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The Ice
Queen
A J/7 Advent
Calendar Story 2008 by Gun Brooke
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Gun
15
Janeway heard the large group of people before saw them.
Voices, mainly laughter and singing, blended in the cool air
and traveled toward her like ghosts in the eternal night of
the Nordic winter.
“At least they sound happy,” the Doctor mused. “What is
that? Songs saluting drunkenness?”
“Drinking songs,” Tom Paris said with a smile. “No doubt
they need something powerful to stay warm in this part of
the world. This must be before they installed regionally
tempered zones.”
“Can’t imagine Earth without them.” Harry Kim shuddered.
“How else would Earth have coped with the overpopulation?”
Janeway listened only with half her mind, the rest of her
focused on what situation they might be up against when they
rounded the next corner. The sight made her stop cold.
“What the…”
“A structure of ice.” Paris scanned the building in front of
them where all the people were apparently lining up to
enter. “I mean, entirely of ice, practically.”
“Even I know that they knew how to build with a multitude of
components in the 21st century.” Janeway raised
an eyebrow at Tom, their history aficionado. “They built and
igloo—this size? It’s enormous.”
“Might be a museum, perhaps?” the Doctor suggested.
“That melts away in the summer? Hardly.” Tom snorted.
“Well,” Janeway said and made sure her thermo jacket covered
her phaser, “only one way to find out. According to my
tricorder, Seven’s inside this place, and no matter how
joyous everybody seems on the outside, God knows what goes
on inside that cold hell hole.”
“Cold hell hole, Captain? Isn’t that a paradox?” the
Doctor asked only to back off at her level ten death glare.
“Understood, Captain. Cold hell hole it is.”
Nobody seemed to pay attention to them or mind that complete
strangers merged with their group. Instead, a young woman
handed out free warm beverages accompanied by an equally
warm smile. Janeway thanked her, carefully sniffing the
drink. In the corner of her eyes she saw the Doctor do a
stealth scan of the beverage.
“What is it?” she murmured as she moved toward the entrance.
“Something fashioned from lingon berries. Non-alcoholic,
actually. Harmless.”
Janeway sipped her lingon berry drink and was pleasantly
surprised at the sweet-tart taste and found it quite
refreshing.
A man at the door let them inside, he too was smiling
broadly. As soon as the door closed behind them, Janeway
found her theory of this being a hell hole was confirmed. A
thunderous sound came from the speakers, people’s bodies
writhed in spasmodic movements and it was clear that they
were under the influence of something. Some were laughing
hysterically, other’s were sipping odd looking drinks from
tiny glasses, and Janeway wondered if this was part of a
social anthropological experiment gone awry.
She stared at the obviously mass hypnotized people at the
far end of the room, and that’s where she first spotted
Seven of Nine.
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