Pulse of the Voyager’s Enigma Part two

Posted on 2025, Mon Apr 7th, @ 11:47am by Lieutenant Commander Grace Johnsen & Lieutenant La'an Hanes & Lieutenant Lillian Hansen & Commodore Emily Janeway

4,107 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: E1 "Shadows of the Empire"
Location: Voyager Commodores private quarters /Voyager SickbayBe
Timeline: Early morning hours of Voyager e/r to Meet USS Melborne
Tags: Voyager Crew, E1 "Shadows of the Empire", E1 Shadow of the Past, Season 2 Missions

The air in Commodore Janeway’s private quarters thickened into a choking miasma, heavy metal with the coppery tang of blood, the rancid rot of festering flesh, and an acrid, alien stench—scorched circuitry soaked in swamp rot—a foul testament to the pathogen that had gnawed her vitality since the poisoning seven months prior.

The command had cloaked her decline, but now, in the Voyager’s pre-dawn murk, that cloak unraveled into a torrent of carnage. She slumped against her bunk’s edge, clad only in a faded Starfleet tank top—its gray fabric a drenched, sagging ruin, saturated beyond salvage where relentless streams of inky, tar-black blood had burst through sodden bandages, pooling across the deck in a glistening, viscous swamp that swallowed her boots and smeared the bulkheads with a sticky, luminescent sheen.

The blood pulsed with eerie indigo and violet veins, a grotesque, bioluminescent flicker like a dying pulsar, pouring from a jagged wound where her cybernetic heart groaned and shrieked—a mechanical husk ensnared by the pathogen’s crystalline tendrils.

Its gears ground through the flood with a wet, guttural wail, sparks spitting as amber ichor bubbled from its corroded plating. The heart’s casing twisted and hissed, spewing sizzling globs that streaked the tank top and spattered the walls, etching acrid, smoking trails into the metal.

Dr. Grace Johnsen stood poised, tricorder humming a low, insistent drone in her steady grip, its cold metal pressing against her palm. Her calm facade—a mask honed through years of crisis—belied the storm of dread roiling in her gut, a sour churn that tightened with every passing second. Time was slipping, leaking away like the inky blood pooling beneath Janeway. The readings flickered across the tricorder’s screen, a chaotic jumble of jagged spikes and descending vitals—useless, inconclusive, a silent scream that something was catastrophically wrong.

Janeway lay before her, pale as death, her skin a mottled gray stretched taut over a frame rigid with agony despite the containment field’s faint, crackling shimmer. Dark veins pulsed beneath her flesh, threading toward the oozing gash in her chest where the cybernetic heart whined—a sickly, grinding wail—its rhythm faltering under a tide of rancid sludge that bubbled and dripped with a wet, meaty plop.
“Hold still,” Grace murmured, her voice soft but firm as she pressed fresh bandages over the gore-soaked ones Janeway had clawed loose, the fabric squelching with a sickening pop as warm pus and blood oozed through her fingers, its heat stinging her skin. “You’re not making my job any easier.” Her eyes darted to the Friesian stallion figurine—Midnight—on the table, its polished surface spattered with congealed blood, glinting in the stuttering light like a grim relic, an unblinking sentinel over the ruin—just as she stood guard over her patient. She exhaled, her breath fogging in the chilled, fetid air, steadying herself against the rising bile. Duty demanded she endures.

