Chapter Text
The planet seemed to good to be true. And by that time, I’d learned that if something seemed to good to be true, it probably was. The last few months had brought us nothing but a series of disappointments, starting with that damn wormhole and culminating on the Sikarian home world.
We’d limped into Sikarian space in grey-mode and in need of repairs after several run-ins with ships from a Kazon sect Neelix called the Nistrim. According to him, they were one of the most violent sects in the Kazon collective. They weren’t exactly powerful, but what they lacked in firepower they made up for in persistence. I’d thought we’d found an ally in the Sikarians, but it turned out that their motives were much more insidious than I could have ever imagined.
I’d known nearly from the start what Gathorel Labin was, but we were hardly in a state to refuse him, out numbered and outgunned as we were. And besides, I could put up with a little licentiousness if it would see the ship repaired.
And it did.
Plants, seeds, dilithium, deuterium, terminium… Gath would have given me anything I asked for those first few days. And he did. Everything I asked for, except a way to leave. For days he’d strung me along, letting me believe that he was talking to the other magistrates, spinning lie after lie about delays, hoping that I’d forget about the trajector, or that all the pleasures he offered could tempt us to stay on Sikaris. He spoke all the while about the planets we could visit together, the planet he would give me, a secret hideaway for our mutual pleasure; about what he could make me feel, make me do, make me say. Dark whispers from a silver tongue.
I could still feel Gath’s oil-slick eyes appraising my form, his possessive touch on my neck. I still awoke in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat from nightmares sprung from his hedonism. Nightmares that found me marooned on a planet, utterly alone unless he deigned to visit. Of his hands, insistent and demanding, not stopping until they had wrung every last ounce of pain-filled pleasure from my body. Of slowly succumbing to madness as he inevitably grew bored of me, until my mind and body begged for the stimulation of even his most unspeakable desires. Of me on my knees, pleading for release from my prison, and of his once lust-filled eyes, now full of pity and disinterest, his dispassionate smile, and his cruel laugh as he turned away, leaving me alone with my insanity.
My disquiet was not allayed by the fact that my refusal to compromise my principles had not cost us forty-thousand lightyears. I am not sure if Tuvok’s betrayal would have cut more or less deep had the technology he’d obtained illegally worked with our own. I still did not know who else was involved in the plot to trade a copy of Voyager’s library for the trajector technology—neither Tuvok nor Torres would say—and if Tuvok hadn’t named himself, I’m sure that Torres would have taken all the blame without thought. If Chakotay had any knowledge of the matter, he didn’t see fit to tell me. I know for a fact that he’d wanted me to trade for the trajector, even after Gath had said that doing so was against Sikarian law. Chakotay never said it out right, but it was clear what his thoughts on the Prime Directive were. And then again, a part of me—a larger part than I’d like to admit—agreed with him. His thoughts on B’Elanna’s involvement, he also did not say, and I did not ask. As angry and as disappointed as I was in B’Elanna, I was also extremely proud of her. She could have hid the entire incident or let Tuvok take the fall, but she’d come forward and placed herself at my mercy. For that alone, she was still wearing her pips. But I’m not sure it mattered who else was involved—and I know there were others. The incident was behind us: I wanted to keep it that way.
The planet we were currently orbiting, Neelix said was bursting with nutritious food stuffs and was completely uninhabited, and our scans had confirmed it. A veritable Eden, ripe for harvest. Our stores were not emptied in the week since leaving Sikaris, and Kes had since planted a variety of new Sikarian fruits and vegetables in the hydroponic garden, but I was not about to pass up such an opportunity to augment our supplies. Bless the little Talaxian, Neelix’s culinary skills might leave a lot to be desired, but he had a gift for menus based around what we had on hand and what needed to be used first. He and Kes had developed an entire outfit for harvesting, preserving, and drying food we either grew or gathered. It saved us energy on replicators and stasis units, and ensured we’d have food for weeks in case of an emergency.
From orbit, the planet was a swirl of green and blue, obscured in places by thick white clouds. Entirely uninhabited and not within any boarders known to us…
It was too good to be true.
