Season 5: Episode 5 TBR069 – The Void

 

Just as with Voyager years before the Potemkin found themselves flying through a natural void in the Milky Way, a strange phenomena in which no stars had been created in this section of space, indeed not only no stars now but never. It is an interesting stellar feature… for about a week and then the boredom sets in and the crew look for other ways to entertain themselves. Luckerly for the Potemkin they were bigger and faster than the Intrepid class Voyager and were able to cover more distance in that week than she could manage in a month.

Pax, using Voyager’s own records, made a beeline towards the vortex that a species called the Malon had used to travel into this part of the void in order to ‘dump’ theta radiation, a by-product of anti-matter reactors. It was this radiation that ‘clouded’ sensors and visual inspection of the stars beyond the voids boundary.

Arriving at the coordinates of the vortex they find only wreckage. No energy readings that suggest a subspace vortex had ever been here. It was disheartening for sure but they would investigate, in case there was a way to reopen it. They would start with the wrecks, a large theta tanker had been mostly destroyed, around it were smaller ships of a design Voyager identified as being native to the Void, somehow having evolved here. The question of how this was possible had not been answered and might never be!

With Transporters bening unreliable with this much radiation the Delta Flyer New Angeles was opted as the best choice. With the powerful sensors of the Potemkin now being augmented on the runabout they were able to get a reading on several compartments that still had an atmosphere, if no other life support.

They were surprised when they arrived at the largest of the compartments to find that there was an active containment field covering a breach large enough for them to fly through. There is no gravity but the Flyer touches down and magnetizes to the hull while the crew make their way to two artificial… scrap structures or maybe shelter is the word for what they were.

The away team was not prepared for zero gravity operations and it shows!

They quickly discover that there are people alive, even though they don’t appear on their sensors. The creatures, it was quickly discovered, communicated using a small music device. Simora was able to alter her tricorder to create the same tones and using the small sample that the Doctor on Voyager had created they were able to make contact. The away team were confused at first for the crew of the Voyager.

The confusing part, really for the crew of the Potemkin was that these creatures had not been encountered here by the Voyager but rather in another kind of void, a pocket universe Voyager had fallen into. But now they were here, alongside an alien species that had evolved here. The Fantome, or Accapellans, as so named by our Doctor, were known throughout as a kind of stowaway species. Highly intelligent yet without a known homeworld. This is maybe why they had come to this region. The native species appeared to have suffered more from the radiation poisoning, dubbed the ‘Night people’ they were all hurting badly. 

Whatever the case it was amazing that the dozen of them had survived for so long, bringing a backup generator online to power the containment field and finding a supply of emergency rations. Now it seemed Potemkin had arrived just in time for they were out of food and the generator was low on power.

The away team all agrees that they must get them back to the ship and into sickbay as quickly as possible, they were not long for this life otherwise.

Back on the Potemkin, long range sensors pick up readings that could suggest another vortex, it is several days away even at maximum warp but if it were a way to cut out almost a year within the Void it was worth the detour to investigate. Once the New Angeles had docked and their new guests had been carted to sickbay Pax ordered a course set.

Several days later

The Potemkin had managed to make contact with a Night People ship and transferred their guests aboard. After what the Fantome had done for their people they were welcomed aboard. The exchange was brief but it did give the crew a sense that the Malon had never really left and that this ‘new’ vortex had appeared a little time after the first had been destroyed.

Potemkin approaches the vortex and detects three large and judging by the sensor readings heavily armed transport ships.

The Malon.

They were not in a talkative mood and clearly the stories of Voyager had penetrated their culture enough that they didn’t seem to have the intention to talk. The only way through was the Vortex, which the crew concluded would in fact take them to the far side of the void and back on their course with only a few light years’ margin of error. 

Pax was in a wrathful mood and if they weren’t going to talk he wasn’t going to beat around the bush, he took the ship to battle stations and flew right towards the Void. The direct course took the two smaller ships by surprise as they had tried to flank them, even getting in range to fire before the Potemkin was gone.

The Big ship was a different matter, it managed to fire a salvo or two which drained half the shield strength. Fire was returned, phaser lashed out and detonated on the quickly depleting Malon shields, torpedoes destroyed what was left and several hull breaches rocked the large Malon vessel, a torrent of theta sludge spilled from the tanks and the Potemkin was through. A salvo of quantum torpedoes detonated just as the energy ships were traversing the vortex tunnel collapsed it for good and destroyed a trio of hostile ships too.