Script Segments 4-15-97 Star Trek Voyager Episode: Coda Adaptation by Patti Keiper Written by Jeri Taylor Chapter Five --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Janeway sighed, "We're out of range." Swallowing around her tight throat she said, ""I'd still like to really know what happended to us. Send a subspace message that we won't be landing on the planet. Tell them that we'll be looking for evidence of temporal anomalies." A perimeter alert warbled stridently. Janeway called up the imformation on her screen, "I see a ship approaching at high impulse. It's on an intercept course." Chakotay qualmed, "Is it Vidiian?" "Yes." she confirmed. Chakotay began to hate his memory of the attack. The first officer calibrated his screen to match what data Janeway was receiving, "I've got it. It's a warship loaded with weaponry. It's closing fast." The captain considered options, "Can we outrun it?" Chakotay was game, "We could try." And ugly, spindled starship rippled out of warp to hover over the small shuttlecraft just completing an evasion turn. It began to dog the fleeing ship only a dot before it. Janeway didn't like what she was reading before her, ""They're two hundred thousand kilometers away and gaining." Chakotay chose a plan, "Setting evasive pattern Delta Four." Janeway's voice rose another notch, "They're powering weapons. Shields up! Stand by all phaser arrays." The Vidiian ship pirate's forward weapons bay began to glow ominously. Then the green fire leaped free to envelop Sacajawea. Janeway and Chakotay were buffeted violently against their consoles multiple times. Chakotay was grim, "Shields down to eighty four percent." Janeway launched a counterattack, "Returning fire!" Scarlet beams sliced the intervening space between them before arching into the exposed center of the Vidiian vessel. The raiders' shields flickered and the hull beneath rocked from the shots for a long moment. Then the enemy slipped out of range. Chakotay grinned like a hawk, "Nice aim!" Janeway wasn't satisfied, "It didn't stop them." The return fire was fiercesome. Bulkheads groaned and began to buckle under stress. Several companels burst into smoke. Chakotay shouted over the screeching whine, "We've lost shields!" Captain Janeway reciprocated, "Firing starboard array!!" The Vidiians next shot jolted her hand away from the controls before she could commit her coordinates. Both were bucked nearly entirely away from their stations. The damage report information was coming in all too clear. Chakotay growled, "That one hit the reaction injectors!" "Shut them down! They'll leak anti-matter!" Janeway ordered. Another barrage jarred Sacajawea and this time did not ease. Chakotay's voice was strained, "The magnetic fields are failing! The gas flow separators are down!"" Janeway turned from her panel, "Dump the core!" Time seemed to slow. Green plasma mingled with the red only briefly before their violated energies flared a hundred fold. Sacajawea imploded into fragments..... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Then reality skipped and suddenly, Janeway and Chakotay faced each other once more in an undamaged ship. Their only horror being a hideous realization that they both should have been very dead. Kathryn shook off a vague paralysis, "It's looking more and more like we're in a time loop. The question is, how do we break it?" Chakotay looked equally stunned, "Let's retrace our steps. Get back to that part of space we were in before all this started happening." "Agreed." she said. "If we are experiencing a temporal field.. A tachyon burst might disperse it." Her hands flew over the controls. A soft tone announced a sensor contact on her screen. Chakotay.." she began. He called on an unfamiliar hauch. "Let me guess. It's a Vidiian ship." "Two Vidiian ships, " she verified, "Still twenty million kilometers away but headed right for us.." Her anger grew. Their location was known so Chakotay toggled a switch, "Sacajawea to Voyager, do you read us?" The audio pickups crackled, "....just come into comrange, commander." Chakotay couldn't help grinning. Tuvok's rich baritone was welcome. The first officer filled him in, abbreviating, "We're being pursued by two Vidiian ships. Set a course for our shuttle and have weapons powered." Captain Janeway added more, "We also believe we are experiencing some kind of temporal phenomenon, a time loop. Make certain you scan for anomalies." She wasn't about to have her ship risking the same deja vu trap