Meet Lt. Zariel Sindile, temporarily assigned to Voyager for its rescue mission in the Badlands. Now she's stuck in the Delta Quadrant, her children are at home without her, she has no one to depend on, and her darkest secret is about to be laid ba...
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Stardate 53956.1
The captain and Zariel materialized in sickbay, and the Doctor rushed to Janeway's side to lift Zariel onto the bio bed. He ran a tricorder over her and snapped, "Cortical stimulator."
Janeway turned and grabbed one and slapped it into his hand. He fitted it on Zariel's forehead and activated it, then pointed for the captain to go to the console to activate the pulse. "Fifty millijoules, now!" Janeway jabbed her finger on the panel, and Zariel's body arced stiffly upward, then relaxed. The Doctor checked his tricorder. "Seventy-five!" Again, Zariel's body arched and relaxed. The Doctor turned and filled a hypospray and spun back to hiss it against Zariel's neck, then back to the tricorder. He tapped the buttons on the hypospray and injected Zariel again, looked at his readings again, then dropped the tricorder on the bio bed in frustration. "Nothing's having any effect!"
He turned to the Captain. "There's no decrease in her brain chemistry. That thing wasn't able to feed on her, but I'm getting almost no synaptic response, and I don't know why." His tricorder beeped at him, and he looked. "Her vitals are falling now. We'll lose her in about fifteen minutes, unless I can think of something else to try."
Across sickbay, Tuvok, inside the biogenic field, tapped a panel and released the field around the Vulcans. They exchanged glances, confirming that the psychic drain was gone, and Tuvok walked over to the Captain's side, removing his inhibitor as he went.
The Doctor asked, "What happened down there?"
The Captain answered, "When the launch mechanism failed, she carried the canister in and placed it on top of the entity herself."
The Doctor's eyes widened. "Just like that?"
"No, it wasn't 'just like that.'" The Captain's shoulders curled inward. "She was struggling, like she was walking against a high wind... she fell..." Janeway put a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes, and Tuvok laid a hand on her shoulder.
The Doctor turned back to look at Zariel. "The psychic damage would be immeasurable."
Janeway opened her eyes and looked up at Tuvok. "Would a mind meld be able to reach her?"
The Doctor turned towards her and said, "It might, Captain!" but Tuvok steepled his fingers. "It would indeed, Captain. However, she has on several occasions refused me permission to meld with her. If I attempted it now, she would sense my presence before I could complete the link, and would either resist me or retreat completely. She would die before I could even make contact with her." Tuvok pressed his upraised fingers against his lips, and slowly closed his eyes.
The Captain let her head drop, but then a voice behind them said, "She has never refused me permission."
The captain, the doctor and Tuvok all turned their heads towards T'Lin, who continued, "I have never sought her permission to meld. Therefore I might be able to establish a link before she reacts adversely." She looked down. "However, I do not have the training to initiate the next level of the meld, and neither does she."
