//------------------------------// // Part 2. // Story: Rescue at Midnight Station // by Sparky Brony //------------------------------// Nothing stays the same for long.Nothing in the universe lasts forever.Plants grow, age, die, and decay.Stars grow cold and dim, or explode violently.Everything eventually succumbs to the march of entropic forces, to discord. A starship, away from space dock and not receiving refits, will suffer from failures. The longer the time between major overhauls, the more systems that will need daily maintenance to keep functioning, let alone running at peak levels. Voyager’s engineering staff had been plagued with various breakdowns and electrical problems for years now. Within minutes of extricating the ship from the asteroid, red warnings had popped up on the main status board.Structural integrity fields and emergency bulkhead shields kicked in to help compensate.A large area, centered on deck fifteen where the ship took the brunt of the soft-landing on the asteroid, flashed on the engineering display. Several vital systems are routed though the ships belly and diagnostics showed them crying out for attention. A loud clank followed by a hiss fills the air as light floods in, with the door open other illumination panels begin to flicker on, showing the long tunnel ahead as Azan crawls into an access tube on deck fifteen. Rebi kneels down, plugging in the portable replicator, making sure his brother has all the necessary parts to get the newest system to fail, the warp core ejection subsystem, back up and going Information passes instantly between the two as their Borg interlink quickly shares what Azan sees and thinks back to Rebi, who’s fingers dance over the replicator panel calling up and selecting schematics. In minutes, several new components have been replicated as the old and damaged ones are recycled.The only thing they can’t fabricate is the gel pack. The damage to a bio-neural gel pack has required the young former Borg to run to a supply cabinet several decks up for a replacement, something Voyager is always in short supply of. As Azan makes the final connections to the new gel-pack and removes the shunts, a hum can be heard as the pack lights up and the computer buzzes happily. Azan glances at Rebi with a smile. They take a matter of minutes to get everything packed up. Azan lugs the heavy portable replicator to its storage and locks it in place, ensuring the power cables are put in place. They fist bump and head to the turbolift. The trip to holodeck two is accomplished quickly with the turbolift.Since the program is already running they simply needed to walk straight in. As soon as the doors open they step onto holodeck, which is currently acting as the ships bridge, both stop boys in their tracks looking at the crew.The bridge is alive with normal sounds of controls being activated and output alerts. “Sparkler, what is…” Azan starts. “Going on here?” Rebi finishes. Sparkler’s head pops up from the tactical station, “I was getting a little overwhelmed with all the tasks underhoof. Power management, sensors, it was just too much for one pony. I needed help while you two were busy, so I called some friends.” She points a hoof towards the ops station, “That’s Lyra Heartstrings,” and then moves her hoof towards the helm, “And that’s Rainbow Dash.” She giggles, “I had to dump the same information into them before I brought them here.” The boys look at each other, “They’re multiplying.” They murmur softly at each other. Azan moves over to the helm, watching the blue pegasus run her hooves over the console. “I normally fly with my wings, but the scrolls Sparkler gave me taught me how to steer this, it’s sort of like a really advanced air yacht. But, this ship, is, so, much, more, AWESOME!It’s super-fast, I love it. I just wish it was a bit more maneuverable.” “Well, it can go faster than light.” Rainbow Dash nods, “I know, I can’t wait to try it.” She taps a few keys, “Though it’s fun to even maintain an orbit around an asteroid with minimal gravity. Voyager just wants to move, she wants to go fast, even at sublight.” She continues her work, “Don’t worry, we’ll be ready for warp once Twi gets back to us with where we need to go.” Sparkler walks up next to them, “I’m hungry, and you two are growing boys, you need to eat.” Azan and Rebi look at each other, “We can have replicator rations later.” That gets a stomped hoof from Sparkler, “Oh no. We aren’t having that.” “But Neelix is gone, neither of us are acceptable in the kitchen as of yet,” Rebi starts. “He’s been trying to teach us how to cook. But it’ll be a while before we are able to make good food.” Azan finishes. “Or edible food,” Rebi adds with a sigh. Azan cringes at the shared memories, “That isn’t considered a form of torture if fed to others.” Sparkler rolls her eyes, “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got the food handled.” At their questioning look, Sparkler points at a door on the starboard side of the bridge, “Just head through the door there.” That gets two furrowed brows, “But that’s the Captain’s ready room.” Sparkler giggles, “I kind of changed the floorplan a bit on the fly, since this