A/N:

WARNING: Gore at the beginning, but doesn't persist throughout the story.

I don't own "Star Trek."

Don't look.

Keep your eyes shut.

Don't look.

The first time Chakotay had seen a deer get gutted, he'd vomited right into the fire pit. His father had then forced him to sit and watch two more deer get "cleaned," thinking he would toughen his son out by the end of the day, so he could start teaching Chakotay how to clean a kill. It backfired. Chakotay—about eight or nine then—ran off into the jungle and hid under some bushes, crying on and off, until his mother found him and brought him home. He never ate meat again. (Unless it was replicated.)

He'd had a recurring nightmare for a while, about being in the deer's position, except alive and conscious. The fear of getting gutted had faded away decades ago, buried under a pile of new fears Chakotay had been harboring. (Going crazy like Grandfather, dying alone, losing one of his close friends on Voyager, getting assimilated…) The "cleaning" nightmare resurfaced only once in his adulthood, after he led the away team to investigate the Hirogen ship for the first time.

Don't look.

Inside his belly, the Hirogen's fist tightened.

Chakotay's eyes opened.

He was still standing in the dark woods, half bent over. He didn't remember dropping his phaser, but he could make out its shape on the ground. In one hand the Hirogen still held the oddly shaped blade he'd used to slice Chakotay opened seconds ago. The moonlight illuminated Chakotay's blood sliding down the metal. He'd plunged his other hand into the wound after Chakotay had stumbled and frozen in place, his body refusing to keep fighting.

With the hand that was inside him, the Hirogen shoved him backwards against a tree. Chakotay tasted iron, as blood shot up his throat and out his mouth. He slid down against the tree, until he was half sitting against it and half lying on the ground. The Hirogen followed him, lowering into a kneeling position.

"If you tell me where your comrades have taken off to," the Hirogen leaned in on him, "I'll take my hand out, and just my hand."

If "comrades" had meant shipmates from Voyager, or fellow Maquis, Chakotay might have been tempted to give in, with the excuse that they could fend for themselves. But "comrades" here meant "students," anthropology geeks between fifteen and twenty. So talking was out of the question.

He wanted to close his eyes again but didn't have the strength to. So he was forced to watch the Hirogen pull out a chunk of his small intestine. It didn't look quite like it had in those dreams. Amidst the searing pain, he was also overtaken with disbelief. Had he actually survived the Caretaker, the Dominion's massacre against the Maquis, the Borg, Species 8472, the "family curse," and gotten home from the Delta Quadrant after seven years, to get gutted by a god-damned Hirogen? (In the Alpha Quadrant no less?) Seven, Annika, flashed through his mind. What the sight of his mutilated remains would do to her. And Kathryn. His sister Sekaya…

The Hirogen was still talking, in a taunting voice, but Chakotay wasn't hearing any of it. He began silently praying to the Spirits, and begging his dead father for comfort, hoping something would show up at the last minute and save him, like all those times on Voyager and in the Maquis. Something. Something. What did he need? A starship with a sickbay to fly by, beam him up right now before he lost too much blood. Or find him just a minute or two after his death, and revive him. Or just wake up at home in bed, and find the universe was just playing a massive practical joke on him.

And suddenly, just as he was thinking that, something cracked through the dark woods.

The Hirogen's head turned, and Chakotay's eyes rolled up.

Species 8472 came bounding forward and stopped in front of them, heaving like a spider about to make a kill.

The sight made Chakotay's heart soar, because now he knew he was only dreaming. At first. Then he remembered that wormhole, the one the Hirogen had been coming through, and realized 8472 could have done the same. Hell, 8472 could open a rift to our universe wherever it wanted. Shit, even if 8472 wasn't here at all, he might simply be hallucinating because he was dying from trauma and blood loss.

8472 swung its arm and the Hirogen, and sent his head flying off into the night.

It was funny. He couldn't laugh at the moment, but the sight was funny. Chakotay never found decapitation funny. I'm delirious, he realized.