Janeway’s scream tore through the stillness, a guttural, animalistic howl as her nails raked the biobed, splintering its surface with a shriek of tortured metal, blood-flecked shards spraying outward. “Grace, it’s devouring me—chewing my guts with broken teeth!” She slammed her chest, the cybernetic thud lost in the wet, sucking gurgle of sludge erupting from her throat—black, viscous, and teeming with wriggling specks that dribbled down her chin, reeking of festering rot and burnt flesh. “This heart’s a trap—snapping shut, shredding me with every beat, drowning me in this stinking filth!” Her sunken, bloodshot eyes, wild with agony, locked onto Midnight, its flanks smeared with her oozing gore, a grotesque shroud over its form. “She’s watching—don’t let her see me rot!” Tears scalded her peeling face as she lunged, her blood-slicked fingers snagging Grace’s jacket sleeve, the fabric heavy and sodden with a nauseating squish, dragging at her arm with a sticky, tearing grip. Her voice ripped out in a ragged, gurgling scream: “You’re all I’ve got—Grace!” Her sobs choked on the sludge as blood and bile spewed from her chest, splattering the floor with a wet, chunky thud, her hands clawing frantically, nails splitting and oozing as she clung tighter.
Blood exploded in a relentless surge, soaking the tank top, splashing Grace’s tunic, and flooding the sickbay as her cybernetic heart shrieked—a dying machine choking on crystalline growths that sprayed amber ichor in wild, arcing jets, coating the room in a sticky, corrosive film.

Grace froze for a heartbeat, adrenaline surging as Janeway’s wails reverberated in the sickbay’s sterile expanse, a hollow, guttural roar against the smooth walls. The antiseptic tang clashed with the rot, a stench so thick it clung to her throat, her pulse hammering like a war drum.

“Captain,” Grace said, her voice calm yet edged with urgency as she rushed to Janeway’s side, her boots slipping on the gore-slicked floor with a wet squeak.

“Look at me. Breathe. Focus on my voice.” She swiftly adjusted the medical instruments, their beeps shrill and frantic, preparing a sedative to quell the captain’s violent thrashing, the biobed groaning under her spasms. “We’re going to get through this together. You’re not alone.”

Grace seized Janeway’s slick, blood-stained hand, the icy panic radiating from her captain warring with the hot, sticky pull of her jacket sleeve still clutched in Janeway’s grasp, the fabric squelching like torn flesh. “Everything’s closing in, but you’re stronger than this. I won’t let you go.” Her eyes locked onto Janeway’s, a fierce anchor in the storm, the air thick with decay.

As Janeway’s breaths rasped in wet, choking gasps, Grace used her free hand to activate a nearby console, its buttons clicking sharply under her trembling fingers. “Security, a medical emergency in sickbay!” she called, her voice slicing through the chaos. “I need a bio-scan in progress, stat!”

“On my way, Grace!” Lilly's voice came through the comms as she grabbed her medkit and rushed toward sickbay. The urgency in Grace's tone echoed in her mind as she recalled the critical training they had both undergone. “I’ll prep the bio-scan protocols and stabilize the environment,” she added, pushing through the doors of sickbay. “Let’s try to keep her calm; I’ll handle the diagnostics as soon as I get there!”

“Understood, Grace. I’m en route to sickbay now.” La'an’s reply was quick and decisive, her mind already analyzing the situation. “I’ll ensure the area is secure and that no unauthorized personnel can interfere. Keep me updated on Janeway's condition as you get more information,” she instructed, her footsteps echoing as she moved with purpose toward the sickbay. “Hold tight; help is on the way.”

“Grace—” Janeway croaked, her voice a desperate, gurgling rasp, “it’s everywhere—I’m rotting!” Her grip tightened, the sleeve squishing as her blood and pus mingled with Grace’s, seeping into her uniform with a warm, festering stain.

“Stay with me,” Grace urged, her heart pounding as she injected the sedative, the hypospray hissing against Janeway’s raw, oozing skin. “Fight it. Focus on me. Remember the radiation storm? We made it. You’re the strongest I know.” Her voice held firm, though her hands shook with the stench and horror.

Janeway’s eyes flickered, clouded with agony, her brow furrowed as the pathogen devoured her mind, her face a mask of peeling flesh and sweat. Her voice rasped, trembling yet defiant: “Grace… storm… a blur—static—but you’re my anchor. It’s screaming in my circuits, clawing my soul through this damned heart. Don’t let it win—keep me fighting—for Voyager.” Her cybernetic heart whined—a shrill, metallic keen cutting through the rot—as her gaze softened, trust flickering through the haze.

