JUGGERNAUT
Season 5 : Episode 115
Part A

A Malon freighter moves through space somewhere in the Delta Quadrant, leaking theta radiation as it goes about its mission to dump its cargo of toxic waste at a designated site.

In the control room, one of the crew, named Pelk, holds a model spacecraft and pretend-flies it around, making pretend flying noises. Pelk, playing: "Alert, alert, decompression on platform 684. Brace for hull rupture. Thrusters are down. We're going to crash! Arghhh!" To Controller Fesek, the captain: "Hey, what do you think? Look at the detail on the dorsal plating." Fesek: "Impressive. Are you sure you're willing to part with it?" Pelk: "I just hope your boy enjoys it as much as I do." Fesek: "I'm certain he will, if we make it home in time for his birthday." Pelk: "We'll make it." Fesek: "If you and Sivad had a child of your own, you'd have an excuse to play with toys more often."

Suddenly alerts sound. Playing with toys is over, this is the real thing. Pelk: "I'm detecting a fluctuation in tank 4. There's a full scale rupture in progress!" Fesek: "Isolate the deck. Activate the emergency containment field." Pelk: "The emergency systems are offline."

"Here?! There's an inhabited system-"

Fesek: "Backup controls are down too. Eject the tank." Pelk: "Here?! There's an inhabited system-" Fesek: "We have no choice!" Pelk: "The ejection ports aren't responding." Fesek: "Impossible." Dremk: "There's another rupture forming, in tank 6."

"I didn't sign up for core labour."

Fesek: "We'll have to send somebody down there to seal off the tanks manually. Contact the theta core." Pelk tries to. "Communications are down." Fesek to Dremk: "Get down to the injector pod and seal those tanks." Dremk: "I didn't sign up for core labour."

Fesek: "I'm giving you an order." Dremk: "I'll be contaminated."

Fesek: "NOW!" Dremk leaves reluctantly.

Elsewhere in the sector, aboard USS Voyager, Torres has been ordered by Chakotay to Tuvok's quarters for meditation tutoring. Tuvok carries over his lit meditation lamp to where Torres is standing by the window. Tuvok: "The flame, like emotion, is a primitive force. Left unchecked, it's chaotic, destructive, but if controlled it can be a powerful tool. The lamp controls the flame, as you must learn to control your emotions." Torres: "I lost my temper. No big deal." Tuvok: "You destroyed the Doctor's holographic camera."

Torres' anger from that incident is still with her, barely suppressed: "I told him three times to leave engineering, but he kept buzzing around snapping pictures for some photo essay." Tuvok, quoting the title of the photo essay: "'A day in the life of the warp core.'" Torres: "I apologised, and I replicated him a new camera."

Tuvok: "You have a long history of emotional volatility. The point of this exercise is not to atone for past transgressions, but to prevent future ones." Torres: "You can't order someone to meditate." Tuvok: "Commander Chakotay thinks otherwise."

He moves over to the table, thus indicating that she should join him. She huffs and sits down. Torres, offering only unwilling co-operation: "Are my eyes supposed to be open or closed for this part?" Tuvok: "Whichever allows you to focus your mind." She closes her eyes. "Envision the flame burning within you." Torres stifles a chuckle: "Sorry." Tuvok: "The flame grows hotter. A point of white light. Follow it backward through the years to a time when you were younger, a child." Torres chuckles again. "Is there something amusing, Lieutenant?" Torres: "I'm sorry. An image just flashed through my mind - you as a child, those pointy little ears. You must've been cute." Tuvok, not amused: "Indeed."

