WHiMS VIII: Worst Contact

By Corporal Coral

Sorry for leaving everyone in suspense about the last ending, but I just couldn't write this one properly...!
This is dedicated to Bec and Sarah, for inspiring me to finish at last, Liz for the last line, and Rebel for being my newest yet bestest friend! Also to the girl who brought Buffy The Vampire Slayer into our General Studies lesson... because, otherwise, I might never have been bored enough to start!

The WHiMS Page ~ Email Coral ~ Coral's Stories

Last time on WHiMS VII: Desperations:
"It's pretty obvious he's sentient."
"Private, we have a problem."
"It's Chakotay. He's gone into the woods alone."
"I looove her!" Kaaathryyyn!"
"Do you hear me Michael? I'm going to delete your entire world!"
"Pampers, he's got a gun!"
"Zarf! Charon?"
"They're dead."
And now, the continuation...

Her voice cracked as she announced, "They're dead."
"My god!" Kate2 gasped. "They can't be-!" She shook her head in horrified disbelief.
Katie spun to face Michael, eyes blazing. "You - you - you zarfing hologram!" she cursed, her temper building up. "You didn't have to kill them!"
Jenn joined her, turning to face the MiB's. "You were supposed to be keeping him under control!" she railed at them.
"It wasn't our fault!" Hejira yelled, distraught. "We couldn't stop him!"
"You should have!"
"Stop it," Jay insisted, an eerie calmness in her voice. "We can argue all day, and it won't change anything."
"She's right," Puck added. "Michael... why?"
"He's after me Katie," Michael grunted, jerking a thumb in Chakotay's direction. "And *she* wants t'kill me."
"You didn't have to kill them!" Shorty shouted at Michael. She grabbed the gun from Hejira, turning it over in her hands. "Well, it's real alright..." she said glumly.
Kim turned to Shorty. "Can I see that for a moment?" she asked politely, a glimmer of hope flickering in her eyes. Distractedly, Shorty handed it over, and Kim sat down on the grass next to Charon. Wordlessly, Charon handed her the tricorder. Around them, the girls fell silent, desperate to find out what Kim suspected.
Suddenly, Puck realised something. "We've got to tell Captain Janeway!" she gasped.
The girls looked at each other, no one of them wanting to be the bearer of the bad news to the Captain. With a resigned look, Katie tapped her commbadge.
"Katie to Janeway."
"Janeway here."
"Captain, you've got to get here now," Katie said. "I'm transferring the co-ordinates to Voyager."
"I've got them," Janeway said after a moment. "I'll be there in as soon as possible."
She closed the comm channel, and the girls looked at each other, offering silent support as they waited.
@@@
Within five minutes, Captain Janeway had beamed down into the forest. Parting the branches in front of her, she stepped into a clearing, where she could see the girls crowded underneath a tree.
"Captain!" Jenna called, noticing Janeway's entrance. "Captain... we're so... so... so sorry..."
Janeway shot her a puzzled glance. "Sorry for wh-?" Her voice broke off as she noticed Chakotay's limp body lying next to Pampers. "Oh, my-!" she gasped, dashing forward to kneel on the floor beside him. "Oh my..."
Shorty placed a supportive hand on Janeway's shoulder as the devastated Captain took Chakotay's hand in hers, tears starting to roll down her cheeks.
"Who did it?" she asked in an anguished whisper, never taking her eyes from Chakotay's peaceful face. "Who?"
Coral and Hejira shared a worried look at the question. Hejira and Puck were still restraining the out-of-control hologram, but Janeway hadn't noticed his presence yet.
"It was Michael," Coral told her softly, kneeling on the ground opposite Janeway. "He - he killed -"
"He killed Pampers too!" Kate2 finished when Coral stopped.
"I don't believe it!" Janeway exclaimed. "He wouldn't! Why would he *do* such a thing?"
"'Cos I love ye, Katie," Michael said.