Wasn’t it?
So while my First Officer and head chef slash guide to the Delta Quadrant slash self-appointed morale officer led an away team to gather fresh food supplies, I paced. Across the command deck, up to Ops to run another sensor sweep for myself, only to find that Lieutenant Ayala had already done so. No unexpected lifeforms on the planet, no ships on sensors. Reassured, I returned to my seat, only to find myself crossing the bridge once more minutes later for another look at the sensor readings. Each time, Ayala simply stepped aside and silently scrolled through the newest readings. I wondered if he was just as paranoid as I was, or if he was saving us the verbal exchange.
On my fifth such circuit, Lieutenant Paris spun towards me, brow knitted in concern. Apparently, there wasn’t enough to do, keeping a starship in orbit, to distract him from my wanderings. “Uh, Captain? Is everything ok?”
Of all my officers, Paris was the only one brave enough—or perhaps stupid enough—to ask me such a thing on the bridge. Or perhaps I had grown too fond of Tom Paris in recent months.
I had watched, helpless, as he’d relived a murder victim’s last moments, unable to do anything more than hold his clammy head in my lap while he suffered through the Banean punishment for murder. The Baneans thought it an enlightened and civilized punishment, but for an innocent man to watch himself commit murder, for him to also perceive himself the victim of that murder, it was pure torture. Witnessing Paris beg for mercy, holding him as he blacked out, had thrust me into my own past, and now it was getting harder and harder to separate Tom Paris the cad from my memories of his father. I will not soon forget the pleading look in Tom’s wide, blue eyes, silently begging me to help him, when he realized that he was entering another cycle.
I had known that Tom’s promiscuity would get him in trouble one day, but I’d also known that he didn’t kill professor Ren. If my best friend weren’t a Vulcan, I might have believed the evidence presented against Tom. But I knew that appearances were not always as they seemed. And I trusted Tom. He was in prison back home because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut regarding an error he’d made. There was no way he could murder a man in cold blood. And if he had killed him, he would not have denied it. Tom was a rake, but he was an honest rake.
I paused my pacing and sighed, rubbing at my temple before offering him a small smile. “Yes, Tom. Guess I’m just a little too used to disappointment.”
He returned my smile and spun back to his console. “Nothing on sensors.” In other words, Relax, Captain.
I suppressed a sigh. You’re beginning to upset the crew, Kathryn. Sit. Down.
I trusted my officers. And every single one of them had proven themselves worthy of that trust already. I needed to trust that they were monitoring our away team and would alert me the moment so much as one shadow crossed our sensors. So I forced myself to sit, and my limbs complied stiffly because every nerve ending in my body was telling me to run a more in-depth scan. I glanced up at Ayala but his head was down, no doubt running another sweep. In fact, as I looked around the bridge, everyone was fully engaged in their duties.
Everyone but you, Captain.
I actually did sigh this time and sat back in my chair. It wasn’t my job to monitor the away team or scan for approaching ships. There was, however, an engineering report on my desk that needed my attention, and I knew that I should get to it before I had another pile of them from the away team. But for the life of me, I couldn’t get myself to leave the bridge. So I sat, tense in the silence that was filled only by the beeps and chirps of the consoles around me, waiting for something to go wrong.
“Captain.” Paris’ voice was startling in the silence. “I don't think we're alone.”
My entire body snapped to attention at his words, heart racing, and I was on my feet before I even thought about standing.
“Mister Tuvok, run a lateral EM scan for me,” Paris continued. “Coordinates eight one mark four zero.”
Another ship? How could they have gotten so close?
“Running scan,” Tuvok said.
“What do you see, Mister Paris?” I asked.
“It's like a reflection,” he described, “something in low orbit when it moves into a certain angle from the sun.”
“He's correct,” Tuvok reported. “I am picking up an ionization trail. There is another ship in orbit.”
How did we not see it? Why didn’t our sensors pick it up?
“Using some kind of cloaking device?” I asked as I moved over to Tactical to see for myself.
