DISCLAIMER: It's Paramount's galaxy.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: C/7. AU where Seven and Chakotay become trapped with the Ventu during the episode "Natural Law"

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LEGACY

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Stardate 54839.3

Seven studied the readings displayed on the tricorder as she walked. She and Chakotay had been trapped now for just over forty-eight hours within an energy barrier that enclosed several thousand square kilometers on the southern sub-continent of the planet Ledos. Unfortunately, the Ledosians had neglected to inform them of the barrier, and their shuttle was destroyed after impacting it. Chakotay was following close behind her and leaned heavily on a walking stick constructed by the leader of a community native to the area. It was surprising how quickly his injuries were healing, but he was still having a little trouble getting around. Behind them, five natives, including the leader, pulled the heavy deflector of the destroyed shuttle as the indigenous girl who befriended Seven watched and followed alongside.

At first, Seven was uninterested in these people. Their simple hunter gatherer way of life was primitive, and she felt they had nothing to offer. Now, however, she was intrigued by them and their culture. The girl was curious and quick. Seven discovered to her surprise that she was developing a new appreciation for Chakotay's anthropological interests, and indeed, felt a growing closeness to Chakotay himself. She was still annoyed with him for deviating from their flight plan and precipitating the chain of events that led to the shuttle's destruction against the energy barrier and their current predicament. Soon enough, however, she anticipated they would be able to dissipate the barrier and escape, and she couldn't deny she was curiously beginning to also see things more from his perspective. The barrier itself and magnetic fields within the enclosure made scans difficult, but there were indications of many such communities widely distributed throughout the area and she wondered how those might compare to the particular community they had encountered and befriended.

Seven glanced back towards Chakotay and he quickly looked away. Obviously he had been looking at her. Perhaps her choice of Chakotay as her test subject in the socialization experiments she recently conducted on the holodeck had been more accurate than she supposed. In recent weeks, he had been asking her to participate in various activities aboard Voyager. Was there an underlying motivation to his requests? Might he actually be interested in developing a closer social relationship with her? It was all moot, of course. The recent discovery of the 'fail safe device' integrated into her Borg cortical node precipitated by those same experiments made it dangerous for her to become too involved and experience intense emotions. They may very well become better friends, but beyond that, her Borg physiology prevented anything more.

Seven sighed and regarded her tricorder once again. The readings finally looked good and she nodded satisfied. They were now far enough from the source of the magnetic field that had prevented her from using the deflector in establishing a dampening field. According to her readings, they should now have no trouble. "Here Commander," she said and stopped in a small clearing.

With any luck, she would soon be able to bring down the barrier from the inside and they could contact Voyager with their remaining communicator. In fact, the energy barrier was designed more for keeping things out, and would be significantly more difficult to breech from the outside. Fortunately they were able to generate a rift and penetrate it as they did with the shuttle's systems and arrive on the surface in one piece. More than could be said for the shuttle itself.

Chakotay motioned to the natives to stop dragging the deflector array. The people communicated exclusively through gesture and a complicated sign language. Preliminary scans, however, showed they possessed rudimentary vocal chords, and so would be capable of some speech. If Chakotay and Seven didn't leave soon, it was possible they would even try to start mimicking their speech. Seven had seen recently some of the males applying paint to their temples that resembled Chakotay's tattoo and the females ornamenting their temples with shuttle debris that resembled Seven's ocular implant. The natives learned quickly. Seven noticed now they didn't disperse, but lingered close to the deflector. Obviously they were just as curious as the girl.

"Not so close," Seven said, and again Chakotay used gestures to usher the natives to a safe distance.

There was a sudden flash of light as if from a lightning strike nearby and everyone looked up. The sky was cloudless, although a spot on the energy barrier overhead appeared to shimmer for a few seconds and then disappear. Seven and Chakotay exchanged a glance, but shrugged uncertain what it might be.

Seven returned to her work with the deflector. It occurred to her that she was disappointed to not be able to study these people further. Of course, it would be impractical for her to live amongst them for any length of time. Her physiology demanded constant regeneration in a Borg alcove. In a way, she was more constrained than these natives who were enclosed within the energy barrier. She was forever chained to the power source on Voyager or something equivalent. As if to highlight the point, she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder where her biradial clamp was obviously out of alignment again. She was overdue for another maintenance visit with the Doctor.

Chakotay came up beside her. "How's it going?"

"I'm just about ready," Seven replied. A few more adjustments and she would be able to initiate the dampening field.

Then something caught her eye.

It was the native girl. She had snuck around for a closer look and was now again too close. The last thing she wanted was for the girl to be injured. Seven stood up and walked over to where the girl was hiding behind a tree. "You have to move further away," she said and motioned to where the other native people stood. "Back with them." It was frustrating to not know the correct gestures. If she had time, it would have been fascinating to learn their language of signs.

Suddenly, the air above them again flashed brightly and the natives looked up in alarm. This time, however was significantly more violent than the first. Seven looked up as well and saw the force field shimmer. Waves of light danced across the surface rapidly as if it were vibrating. Several seconds later, a sound like rolling thunder reverberated throughout the valley they were in.

"What the hell was that?" Chakotay exclaimed.

Seven moved back to the deflector and picked up her tricorder. The readings were off the scale and she had to recalibrate the sensor to make any sense of them. "The energy barrier has just increased in strength more than sixteen fold."

"What happened?"

"I don't understand." Seven studied the readings some more.

Chakotay scanned the sky from horizon to horizon. Whereas the barrier was transparent before, now there was a definite opacity to it. The ripples of light were dying down and the thunder subsided. "It's almost as if the barrier was hit from the outside."

"I believe you are correct," Seven responded. "It appears an attempt has been made to bring the barrier down from the outside and it has solicited an increase in the energy field's strength. I suspect a photon torpedo just impacted the barrier."

"Voyager attempting to rescue us," Chakotay speculated.

"Perhaps," Seven replied. "They were possibly attempting to match the resonance frequency much the same way we did with the shuttle. Whoever it was, their attempt has failed."

Chakotay limped up closer to Seven. "Let's fire up this deflector and set up our own dampening field. Bring it down from the inside like we planned."

"You don't understand," Seven countered. "The increase in the field strength has made that impossible. There is simply not enough power in the deflector."

"We'll find a way to increase the power," Chakotay said hopefully.

According to these readings, even Voyager itself wouldn't be able to escape if for some reason it had been trapped inside. The barrier was obviously adapting to the attempts to bring it down. Apparently the intelligence who erected it in the first place took into account the possibility that others might wish to remove it.

They were, indeed, trapped.

"No," Seven replied grimly. "We can't change the laws of physics. There is simply not enough power for us to utilize. There is no possible way for us to dampen the energy field at this strength. We are stuck here, Commander. Stuck here until the barrier strength subsides."

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Author's note: Just a short teaser here. This will be a multi-chapter story (8-10 chapters). Please review and let me know what you think.