by Michael S. Higgins

Voyager shuddered, surging against the line of energy that hooked her prow. The beam splashed across the saucer, seeping into crevices and grasping at edges, and the opening in the planet-sized sphere behind the starship began to pulse with yellow light.

Captain Katherine Janeway’s eyes were dark with anger and surprise. No one had the right to man-handle her ship like this.

The deck swayed, and the impulse engines, already rumbling under the strain, began to whine ominously. Katherine clamped her teeth against the vibration and cursed softly at the damage such a sound portended. The impulse reactors must be out of phase.

Why would a simple hail generate such an aggressive response?

Tuvok stood at the tactics console, his knuckles pale from the strain of maintaining his position. Katherine watched his expression sour as new data flickered on his screens.

"What’s our distance from that doorway?" she called out. He raised an eyebrow and called back, "953 kilometers…" Tuvok paused as the ship rocked again, and then continued "…and diminishing. At the current rate of descent, we will be pulled inside in approximately six minutes."

"And if we shut down the impulse engines?"

"Two minutes fifty-seven seconds."

Another beam lanced out from the sphere and began dragging the ship backwards. Golden light poured from the enormous opening and filled the Bridge, giving Katherine’s face a pallid yellow tint.

"Raise the shields," she commanded calmly. The Vulcan’s brow furrowed as he studied the displays.

"The tractor beams are interfering with our shield generators," he replied without looking up. "I cannot raise the shields."

"Weapons?" she asked a bit more brusquely. He powered up the phasers and nodded. Katherine looked to Commander Chakotay at the helm and barked, "Bring us around to face that doorway." She remembered an old adage from the Academy, "there’s a time for diplomacy, and a time to fight. Which one you choose often depends on which end of the phaser you’re on."

Or what you’ve got to lose.

Katherine straightened her jacket with a tug and climbed into the command chair.

"Harry, any communication from the Feynman?" Ensign Kim stood behind the Operations Console, his mouth set in a tight line.

"I’ve lost contact, Captain. Lt. Paris and the shuttle are still beyond visual range…" Harry glanced at the main viewscreen and the doorway looming larger. "…and the sphere is flooding all frequencies with information I can’t resolve. The system can barely keep up. I don’t have a single channel free."

"Keep trying, Harry." Katherine glared at the enigmatic object on the screen, settled her hands firmly on the arms of her Command chair, and opened a channel to engineering.

"B’Elanna; I’m shutting down the impulse engines, but I want all available power directed to propulsion in case I need them back in a hurry."

"Aye, Captain, but there’s a fluctuation in the impulse engines that I can’t control. The tractor beams are affecting the shielding in the reactors." The engineer’s voice sounded annoyed. "Should I attempt repairs?" Katherine’s eyes narrowed as her ship heeled around to face their unknown assailants. Her voice took on a duranium edge.

"No. I need you on the Bridge right now. It looks like we’re going to have to teach whoever’s inside this thing how to treat a lady."

#

Tom Paris completed his scanning reports and tucked the aeroshuttle into a tight turn around the gravity generator. Flying the Feynman was not as demanding as guiding Voyager between the stars, but it was a heck of a lot closer to the one-man starships he loved at the Academy. It felt good to be flying alone.

The equipment on the shuttle hadn’t told him much about this alien construct. The sphere had a wispy atmosphere clinging to the low points on its gently curved exterior, but the scanner readings showed no sign of life on the surface. There was, however, evidence of intense gravometric energies at work beneath the object’s skin. Flattened disks protruded like broad plateaus at equidistant points around the sphere, and each radiated enough gravitons to make instruments erratic and piloting tricky. That unusual radiation had brought Voyager here in the first place—Tuvok pinpointed the emissions and assumed that only a singularity could produce such focused graviton streams. Tom smiled, remembering the look on the Security Officer’s face when they’d dropped out of warp to find this immense grey ball drifting alone in space instead of a spinning wormhole.

It was nice to see Vulcan smugness crack once in a while.

The dull metallic surface slid smoothly beneath the window, marred occasionally by a trench running off into the distance or a brown, pocked stain where a meteorite had shattered. The dating equipment aboard the Feynman confirmed what Voyager’s sensors surmised—this construct was millennia old.

The strange stars of the Delta Quadrant appeared one or two at a time above the dim horizon line as he headed back to the starship. A brighter light, like a sun rising, suddenly glowed beyond the rim. Tom leaned forward as an uncomfortable realization settled home.

This sphere didn’t orbit any sun.

That bright spot was Voyager.

She was ablaze with yellow light, standing nose first above a square opening in the surface. Three beams of energy tangled around the hull and pulled her ever closer to the doorway. The forward phasers flashed fire into the light, and Tom saw debris drifting past the starship’s glowing flank.