is on the holodeck.The Captain’s ready room has been replaced with a mess hall, and the turbolift serves as a connection point for quick transfers to and from holodeck two, which is currently running Ponyville.” Both boys look at each other for a long moment, then both shrug. This is the holodeck, after all. They walk through the door that would normally head to Captain Janeway’s sanctuary, but instead, they find themselves in the mess hall. “I wonder what Janeway would say,” Azan started as he looked around. Rebi nodded, “About converting her private room into a mess hall without asking.” Azan glances back at the bridge as the door starts to close. “Take a seat, boys. I’ll be ready for you in a moment.” Comes an excited voice. Azan and Rebi look at each other again, then decide to do as asked. They find a set of seats opposite each other. Rebi pulls out a PADD, tapping the screen as data flashes on the screen. “Food’s easy for us ponies here,” Sparkler says, taking a seat at the table. “But… you’re Holograms,” Rebi starts. Before Azan could open his mouth, Sparkler pipes in, “Yep, and so’s our food.See? So it’s just so convenient,” she states, then she smiles, closing her eyes as she tilts her head. “You boys though, need real food,” the first voice says, drawing the boys’ attention.A brilliant pink pony is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, and amazingly, her hot pink mane is somehow holding a tray. Trotting up to the table she leans forward and deposits the tray in front of the boys. The smells from the bowls on the tray instantly get both boys leaning forward, sniffing eagerly. She giggles, “So, to get the ingredients that Neelix likes to store around here, I just used the transporter I rigged up in the kitchen.” Motioning to the plates, the pink pony smiles, “So I now I can get fresh greens from the aeroponics bay, and have access to the other stores on board.” Rebi looks at her, “You could have replicated something.” Azan takes up for his brother, “With only us here, there is plenty of replicator power.” The pink pony blows a raspberry, “Oh, replicators don’t hold a candle to a real home cooked meal from scratch.” She bounces off, and in moments is back with another tray, “He had found all the right ingredients to make cupcakes! Trust me, you’ll wanna try these.” She slides the second tray, filled with over a dozen of the pastries, onto the table next to the vegetable stew. Azan grabs a spoon and takes a bite, “Thank you.” The pony turns around and pronks towards the galley, “You are very welcome.” She stops and looks over her shoulder, “I’m Pinkie Pie, and I just know we are going to be the best of friends.” The boys start eating, though after a few minutes, the door opening gets their attention. They turn and look at the small pony standing there. A yellow filly, along with an enormous bow on her red mane. She brightens upon seeing the boys and canters over to them, “Excuse me, have yah seen muh big sistah around? Her name’s Applejack.” “Ahm in the kitchen working, Bloom,” Comes another voice, “Whatcha need?” Azan stands up and follows the filly into the galley, a second pony is in there. This one has an orange coat, her blonde mane is held in check by a red ribbon, along with a second in her tail. She’s opening the oven and she quickly pulls out a pair of pies. She rotates around, the large pan holding the two smaller pie pans in a pot holder held in her teeth. Once she sets the pies down and puts the pot holder down on the counter and smiles at the filly, “What are you doing on here on Voyager, Bloom? Ah thought you were gonna wait for us with Big Mac?” “Granny asked me to come, she wants to know when you’ll be home for supper?” The orange mare rolls her eyes, “When Sparkler tole me ah was comin here, I said to granny that we’d likely be here for a few days.These Youngins need help to get their ship up and runnin, and it’s the neighborly thing to do.Sides their families are gone, and we gotta help them find them.” Azan looks back at Rebi, then back at the orange mare. She nuzzles the filly for a moment and sitting down and stroking her mane once, “Its ok sis, ah miss the farm too, but we’ll be back soon nuff.” The filly hugs the older pony tightly, and sniffles once, “An then we can go campin?” Nodding one the older one stands, “Then we can go,” and with one final nuzzle trots up to the young man, “Ah’m Applejack, Pinkie Pie wanted some help in the kitchen with some good ole down home country cookin.” She pulls out a knife and cuts a slice of pie. She offers it to the human, “Apple pie?” Azan takes the slice, he’s had replicated pies before, this one makes them seem like trash. Starting off with a buttery, flaky crust. The apples inside are perfect as well. He inhales the aroma, satisfying something deep down inside him with it. He glances at Applejack, “It’s beautiful.” She presents a second slice, “It tastes even better.” She trots back into the kitchen. Azan turns back towards the table and stops, the filly has dragged another chair up and is sitting with Rebi. Pinkie Pie has pronked over and put another bowl of food in front of her. The filly casually fits a spoon with a