Velth slammed his fists into the replicator panel hard enough to send sparks flying. A low, guttural growl was followed by spasmodic, wet coughing.
She was only a step behind him when he turned, registered the hypo, and knocked her back with both hands, tossing her unceremoniously to the deck.
Glenn tapped her combadge. “Glenn to security. Emergency team to sickbay, immediately.” Conscious of the danger to herself but far more concerned about the rest of the ship, she added, “Computer, seal this door until security override is provided.” The computer responded with a pleasant chirp. As she tried to pull herself up, she felt a sharp pain just below her collarbone where he had struck her.
Velth was struggling to breathe, his wild eyes searching the room desperately. Finally, he turned back to the replicator, came to his knees before it, and with his bare hands began to tug at the panel beneath, bending the metal edges until he could rip it from its housing. This exposed a set of power relays and a conduit. He then reached for the conduit and ripped it free of the clasps that held it in place.
Glenn watched, both astonished and alarmed, as he grasped the conduit with both hands and the tips of his fingers seemed to melt into it. The panel lights immediately adjacent to it, as well as the room’s interior lighting, began to flicker as Velth’s savage hunger was sated by the power he was absorbing directly from the ship.
“What the holy hell?” Glenn said, horrified. She briefly considered reaching for the room’s emergency storage and using a phaser to disable him and end this freakish spectacle but wondered just as quickly if the power released by a phaser would stun him or feed him.
There’s really only one way to do this, she realized, and her window of opportunity was probably closing quickly.
Velth hugged the conduit to his body like a lifeline. Glenn raised the level of the sedative she had ordered to maximum, enough to subdue a being twice Velth’s size and normal strength. Gathering her nerve, she shot forward, aiming for Velth’s neck but making contact just below his right shoulder, and depressed the hypospray. His eyes opened and another growl died in his throat as the sedative took effect. The lights continued to dim as, even unconscious, his body continued to draw power from the ship.
By the time security began pounding on the door, she was standing over his inert form, studying the place where his fingers had merged with the power source, certain of one thing: whatever this was, it was no longer Ranson Velth.
The Doctor had waited patiently as Lieutenant Conlon drifted slowly into a comatose state. He paid close attention to her neurological functions displayed on the surgical arch, preparing to transfer her consciousness as soon as her engrammatic patterns had stabilized. As this was the second time he had performed this procedure, he was not unduly concerned. He and Barclay had tested the holographic interface, now running through his mobile emitter, several times and were certain of its stability. Unlike Danara Pel, Lieutenant Conlon had been thoroughly prepared for the procedure. He sensed her trepidation but knew it would pass as soon as she awoke in a body that was free of pain and fully functional.
Barclay stood by, monitoring the active holomatrix. “The engrammatic buffers are ready to receive, Doctor,” he reported.
“Just another minute or two,” the Doctor advised. “The neuroleptic has not entirely subdued her autonomic nervous—”
Before he could complete his thought, the lights in sickbay began to flicker. “What the…?” the Doctor began as a series of automated alarms sounded from the interface regulating Conlon’s procedure. The lights dimmed intermittently as the Doctor turned his attention to the display’s main board. “Why are we losing power?” he demanded. “Computer, reroute power to this bio-station through emergency backups,” he then added quickly.
“That’s going to be a problem,” Barclay informed him as Commander Glenn’s voice sounded shipwide. “Glenn to security. Emergency team to sickbay, immediately.”
The Doctor watched as Conlon’s neurological functions began to dysregulate. He considered shutting down the chemical drip but knew that any interruption at this moment could have disastrous consequences. Never mind the consciousness transfer, he could lose Conlon before he even had the chance.
“What’s wrong with the emergency backups?” the Doctor shouted as a pair of armed security ensigns burst into the main bay.
“Where is the captain, sir?” Ensign Borland asked.
“Commander Glenn is in observation room three,” the Doctor reported. They hurried past him to respond to their captain’s request. “Reg?”
Barclay had moved to the bay’s main power console and was clearly working to restore full power to the bio-station now connected to Nancy Conlon. “We don’t have battery backups right now. We used them all in the first thirty-six hours we were here, and no one has yet taken the time to replenish them,” he said.
“Do I have to tell you that if we don’t stabilize this station immediately…?”
“No, you don’t,” Barclay cut him off. “There is an unexpected drain coming from an adjacent conduit. It looks like an overload or a breach. I’m going to reroute but I need a few more seconds.”
“Hurry,” the Doctor pleaded, watching in horror as Conlon’s vitals began to show signs of distress. “Computer, silence alarms,” he added. “I’m well aware there’s a problem.”
“There we go,” Barclay finally said. “Is that better?”
It was. A little. Once the neuroleptic flow settled back into its prescribed, uninterrupted dosage, Conlon’s neural functions began to revert to more normal patterns.
“Is the holomatrix still stable?” the Doctor asked.
“It is,” Barclay replied.
“We have to begin the transfer now.”
“Go ahead.”
Even though the overhead lighting continued to blink, Barclay’s quick work had segregated full power to Conlon’s bio-station. Ignoring the shouting of the security team down the hall as they attempted to gain access to Glenn, the Doctor activated the transfer protocol and watched as the engrammatic transfer began.
“The buffers are receiving data,” Barclay reported.