"Paris to Voyager!" The comm screeched with noise on all frequencies—sounds and patterns the Feynman’s computer couldn’t comprehend. Tom tried again, but with the same results. He could only watch as his ship—his home—was pulled completely within the enormous sphere. Four triangular doors closed quickly behind her nacelles and the yellow light from the interior grew dimmer. Tom muttered under his breath and pushed the shuttle to maximum impulse, rushing towards the diminishing "X" of light. Proximity alarms wailed and he was forced to stop only meters away from the vanishing opening.

He couldn’t make it.

The massive doors came together silently before the Feynman’s nose, leaving only phaser burns and the three glowing pinpoints of the tractor beam projectors as they pulled back within their housings and shut down.

Voyager was gone. Tom cursed long, hard and with feeling.

#

"Continue to focus on the gantry to the left!" Katherine squinted against the flash of fire striking the docking gantry just beyond the edge of the Voyager’s nose. Red light played along the metal nest of hoses and beams and left them smoking and twisted, finally disabled after three sustained shots from their forward phaser banks. Using torpedoes was out of the question—the blowback would damage Voyager as much as the target. Proximity alarms went off as two more docking gantries latched enormous claws onto her belly. One final gantry reached out for their upper hull and Tuvok trained steady bursts upon it.

Katherine watched with distaste as the claw latched onto Voyager’s duranium hull with a metallic *thunk*.

"Captain, we have another problem," called Tuvok as he continued to fire at the mechanism holding them captive.

Katherine’s response was laced with exasperation. "You mean beyond being forcibly yanked into alien drydock by a planet-sized object we can’t even classify?"

Tuvok frowned and fired another burst. "Yes, I do. This chamber is rapidly filling with a water and sodium chloride compound."

Chakotay turned from the helm with a look of surprise and offered, "Saltwater?"

Tuvok made a quick comparison and looked from the Captain to the Commander. "Seawater, to be precise. The compound is very much like the standard composition of Earth’s oceans."

The grey-green water poured from freighter-sized vents, and pooled against the doors that had closed behind the warp nacelles. Tuvok noted with some consternation that "down" appeared to have shifted dramatically from the starship’s bow to her stern. How could gravity be shifted on such a large scale? The seawater rose as the chamber flooded, and foamed around Voyager’s main body. The back half of the starship was quickly submerged.

Chakotay stood and watched as water lapped over the forward view screen and sizzled around the phaser-heated docking gantry. The metal split with a boom, and the top half of the docking claw began drifting downwards towards Voyager’s tail. It fluttered like a huge metal leaf, leaving gouges in the hull and a trail of steam bubbles that dissipated into the rapidly diminishing air pocket above the nose of the ship.

The viewscreen dimmed as the last of the air vanished. A shadowy "X" appeared in the wall ahead of them—four new triangular doors leading to the interior of the Sphere were opening in front of Voyager’s nose. Light from the docking chamber poured into the watery darkness beyond and Tuvok’s sensor panels lit up with a multihued flash. Voyager creaked as a tremendous mass of water settled onto a hull designed to keep pressure in—not out. Alarms screeched and Tuvok’s fingers darted over his controls. The familiar sparkle of defensive shielding began to push the water away, but it stopped well short of the normal shield radius.

As soon as the doors completed their opening sequence, another metallic *thunk* reverberated through the hull and Voyager began slipping slowly backwards. The impulse engines whined to life with a hail of bubbles, and the ship lurched forward to hang in the dark doorway.

"The docking claws have released us, Captain." Tuvok stepped away from the shield controls and examined the data streaming in from the sensors. "This chamber appears to serve as a ‘waterlock’ entrance to the interior. Voyager can maintain hull integrity if the shields remain operative. They will not, however, be able to serve us in any defensive capacity at this depth."

"At this depth?! Tuvok, we are barely beneath the skin of this…station." Katherine shifted her hips forward and stepped out of the Captain’s chair to walk towards the viewscreen. The turbolift door opened and B’Elanna Torres walked quickly over to the Bridge’s Engineering station while Katherine looked over Chakotay’s shoulder at the data on the helmsman’s console. "The pressure of the water around us suggests that we are miles below the surface. How is that possible?"

B’Elanna stepped up to the rail with an unhappy expression on her face. "I don’t know how it’s possible, but it’s bad news for Voyager. Impulse engines will operate in this environment, but we will have to go slow to keep pressure off of the shields. The structural integrity fields in the hull will buckle if the shields fail. Phasers will be difficult to focus, and unshielded torpedoes will suffer the same fate as Voyager at this depth." B’Elanna shook her head. "We need to get the ship out of here, Captain. We’re easy prey under these conditions."