strap over her hoof and digs in. She finishes a bite, looking up at the boys, “So, does that mean we’re just programs in your ships computer, to you?” Azan looks at his brother, “We don’t know much, but you are all characters on the holodeck, so I guess.” She looks down, “but I remember a lot more, even mah life before I met Naomi, I know I have problems remembering mah mom, but I was very young then...does that mean none of that’s real?” Rebi gulps, “Well, we do know that you were created originally over three hundred fifty years ago. A cartoon television show for little kids.” The filly sits there for a long moment, finally she stirs, “A kids show?” At their nod she looks thoughtful, “So we were created to teach? Just like we teach little fillies and colts?” The boys look at each other and shrug, “I think that was the case.” She looks down, her ears flattening, “It would have been nice to be real. It would have been nice for our adventures to have actually happened. To actually have ment something.” She looks thoughtful for a moment, “What was put in a program? Or what has happened since our program turned on. Because it was programmed, does that mean it didn’t happen to us? Or it happened while we were being made?” Her eyes widen, “Was everything that happened before we met Naomi a dream? Or are we dreaming now?” The young mare starts to breathe faster, “I mean, right now, I’m a combination of light and force fields, and I don’t know what that really means.” She reaches out and grabs Azan’s hand, “Yet I can touch you, do I feel real to you?” At her pleading look, Azan glances at Rebi, then rubs the top of her head, her ear flicks back as his finger touches it, “You are as real as you feel you are.” The filly snorts, “Yeah, well, in the information I got when I came over to Voyager, you two were Borg. A bunch of machines and human parts mashed all together.” Rebi flinches, “Well, it’s a little more complex than that.” She glares at him, “Really? Are you sure about that?” She looks over at Azan, “A Borg drone has implants in the brain that moderate what they see, what they think, and even what they hear. What if you are in some cube a million light years away, living a dream shared by your collective? How do you know anything you do is your own? Are you really separated from your collective?” “In the collective, we weren’t individuals, with our own thoughts and feelings.” “But how do you know that was before, and this is real now? Do Borg dream in the collective?” The boys look at each other, “I don’t remember any dreams, but we were in maturation chambers before we were activated in an extreme emergency. We were part of the collective, but we really didn’t do anything as drones as of yet. But we were part of the whole.” Applejack trots over to her sister, hugging her closely, "Calm down sugarcube, yer real to me. And you’re real in the hearts and souls of those around us like Naoimi.We're all real, in the way we touch their lives, and help them. And in the end, aint that what's important?The mark we leave on others?" She nuzzles the yellow pony lovingly. *** "OW!" Harry Kim yells as he rubs his arm, he glares up at his assailant, "That's going to leave a serious mark." A metal minecart rolls to a stop behind Harry.Wide and low, it follow a set of tracks that wind through the tunnels. "Then you need to stay out of Iron Wills way, because there's no stopping when these guns are rockin!"The minotaur gloats as he starts kissing his muscles. "Tom." "Yes Harry?" Tom stands up, holding the pick axe in his hand and he sighs. The lighting in the tunnel is hardly bright enough to see by, with dust and fumes filling the air. Though along the ceiling is a long, narrow strip that glitters in the murky depths of the tunnel. Power runs along it, and the myriad of microprojectors and force field emitters allow the holographic characters to exist. The mine shaft is barely wide enough, however, for an ore cart to move down the center, as well a minimal amount of room for the slaves to mine. "When we get back, remind me to delete this character." Tom groans as he swings his pick. He knows that if he stops working, the creatures that captured him and the rest of the crew will be on him quickly. He doesn’t want to face their wrath again. The last few times were exceedingly painful. He looks at the dull gray of the mine wall, there’s no glittering dilithium, no gems that he can see, just more and more gray rock, though it seems to shimmer a bit with some kind of crystalline structure. Quickly he starts to move the pieces he’s been able to dislodge with the primitive tools they’ve been given into the cart. Harry and the other characters from the holodeck join him in loading the cart. The minotaur creation from Equestria, Iron Will. And the main character from Captain Janeway’s program, Leonardo DaVinci, get busy loading. “Loading rocks is done and the unstoppable force that is Iron Will can now show you how to use that pick,” The minotaur gloats loudly before turning and grabbing a pick and slamming it into the rock face by Tom. Tom rolls his eyes, while Iron Will was a bit character and wasn’t fleshed out in the program, he