La'an always considered the crew of the USS Voyager to be more than just colleagues; they were family. As she watched Grace struggle to keep Captain Janeway tethered to reality, her heart ached with concern. The captain was a lighthouse in the storm, a beacon of hope that guided them through countless serendipitous escapes. Faced with the specter of losing her, La'an felt anger rage inside her—a primal urge to protect her captain at all costs.

A low growl escaped her throat as she paced the cramped sickbay, pacing like a caged predator. The walls seemed to close in, echoing the storm outside; the ship hummed violently, rattling under the strain. The pathogen was merciless, threatening to pull Janeway under, and La'an would be damned if she stood by and did nothing.

“Grace, you’re doing everything you can!” she shouted, her voice echoing confidence amidst the chaos. “Janeway is a survivor. She’s faced worse and come out stronger. We can’t lose her to this! We need to find the source of the pathogen and neutralize it before it consumes her completely.”

She activated her communicator, her fingers steady despite the turmoil around her. “La'an to Engineering. We need a level-one containment field in Sickbay. There’s a radiation spike, and I need to ensure nothing breaches this area. If we lose Janeway, we lose hope. We can’t let that happen.”

Turning her gaze back to Grace and Janeway, she felt a pulse of determination ignite within her. "Fight, Captain! You’ve faced storms before, and we’ve always triumphed. This is just another battle, and you will not fight it alone."

As Janeway's breath shuddered with pain, La'an stepped forward, ready to defend her captain with every ounce of her being. Whatever it took, she would not allow the darkness to claim Janeway—not while she still stood.

Lilly’s hands trembled slightly as she adjusted her bio-scanner, her brow furrowing in concentration. Each reading that flashed before her eyes was a grim reminder of the battle Janeway was waging within. Watching Grace work with such urgency, she felt the weight of their situation bear down on her shoulders like a heavy shroud. They had all looked to Janeway for guidance in their darkest hours; she couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.

“Come on, Captain, fight it!” Lilly murmured under her breath, willing her thoughts to resonate with Janeway. She glanced at Grace, who expertly handled the hypospray, each injection a lifeline thrown into a maelstrom. “We’ve pulled through worse, remember?” she echoed the captain’s own memories. “Think of the nebula we traversed together—how you led us through to safety against all odds. You can do this! We won’t abandon you!”

The medical bay was filled with the pulsating rhythm of the ship’s systems, the sound a constant reminder of their precarious situation. Lilly moved closer, her focus sharpening as she scanned for biochemical anomalies—the virus harbored within Janeway's cybernetic core was bound to show signs of weakness.

“If we can isolate the pathogen, we might be able to use a modified strain to counteract its effects. Just hold on, Captain,” she advised, her fingers flying across the controls. An incident report from earlier flashed in her memory: a trip through the Delta Quadrant that had tested their mettle. Janeway had coaxed the crew to unity, and Lilly saw that same fire in the captain’s eyes even now, masked as it was by pain.

“Grace, I need you to keep her talking,” Lilly instructed, stealing a glance at La'an, whose fierce energy provided a grounding force. “Janeway is strong, but we need to give her something to focus on. While you’re keeping her anchored, I’ll try to initiate a counter-treatment, but I need all hands on deck!”

A surge of determination coursed through Lilly. They were more than just crew; they were a family drawn together by battles won and lost. “We will get you through this, Captain. You are Voyager, and you will not fall!”

With hope igniting within her, Lilly leaned in closer, prepared to fight as fiercely as Grace and La'an. If Janeway was the heart of their ship, she would do everything in her power to save it.