Katherine raised her arms in frustration. "Give me options, people. Until we can figure out who brought us here and how to open the door behind us I need to know what WILL work in this environment."

#

Neelix watched with growing discomfort as Voyager pulled forward into the darkness beyond the inner doorway. The Captain was trying to get them to shallower water, but that meant traversing completely uncharted territory—away from the gate toward the center of the sphere. The running lights had been lit and Neelix was still trying to decide if that was good or bad. Only shadows reached the space he could see. He normally considered the majestic view from the lounge window a perk, but then again the vastness of space seemed less threatening than the current expanse of water pressing inexorably down on them.

The water was far from lifeless and that didn’t help. Wispy, tentacled shapes drifted by, translucent and bizarre. Eyeless fish swam close, oriented on the starship with uncanny accuracy, and then turned away.

Another shape glided forward and paced the starship. Neelix glanced in that direction, and then did a double take as it slipped closer. It was humanoid and tendrils of light surrounded its long head.

"Oh my," he stammered as the alien swam up and put her webbed hands against the shields glimmering outside. He tapped his chest twice before he located his comm badge, and then remembered he didn’t need to do that onboard the ship.

This just FELT like an off-ship excursion.

"N-Neelix to Janeway: There’s something in the lounge I think you ought to come see." There was a short pause and then the Captain’s voice, tinted by frustration, called out. "Could you be more specific, Neelix? We’re a little busy up here." He smiled at the creature on the window and tried to look non-threatening and non-scared at the same time.

"There’s a fish-woman watching me from outside the lounge window."

#

"You must not go to the undeep, Outsiders. The Douri will find you," repeated Ti’an urgently. This conversation had a difficult beginning, but improved after some sensor adjustments. Now Ti’an’s voice boomed from the lounge speakers as the communication system translated her subsonic tones into a range the crew could comprehend. Janeway, Harry Kim, and Neelix continued their conversation as the "fish-woman" floated in a haze of bioluminescence.

There was a certain exotic beauty, and a power to how she carried herself, that gave her words earnestness and sincerity. Ti’an was about a meter and a half long, with a muscular body and overlarge, webbed feet. The pale whitish-green of her face faded into darker tones of grey-green behind her small earholes. A body-hugging suit covered her from neck to ankles, leaving only her head, hands and feet exposed to the water. Each of those hands had five digits, but the middle and index fingers were elongated and webbed almost to their tips.

"And these Douri control your world’s technology? Did they open the gate and capture us?" Katherine asked carefully. Ti’an looked in, uncomfortably, and shook her elongated head as the glowing strands around her face whipped and twisted.

Ti’an spoke. "No, they do not yet control or understand it. But they awakened it. They are trying to control the ancient technology—and they will try to control you, too."

Ti’an shifted sinuously in an unseen current and looked from face to face. Janeway pursed her lips for a moment, and then carefully settled into one of the lounge chairs facing the window. "Are you saying that we were captured by accident?"

Ti’an nodded slowly. "The Douri did not seek you out—they didn’t know what they might catch. They are not like my people, not content with what they have." Ti’an’s wide, gold-flecked eyes focused on the Captain. "Snaring you is fortune beyond hope for them."

Katherine absorbed this with a sigh. "Why would the Douri want us?"

Ti’an’s voice took on a sing-song quality as if she were telling a bedtime story. "The Ancients brought the Douri here, to Lantaenar, several generations after they settled my people. We are the Panar. The Douri hated the Panar because we were first. The Ancients were great travelers, and journeyed far in their Ships-of-the-Outside, ships like yours—but they would not give that secret to the Douri. This added to the Douri’s fury. Eventually the Ancients journeyed outward and did not return. The Douri hunted us and tried to build Ships-of-the-Outside for themselves. So we moved to the deeps where they could not follow. It has remained thus for a hundred generations."

Katherine shifted forward in her seat and opened her hands in a gesture of entreaty.

"We were brought here against our will, Ti’an. We do not wish to cause you any difficulty, but we must go back outside. Our worlds, and a member of my crew, await us there. If the Douri can tell us more about the technology that opens that gate, then we must speak to them." Ti’an’s expression became one of horror and anger. She pushed off of the shields with an electric blue shimmer and rhythmically flexed her legs to keep pace with the ship.

"The Douri cannot have you, Outsiders. They will learn how to control your ship and hunt us in the deep places, too. The Panar cannot let this happen." With a flick of her feet she was gone, speeding into the darkness with a ripple of silver and green. Katherine sighed and raised fingertips thoughtfully to her lips.

"Janeway to Senior Staff:" she called, "meet me in my ready room in five minutes." She looked at Harry and Neelix, stood up, and headed for the door. "Gentlemen," she commented dryly as they boarded the turbolift, "why do I get the feeling this situation is not getting any simpler?"