Tuvok: "Please follow my instructions or we'll discontinue this exercise." Torres: "Right. Me. Childhood. How old?" Tuvok: "Your earliest memories. Try to recall a time when you experienced uncontrollable anger." Torres is surprised at the memory that comes to her: "Daniel Byrd?" Tuvok: "I beg your pardon?" Torres explains: "He was one of my classmates in grammar school. He was always terrorising me. He used to point at my cranial ridges and tease me about being half-Klingon. He called me Miss Turtlehead." Tuvok: "That angered you." Torres: "Of course it did! So I attacked him once, during recess, on the gyro-swing. I disengaged the centrifugal governor." She speaks more quickly as the clear memory goes through her mind and she relives the enjoyment of revenge. "He was spinning so fast, he almost flew apart. Then I yanked him off the swing and started pounding his little face. If Miss Malvin hadn't showed up, I probably would've-" Tuvok: "Describe the anger you felt at that moment." Torres: "I, I wanted to hurt him, to take revenge for all the humiliation he caused me." Tuvok: "Your anger was a source of strength. It protected you, gave you courage." Torres: "I suppose it did." Tuvok: "And when the Doctor tried to take a holo-photograph of you?" Torres: "I was annoyed. He kept getting in the way." Tuvok: "The rage within you runs deep. It's been with you for many years." Torres: "I'm not a Vulcan. I'll survive." Tuvok: "Whatever you say, Miss Turtlehead." Torres: "What did you say!" Tuvok: "You're easily provoked. You must learn to master your emotions." Torres, fed up: "I've had enough mastery for one day." She gets up." School's out." She stalks out.

Paris enters the Bridge. Paris: "So, how'd it go with B'Elanna today?" Tuvok: "Our meditation sessions are confidential." Paris: "No, I'm not asking for sordid details. I just want to know if you think you can help her." Tuvok: "Her training will be a challenge for both of us." Paris: "Take it from me, getting B'Elanna to control her temper is like convincing a Ferengi to leave his estate to charity."

Kim: "Captain, we're receiving an automated distress call." Janeway: "Origin?"

Kim: "Co-ordinates: 121 by 268. Range: two billion kilometres." Chakotay: "Who's sending it?" Kim: "I can't tell."

Janeway to Kim: "Let them know help's on the way." To Paris: "Set a course, Mr Paris."

Later they arrive at the co-ordinates and see on the main viewscreen a number of alien escape pods.

Tuvok reports from his instruments: "Thirty-seven escape pods." Paris reports from his: "They're contaminated with theta radiation." Chakotay: "Malon?" Janeway: "Possibly. Lifesigns?" Kim checks the scanners: "Two, but they're erratic." Janeway: "Beam them to Sickbay. Initiate bio-hazard containment procedures."

Tuvok: "Theta radiation has affected a radius of six hundred million kilometres." Janeway: "Source?" Tuvok: "A Malon freighter travelling at high impulse. It appears to be abandoned."

Voyager's Sickbay. They recognise the two survivors as Malon, following encounters with members of the species earlier that year.

Tuvok: "I thought we'd seen the last of the Malon." Janeway: "I guess they're looking for new places to dump their toxic waste." Doctor: "Do we know what happened to their ship? Were they attacked?"

Janeway: "I'm just as curious as you are. Can you revive either of them?" The Doctor gives one of the unconscious patients a hypospray injection. hypospray injection Immediately the patient regains consciousness. "I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway."
The patient introduces himself in return: "Fesek." He coughs. "Controller Fesek. Where am I?"

Janeway: "You're on my vessel. We responded to your distress call." Fesek: "My ship?" Janeway: "It's heavily damaged." Fesek: "Where?" Tuvok: "Three million kilometres from here."

Fesek: "That's too close. We've got to get further away!" Janeway: "Calm down, calm down. Tell me what's wrong with your ship. Why did you abandon it?" Fesek: "We were on a waste export mission." Tuvok: "Dumping theta radiation." Fesek: "Two of the theta tanks ruptured. Systems malfunctioned one by one, communications, navigation, propulsion. We had no choice. Radiation was venting from every port. Over sixty crewmen died within minutes. It was chaos. We stumbled through the gas to get to the escape pods. Only a few of us made it." Fesek looks around. "Where are the others?" Janeway: "The two of you were the only ones we found alive."