Grace steadied herself, adrenaline surging, her senses razor-sharp in the blood-soaked chaos. The air thickened into a toxic haze—metallic and bitter, then cloyingly sweet, twisting into a sulfurous burn that seared her lungs and left a gritty sting on her tongue. Her posture stiffened, shoulders squared beneath the teal tunic—now a sodden ruin clinging to her slender frame. Her auburn hair bore wisps that danced in the pathogen’s searing heat, framing a face where resolve battled exhaustion—lips pressed thin, brow furrowed with deep lines of strain. The pathogen’s assault raged: indigo and violet splotches throbbed across Janeway’s torso, their luminescence radiating heat that singed the tank top’s straps, then a frigid chill that frosted the blood-drenched biobed. The cybernetic heart faltered, its hum a piercing wail syncing with the pathogen’s subsonic roar—a bone-shaking dirge laced with alien hisses—churning Grace’s stomach.

The wound shimmered with iridescent slime, crackling with static arcs that snapped against her gloves, while crystalline shards erupted from Janeway’s chest, spraying blood in glistening arcs that streaked the air.

“Captain,” Grace said, her voice steady but taut with urgency as she braced Janeway against the biobed, her boots squelching in the gore. “Look at me. Breathe—focus on my voice.” Her fingers darted across the console, prepping a hypospray; the sleeves of her tunic rode up to reveal sinewy forearms streaked with blood and scars. “We’re in this together. You’re not alone.” She clasped Janeway’s icy, gore-drenched hand, the neurotoxic tingling prickling her skin, her knuckles whitening as she braced against the tank top’s sodden weight. “I know it’s closing in, but you’re stronger than this. I won’t let you go.” Her hazel eyes locked onto Janeway’s, a lifeline cutting through the blood-streaked gloom.

Janeway’s breaths rasped in wet, shuddering gasps, each exhale spraying a mist of inky blood that stung Grace’s face, flecking her cheekbones with dark motes. “Grace, it’s everywhere,” she croaked, her voice ragged and fraying. “The darkness—in the circuits, whispering—” Her grip tightened, nails digging into Grace’s flesh as the cybernetic heart sparked, its plating buckling under the pathogen’s amber ichor, spraying jets of corrosive filth that coated the tank top’s singed remnants in a bubbling crust.

“Stay with me,” Grace urged, her pulse pounding as she jabbed the hypospray, her sleeve snagging on the tank top’s dripping hem. Her free hand stabbed the console, barking, “Security, medical emergency in sickbay! Bio-scan, stat!” The scanners’ frantic beeping drowned in the pathogen’s guttural roar—alien clicks and moans threading into her mind, amplified by the heart’s dying screeches. Sweat trickled down her temple, mingling with the blood on her face; her breath caught as the stench clawed her throat raw.

Janeway’s eyes flickered, a fleeting spark piercing the haze, then faded as the sedative took hold. Her thrashing slowed, her gaze dissolving into blank, glassy stares—vacant voids, pupils swallowed by darkness, staring into nothing. “It’s all—communi… cating,” she slurred, her voice a thick, disjointed mumble, words splintering into surreal fragments. “Web… spiders spin the stars… clocks tickin’ in my ribs… Midnight’s hooves… clatterin’ the void…” Her head lolled, yet her gore-slicked hand clung to Grace’s with a desperate, unyielding grip—fingers trembling, slick with blood, but locked tight as if Grace were her last anchor. Inside her delirious, sedative-fogged mind, a haunting refrain looped endlessly: “Hush-a-bye… don’t you cry…”—a fractured, silent rendition of “All the Pretty Horses” sung to herself, her lips twitching faintly with the ghostly melody. Sobs melted into garbled murmurs—“Threads… twistin’… heart’s a drum… eatin’ shadows… stars bleed purple…”—as ultraviolet flares burst from her chest, searing Grace’s retinas with jagged glyphs and scorching the tank top’s drenched front, though her blank eyes remained fixed, unseeing.