#

The Captain strode into the room and headed for the end of the table. "Give me everything we’ve got. I want facts, conjectures, gut feelings, intuitions...everything." She sat quickly in her chair and waited a moment while everyone else took their places. "Chakotay?" The Commander sat back in his chair and looked troubled.

"I watched your discussion with Ti’an. She was genuinely concerned about the consequences of Voyager meeting with these Douri, and genuinely angry that we continued forward. I’m afraid we’ve stepped into the middle of a dangerous struggle between two cultures." He leaned in and looked around the room at each of their faces. "They may force us to pick a side before it’s all over." Katherine shook her head.

"Not if I can help it. The Prime Directive was established to keep us out of that type of situation." She turned to face Tuvok, who sat tapping commands into a padd.

The Vulcan looked up from his calculations, stood, and moved to the display console on the wall. "Captain, you are aware of the limitations this environment has put on our propulsion, shields and weapons. Our scanning systems, however, remain largely operational. I have been able to ascertain much about how this artificial world is structured." He touched a key on the padd and a spherical model appeared. A quarter-slice pulled out to reveal a layered structure with a glowing sun-like ball in the center. That sun was surrounded by an small open area, and then a sea of blue-green that stretched outward to the jagged interior edges of the sphere. On the outside surface, flattened disks bulged at regular intervals.

"Lantaenar is built like an inside-out world," Harry offered with an appreciative glance.

Tuvok nodded. "Precisely. We were attracted to this location by the strong graviton emissions emanating from these points." Tuvok pointed out the flattened disks, and continued. "They are located at equidistant positions along the outside of the sphere, and appear to serve two purposes. They generate a gravitic field strong enough to reverse our standard concept of ‘down’, and they collectively create the field that contains the fusion reaction in the ‘core’ of the planet." He held the padd forward and traced the inner edge of the Sphere. "We have mapped a portion of the interior. It appears to be quite mountainous, and contains a complex ecosystem."

B’Elanna cut in eagerly. "And this is not the first time Starfleet has seen something like this. In 46125.3 Captain Montgomery Scott and the Enterprise-D came across a much larger structure, a traditional Dyson sphere, that used phased-graviton pilot beams to pull them inside."

Neelix looked confused. "What is a ‘Dyson Sphere’?"

B’Elanna continued, a tinge of excitement in her voice. "The Dyson concept was to create a sphere the size of a planetary orbit around a sun. Such a construct would have essentially unlimited habitable surface area on its inner face. No one in the Federation ever had the technology or resources for such an enormous project, but apparently some ancient race did. Lantaenar is built on the same concept. Makes sense, actually. These designers got less surface area for habitat, but the ‘thickness’ of their usable area is multiplied many-fold by filling the sphere with ocean."

Katherine nodded and raised her fingers from the table to interrupt. "I’m more concerned about how we’re going to get out of this marvelous feat of engineering. How did the Enterprise escape?"

The half-Klingon engineer raised impressive eyebrows and explained. "Captain Scott and the Enterprise’s Chief Engineer used another ship, the Jenolan, to wedge the doors open while the Enterprise slipped out. The ship held together just long enough for the Enterprise to escape and beam the engineers safely aboard."

Katherine turned her eyes to the window for a moment and tapped a finger on the table. "I remember reading about it, now. But that sphere was so much larger, and not filled with water. Why is it more than superficially relevant?"

B’Elanna’s dark hair tossed as she gestured to Tuvok’s model "There are distinct differences. Captain Scott’s sphere was uninhabited and was built around a natural star. And the tractor beam used by that sphere did a lot more than just pull them in—it was layered with data that overwhelmed the Enterprise’s computer and it knocked their impulse engines off-line. But those ‘pilot’ beams are exactly the same as what we faced here—I’ve checked our readings against those in the computer logs."

Chakotay commented, "then why did our computer stay online?" and B’Elanna shrugged.

A slow smile spread across the Captain’s face. "Bio-neural circuitry. Voyager’s computer can absorb and process information much more quickly than the Enterprise’s. That’s the difference…"

She turned to Harry Kim, an idea obviously dawning in her mind. "All of that comm system interference you received when the tractor beam grabbed us—you recorded it?" Harry nodded, not sure why it mattered. "Harry, that data may contain the gate mechanism instructions. We’ll need to pick those transmissions apart."

B’Elanna frowned, with a trace of anger. The Captain caught her eye and the engineer stammered, "leave it to Paris to be gone when you need him. He’s the real expert at ‘creative programming’ problems like this."

Katherine smiled gently and gave her an understanding look. B’Elanna’s fondness for Tom tended to come out with a biting edge—Klingon fashion. "You did some code-breaking in your Maqui days, didn’t you? Work with Harry, on this."