"Then how could you do this to me?" she demanded, standing up and turning to face him defiantly. "How could you - how could you *murder* my best friend?"
"He was takin' ye away from me, Katie. I love ye more than he."
Her hands shook with barely contained rage, and her face was a mixture of emotions. Sadness and anger warred for attention.
"You had no right!" Her eyes flashed. "It's over, Michael. I *never* want to see you again, is that understood?!"
"Katie..." he began to plead, but she deliberately turned away from him. Despite the circumstances, some of the WHiMS members smiled watery smiles.
Suddenly, Kim shrieked in delight, causing every pair of eyes to focus on her instantly. She jumped up, waving the gun under Jenn's nose.
"Don't you recognise it?" she practically yelled. "Don't you see? It's a soulzapper!"
Jenn's eyes went wide, and she snatched the gun from Kim. "Are you sure?" she asked, nervous and excited by this turn of events. "Did you do all the tests?"
Kate2 looked back and forth between the two as Jenn studied the gun in closer detail. "Excuse me, but what's a 'soulzapper'?" she asked curiously.
"A soulzapper," Jenn explained, "Is a type of gun that, instead of actually killing people, zaps their consciousness into an underground vault of some sort."
Charon looked at Jenn, hope in her eyes. "So - there's still a chance - that we could save them?" she asked breathlessly.
Jenn thought carefully before speaking. She didn't want to raise false hopes, but neither did she want to crush the only possibility that they had right now. "It's... it's possible," she admitted, "But far from certain. There's all sorts of variables."
"But... we have to try!" Jay exclaimed, a determined look on her face.
Katie nodded emphatically. "Of course! What do we have to do?" she asked.
Kim thought. "First, we have to determine where the vault is. Jenn?"
Jenn looked at the barrel of the gun whilst Kim continued, "Then, we break into the vault, locate their souls and reintegrate them into their bodies."
"Uh, how exactly do we do that?" Kate2 asked.
"Kim looked down at the ground and blushed. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "But let's get the souls first, then worry about it."
Jenn gave her a concerned look. "That might not be as easy as it sounds, Kim. This gun delivers souls to the Vault of Kellin."
"Kellin?" Charon echoed in shock. "No..!" The girls all shared anxious looks as they pondered their dilemma. If there was anyone they hated as much as Michael, it was Kellin, the pathetic Ramora that had once seduced Chakotay. However, Chakotay and Janeway had forgotten the incident - unfortunately, the girls could not.
"Tribbles! What are we going to do, Corporal?" Jay asked, turning to Coral. "We've got to try to help them somehow. We can't ignore this chance."
The Corporal drew a somewhat mushed hobnob out of her pocket and took a small bite. After chewing thoughtfully, she decided, "We go for it."
"All of us?" Shorty asked.
"Just the WHiMS," Coral clarified. "Katie, get the Tomahawk here on the double. We need to get the bodies into stasis, if I remember correctly?"
Jenn and Kim nodded, but Charon frowned. "It'll have to be fast," she warned.
"I can get the Tomahawk here in five minutes," Katie pointed out. "Is that fast enough?"
Charon thought for a moment, juggling numbers in her head. "It should be," she agreed at last.
A nervous look flitted over Hejira's face as she looked from girl to girl. "Coral, may I talk to you for a minute?"
Coral assented with an exasperated sigh. The two girls walked around behind a bush and sat on the ground.
"So, what's this about?" Coral asked shortly. She had to save Pam and Chakotay's lives: she didn't have time for this!
"I - I'm coming back." Hejira fiddled nervously with her MiB badge.
"Back," Coral stated flatly, crossing her arms and eyeing the former Lieutenant Hayes suspiciously.
"To the WHiMS!" Hejira whispered excitedly.
Coral stared at her. "How can we trust you?" she asked matter-of-factly. "You defected from us once, and now you're defecting from the MiB. Not a good track record, is it?"
"It's - I saw Michael the other day - he was... kissing Kathryn." She pounded her fist into her palm and continued through clenched teeth, "I wanted to kill him. I can't be part of the MiB anymore."