“I know,” Grace cut in, fierce, her voice rising above the din as she straightened, her silhouette a beacon amidst the gore-slicked ruin. “We’ll break it. You won’t be swallowed.” Tears mingled with sweat and blood as she pressed the bio-scanners, her hands trembling yet resolute; the teal tunic was a sodden wreck clinging to her frame. The air thickened with an ionized tang, sparking on her tongue with a bitter sting. “Hold on, Captain. Just a little longer,” she said, her grip steady against Janeway’s unrelenting hold, their hands fused in a lifeline of blood and defiance as they waited, the sickbay’s sterile hum a frail whisper against the carnage.

Janeway’s murmurs frayed into incoherent whispers—“Clocks… spinnin’… spiders weave the dark… hoofbeats in the wires…”—her body slumping, yet her grip on Grace’s hand held firm, unyielding. Within her mind, the silent song looped on, “Blacks and bays… dapples and grays… all the pretty horses…”, a fractured lullaby weaving through the delirium, her lips quivering faintly as she sang it to herself, over and over—a ceaseless thread of comfort amid the chaos.

Grace stood vigilant, her hazel eyes darting between Janeway’s vacant stare and the bio-scanners, her chest tight with strain as the wait stretched, the room a shimmering morass of gore and ichor. The crystalline tendrils hummed and writhed, their eerie chime blending with the cybernetic heart’s faltering whirs—a fading pulse in the storm. The doors hissed open at last, and medical security stormed in—boots splashing through the blood-soaked mire, voices sharp with urgency, their silhouettes cutting through the haze. Janeway’s internal song persisted, “Hush-a-bye… don’t you cry…”, looping silently in her mind, her grip on Grace unwavering even as the team closed in, surrounding the biobed with hurried precision.

The sickbay trembled as the ship groaned under unseen strain, the lights flickering with a sickly yellow pulse. Grace’s hands, slick with Janeway’s tar-black blood, hovered over the console, the sedative barely dulling the commodore’s thrashing. The cybernetic heart screeched—a jagged, mechanical death knell—its crystalline tendrils pulsing faster, weaving deeper into Janeway’s chest like roots burrowing into cursed soil. Lilly’s bio-scanner whined, its readings fracturing into static as the pathogen defied every known protocol, its alien signature twisting into something alive, something aware. La’an’s growl reverberated, her fists clenched as she scanned the shadows, sensing a presence beyond the sterile walls.

Suddenly, the heart stopped. A deafening silence swallowed the room, the biobed’s alarms flatlining into a single, mournful tone. Janeway’s body slumped, her bloodshot eyes rolling back, the indigo veins beneath her skin dimming to a lifeless gray. Grace stumbled back, her breath hitching, the hypospray slipping from her trembling fingers to clatter against the gore-smeared floor. “No—no, she can’t—” Her voice broke, drowned by the weight of failure.

Lilly’s scanner fell silent, her face ashen. “It’s over. The pathogen… it’s burned itself out. She’s gone.” Her words hung like a shroud, the air growing colder, heavier, as if the sickbay itself mourned.

La’an slammed her fist against the bulkhead, the clang echoing like a gunshot. “She was our captain! We don’t just let her—” She froze mid-sentence, her eyes narrowing. A faint hum pulsed through the deck, a vibration so low it rattled their bones.

Grace turned, her gaze locking onto Janeway’s still form. The cybernetic heart twitched. A single, grinding click echoed, then another, as if something inside it stirred. The crystalline tendrils shivered, retracting into the wound with a wet, sucking slurp, leaving behind a jagged scar that glistened with unnatural light. Janeway’s chest heaved—a sharp, ragged gasp tearing from her throat. Her eyes snapped open, no longer bloodshot but glowing an eerie, electric violet, pupils slit like a predator’s.

“Captain?” Grace whispered, stepping forward, hope warring with dread. But the figure on the biobed didn’t respond. Janeway’s lips curled into a slow, crooked smile, her voice rasping out in a guttural, dual-toned hiss—hers, yet not hers: “Grace… it’s quiet now. Too quiet.” Her head tilted unnaturally, the movement jerky, as if pulled by unseen strings.