8472 moved around Chakotay on its three legs, eyeing him as if it knew…as if it knew him. Good or bad, he couldn't tell how it was regarding him. He recalled that it was a telepath, and began silently pleading for it to help him. Then he felt a jolt in his brain. It was similar to the feeling of getting "punched" in the head, while communicating with the Chaotic Space aliens. 8472 was trying to "talk" to him, but it wasn't working, because Chakotay wasn't a telepath. It could talk to Tuvok, all those years ago, because the Vulcan could receive its thoughts. With Chakotay, the reception was one-way. He opened his mouth to try speaking verbally, but only blood came out.

8472 fixed its stare on his abdomen. His guts were half inside him, half hanging out over his torso, with the dead Hirogen's hand still clawed inside them. 8472 pulled the Hirogen's hand away (Chakotay had never actually seen 8472 grab something with those oddly-shaped hands before). Then he sat there, seeing bright spots as the blood loss began to take hold. 8472's arm was swelling up. And then it shot out some warm goo, which covered Chakotay's entire abdomen and exposed intestines, and immediately hardened into a sort of rubbery sack.

It was possible that this purple gunk would infect his organs and make things worse in the long run. And it was possible that 8472 wanted him for experiments or some other fate worse than death. But Chakotay just couldn't make himself care. He felt nothing but a soar of relief. The alien moved one warm, lumpy hand behind his neck, and hooked the other under his legs. It looked enough like a rescue to him. He passed out peacefully.

As soon as Ensign Hanson's shift ended, she took off down the dark hallway towards Deep Space Nine's holodeck. She found herself thinking back on the past, comparing her life on Voyager to the new one she'd made on DS9. Both held a deep personal significance. She missed Voyager, terribly. But on this melting-pot space station, she'd felt less like an outsider, and more accepted, than she had anywhere before. No longer in need of her biosuits, she now wore a gray-and-black Starfleet uniform with the green undershirt of a science officer, and let her gold hair sit freely along her shoulders. Her cybernetic implants marked her as an outsider no more than Ezri Dax's spots, Colonel Kira's earring, or Quark's unfortunate facial structure. On a space station populated by misfits, no one was a misfit.

Vic Fontaine had done a bit of redecorating since she'd first come aboard Deep Space Nine a year ago, but the 1960s Vegas casino still had the same feel. Vic was a self-aware hologram like the Doctor, and the two had become fast friends since Voyager's return to Earth, often singing duets for Vic's customers. Seven herself sang on the stage now and then.

"Annie!" the suave gray-haired hologram greeted her. "Your pals are all waitin' for ya," he gestured to a table, where the small group she'd organized sat. "They were getting antsy, so I gave 'em a round of cocktails, on the house. I'm assuming it won't hurt their focus, since it's just holographic booze."

Seven smiled at her friend. "Thank you, Vic."

"I can get you one too, if you like. You look tense."

"Thank you, again. But no." Seven said, moving towards the table. "You said yourself, it's holographic, and likely wouldn't affect my jitters."

"But it still tastes good!" Ro Laren pointed out, from the table.

Ro Laren, a former Maquis like Chakotay, was now aboard DS9 serving for Bajor. She'd come aboard to replace Constable Odo as security chief, after the Changeling had departed to rejoin his people. She and Laren had become fast friends, no doubt due to the fact that they'd both spent a large portion of their lives feeling like outsiders, and coped with snarky attitudes.

Seven pulled up a chair at the round table, and realized she had no idea how to greet her recruits. "Hello," she said awkwardly. "We are all aware of why we're here."

No one from Voyager was present, because all those who were able or willing to help in their former commander's rescue were doing so, with Starfleet's official search party, led by Admiral Janeway. Seven, being his fiancé, was deemed too "emotionally involved" to partake in the search. So she'd organized her own. There was no law preventing concerned friends or family members from putting forth their own search efforts. Counselor Ezri Dax had convinced Colonel Kira to give Seven and Lt. Ro leave to go on this personal mission.