B’Elanna’s looked back with diminished fierceness. "Aye, Captain."

"Anything else?" When no one responded she stood up and placed her hands on the smooth surface of the oval conference table. "Let’s get started, people."

Voyager suddenly pitched forward and a bone-shaking roar reverberated through the ready room. Katherine found herself halfway across the table, desperately clinging to the near edge for balance. The lights flickered for an instant and the starship righted herself. Hull integrity alarms began sounding as Katherine cried out "red alert!" and everyone rushed through the doorway to the Bridge.

Another explosion boomed amidships, and Voyager canted over. The crew quickly settled into their positions.

"Evasive maneuvers," Katherine barked to Chakotay at the helm. "What are we looking at, Mr. Kim?"

"Four unidentified ships approximately 1200 meters above us dropping chemically-based explosives." He looked up from his console with a surprised expression. "They’re depth-charging us, Captain."

"Damage report?" she called.

Lt. Tuvok’s strong voice rang out above the roar of a third explosion behind them. "Twelve injured and no casualties, but we have hull breaches on decks six through eight, and the aft shields are at 24 percent." Another explosion flashed directly ahead of the Bridge and the hull rang as if struck by a hammer. Water spurted in from above the Command Con chair and splashed across the upper Bridge to the engineering console. B’Elanna jumped back from the sparking controls with a cry of pain. Tuvok caught her limp body and turned to the Captain with a on his stoic face.

"Voyager cannot withstand much more, Captain. The water pressure, coupled with the concussion waves from these ‘depth charges’, could collapse our shields at any time." Katherine rushed to the Tactical console and pushed a wet strand of reddish hair out of her eyes.

"That may be exactly what the Douri intend," she muttered and diverted power to the forward shields.

"On my mark, bring the impulse engines from .1 to .6. Take us towards the sphere’s core, Chakotay—mark!" She looked over at Tuvok cradling B’Elanna’s burned hands and helping her to her feet, and then back at the viewscreen. "I didn’t join Starfleet to become a submarine Commander. Get us out of this soup."

"Aye, Aye, Captain."

#

The U.S.S. Voyager split the ocean’s surface like a great whale rising from the depths, her grey hull shedding water in a curtain of mist as she rose. The starship hovered for a moment and then moved off, dripping, toward a painfully bright horizon that curved upward. The intense yellow-white fusion point, this environment’s "sun," hung unnaturally close. The searing light highlighted the gouged and blackened places on the battered starship’s hull, but showed no serious breaches. She was whole.

Four manta-shaped ships followed beneath the waves, but fell behind as the starship accelerated. The Douri were no match for Voyager in open air. For now the Captain was content to fly under these unusual skies and let her ship, and her crew, heal and think.

B’Elanna’s snarled as the Doctor sprayed her hands with skin regenerator and a disinfectant.

"Don’t blame me if this stings. I’m not the one who managed to mix a serious electrical burn and alien seawater brimming with unknown substances." The Doctor completed his work and closed his instrument with a click. "They will be tender for a few days, but should be usable. I recommend gloves."

B’Elanna flexed her hands a few times and considered trying to calibrate the impulse engines with gloves on. "You’re kidding, right?" she retorted snidely as she hopped off the medical table. As she reached the doorway she turned, apologetically. "I’m sorry, Doctor," she said with sincerity, "this whole situation has me on edge. Thank you."

The comm system keyed and Harry’s voice sounded out. "Kim to Torres: Can you come take a look at this?" Harry had been working through the gate codes with limited success.

B’Elanna replied, "I’ll be right there. Torres out." She walked out of Sickbay and down the hallway, careful to avoid the puddles of water pooled on the carpeting. Crews throughout the ship were vacuuming up the gallons that had leaked in during Voyager’s furious ascent to the surface, but it would take some time. At least hull repairs ought to be done by now, she thought as she entered the turbolift.

Torres entered the Bridge to find a cluster of officers around the Ops console and a big grin on Harry’s face. "Have you cracked the codes?" she asked eagerly.

"Not quite," answered Harry, "but we’ve got some unexpected help." A voice came through the comm system over a burst of static.

"I never thought something as trivial as a third degree electrical burn would keep you out of the action. And you call yourself a Klingon…"

"Tom!" she cried. "Are you OK? How are you getting a message through?" The static intensified and then waned.

"…using a graviton beam as a carrier wave. Hoped it would find you…kind of lonely out here. Are you going to quit playing in the hottub and come outside?"

B’Elanna snorted and replied, "Are you going to quit playing in the yard give us a hand with these codes?"

