Title: Ensign Dargin

Author: ATX

Rating: T

Please do not distribute this without prior permission.
Constructive criticism is appreciated.

"'The galaxy can be a thankless, cruel place, Mr. Dargin, and you would do well to protect those who cannot save themselves. Join Starfleet and make your future brighter.' Bah! It's all a mad scheme, a horrible, torturous way to gain more brain power for the hive mind," I muttered to myself as I trudged through knee-deep snow that had only been ankle-deep when I began this god-forsaken journey. "The Admiral has nothing better to do on a beautiful, sunny, warm morning at Starfleet Headquarters, so she says, 'Ensign, hop on a shuttle to Gorinvia II and give this letter to my old lover because he's a nature buff and doesn't have any other means of communication in his backwoods cabin. Oh, and he's staying in the mountains where there are rich deposits of some confounded mineral that block transporters, so you'll have to walk for three miles uphill in the snow.' Well bully to you, Admiral. I'm sorry I ever requested to be your aide!"

I shrugged my coat further up on my shoulders, pushing back my thick dark hair that had become plastered in bedraggled curls against my forehead, "Everyone said you were a wonderful leader, a tough old bird, a compassionate being. Bullshit! Get me this, bring me that, coffee, coffee, coffee. Well no more," I declared boldly as I took a step forward. The snow gave way beneath me and I landed face-first in snow. "I am tendering my resignation and requesting a place on the Enterprise!" I stabbed a finger in the air for emphasis, as if anyone was watching, and pushed myself out of the snow. Shivering even more, I tried to knock the snow out of my parka without actually taking it off.

"Oh, God, I hope the letter isn't ruined," I moaned, and rummaged around in my pockets. The thin parcel was still safely tucked in its little waterproof container in the left compartment of my parka. I sighed. "If her letter had been damaged…" Trailing off, I gave a bark of laughter. "What the hell am I doing? I never used to talk to myself, and here I am venting to the great outdoors with a letter to deliver from a batty old admiral! I'm insane. There's nothing else to it."

I let out a belly laugh, if for no other reason than to warm myself up, and took three steps forward. I tried to take a fourth, but an unseen force sent me reeling to my backside.

"Hello?" called a voice from behind the "force" that had knocked me down. I looked closer and saw a candlelit window just to the right of the door I'd run into. Must have missed it while I was delivering my monologue to the snow, I surmised.

"Commander Chakotay? This is Ensign Dargin." I rubbed my head and stood up. "I have a letter from Admiral Janeway."

"I don't want anything more to do with that damn woman! Get out of here, and leave an old man in peace."

"Sir, I have orders to at least make sure you received the message."

"Message received. Tell her she can go to hell."

"But sir-"

"That's an order, Ensign."

Another round of shivering ensued as the wind cut straight through my parka and began freezing the snow still dripping off of me. "Please, sir. She just wants you to have it in your hands, and then I can leave." When there was no response, I continued, "You don't have to read it." Again there was no answer. I swore I could feel my lips turning a deep shade of purple. "Sir, it's very cold outside."

Metal scraped against metal and then a tiny crack of light appeared around the wooden door. "Come in before the heat escapes."

"Thank you, sir," I said as I shuffled forward, inadvertently plowing a good bit of snow inside with me. "I'm sorry."

"Have a seat by the fire, Ensign." The retired Starfleet officer took up a broom and swept the snow back outside before most of it had melted.

"Thank you, sir," I said again, and removed my coat and the outer layer of thermal wear my brother had sent me last year. The cheapskate only bought the cold resistant, not the waterproof layer, I griped to myself. There was a wooden bench in front of the fireplace, A real fireplace, I thought, and a large comfortable looking easy chair that looked as though it was getting on in years. I sat on the bench.

My host came over and sat in the easy chair, not looking at me. I shifted on the bench, acutely aware that I was still dripping on the heated wooden floor.

"She actually made you climb up the mountain during blizzard season?"

"Yes, sir. She was very adamant you receive this letter." I held out the container, but the man did not take it.

"I'm sure she was. Tell me, what's it like being Kathryn Janeway's personal aide?" The man leaned forward and looked him in the eye. "Off the record, of course."

I opened my mouth, but before I could recite the beautiful speech I had so boldly presented to the blizzard on the way up the mountain, something familiar caught my eye. It was on the mantle of the fireplace just hidden out of view. "Sir, is that-"

"Yes. You looked surprised, Ensign."

"Not at all sir. I recognized it because Admiral Janeway has one just like it in her office."

The man's brow furrowed as he contemplated this tidbit of information. "She keeps an akoonah in her office?"

"In her top right hand desk drawer," I answered proudly, ever ready to please a superior officer, even a retired one.

"Really."

"I uh, know because she asked me to get something from there once. I wasn't snooping or anything," I added hastily.

"Of course not, Ensign." Chakotay sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Well, I suppose you should do your duty so you can return to the transport station before dark." He held out his hand for the container. "Message received, Ensign Dargin."

"Thank you, sir. I'll show myself out." Still a little flustered, I collected my still soggy belongings and reassembled my poor excuse of a barrier against the storm.