The group was small, but colorful—literally. Ro sat to her right. To her left was Ro's admirer, Quark, relishing the holographic drink Vic had given him. Two of Chakotay's anthropology students sipped their cocktails, still dressed in their Starfleet Academy uniforms: Thyk, a petite, young Andiroan man (well, person); and nineteen-year-old David Skokie, a tall lanky human, who went by his last name. Across from Seven sat a pair of women, in garments similar to those worn by the Maquis, but with brighter colors and more decorative tokens. One, human and brunette, was Fantine "Frenchy" Christophe, a former Maquis who'd evaded Starfleet authorities after the war, and turned to mercenary jobs and bounty hunting to earn a living. The other was her partner in crime, and possible lover, a green-skinned Orian woman named Nass. (Nass had been born without the pheromones most of her species possessed, preventing her from affecting other species the way most Orion women did.) Neither had ever met Chakotay. They'd contacted Seven, after she'd put a message in the news looking for help in the search party, because Christophe considered Chakotay a Maquis hero. And Nass simply went wherever "Frenchy" went. Seven also had a special artifact to pay the two mercenaries with, off the record. No one, not even Lt. Ro, knew about that part, and she wanted it to stay that way.

Seven glanced down at her PADD on the table. "I have updates from Starfleet, concerning Chakotay's disappearance. He's far from the only person to be…apprehended by the aliens coming in through the wormhole. Starfleet has its hands full, searching for all of the individuals and starships that have gone missing or otherwise fallen into distress. Admiral Janeway's team is doing their best, but I believe we can increase the odds ourselves."

"The Perfidia's small," Nass said, "She can get into spots other ships can't. And I'm the best pilot you could have." Her emerald eyes flicked to her companion. "And Frenchy's the best…well, at pretty much everything else."

"Navigation, tactical, shooting, punching," the Frenchwoman ticked it all off, in her low accented voice. "And a number of tricks I learned in the Maquis that they don't teach at Starfleet Academy."

"Same here," Ro said. "But I'll have a bit of multitasking to do. I told Colonel Kira that I was going to collect data on the new species coming in that might pose a threat to the space station."

"That would be wise, even if we weren't on a rescue mission," Seven mused.

Everyone was now looking at Quark, wondering why on earth the bartender—who rarely stuck his neck out for anyone—was embarking on a potentially dangerous mission for a casual friend, to rescue a man he'd never met nor had any particular interest in.

"I'm running a bar that caters to every species on the station!" Quark explained. "I need to found out what these Hirogen and Kazon and Vidians like to drink, what they eat, what features they like to see on a Dabboo girl…"

"You could ask me to gather that information for you," Ro said, staring at him under un-amused eyebrows.

"You'll have your beautiful hands full!" Quark insisted.

Ro bit her lip, looking like she couldn't decide whether to punch Quark or blush.

Seven cocked an eyebrow. "If everyone's finished flirting, we'll get down to business."

"All right." Ro folded her hands around her empty glass, and looked at Seven with her piercing catlike eyes. "Where are we gonna start? The Alpha Quadrant, or the Delta Quadrant?"

Starfleet, of course, had ships in both, searching for all the missing persons and ships. It wasn't unreasonable that aliens from the Delta Quadrant could have brought or chased crews or individuals through that wormhole, into the Delta Quadrant. But Seven had another theory entirely.

"Neither," she said. "We'll start in Fluidic Space."

A/N: More pointless commentary...

CROSSOVERS: This was meant to be a one-shot "Voyager" fic, with some cameos from DS9. But the whole story expanded like a cookie in the oven that was given too much dough, so now it's a short chapter-story that's a crossover of DS9, VOY, and TNG.

DS9: I vaguely followed the model of the novelized "eighth season," with Kira now in charge of the station, Ro Laren taking over Odo's security job, and Quark having the hots for Ro. However, I'm not trying too hard to make in consistent, as I haven't even read most of that series.

SELA: (Tasha Yar's Romulan daughter, from TNG) I love her, but it's been years since I saw her in an episode, and could find no videos online that showed her. So if she's seems out of character, let's just pretend it's because she's changed in the last few years since we last saw her.

HOW MANY MORE CHAPTERS: Hopefully only two or three. Because I want to get back to my other fics. And my original stories. And my social life.