Tom’s reply was warm. "You know it, Dollface." An impish grin flirted with B’Elanna’s lips, but she repressed it quickly and studied the information on the Ops console displays.

"Starfleet, do you ever take anything seriously?"

#

The starship sliced through the water cleanly, her shields reshaped into a hydrodynamic curve that sheathed Voyager’s nose in electric blue. Sensors indicated that ships were gathering between them and the gate, and Tuvok did not like the numbers reflected there. He started another fruitless series of phaser frequency simulations and opened a comm channel.

"Tuvok to Janeway: we are approaching the Douri force. Sensors indicate 22 craft similar to what we encountered before and one larger ship of a radically different design." Captain Janeway’s voice came back immediately.

"That many?" Katherine sighed audibly. "Thank you Tuvok. Have Chakotay slow us down. We’ve only got one of these chemical-explosive torpedoes ready down here, but it’ll have to do. It would take resources we don’t have to replicate more. I’m not going to speculate on the effect a photon torpedo would have in this environment. I’m on my way to the Bridge—Janeway out."

Harry Kim ran the doorway sequence codes pulled from Voyager’s memory and checked the settings on the main deflector disk one more time. He wanted to make sure his part of the plan was ready to go. They had narrowed the data down to a manageable set, but there was no way to be sure they had what they needed—they’d have to cycle through codes until something worked. The turbolift doors opened and Captain Janeway moved his way. She smiled and laid a hand on the console. "Ready with that digital lockpick, Harry?"

He grinned, buoyed by her warmth and replied, "I think so." She nodded and moved to the Command Con.

"Are we all ready?" she called out. Affirmative comments came from all of the Bridge positions. "Good. Red Alert!" Katherine crossed her legs and settled her hands on the arms of her chair.

"I want to see stars on that viewscreen very, very soon."

#

Neelix could see the Douri ships pinwheeling by the window as the Captain put Voyager through evasive maneuvers. He knew she hoped to get through this without firing a shot, but that didn’t seem likely. Douri ships were stationed in front of them in a staggered pattern that shifted as Voyager moved. Lines of greenish light flared between their noses, interconnecting them like cornice beads on a veil. Neelix gasped.

"A net! They’re making a net to capture us." Voyager suddenly changed direction and Neelix could see another formation of Douri ships bearing down on them at high speed. An explosion flowered in front of them, and the starship shuddered and changed direction again. A long, dark object struck the shields in front of the lounge and erupted in a flash of fire and bubbles. They were not to the deeps yet, and Tuvok’s reinforced shielding held the damage at bay. Neelix swallowed hard and sat down at a table by the window. He didn’t really want to watch this, but there was no point in turning away. Not watching wouldn’t make it stop.

Voyager spun again and found herself facing the net, now drawn into a half-sphere around the space they occupied. They were close enough for Neelix to see that there were actual cables interconnecting the small ships, cables charged with something that sparked green in the watery darkness. There was nowhere to go—the net on one side and the attacking ships on the other. The Captain was going to have to fight.

The Bridge was awash with activity as they tried to outmaneuver the Douri. Explosions rang through the hull as torpedoes impacted the shields.

"They maneuver quicker than we can. I don’t think we can slip by them." Chakotay grimaced as he tried to guide Voyager through the encroaching ships. Katherine kept her eyes focused on the viewscreen.

"Harry, try to hail them again."

"No response, Captain." Harry braced himself as another explosion lit up the screen and obscured their vision with a curtain of bubbles. The ship rocked to the left and the structural integrity alarm went off. Katherine shook her head and turned to Tuvok.

"They give me no choice. They apparently wish to capture our ship, but have no compunction about killing our crew. Arm the modified torpedo and aim for the center ship in that net." Katherine turned to face the helm.

"Chakotay, hold back for a moment and then give me the maximum impulse we can stand through the gap we create." She raised her hand a few inches, and then dropped it suddenly.

"FIRE!"

The familiar rail-gun sound of a torpedo firing ended with an unusual hissing splash and a sparkle of white that worked its way across the screen toward the Douri. The torpedo moved slowly and the crew waited in the unusual, extended silence. A brilliant flash of fire and steam surrounded the target as it struck. Several strands of net faded.

But not enough. The hole created by their attack was too small to allow Voyager to slip through. Chakotay hesitated by the engine controls, looking to the Captain for guidance. Before she could respond, a shuddering bass vibration resounded in the air around them. The ship rumbled with an uneasy intensity and everyone turned to look at each other as it faded. Tuvok broke the silence.

"Captain, there are two ship-sized objects approaching from below. I cannot identify them. They appear to be…organic." Harry studied his console and his eyes widened. He opened his mouth to speak when a dark shape entered their viewscreen and Voyager shifted perceptibly in its wake. A fluke obscured the entire screen momentarily, and then moved to where they could see the rest of its owner push by.