Lilly’s scanner flared back to life, its readings spiking into the red. “This isn’t right—her vitals are… they’re not human anymore!” She backed away, her medkit crashing to the floor.

La’an drew her phaser, her stance rigid. “What the hell did that thing do to her?”

The lights dimmed, plunging the sickbay into a flickering twilight. Janeway—or whatever wore her skin—sat up, the tank top shredding as crystalline shards erupted from her shoulders, glinting like shards of a broken mirror. Her glowing eyes fixed on Grace, unblinking, and she whispered, “I came back… but something else came with me.”

A low, guttural laugh bubbled from her throat, not Janeway’s but something ancient, something wrong, as the sickbay doors hissed shut, sealing them in with the thing that had clawed its way back from the void.

The sickbay stank like a slaughterhouse left to rot—coppery blood, sour pus, and something worse, something swamp-black and electric that singed the back of Grace’s throat. The lights buzzed and flickered, throwing jaundice-yellow shadows over Commodore Janeway’s thrashing body. Her tank top hung in sodden tatters, soaked through with tarry blood that oozed from the jagged hole in her chest. That damned cybernetic heart screeched like a gutted cat, its crystalline tendrils squirming deeper into her flesh, glowing a sick indigo that pulsed like a bruise on the world.

Grace’s hands shook, slick with Janeway’s gore, as she jammed the hypospray into the commodore’s neck. It barely slowed her. Janeway’s nails raked the biobed, splintering it like cheap pine, her voice a wet, howling rasp: “It’s chewing me, Grace—gnawing my guts with broke-glass teeth!” Black sludge bubbled from her mouth, speckled with wriggling things that plopped onto the floor, stinking of death and burnt wire.

Lilly’s bio-scanner whined like a kicked dog, its screen fritzing into static. “Pathogen’s alive,” she croaked, her face gray as ash. “It’s thinking.” La’an growled low, pacing the shadows, fists balled like she could punch the devil itself outta this mess.

Then it stopped. The heart quit its screaming, and the biobed’s alarms flattened into a single, lonesome wail. Janeway slumped—eyes rolling white, veins fading to dull slate. Grace staggered back, the hypospray clattering to the blood-smeared deck. “No—no, she can’t—” Her words choked off, drowned in the silence that fell heavy as a coffin lid.

Lilly stared at her scanner, dead now too. “It’s done. Burned out. She’s gone.” The air turned cold, thick, like the room was holding its breath. La’an slammed the wall—bang—and froze, head cocked. A hum started, faint and deep, rattling their teeth.

Grace turned slow, eyes locked on Janeway’s corpse. The heart twitched. Click. Then click again, like a key turning in a rusty lock. The tendrils shivered, slurping back into her chest with a wet, sucking pop, leaving a scar that shimmered like oil on a puddle. Janeway’s chest jerked—a ragged gasp tore outta her throat. Her eyes snapped open, glowing violet, slits for pupils, like something that’d crawled outta a bad dream.

“Captain?” Grace whispered, stepping closer, her heart hammering with a hope she didn’t trust. Janeway didn’t answer. Her lips peeled back in a crooked grin, and her voice came out double—hers, but shadowed by something old and gravel-deep: “Grace… ain’t it quiet now? Too quiet.”

Lilly’s scanner screamed back to life, redlines spiking. “She ain’t human no more!” La’an yanked her phaser free, boots planted. “What’d that thing do?”

The lights dimmed to a flicker, and Janeway—or whatever she was—sat up. Her tank top shredded as crystal shards punched through her shoulders, glinting like cracked mirrors. She fixed those predator eyes on Grace and hissed, “I came back, darlin’. But I brought company.”

A laugh rolled outta her, low and wrong, like stones grinding in a dry well. The sickbay doors slammed shut with a hiss that echoed like a gunshot. Grace’s breath caught as that laugh grew, filling the dark, and something unseen scratched at the walls—slow, deliberate, and closing in.

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