is going to do something with him if he ever gets back to Voyager. The mine cart moves down its tracks. It stops several times, each time slaves throw more and more of the crystalline ore into the large hoppers of the cart. With a groan, Captain Janeway throws another heavy rock into the cart. She takes a moment to glare at her captor, standing silently at the end of the cart with a weapon at it’s hip. The head to toe suit her captor wears doesn’t give a clue as to his or her identity, save for the fact that they are bipedal humanoids. She takes a moment to knuckle her back a bit and then reaches down to help Chakotay with a large piece of ore. “Just one guard.” She murmurs. He nods as they drop the strange crystalline ore into the bucket, he gestures to the glittering panels on the ceiling, “Yeah, but they monitor us pretty thoroughly with the same thing they use to keep the holographic characters going.” Janeway reaches down and grabs another rock, “What I wouldn’t give to get a cross section of that cable in the ship.” Chakotay sighs, “I’ve been through the different caverns around here. I’m pretty sure the entire crew is here. Icheb is further down, but I haven’t found the other Borg children, or Naomi. None of the crew that I’ve talked to have seen any of them.” Janeway sighs, “I hope they are okay.” She grunts as they work together to get more ore into the hopper. “The work here, could easily done with mechanical diggers, they don’t take slaves because they have to, they want to.” She avoids glaring at the captor standing impassively as she turns to grab more. An electronically distorted voice gets her attention as the captor leaps off the cart, heading towards three crewmembers. Janeway darts to them, getting between them and the creature, “Leave them alone!” She shouts. The creature bats her aside seemingly without effort. It brings out a small device and places it on the skin on one of the crewmembers, science officer William Telfer collapses to the ground, screaming as the creature moves on and puts an identical device on Tal Celes, a Bajoran crew member, who’s screams are added to the din. Chakotay moves over and helps Janeway up as a third device is placed on Mortimer Harren, who’s shouts drown out the other two as he twitches on the ground. Janeway tries to move forward, only to be restrained by Chakotay, “The last time you jumped at them, you bounced off that personal forcefield they’ve got and nearly broke your neck.” He glances at the three crewmembers screaming on the ground, “The punishment doesn’t seem to leave any permanent damage.” “They are my responsibility, damn it.” She growls. Chakotay pulls back on her upper arm, “I know it, Captain, but you are my responsibility here. We will get out of here.” Janeway looks at Chakotay pleadingly as the creature presses a button on its belt, the devices detach from the crewmembers and fly back to join the rest of the devices hanging on the belt. The three Voyager crewers lie there for a long moment before stirring slowly. Dispassionately, the creature presses a few buttons on the mine cart and with a slight hum, it moves down the tracks. Janeway and Chakotay move forward quickly. “Are you alright?” Chakotay asks softly. Crewman Harren sits up, “Those this are horrible.” He rubs where it was attached for a few moments. Tal Celes slowly wobbles to her feet, “What was the number of that shuttlecraft that landed on me.” Janeway brushes some dirt off Tal’s shoulder, “We need to keep busy while we formulate a plan to get out of here.” “Face it, Captain, they’ve covered every avenue, there’s no getting out of here. They keep us under watch all the time. They have teams roving all along these caves, even if we were able to take out one, more would be on us in minutes.” He levers himself up to a sitting position, “how are you doing, Captain?” She smirks as she offers a hand to help him to his feet, “This is almost as bad as chores on my grandfather’s farm.” She says with a twinkle in her eye. They move to pick up their mining implements, Janeway stops for a moment to look at the passage the mine cart went down, trying to walk down them without permission gets a forcefield in your face and a quick response from their captors. They’ve been slavers a long time, they know how to keep the slaves from organizing or fighting back. She sighs as she moves to follow her crew, any system has faults, they just need to find them, and then get back their ship. Several miles down the narrow passage, the mine cart makes it into a large open area at the beginning of the mine. The tracks of the cart bring it next to a dumping area. The cart stops, and the hoppers lift and tilt. Depositing the ore onto a large conveyor belt, which runs towards two skips. Those enormous skips haul the ore from the mine deep inside wherever they are, up to the surface for more processing. Finally empty, the cart follows along it’s course, starting another large circle around the different ore bodies where the slaves are working. The Doctor works feverishly, a partial collapse in one of the outlier caves had the captors bring casualties up to this large cave. A communal place where the slaves