I'm heading for the bridge. You come up the tube. In case the lift goes out."
Paris nodded. "Makes sense. How come you get the easy way?"
Chakotay grinned without looking at Paris. "Because I thought of it. Live with it."
"Feeling your age, Commander?" Paris taunted as he turned down the other corridor.
Chakotay ordered the lift to the bridge. "Not lately," he said to the wall, smiling.
It was controlled chaos when he emerged from the turbolift. The tactical console was scattered in components over the floor, engineering was a mass of warning lights, Joe Carey was disassembling the primary helm station. Janeway was in conference with Tuvok. Her eyes flickered in acknowledgement at Chakotay's arrival, but she didn't interrupt her security chief. Tuvok was frowning, just slightly, saying something about a "non-biological infestation" that Chakotay didn't quite catch.
Janeway looked toward the helm, then back at Chakotay. He nodded, and crossed over to hunker down beside Joe Carey.
Carey shook his head at Chakotay. "Commander."
"Not your night, Joe?" "Huh. Yeah. Torres called me in my quarters and sent me up here. Before the comm system went out," he frowned. "She's looking for a pattern. When I got to the bridge Sam showed me this." The engineer pointed toward a readout that reminded Chakotay of the incomprehensible gibberish they'd gotten this morning from tactical. "And it looks like it's spreading. We're going to have to decontaminate every gel pack in every computer junction on this ship." Joe looked sick, and Chakotay didn't blame him. If they could isolate each system, then treat it individually, they could beat the virus. But it was going to be slow and tedious. If they were lucky.
"Well," Chakotay shrugged fractionally at the engineer, "that's what they pay us for."
Carey laughed, a short little bark. "Yeah."
Chakotay took a moment to look around. There were more people on the bridge than usual, even during alpha shift. Delta was usually only manned by ops, tactical, and helm. They must have all gotten calls from Tuvok. He watched as Seven nodded once at the captain and turned toward the turbolift, hesitated fractionally, and headed for the jeffries access instead. Just as she got there, the hatch opened and Tom Paris pulled himself out. There was a little dance, almost comical, as Seven backed out of the way and Tom tried not to climb over her. Finally the pilot freed himself and Seven lowered the hatch as she left the bridge.
"Over here, Tom. Joe, fill him in, would you? I'll be right back." Chakotay stood up, automatically brushing himself off although there wasn't really much debris around the helm station. Yet.
Janeway caught his eye and motioned him across the room, near her ready room door where they wouldn't be in the way. Her eyes scanned the room continually, a frown just visible between her brows. Chakotay probed cautiously. "What does Tuvok say? Have we caught this in time?"
"Maybe. I have a feeling we'll be working all night. Not quite what I had in mind," she eyed him ruefully. But before Chakotay could even respond, 'Kathryn' was tucked neatly away and the captain stood beside him. "It's not good. We're so vulnerable to this type of damage. Even with all the backups-"
"I know." Chakotay scanned the bridge as he spoke. "All right. What do you need first."
She nodded. "Thanks. The worst problem is communications. I can't tell what everybody else is doing because the comm keeps going out. Harry called in. He knows as much about the helm/engineering interface as anybody and I asked him to give B'Elanna a hand. I sent Seven to sickbay to make sure the doctor is downloaded. We can't afford to have our med program corrupted."
That mental image was irresistible and Chakotay rolled his eyes, but when he spoke he was all business. "I'll round up some runners. Do that first. At least we can find out a little more about what's going on." "That'll help."
"All right. Let me-" Chakotay searched the room for someone they could spare. Sam Wildman was standing near the lift. Chakotay touched Janeway's arm briefly and excused himself. "Sam?"
Wildman turned around. "Commander."
"You feeling fit tonight?"