she was in. She trusted Mr. Paris' uncanny piloting skills to keep things safe. Tuvok was efficient, "Aye, captain. We're on our way." Chakotay felt a real sense of urgency, heightened by the strange memories that he knew couldn't be real, "If you are going to emit that tachyon burst, you'd better do it now. In a couple of minutes, those ships will be right on top of us." Janeway finished the final algorithm, "Here goes." A ring of light fled Sacajawea and a blue nimbus expanded into space along all points from her center array. The effect dampened out Kathryn's sensors, "I can't tell if it's effecting anything." Chakotay was still tracking live contacts, "The Vidiians are almost within range. Ready weapons." The two marauders separated to flank the shuttlecraft for the kill.....and shimmered into non-being. Chakotay blinked, "What happened?" "They just vanished." she answered, "But I am picking up a residual temporal signature." He nodded, "Then those ships must have been part of the time loop." Kathryn smiled. "And the tachyon burst disrupted it." Chakotay ws caught up in her relief, "Not a minute too soon. I was getting awfully tired of talking about talent night." The captain sighed, suddenly really glad to close that particular chapter of temporal shinannigans. Now, all she had to do was erase a couple of annoying overlapping half memories, and things would be back to normal. "Voyager to Sacajawea. We will rendevous with you in approximately four minutes." Tuvok updated. Janeway grinned, "Believe me, Tuvok. We're looking forward to it." ------------------------------------------------------------------ The turbo lift doors opended on Deck One aboard Voyager. The bridge crew turned to meet the new arrivals. Captain Janeway took in the sight of what was blissfully normal activity on deck. She and Chakotay made their way to the command area before the main viewer. Tuvok stepped forward, "Good to have you back, captain." "Good to be here. I'd still like to get the bottom of whatever was happening to us on that shuttle." She paused by the deck rail, "Did Voyager detect any evidence of a temporal field?" Tuvok regarded her carefully. She seemed healthy. He lifted a respectfully curious eyebrow but he answered her question, "To my knowledge, we did not." "Let's run a second level temporal scan. I'd feel better entering this part of space if I knew what caused the phenomenon." the captain decided. At the helm, Harry Kim and Tom Paris exchanged puzzled glances. B'Elanna Torres spoke from her science terminal, "Phenomenon? I'm not sure what you mean, captain." Janeway clarified, "The time loop, or whatever it was we ran into out there..." She looked to Chakotay to help her out. She didn't quite understand the incomprehension on his face. "Time loop?" her science officer asked. Janeway swept fingers through her hair. She looked around the cluster of officers surrounding her. "We told you. Chakotay and I experienced some kind of temporal loop. It involved the Vidiians. They'd attack and kill us and then we'd be sitting in the shuttle again..." she prompted Chakotay, "Tell them." The first officer looked confused but he spoke, "We were on our way to the second planet of the binary system..." Janeway agreed with the account, "... to collect some nitrogenase compound. But we encountered a storm and we crashed..." "And then we were attacked by the Vidiian but we managed to escape and get back here.." he nodded cautiously. Tuvok angled his head, "You and the commander were checked by the doctor, who treated your injuries. And you proceeded here to the bridge..." The rest of the bridge crew grew uncomfortable. "But I don't remember anything about a repeating time loop." Chakotay admitted. Kathryn's sense of normalcy shattered and a sick dread made her feel nauseated, "You don't remember how we kept ending up back in the shuttle talking about talent night?" She felt alienated among them. Janeway felt herself grip the rail in front of her, "Then I'm the only one who recalls things differently. Something strange is going on here. " She met Chakotay's worried look, "I'll have the doctor examine me." She pulled some semblance of control as she went back to the turbolift, "In the mean time, I still want those temporal scans." she commanded. Commander Chakotay noticed no work was getting done on the bridge, "You heard the captain. Let's get moving.." he snapped. Tom flashed a mock spooked look at Harry and swiveled back toward the forward viewscreen.