can eat, and sleep, and that’s about it. The Doctor rips up a blanket and grabs some relatively straight sticks. “It’ll be okay, ensign.” He says softly, calling on every bit of bedside manner he possesses. Her leg is at a grotesque angle from the simple breaks in the tibia and the fibula. Though the tissue damage doesn’t seem to be too severe, he has to worry about infection from something like this. He offers a wrapped stick to her, “You’ll need to bite down, this is going to hurt.” She nods and takes the stick in her teeth. “Primitive conditions.” He growls as he sets the bones back into place. The young crewman yelps and passes out. Getting a sigh from the Doctor has he takes a few minutes to bind the splint into place, he doesn’t have anything necessary to do proper medical treatment here. But he’s got to help as best he can, the crewmembers of the Voyager, and the other slaves on board this nightmare of a rock. He finishes tying the splint and gently picks up the injured crewman. He carries her over to a sleeping pallet and places her down gently. One crewer taken care of, he walks towards the other two casualties. Both of them are not of Voyager’s crew. One is spurting blue blood onto the ground, writhing in pain. When they were brought up, the Doctor had triaged them, one beyond help, one needing immediate help, and one that can wait. With the ensign’s leg splinted, he can work on the cuts and bruises of the other alien. The third one, spilling his life blood onto the rock floor, is well beyond what the Doctor could do to save him with the conditions available. On Voyager, all three would likely be walking out of his sickbay in excellent health by now. But here… He sighs as he pulls the alien to his feet, “Alright, let’s get you bandaged up. I’d offer you antibiotics to prevent infection.” He gestures around, “but sadly, I don’t have any to offer.” He moves over to his makeshift medical station. He touches one of the injuries, “That looks rather ghastly.” The Doctor picks up some more makeshift bandages and gets to work. He steals glances to the body lying on the ground, the entire body convulses, then goes slack. The Doctor’s face tightens in rage as he uses his deft fingers to cover the other alien’s wounds and prevent further bleeding. As he finally finishes, “There. You will need to rest a day or two.” He glances at the observation deck above, where most of the alien captors spend much of their time, the alien he’s treating grunts softly. “If our gracious hosts will let you.” The Doctor has to trust in his universal translator for some kind of translation, but not all languages are present in the database. This alien does seem to understand at least some of his words. He grimaces as he tries to access information from the alien computer system he’s now a resident of. He has access to all of his medical database, even his personal memories were ripped from Voyager’s systems. But other than the specifics of his program, he can’t communicate outside of that. He finally moves away, towards the third alien, as he gets closer, his eyes tell him what he already knew, the fellow slave has expired. It wasn’t the first death he’s had to witness today. And likely wouldn’t be the last. Though Voyager’s crew hasn’t been among the fatalities, three members of the crew are currently laid up at the moment. Less than thirty-six hours here, and already three down with severe injuries. The Doctor sighs and closes his eyes, wishing he could take himself offline, but that ability is way up in the hierarchy of the computer system. He can’t even initiate Emergency Command Hologram mode. B’Ellana has given him some code breaking algorithms in the past to deal with recalcitrant computer systems, he checks on those subprograms progress, trying to penetrate into some command level control and maybe turn the tide of this misadventure. He finally opens his eyes and moves to his patients, he needs to bide his time, and try to find a way out of this for the crew. He has seen Icheb since Voyager has been taken, but none of the youngest crew of Voyager has made it into this part of the mine complex. He washes his hands quickly and moves over to the first of Voyager’s crew that was brought to him, “It’s alright, Samantha. Your shoulder is dislocated, you need to keep down until it’s at least a little better.” *** Stars continue to streak by the Delta Flyer, leaving rainbow trails behind them as the small shuttle speeds through space.While still only a child, Mezoti has shown an almost natural talent for reading ion trails, and the little ship and its makeshift crew continue to follow the course set by their former Borg. The sensors of the Delta Flyer are currently following a warp trail that is less than an hour ahead of them. Twilight monitors the engines, leaving navigation up to the Mezoti. Naomi is playing a game on the console in front of her trying to alleviate boredom from the view through the viewscreen at warp. Twilight, however, is mesmerized by the swirling energy of the blueshift in front of her. Her scientific mind watches the hazy swirls of energy left over from the first moment of the universe has been compressed