She eyed him warily, but shrugged. Chakotay nodded. "Good. Okay. First thing. Get down to three, round up some security people and send them up here on the double. Tuvok can't get through on the comm and he's having a fit." They both grinned at this unlikely description as Chakotay continued. "We need runners. Have them pick teams, send anybody up here who they can, the rest at least one per deck. We need to get the message out *fast* about unlinking the mains from the central computer core. Joe's got some padds you can take, have them copied, make sure everybody gets one. It'll fill people in."
"Yessir. Anything else?"
He spared a moment to ask. "Where's Naomi?"
"She's all right." Wildman frowned. As much as anybody, if they didn't get this under control. "Neelix agreed to stay with her. She likes him better than me, anyway."
Chakotay grinned in understanding. "Kids. All right. As soon as you spread the word, make sure somebody coming up here knows where you're heading. I'd suggest that relay on five. If you can isolate SC at that junction we might not lose our database. We really don't want to do that," he added mildly.
Wildman hesitated, in case there was anything else. Chakotay shook his head. "Go."
She left without a word, heading for the jeffries tube that had gotten more traffic tonight than in a month. Kathryn was over talking to Tuvok again. Whatever it was, she was shaking her head. Tuvok didn't look too pleased either. Chakotay decided he'd better find out what else was wrong.
"-assuming we can get this under control, I want to have a meeting scheduled first thing tomorrow morning. We can *not* have this happening again." Janeway's voice was mild, but Chakotay was glad he wasn't on the receiving end. In Tuvok's eyes, that mild reprimand would be a shot across the bow. Close across the bow.
"Understood, Captain. It will be a...very high priority."
Without speaking, Janeway nodded to Chakotay, and looked at the helm again. Chakotay crossed to get an update from Carey. "Joe?"
"Well..." Carey grunted as he and Paris worked to physically disassemble the helm from tactical. "It looks messy...hand me that one, Tom," he pointed to a circuit casing. "But without relying on the main computer, we've got to isolate this by hand. At least we'll still have helm control."
"Can you do it?" Chakotay squatted down to get a look under the console.
Carey looked as if he was trying not to sneer. "Of course I can do it. One of the first things we learn after basics. They throw every disaster in the book at you, including losing the computer. Every station can be made independent up here, it just takes time." They tugged at a stubborn relay. "And a little elbow grease."
"I know that, Joe," Chakotay agreed. "What I meant was...can you do it."
"It hasn't been that long, Commander." Carey was offended. Then he actually looked at the first officer.
Chakotay was grinning. Carey flushed. "Shit. You had me going. Yeah, I can do it."
"I know. Well. At least we can steer. Now if we can keep some sensors online-" Chakotay stood up and looked over at ops. Immelman was the relief watch officer, and he looked like he was in over his head a little. He started toward the operations console, a little damage control of his own in mind.
The comm panel stopped him, suddenly crackling with sound. "-to the bridge. Torres to Janeway. Can anybody up there hear me?"
Janeway breathed a sign of relief. "Janeway here. Report."
"Captain, we've got it. We've got it. It's a damn tapeworm. It's been communicating itself from one system to the next, it's replicating at a rate of-well, it doesn't matter. Because we can make it eat itself."
Eyes flashing, Janeway glanced over at Chakotay. "Explain, Lieutenant."
"This has got to be a leftover from...well, at your convenience, Captain, we should discuss what got this thing started. But I've been able to access the code that replicated the virus. I'm testing it now on a closed system. If it works, we can download this program one at a time into each system on the ship. It'll eat the virus. I think."
"B'Elanna..." Janeway didn't hide her delight. "If you're bucking for a raise, this is a good time to ask."
Torres was grinning. They could hear it in her voice. "I'll get back to you on that, Captain. But I come pretty high."
"I'm sure you do, Lieutenant." Janeway leaned against the wall, eyes twinkling, her captain's mantle firmly in place. "I think we can come to terms. Let me know as soon as your test is complete."
"Will do, Captain." A small commotion could be heard in the background and Torres' voice came faintly through the open link. "Yeah, Sandy? Good. Good. Captain," the engineer's voice returned full strength. "It's a go. I repeat, the test results are confirmed. The tapeworm is history. We can initialize the run on each system any time."