"I - I can't make this decision," Coral stalled. "Pam's the leader of the WHiMS."
"With all due respect, Corporal, the Private is dead."
"Don't say that!" Coral hissed furiously. "I'm in the denial stage at the moment, okay?!"
Hejira murmured an apology and backed off from the temperamental girl a little. "But I'd appreciate it... if..."
"I'll think it over," Coral said, "But I'm not making any guarantees here, is that understood?"
Hejira nodded and bounced back to the clearing. Coral followed at a more demure pace a few moments later.
"Where did Janeway go?" Hejira asked.
"She beamed back to Voyager," Katie answered her tersely. "Corporal, the Tomahawk will be here in one minute."
"Good work, Katie!" Coral congratulated her with a wan smile.
They sat back... to wait.
@@@
"Corporal's Log. The WHiMS members - including Chakotay and Pam - are back aboard the Tomahawk. Pampers and Chakotay are in stasis, and we're heading for the vault of Kellin with all possible speed. The MiB have returned to their HQ with Michael, to try to find out why he did what he did, and attempt to find a suitable punishment. If I get my hands on him..."
@@@
The door chime to the Ready Room sounded, interrupting the Corporal.
"Come in," she called as she switched off the recording device, and Jay the Spy walked into the room.
"You wanted to see me, Corporal?" she asked quizzically.
"Um, yeah." Coral fiddled in the desk, finally drawing out a PADD. "Ah! Here it is - a letter from Hejira. Read it," she added, handing it to the Spy along with a hobnob.
"Thanks," Jay said, sitting down in the chair in front of the desk and starting to read whilst the acting leader of the WHiMS doodled on her mouse pad. The stars outside the window streaked past as the Tomahawk forged onwards, ploughing through the inky blackness of space on her urgent mission.
Jay's head rose. "Have you... approved this?" she asked warily.
Coral shook her head in vigorous denial and lent back in her chair. "I haven't approved her request for reinstatement in the WHiMS, no. To be blunt, I don't trust her at the moment. But that doesn't mean that we can't take advantage of her offer to destroy the MiB hologrid, or that I can't be persuaded to change my mind." She sipped her coke before continuing, "She did ask me if she could return, whilst we were at Fair Haven. I can't decide though... I'm too indecisive."
"I say we get her to do this... as a sort of induction test. We don't have to follow through on our perceived 'offer' if we discover that we can't trust her." She flashed a wicked grin at Coral, who returned it.
"Jay, I've gotta hand it to you... you're brilliant!" the Corporal laughed. "But... Hej needs supplies. You're the best man - er, girl - for the job."
"Into the MiB HQ?" Jay asked, a small note of worry in her voice.
"I won't beat around the bush - it'll be dangerous, and, frankly, I'd much rather have you on this mission with us, but this is a valuable opportunity to destroy the MiB hologrid. It'll keep them off our case whilst we save Pampers and Chakotay. Besides," she added with a grin, pointing to a mangled mess in the corner of the room. "Quite a few... most, actually... of the Michael dartboards need replacing, not to mention that we're down to our last one thousand hobnobs."
Jay whistled. "That low? I think I ought to do a trip right now, in that case. I'll pick up Hejira's supplies and drop 'em off, then get some hobnobs and dartboards and anything else on my way back. If that's all right with you, Corporal, that is," the enthusiastic Spy added with a grin, glad to have a new mission.
"Go for it!" Corporal Coral acquiesced, and Jay bounded out of the room, only to stick her head back round the door a moment later.
"Coral... you know the 'i' in WHiMS...?"
"What about it?" Coral asked, confused.
"It doesn't stand for anything, does it?" the spy asked.
Coral shook her head. "I just stuck it in to make it sound better," she explained.
"Well, it could stand for 'intensely'," Jay suggested with a wide grin.
"'We Hate intensely Michael Sullivan'..." Coral mused, writing it down to see how it looked. "Brackets, perhaps?" She drew them in, and then sat back and admired the sentence. "I like it Jay! Good work!"