A long, square-headed shape nearly as big as Voyager herself was speeding ahead of them toward the net, driving strongly with its enormous tail. It crashed into the web of green and writhed as if struck by lightening. The net, and the ships attached to it, collapsed around the thrashing animal, leaving the way clear for Voyager to maneuver.

"Captain, that vibration was a message, in the same language Ti’an spoke but much lower and louder." Katherine raised her eyebrows and rubbed her jaw to shake off the tingle the sound had left behind. She motioned for the Ensign to play the message. Harry touched a button and the Bridge reverberated again, but in an audible range.

"RUN DEEP, OUTSIDERS."

Katherine didn’t hesitate any longer. "They’ve cleared a path for us. You heard the creature, Chakotay—take us down at best speed."

As Voyager dove, a large shadow separated from the darkness. It was a long, sleek shape, half again as large as the Federation starship, and it glimmered beneath pale blue shields as it picked up speed.

#

Tom knew they were there, just inside the surface, but whatever material this place was made of played havoc with communications. He could hear Voyager transmitting the codes through the metal shell of the sphere as a faint whine like digital banshee screams buried beneath a hill. Harry was following the plan, but the gate wasn’t—it remained closed. Tom’s gut churned with helpless frustration, and that didn’t help matters much. He tried sending a transmission of his own.

"Paris to Voyager: Can you hear me?" The squalling abruptly stopped and Tom heard a faint response.

"Tom, we ...*skkkkssssh* …response from the gate…*skksshhrrsh* …pinned…" Harry’s voice waxed and waned through a hail of static.

"Hang on Harry," Tom muttered to himself as he brought the Feynman closer to the surface of the gate. With a delicate touch on the thrusters he settled the small craft on the center of the great "X".

Let’s put the glass against the floor and see what we can hear… Tom muttered to himself as he re-calibrated the sensors and fired a message straight through the gigantic doors.

"Paris to Voyager: What’s happening in there?"

"Tom! We’ve got problems," echoed Harry’s worried voice, but now it came through loud and strong. "The gate codes are not working, shields are failing and we’ve got some kind of ancient warship full of Douri bearing down on us." An explosion rumbled behind Harry’s voice. "They’re firing on us!"

The Captain’s voice cut in. "Lieutenant, what can you see from your vantage?"

Tom panned his camera’s around the outside of the shuttle and beamed the images through the door to Voyager. "No change out here."

"Sit tight. And keep a channel open."

Tom pounded the console in frustration as the explosions exploding on Voyager’s hull rumbled from his speakers.

#

"Shield penetration!" Tuvok called out above the alarms sounding throughout the Bridge. Another torpedo from the Douri ship struck the wall next to Voyager and sent fragments of docking machinery clattering off her hull. The shields were up and holding back the water, but not protecting them from attack. Katherine surveyed the situation and Tom’s images from outside—and then swore under her breath.

Her ship was backed into the waterlock chamber, floating in the center of the room with her nacelles pointed toward the outside door. Sensors revealed that the Douri had an ace in the hole—the sleek and powerful ship that had followed Voyager into the deeps was as ancient as the sphere itself. An "Ship-of-the-Outside" as Ti’an had called it. Katherine watched the warship turn slowly in the inner doorway, and shrug off the attacks of a swarm of individual Panar and two huge, square-headed sea creatures that would have called Voyager an equal. Katherine stepped forward, intently studying the equipment mounted on the wall of the chamber.

"We’re being hailed," called Harry from the Ops console.

Katherine raised her hand as the explosions stopped and pointed to a cluster of thin projections above the encroaching warship. "Harry, focus your next doorway-code transmission on that array, but don’t send it until I give you the order." She settled into her Command chair and took a deep breath.

"On screen."

The screen shifted to show an opulent Bridge shining with gold trim and rich green and blue lighting. Water filled the Douri ship, and several humanoids swayed and drifted near strange consoles in the background. A tall alien swam into view. It was over two meters long and had an elongated head with a crest of azure spines that angled backwards. Blue and red tattoos, or perhaps scales, covered its powerful upper torso—intricate whorls and fans that rippled as it moved.

It seemed to always be in motion. It reared back and spoke with a rich, icy bass.

"Air-breathers," it said derisively. "Discontinue this foolish resistance. We have a superior vessel and you are trapped."

Katherine nodded curtly and answered, "then why do you need my ship? You already have what you need to leave Lantaenar."

The Douri’s face wrinkled unattractively. "There are many aspects of its inner workings we do not yet fathom. Your vessel would greatly enhance our understanding."

"And what about my crew? We could also help you understand. We could handle this peacefully."