“It's not a cloaking device as we know it, Captain,” said Tuvok. “I cannot say for certain what it is, but the ship does employ some kind of masking circuitry that has affected our sensors.”
No one with honest intentions deliberately hides their ship. I wasted no time opening a channel to the away team. “Voyager to away team.”
“Go ahead, Captain.”
Chakotay’s voice came through the comm, sounding calm and steady. But that didn’t mean anything. If that ship had people on the surface and they’d ambushed our teams, Chakotay could be under compulsion to act as if nothing was wrong.
“Any unexpected life signs down there, Commander?”
“Nothing but bloodworms,” he replied dryly. “Neelix wants to bring some back for a tartar he wants to make. I'm trying to talk him out of it.”
Relief mixed with disgust and amusement in my chest. Relief because if he were under compulsion, he wouldn’t have made the joke. Disgust because the thought of bloodworm tartar made me seriously consider whether I needed to rush to the head and loose my breakfast. And amusement because Chakotay’s singular brand of humor could lighten even the darkest moments. If the unidentified ship weren’t such a heavy concern, I’d have laughed and played along.
“We're picking up an unidentified ship in low orbit,” I said. “Collect your teams and prepare to transport back while we investigate.”
“Acknowledged. Chakotay out.”
As soon as the channel closed, Tuvok spoke up. “Captain, I believe a polaron burst may give us visual contact.”
My reply was instant. “Do it.” I turned to the viewscreen just in time to see the polaron burst light up the silhouette of a ship I’d know anywhere. “Kazon.” It came out more like a whisper, a curse.
Tuvok was confirming my suspicions, “The hull design does conform to known specifications of the Kazon-Nistrim sect.”
But I hardly heard him. I was already opening another comm channel. “Voyager to away teams. Return to the ship immediately.”
Chakotay’s reply was swift. “Acknowledged.”
I moved quickly down to the command deck, my eyes fixed on the space where the Kazon ship had briefly appeared. They would have seen the polaron flash: there was no way they didn’t know that we had seen them, and I was anticipating a fight. Centered on my bridge, my pulse pounded in my veins, a heavy drumming between my ears as I waited for a report about their movements.
But the bridge remained silent except for the sound of my blood pulsing in my head. They weren’t powering weapons, or firing up their engines. They were just… sitting there.
My hands gripped my hips in tense expectation. “Why aren’t they doing anything?”
I hadn’t known I’d spoken aloud until Paris replied. “It’s like they’re waiting for something,” he mused.
In my peripheral, I noticed Ensign Kim take over for Ayala and opened the comm to the transporter room. “Transporter room one, do you have everyone?”
“Everyone except Ensign Seska and the Commander,” was the swift reply.
“Commander Chakotay went to look for Ensign Seska in the caves,” Kim supplied.
Damnit Commander!
I whirled around to Kim. “Can you get a lock on them?”
Kim tapped the controls before shaking his head. “No. And our sensors cannot penetrate the rock.”
“Scan the area. Find them,” I ordered, worry making my tone clipped and sharp. “Tuvok,” I turned and paced towards Tactical. “What’s the status of the Kazon ship?”
“Unchanged. They are not charging weapons, nor are they powering their engines.”
I turned sharply on my heel and paced back to the center of the bridge. The sound of Ensign Seska’s voice over the comm stopped me dead in my tracks. “Seska to Voyager, two to beam directly to sickbay!”
Protocol dictates that the highest ranking officer hail the ship, even for an emergency beam out. The only reason for a lower ranking officer to hail the ship…is if the other can not. Cold fear gripped my heart, and the seconds it took to initiate and complete transport ticked by in agonizing slowness.
Finally, Kim looked up at me. “We’ve got them, Captain,” he said with obvious relief.
Wasting no time, I turned to the helm and ordered, “Tom, get us out of here.”
Each second it took to break orbit, I braced myself for weapon’s fire. I knew it would take exactly 5.37 seconds to break our low orbit, but the Kazon could do plenty of damage in that time. But still, they did nothing. When the thrum beneath my feet switched from impulse to warp, I looked to Tuvok.