@@@
"Jenn, change course to a heading of 090 mark 312. We're dropping jay off at the red dwarf system about two parsecs from here. Watch out for lightbees!" Charon added with a laugh.
"Aye!" Jenn called from the helm, and input the changes. At her bidding, the large ship curved a graceful turn. "Is Jay going on a mission?"
Charon winked. "It's a secret!"
Jenn grinned. "Then I will ask no more." She groped for a new topic of conversation. "Um... how's the newest banner coming, Cha-cha?" she asked.
"It's great!" Charon enthused. "I've based the new design on the ID cards."
"Cool," Jenn commented. "I can't wait to see it."
"It's got a blue background, with white overto-" Charon was violently cut off as the ship lurched forward, throwing her to the floor. Pulling herself up, she demanded, "What happened?"
"Sorry, we've come to an ID tollbooth. I had to do an emergency stop."
"ID booth? Dammit. They always take ages!" Charon groaned.
"Charon, incoming message," Katie reported from Ops.
With a sigh, Charon turned back to the screen. "On viewer, Katie."
Two tollbooth officials, both females, appeared on the screen. In a bored voice, one of them said, "I'm Bec. Please show your ID."
"ID monitor is on," Katie said. "I'm putting them through now."
"Charon nodded once, her eyes never leaving the screen. "We would appreciate it if you could make this as quick as possible. You see, we're on a mission...."
The other official said, "Current duration of wait is anything up to 26 hours, please wait patiently and in-"
"No! Sarah!" Bec exclaimed, excitement taking the place of her previously bored demeanour. "Look at their ID's!"
Charon and the bridge crew shared confused looks as Sarah stared at their ID's as if she was looking at a genuine Kate Mulgrew autograph.
"Coral to Charon - what the heck's going on up there?" the Corporal's voice came over the commline from Engineering where she and Kim where running a warp core diagnostic.
"ID tollbooth," Charon informed her grimly.
"Tribbles! I'm on my way. Coral out."
The commline closed and Charon returned her attention to the two excited officials.
"We - we didn't realise you were the WHiMS!" Bec explained breathlessly.
"We hate Michael's guts," Sarah confided.
Charon grinned. "Us too!"
Bec whispered something to Sarah, who assumed a look of nervous defiance. She was just about to speak when Coral burst onto the bridge.
"Zarfit Charon! We don't have time for this! We've got to get to the Vault of Kellin in two hours, or their lives will be lost forever!"
"Whose lives?" Bec asked nervously.
"It's all right," Charon informed the Corporal. "They hate Michael too."
Coral grinned at the two officials. "Good for you! Michael zapped Chakotay and Private Pampers' souls to the Vault of Kellin. Unless we rescue them soon, they'll both be lost forever."
Sarah chewed her lip nervously. "We've gotta let 'em through, Bec," she insisted.
Bec nodded her agreement, then tapped a few buttons. "Okay, I'm sending you some shield modifications. With them, you can slip straight through the booth."
Coral turned to Katie, who nodded. "I have them, Corporal." Turning back to the viewscreen, Coral snapped off a smart salute. "Thank you for all your help, girls. We owe you a favour!"
"That's alright... we couldn't let Pampers and Chakotay die!" Sarah said.
"Toll booth out," Bec said, and closed the channel.
Charon and Jenn shared an exuberant hi-five.
@@@
The Tomahawk slipped straight through the booth without setting off a single alarm, and continued her journey through the endless night of space, dropping Jay off at her departure stop.
"Jay to Coral," the Spy whispered into her secret transmitter.
"Coral here," came the quiet reply.
"I've arrived... it's a little dead, but I have my shuttle," Jay said brightly.
"Good. We'll see you in a few days then. Now... I've gotta go before Katie picks up this transmission."
"Why are we keeping this secret?" Jay giggled. "It's not like the rest of the WHiMS don't know what's going on!"