into the visible light spectrum. “Fascinating.” She murmurs softly. Naomi glances up at Twilight from her game, “It’s just how warp looks.” Twilight’s ears flick back and forth, “As I’ve learned more from Voyager’s library computer, I’ve learned about warp theory. I’ve learned about matter and antimatter power generation. I’ve learned about thousands of subjects in your database. But, actually being in a ship at warp, and not stuck on the holodeck.” She trails off, looking at the view outside. Naomi grimaces as her character dies on screen. It is a cute death at least, with funny music. She presses a pad and the status display appears on the screen. “So, Twilight?” “Mh-hmm?” “When they told you about the name of the station, why did you get quiet all of a sudden?” Twilight looks back at Naomi for a long moment, her wide eyes gleaming with unshed tears, “The kidnappings, the name, it just reminded me of a book I read.” “I can see it in your eyes Twilight, its more than that.” “A lot more, I only read the book after a very bad...person...hurt lots of ponies I cared about,” Shaking her head slowly Twilight gulps, "And it makes me worry more about bringing you two along on this.” “Tirek?” At Twilight’s slow nod, she frowns, “I remember that episode, that looked like a tough battle.” Twilight shakes her head, “I know what the program says happened, but it’s wrong. The fight was so much worse than it showed, trying to fight Tirek. To control the power of all the Princesses within me, but at the same time not hurt anypony else.Tirek didn't care though, he even fired into the school grounds, and laughed about it. We didn’t fight for just a few minutes, it went on for hours. It was the most intense magical fight I’ve ever had in my life.” She shakes her head, her ears flopping. She huffs, “It’s crazy, I have memories in my head that never happened in the show.” Her ears flatten back, “It was a lot cleaner in the episode, he was so much bigger than me, he tried to stomp me out of existence. He tried to pummel me. I was able to make a strong enough shield, but I couldn’t go on the offense with having to defend.” She sighs softly, for a long time she sits there, tears dropping from time to time, “Sometimes I wonder, I’ve watched every episode of that show, Friendship is Magic, and while most of my memories are of what happened in there, like they would be since I’m a computer program.” She looks up at Naomi, “But I’ve got memories that don’t explain being a program. I remember fillyhood. I remember crushes on coltfriends. I remember things that weren’t shown in the show, details so real to my mind that I don’t see how the Voyager’s computer could have made them up, or Tom could have programmed them. They are too numerous, too detailed.” She shudders and stops, “Naomi, I think Discord had more of a paw in my creation on Voyager than we both think.” “Discord? You mean Q?” Twilight nods. Then her attention is ripped away as Mezoti taps a few pads on her display, “Okay, drop out of warp.” Twilight sniffles as she rotates her seat back to normal and presses a few keys, dropping the shuttle to sublight speed. Twilight presses a few keys as the impulse engines take over, turning off all active scanning and all radiating power sources. She guides the ship silently, as they move slowly through the star system. A few hours pass as she scans visually. The sensors say they are in a star system, and they are moving through an enormous asteroid belt. Visual scanning shows three planets inside the orbit of the asteroid belt. One of them looks like it supports life. Though eventually, the electromagnetic detectors show energy fields. Twilight pilots the Flyer closer, keeping the ship mostly unpowered so they don’t give away their position. Several careful hours of maneuvering ends up with the Flyer in a high orbit around the asteroid emanating power. Twilight leans back from the control, “I don’t think their sensor net detected us.” “What about visual scanning?” Twilight smirks back at Naomi, “Visual scanning without magnification is limited to twenty or thirty miles to see shapes. Reflected light is another thing, but I’ve angled the ship to minimize reflection from this system’s star.” Mezoti leans forward, “What about magnification?” “Magnification reduces the field of vision, which means that it’s a lot harder to scan visually under magnification. So, I think we are safe. We can’t become invisible, we don’t have a cloak. But given the circumstances, we are as hard to find as we can make ourselves. I need to get down there and see if the crew is there.” She smiles as her horn lights, “I may not be able to cloak the ship.” With a short flash, “I can bend the light around me.” She disappears. After a few moments, she reappears, a big smile on her face, “I’ll find the crew if they are there. Get in contact with Captain Janeway and we will call in Voyager to get them off.” Naomi nods as Twilight moves over to the transporter pad, she turns around and smiles at the girls, “I think bending light around me will affect the energy of the transporter beam. So, I’ll disappear as soon as I rematerialize.” She looks at Mezoti, “Energize.”