"Understood, Lieutenant. We'll have to coordinate the schedule. Stand by."
"As soon as you're ready. We'll--No--Sandy, don't touch-oh shi" And the comm to engineering went dead.
Janeway sighed. After a moment she looked back at Chakotay. "Commander?"
"Captain." He walked up the ramp toward the ready room.
"Looks like we're going to need those runners after all."
"Yes," he agreed. "If the test results are confirmed--"
"I'd put my money on B'Elanna." Janeway scrubbed a hand over her face, her fatigue showing for the first time.
He smiled. "That's a sucker bet. I'm not-um, I'll go on down there. Find out whatever that was, see if we can get the comm system up."
"All right. I'm sorry. But-" she looked around the bridge. "It's either you, me, or Tuvok. Everybody else seems to be a little busy." Even through her worry, she managed to find a smile.
Chakotay nodded gently. "I don't think Tuvok would take kindly to being asked to run messages."
Her expression shifted. "Tuvok-"
He held up a hand. "Has other things on his mind right now, I imagine. I don't mind. --This may take a little while."
"Call me as soon as you can."
"I will."
The trip to Engineering took a hell of a lot longer when you were climbing ladders all the way down, Chakotay noted absently as he worked his way down. His attention was focused on the bridge, ticking items off a mental list, trying to think of what they might have missed. With luck, B'Elanna would have a good report for them.
She did. In contrast to the harried bridge, Engineering was almost calm. Torres was standing beside her main console, studying readings as he walked in. "B'Elanna? I hope you've got good news for me."
She looked up. "Actually I do."
"What about the comm system?"
"It'll be up in a minute. Sandy..." she rolled her eyes. "Well, you wouldn't believe what Sandy did. He just accidentally...uh, well, he just overloaded one bank. We still had the tests online. We've had to cross-circuit four relays here to back it up. But it'll be fine."
Relieved, Chakotay grinned. "And where's Sandy?"
"Never mind," she said darkly. "Let's just say he won't forget this for a while."
"B'Elanna-"
She smiled sweetly at Chakotay. "My department, remember?"
"-Right. Okay. You need to call the captain as soon as possible."
"All right. Where you headed?" She accessed the console controls as she spoke.
"Stellar. I want to make sure we haven't lost the-"
"Wait a...yeah. There it is. The board is green."
Pleased, Chakotay reached out and punched the intercom. "Chakotay to Bridge."
"-Janeway here. Good to hear your voice, Commander."
"Captain. B'Elanna tells me the system is up. Repeat. As far as we can tell, the whole system is up. Can you confirm?"
"We'll check. Don't go away." Chakotay waited. In only a few minutes, Janeway activated the comm again. "Everybody's checking in. Looks like we're operational. At least the comm is."
"That's a step in the right direction," Chakotay nodded in appreciation at Torres. "Captain? The tapeworm has worked on every system down here. Engineering's clean."
"Why don't you bring it up here then, Commander," Janeway ordered. "Until we've completed decontamination, I don't think we should send it through the comm. We don't want to contaminate our 'cure'."
"Understood, Captain. On my way."
Torres loaded several PADDS with the tapeworm program and walked with Chakotay to the jeffries access. He eyed it with a grimace, thinking of the long climb to the bridge. "You sure we can't test the turbolift relays first?" he asked, only half-kidding.
"Come on," his chief engineer teased. "Weren't you telling me just the other day how young you were feeling?" She punched him playfully in the arm.
Chakotay resisted the urge to rub his bicep. At least not while Torres was watching. "I could always order you to go instead," he pointed out.
"I don't think so," she grinned. "Somebody has to keep an eye on things down here. In case something else goes wrong."
"You don't have to sound so happy about it," Chakotay grumbled as he squeezed through the hatch. "Call the bridge, will you? Tell them I'm on the way."