"It's more fun," Coral whispered back, and both dissolved into giggles. "Now, remember, trust no holograms!"
"Except the Doctor!" Jay reminded her.
"Good luck... Coral out."
And so the transmission ended and faded from existence, the dying signal lost to the vastness of space.
@@@
"Corporal! Corporal! We're at the vault!" Kate2 shouted excitedly, bursting into the ready room with the energy of a hundred hurricanes.
Coral looked up from her half-eaten hobnob. "Thanks, Kate2. Tell Jenn to put us into stealth mode, then we'll send an away team down to locate the souls."
"Can I be on the team? Please?" Kate2 asked.
The Corporal regarded her seriously. "Kate2, I don't mean to be patronising, but this is gonna be one hell of a scary mission. Kellin, lost souls... there's no telling what else we might be up against." She smiled softly. "I don't want to lose anyone on this mission, and you've only had limited mission experience."
"But, Corporal, I'm not that inexperienced anymore! Please let me go! You'll need people who are quick and can think fast on the team. I can do it."
Coral thoughtfully bit into her hobnob and chewed it over carefully.
"Okay, okay, you can be on the team," she said, giving in. "No, go and tell Jay about going into stealth mode!"
@@@
The Away Team, comprising of Charon, Katie and Kate2, swept their Leola Root rifles in a wide arc around them, scanning for potential threats. The atmosphere was more suited for a Halloween party than anything else - a large grey vault towered above them, casting an eerie shadow in the light of the full moon. Spider webs graced the ancient and crumbling stonework, and a few dead leaves rustled in the branches of the dying trees behind them.
An animal howled, and Charon looked up the sky, gathering strength when she saw the light of the system's star shining off the Tomahawk, creating a new, bright star in the otherwise dark sky. Gripping her gun tighter, she completed a circle with her tricorder, drawing comfort from the steady beeps.
"Okay, we seem to be clear," she whispered quietly to the other two.
Kate2 gripped her rifle a little tighter. "Are you sure?" she asked nervously.
"Of course I'm sure," Charon muttered. All her nerves were on edge, and the hair on the back of her neck was standing on end.
"Let's go then," Katie said, taking a tentative step forward towards the Vault. "I assume this is the place we're looking for?"
Charon nodded slightly. "I'd say it's as good a bet as any," she said. "That sign that says 'Vault of Kellin' helps lead me to that conclusion." She shone the beam from her rifle onto the wooden sign that swung and creaked, despite the lack of a wind.
Kate2 spoke up. "It could be a trap."
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," Charon said with a cheerfulness she didn't actually feel. "I say we go."
Katie nodded. "It would be better than staying here, that's for sure," she said. "Let's look on the bright side: there could be a coffee shop in there too."
All three dashed for the door at once, eager to see if Katie's theory would be borne out.
The two stone doors creaked open at their approach, and the girls tumbled inside, falling over and over and over each other as they plunged down the steep stone steps.
@@@
Coral paced up and down the bridge, worried about the lack of communication from the away team. It had been an hour, and there hadn't even been a single message. The silence was worrying her, but they had been monitoring the away team. They still had life signs, albeit only faint ones, but Kim reported that the team had moved into a large building that was partially blocking their sensors.
"Why haven't they called?" Coral asked for the tenth time that minute.
"Calm down, Corporal," Kim said, just as she had the last few hundred times.
"They're bound to call soon," Jenn said, still as optimistically as the other times she'd said it.
Coral walked around the bridge once again.
"Why haven't they called?" Coral asked for the eleventh time that minute.
"Calm down, Corporal," Kim said, just as she had the last few hundred times.
"They're bound to call soon," Jenn said, still as optimistically as the other times she'd said it.
Coral walked around the bridge once again.
"Why haven't they called?"
Kim was just about to give her standard answer when her console beeped. Gasping, she looked down and pressed some buttons.
"Is it the Away Team?" Coral asked eagerly, dashing over to look over Kim's shoulder. "Are they in trouble?"