“No sign of pursuit,” he said, anticipating my request.
I let out an audible breath of relief. No pursuit. We were safe from the Kazon, for the moment. But I had at least one injured crewman in sickbay and another in unknown condition. I would not relax until I could see for myself that they were alright. I turned the bridge over to Tuvok and headed to sickbay.
Chakotay lay on a biobed, a pain-filled grimace twisting his features and his torso blackened by an energy burn where it showed beneath his singed uniform. Seska, standing at his side on the far side of the biobed, one hand on his arm, appeared unharmed. A sack of food was slung across her body and hanging down below her hip. The Doctor was on the other side of Chakotay’s bed, currently facing his medical cart and exchanging instruments.
“Report,” I clipped out as I crossed the sickbay to Chakotay’s side. The scent of burned flesh assaulted my senses, nearly causing me to gag in revulsion. I swallowed forcefully and focused on the Doctor’s diagnosis.
“The commander suffered a major energy burn when he was hit with phaser fire,” said the Doctor, turning and cutting through Chakotay’s uniform. “He’s lucky. A little to the right, and we’d be doing major surgery.”
The burn covered Chakotay’s left side from just below his ribs to the top of his hip. The phaser beam had torn through his oblique, blackening the surrounding flesh, and leaving a rather nasty wound that, thankfully, had cauterized in the heat of the blast. I winced in sympathy and hoped that the Doctor had given him something for the pain.
“It looks worse than it is,” Chakotay said, having followed my line of sight.
I rolled my eyes at his machismo, and kept him down when he would have sat up with a gentle hand on his shoulder so the Doctor could begin regenerating his scorched muscles and tissues. “Of course it is, Commander,” I said. His bare skin beneath my palm was warm, the gentle pulse of blood below his flesh assuring me that he was alive even as I asked the Doctor, “Will he be alright?”
The Docotor didn’t look up from his work. “Perfectly. I suspect you’ll be a little sore for the rest of the day, Commander. But he’ll be fit for duty in a few hours.”
I patted Chakotay’s shoulder lightly but did not remove my hand. “Good. Now, why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“The Kazon came upon us in the caves,” Seska explained.
I suppressed the urge to demand just what the hell she had been doing in caves our sensors could not penetrate because it was neither the time nor the place. I could harangue her for the flagrant violation of safety protocols later. What mattered then was that everyone was alive and well, if a little singed around the edges. So instead of snapping blame at her, I asked, “Ensign, are you alright?” My voice was tight with restrained anger. It was entirely plausible that she’d gone into the caves to hide from the Kazon. But with my First Officer laying wounded before me, it was a little hard to consider that excuse.
“Yes, Captain,” Seska said with a nod.
“Good. Then I look forward to reading your report.”
Beneath my hand, Chakotay’s muscles leapt, no doubt getting ready to defend her. My grip tightened and I laid my other hand on his biceps, silencing whatever he was going to say. Seska blanched, but read the dismissal in my tone, and with another nod to me and a small squeeze of Chakotay’s arm, she left sickbay without another word.
When the door hissed shut, I looked back down at my First Officer. “Take the rest of the day off, Commander.”
“Thanks Captain, but I’ll be alright. I’ve survived worse. I need to go over the inventory—”
My hand tightened further when he tried to sit up, wincing in spite of his protests that he was fine. The Doctor’s treatment was slow, but effective and the deep wound in his side was half as deep now.
“Neelix and Harry can handle the supply manifest,” I said. “You rest. And if you really want something to do later, you can work on your own report.”
Defeated, he nodded and I released my grip on his shoulder, surprised at how stiff my fingers were. I hadn’t realized how hard I’d been gripping him. White, finger-shaped, pressure marks began fading back to copper. I patted his shoulder once more in apology. “I’m glad you’re alright, Commander. Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Lips parted like he was going to say something, Chakotay just nodded once more, and with a departing nod to the Doctor, I returned to the bridge.