Its spines rose and rippled as it laughed. "Any creature that cannot swim beside me and breathe the rich water has nothing to offer us. Your kind will never desecrate my ship, airbreather."

Katherine’s mouth hardened into a thin line. "Then you leave me no choice." She motioned to Harry to kill the connection and pointed to the clustered array again. "Beam those codes—all frequencies."

The Ensign made an adjustment, and rebroadcast the signal directly at the array of long metal filaments. A light beside the structure winked and there was a deep hum.

With a wrenching grumble the massive inside doors of the waterlock began to close. Panar raced through the space around the Douri ship and vanished into the watery darkness. The enemy ship twisted suddenly, realizing the danger, and her shields began to spark and shimmer.

The heavy points of the ancient doors, driven by machinery that had survived centuries of disuse and the weight of a world upon their shoulders, pierced the struggling ship like a whitefish in a shark’s jaws. The doors hesitated, and a violent rending vibration rumbled through the deck beneath Janeway’s feet. The water around them transmitted the horrible sound much too clearly. Katherine cringed at the sight, and the sound, in spite of the reprieve it gave her ship.

"The outer doors are opening!" cried Harry Kim.

A tremendous roar filled the air and Voyager surged backwards. Katherine could see the inner doors still grinding through the Douri ship. They were not quite closed—and she suddenly realized what that meant.

"Full impulse!" she commanded and heard the engines moan as Chakotay complied. Their backward motion slowed and the hull creaked as the rushing water stripped the shields away. Debris from the recent battle spun by—a portion of the sundered Douri warship broke free and tumbled, sparking, over the top corner of Voyager’s nose. "Give me a rear visual!"

The outer doors’ points seemed to inch apart as the ship rushed toward the widening "X." Voyager bucked and jumped, pushing upstream against the tidal wave of ocean flowing out into space. Her hull groaned as the water rushed past and she began to slip backwards and began to turn in spite of the impulse engines. The doors needed to be just a little wider…

Collision alarms screamed as Voyager twisted through the opening in a shattering column of water. The torrent consolidated into round globules and then flash-froze into a hail of ice and frozen mist. The starship tumbled outward as the impulse engines overloaded and the reactor shut down in protest.

Lantaenar’s tractor beams searched for an object to lock on in the haze of debris but eventually shut down. The inner doors ground through the last of the ancient Douri warship and its nose drifted away to be caught by the seawater freezing in the waterlock. The outer doors slammed shut in profound silence.

#

A salty smell hung in the air as Harry and Tom entered the lounge.

"Do you think you cut that close enough, Harry?" chided Tom.

Harry grinned. "For once I got to be the one making your life interesting."

The Bridge crew was gathered around the bar, talking and laughing, happy to be out in open space again. Captain Janeway welcomed the two remaining officers with a broad smile.

"Excellent work, gentlemen." She put a hand on Tom’s shoulder and gave him a warm look that said more about her respect than her simple words. "Welcome aboard, Lieutenant. We missed you at the helm."

Harry chuckled, and shook his head at Tom. "I’m glad you were outside. If the Captain hadn’t seen those antennae structures in your camera sweep, she’d never have noticed the ones on the inner door in time."

An unappetizing smell wafted out of the kitchen and Neelix appeared, pushing a big silver pot before him on a cart. It steamed, and Neelix puffed with pride. He pulled out bowls and cheerfully called out, "who’d like to be the first to try a new recipe?" B’Elanna, who was sitting at the bar near the kitchen, looked up from the padd she’d been studying and wrinkled her nose.

"What is it?" she asked as he ladled some into a bowl and placed it before her.

"I call it Lantaenari Bay Chowder. Caught it right here in the shuttle bay after it flooded." The room groaned and B’Elanna pushed the bowl away with a sour expression.

"NO, Neelix. I don’t ever want to SEE another fish. I’m still picking them out of the Bussard collectors," she complained, making a face." Neelix looked crushed.

"But I’ve got another 1,000 pounds to use up!"

Katherine raised her hands at the wave of protests Neelix’ comment set off. "Simmer down, everyone! I’m going to make a Command decision. Neelix, thank you for your effort, but let’s use the fish as fertilizer for the garden rather than in the pot." She smiled broadly at the cheers from Voyager’s crew. She moved away from the crowd to stand by the lounge window and bask in the light of the stars streaming by. Tuvok stepped up to stand beside her.

"Here There Be Dragons," he said in a quiet voice.

Katherine turned to look at Tuvok quizzically. "What did you say?"

The Vulcan tilted his head. "Isn’t that the phrase that Human seafarers inscribed on maps when they could not chart the territory?"

Katherine nodded, thoughtfully, and looked up into his long face. "It seems we are always on that part of the map, doesn’t it?"

- THE END –