Kim frowned. "I don't think it's the Away Team, Corporal. It's a private message for you."
Coral looked at her curiously. "Who from?" she asked.
Kim's fingers flew over the console as she tried to find out. "There's about 10 levels of encryption to the signature file. It'll take me ages to decode. You'll be quicker just to answer the message."
With a nod of her head, Coral agreed. "Put it through to the Ready Room," she ordered.
@@@
Once there, the Corporal switched on the viewscreen eagerly, and was surprised to see-
"Jay? Is something wrong?"
The Spy looked nervously from side to side, as if afraid of being observed. "I'm in the basement of the MiB HQ, which is bad enough in itself. It's covered in spiders. But, it seems that the MiB are being haunted by someone or something... consoles keep flickering on and off, lights turn themselves on, and the hologrid nearly shut itself down, but Puck spotted it in time and stopped it."
"Typical!" Coral grinned.
"It's eerie, Coral. Really scary. I've left the stuff in Hej's room, but it was too easy. Far too easy. It was almost as if this presence was... well... *helping* me somehow."
"Or it could be a trap," Coral cautioned. She lent closer towards the viewscreen. "We've got a slight problem here too. The Away Team has beamed down to the Vault of Kellin, but we haven't heard anything more from them yet." She chewed her lip nervously. "How's your mission going?"
"I'm ready to go collect the hobnobs," Jay began, but the line suddenly terminated.
Jumping up, Coral slapped her commbadge. "Coral to Kim! What the hell just happened?"
"Sorry, Corporal, but the transmission stopped at the other end," the girl replied.
Coral sighed. "Any word from the Away Team yet?"
"No, sorry."
The dejected and worried Corporal trudged out of the door to continue her pacing.
@@@
Charon took a worried step forward into the darkness. The light on the end of her rifle had been damaged in their fall, and none of them had found a light switch yet. The little light that was cast through a crack in the ceiling barely illuminated the tall shelves of glass jars, each containing something that resembled a pale yellow cloud.
"Are those... souls?" Katie asked in an awe-struck whisper.
Kate2 shrugged nervously. "I've never seen a soul before," she pointed out, her voice a whisper too. She looked around at the jars worriedly. "There must be thousands here..."
"How are we going to work out which are the two we need?" Katie asked.
Charon pulled out her tricorder and scanned the nearest jar. "Each soul has its own, unique signature. We just have to scan... all these..."
"All of them?" Kate2 echoed.
Charon nodded in determination, and started scanning the first jars. Kate2 and Katie got theirs out too, and started from opposite ends of the room.
@@@
Three hours later, Kate2 looked up and into the darkness with a sigh. She had only two more jars to check, and the other two had already finished. Neither of them had found Pam or Chakotay yet, and she was hoping that these would be the right jars. She ran her tricorder over the first and froze.
"Match Found: Commander Chakotay," the flashing message on the tricorder screen read. Kate2 barely suppressed a squeal of delight.
Charon hurried over. "Is it them?" she asked eagerly, getting her tricorder out and double checking the readings. "This is Chakotay," she confirmed.
Katie scanned the last jar. "But... this isn't Pampers!"
"What?" Charon exclaimed, forgetting to keep her voice down. "But she has to be! It's the last jar!"
"I know that!" Katie retorted, frustrated. "But it isn't her!"
Kate2 looked at them, eyes wide in fright. "So, where is she?! She's not here!" She looked at the other two, barely able to make out their faces in the dark.
"I don't know, I supp-"
Charon was cut off by a bright glow illuminating the Vault, casting sharp shadows in the corners. Kate2 stifled a scream as she saw the large spider on the ceiling. She swallowed, and gripped her Leola Rifle harder.
An ominous creaking echoed throughout the Vault as a large wooden door swung slowly open, revealing a silhouette of a person standing, holding a gun.
"Don't move..." a voice warned them, and the girls froze instantly. "I have Neelix with me. And he's... naked."
@@@
To Be Continued...