"Okay." As he started the ascent, Torres poked her head inside the tube and called up after him. "Take your time, old man."
He ignored that. Might as well do a proper job of it. He stopped off at astrometrics, weapons control and sickbay, handing over the padds and reminding everyone to test the program before reconnecting to the main computer. Even with the tapeworm initiated, this was going to take a while.
From sickbay he called the bridge. "Chakotay to Janeway."
"Janeway here. Commander? Did you forget something?" Janeway's voice was very mild.
"Uh, I'm on my way, Captain. Stopped off to make a couple checks." Silence. He pushed a little. "And they're making the decks a little further apart than they used to."
The comm system must be back at optimum. He could hear Paris laugh over the open line. Janeway's voice was quiet. Amused. "Take your time then, Commander."
"I'm on my way. Again."
By the time he got to the bridge, pushing himself a little, he was ready to call it a night. Not that he'd admit it. Janeway looked over from her command chair as he exited the tube. "I was beginning to think you'd decided your shift was over, Commander."
Chakotay hid a smile. "I considered it, Captain. But I'm bucking for a promotion. Trying to impress the boss."
She folded her arms. "You just kept the boss waiting for almost an hour. I think you're going to have to work on that a little."
The amused flicker in Kathryn's eyes told him better than any systems check that the situation was improved. "Sorry. I thought I'd better check in with a few departments, make sure they knew the procedure."
Janeway nodded, back to business. "Good idea."
"How are we doing up here?"
She swiveled in her chair, looking back at ops, then over at the helm. "We're on impulse, we're flying with half sensors, and Tom says the secondary helm feels like he's swimming through molasses."
"Honey, actually," Paris offered. "I said it felt like swimming upstream through honey."
"I didn't ask him where he got the data to make the comparison," the captain shook her head.
"Well, if you really want to know," Paris said, grinning, "there's this little cabaret on Risa where..." He stopped, remembering all the extra ears on the bridge, some of whom would think it was a real good idea to trot down to Engineering and tell tales. "That is, I've, um, heard about it, somewhere..." His voice tapered off and Janeway glanced at Chakotay, grinning.
Chakotay dropped into his seat beside her, relieved. If Kathryn was joking, things were going well. Better, at least. He took a closer look at the cannibalized helm station in front of him. "You mean you can drive with that?" he asked Paris.
The pilot turned around. "I can fly anything, Commander. Of course..." he glanced back at the makeshift controls. "...don't ask for any fancy turns. And I think we'd better keep away from planets for a while."
Janeway leaned back in the command chair. "I think we can manage that much. So," she looked over at Chakotay, "Torres has her department under control?"
"Of course, Captain."
"And departments all over the ship have been checking in. We've got to sit tight through the rest of the decontam, but that shouldn't take more than another hour."
"Good. What else do we need up here?" Chakotay rubbed a hand through his hair and across his face. He was sweaty, and it felt like the air processors up here were still off line. A hot shower sounded like a very good idea.
Hiding a smile, Janeway got out of her chair, stretching. She peeked out of the corner of her eye as Chakotay watched her. "I think you've earned your brownie points for one evening, Commander. I'll hold the fort here until the tests are finished. It shouldn't take too long. Why don't you go get cleaned up--"
"That bad, huh?" He looked down at himself.
"-and get some rest."
"Thank you, Captain," Chakotay shook his head. "But I'd probably better stick around in case of--well, just in case."
"No need. Go on. You've earned it."
"Captain...I'd as soon stay put. I'll feel better knowing we're back on line."
Pleased, Janeway nodded. "All right. Well. Another hour, everybody. Then a good night's sleep. You've all earned it." She passed by the helm, giving Tom's shoulder a squeeze, and headed for her ready room. As she neared the door, she stopped. "As for me, I think I'm going to get something to drink. It's definitely a...real hot coffee night."
The rest of the bridge crew wondered why Chakotay was suddenly grinning.
FIN
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