Fesek is sad but there is something urgent to deal with: "Listen to me very carefully. The fact that we're still here means the ship hasn't exploded, yet. When it does, over four trillion isotons of antimatter waste is going to ignite. Everything within three light-years will be destroyed."

Janeway taps her combadge. "Janeway to the Bridge." Chakotay, via comms: "Go ahead." Janeway, via comms: "Put at least five light years between us and the Malon freighter quickly." On the Bridge Chakotay tells Paris: "You heard her, Tom." Janeway, via comms: "Send out a sector-wide alert. Warn any other ships in the vicinity to evacuate immediately."

Bridge. Paris: "Our warp field just collapsed." Kim: "All this theta radiation - it's disrupting subspace." Chakotay: "Can you re-initialise the field?" Torres: "Negative."

Janeway, having heard all that: "Tuvok, without warp drive there's no chance we'll clear the blast radius." Tuvok: "Agreed." Janeway, via comms: "Mr Paris, set a course for the freighter. Full impulse." Paris, via comms: "Aye, Captain." Contact ends.

Fesek, appalled at hearing they are heading straight for his stricken freighter: "What?!" Janeway: "If we can't outrun your ship, maybe we can disable it." Fesek: "Every deck has been contaminated. Anyone who goes on board will liquify within minutes." Janeway: "We'll find a way." Fesek: "We? I'm not going anywhere near that vessel." Janeway: "You can either stay and help us, or I'll send you back to your escape pod. Your choice." Briskly to the Doctor: "Clean them up, Doctor. I need them on the Bridge." She leaves.

Voyager's bridge. Janeway: "How long until those storage tanks explode?" Torres: "Approximately six hours." Janeway: "Can we get an away team on board?" Tuvok: "The freighter's hull is intact. Life support appears to be operational. However, thirty-three of forty-two decks are flooded with high levels of theta radiation." Fesek: "Including the control room, which is where we'd have to go to re-establish containment, as I told you." Torres: "We could beam on to one of the lower levels where there's less radiation, and vent the contaminated sections one by one." Chakotay completes her notion: "Clear a path to the control room." Fesek: "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but if what you're considering were possible, we'd've tried it before we abandoned the ship. We have years of experience aboard freighters of this gradient." Torres, sharply to Fesek: "Your experience is what got us into this mess in the first place." Janeway rebukes her: "That's enough, Lieutenant." Fesek: "Maybe there's another way." Janeway: "I'm listening." Fesek: "Four hours from here there's a nebula that could protect us from the blast. We could alter course, wait there until after the explosion." Janeway checks the scanners: "There are at least three other ships in the sector. What about them?" Fesek: "I don't see what we can do." Torres, angrily to Fesek: "So hundreds of people become contaminated because you're not willing to clean up your garbage." Janeway, sharply: "Lieutenant." She orders Chakotay: "Assemble an away team. We're going over there." Pelk: "Wait!" Chakotay turns back. Pelk tells Fesek: "Tell them about the Vihaar." Janeway to Fesek: "What's he talking about?" Fesek: "Nothing. It's a myth." Chakotay: "What kind of myth?" Fesek: "It's an old story shared among freighter crews. Some of them say they've seen creatures in the theta storage tanks." Torres: "Creatures?" Fesek: "Created by radiogenic waste. According to the legend, they're poisonous monsters that wreak havoc aboard Malon ships." Pointedly including Pelk: "It's a common belief among our more superstitious recruits." Pelk, stung by Fesek's implied accusation: "I never believed it myself, but during the evacuation some of the crew people saw something - a form." Fesek: "Hallucinations are one of the first symptoms of theta poisoning. You know that." Pelk: "Maybe. Then how do you explain what happened? We checked every system." Torres to Pelk: "You'd say anything to get out of going back to that freighter." Pelk: "If you'd been there, you'd be afraid to go back too."

 

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