"Here," Chakotay said, tossing me another coat. It was still warm from resting by the fire, and felt much more inviting than my wet parka. "I'll get another one when the storm passes. Good journey."

"Sir." Impulsively, I gave the retired officer the old military salute I'd seen in holoprograms of the twentieth century, and braced myself for the storm as I opened the door.

I made it about halfway down the mountain before I heard someone calling my name.

"Ensign Dargin! Stop, you fool!"

Turning around I saw the old man thundering down through the snowdrifts as if they didn't even exist. "Commander?"

"Take me to her. Where the hell is she?" Chakotay grabbed me by the arms, and the for a moment I feared he was going to shake me to pieces.

"She's at Headquarters, sir, but-"

"No time to explain. Hurry, we've got to hurry." Pulling me off of the main pathway down the mountain he led us through a thick web of trees to a large cave. "You don't get sick on hovercraft do you?"

"Well, no, sir, but-"

"Good, because that's how we're getting down the mountain." He began heaving piles of debris off of a small hovercraft just inside the cave. "The people in the village have sworn off technology. They have no idea I've got this, but it's saved my ass more than once when there's been an avalanche."

"Uhm, won't the storm interfere-"

"We're not going outside, Ensign."

I crossed my arms, looking at the hovercraft with raised eyebrows.

"This cave is connected to a series of tunnels and caverns that travel all the way down to the bottom. It'll save us some time. Get in."

I estimated the primitive contraption had been built not long after they became mainstream inventions, but an order was an order.

"Hold on tight."

I wasn't lying when I said I didn't get sick on hovercraft. I don't. But with the Commander's driving and the caves loops and plunges I felt as though I was going to be revisiting everything I'd eaten this morning and yesterday evening.

He refused to say another word until we reached Starfleet Headquarters. He paced in the line at the transport station, he tapped his foot on the shuttle, and he nearly dismembered the unfortunate media reporter who approached him for an interview when we disembarked. It was pure luck I managed to get him to Headquarters in one piece before he burned half the city to reach her.

We barreled in right through security; half of the security personnel thought I was a hostage at first before I assured them as I was half dragged by-half escorting the mountain man to the turbolift for the Admiral's floor.

"Was that you know who? No one's seen him in decades," I heard some of the younger officers whisper as the doors slid shut. I glanced at him, trying to gauge whether or not he'd heard them, but he made indication that he had, which was fine with me. It seemed I was only along for the ride anyway.

We arrived at the floor Admiral Janeway's office was on and I found myself trotting to keep ahead of the man to warn everyone we were coming. "Jaina, it's ok. We're here to see Admiral Janeway," I called to Admiral Pearson's receptionist, a lovely Bajoran woman one desk over whom I was thinking of asking out. She nodded, perplexed, but lowered her hand from her com badge to alert security.

Admiral Janeway was standing at her window, a mug of coffee in one hand and her other hand behind her back, as she always was when she was in one of her contemplative moods. "Admiral. Janeway," I panted, quite out of breath after my day's excursions. "I delivered your letter."

"Thank you Ensign Dargin," she said softly as she turned. "You made excellent-"

She cut herself off as she saw who was standing beside me.

"Why," he growled, crossing the room to stand in front of her. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? Why didn't any of you tell me sooner?"

"You're here," she whispered.

"I'm here, damn it! Is that all you wanted? To see me after it was too late?"

Admiral Janeway set her jaw and set her coffee mug onto her desk, as calm as ever. "It's taken me almost fifteen years to find you, Chakotay, and I wasn't going to go gallivanting across the Alpha Quadrant broadcasting the news. No one could find you to tell you."

"I had a right to know. Is it killing Miral, too? What about Naomi, Icheb, Tuvok, have you told them?" He advanced with each name.

"Yes," she hissed, "It's killing Naomi Wildman and Miral Paris. Icheb, Tuvok-"

"B'Elanna, Seven, Harry…"

"Yes." Now she stepped forward with every word he spoke. He didn't move a muscle.

"Is it killing you, Kathryn?" he finally asked.

"Yes." She stepped closer still to him. They couldn't have been more than a micron apart. "It's killing me. And it's killing you, too."

I cleared my throat. "Admiral?"

They both looked back at me as if they had forgotten they were not alone.

"It's only fair you should know, Ensign," the Admiral consented with a nod of apology. "I should have told you when you first began working for me." She walked around to the edge of her desk and picked up a PADD. Handing it to me, she explained. "As you may have guessed, Voyager was exposed to several new types of spatial phenomenon, new weapons, undocumented radiation while we were in the Delta Quadrant. We believe, and this is just a hypothesis, that something we were exposed to out there has been lying dormant for nearly twenty years and has somehow been brought to life. Starfleet Medical doesn't know what to make of it, and The Doctor has been continuously working for well over three months. So far no means of stopping this… outbreak has presented itself."

"So far?" I asked, scanning the medical information she'd given me. My main field of study was command, though I had completed nearly the full requirements for a medical career before joining Starfleet. I could understand most of the jargon I was seeing.

"We don't know much about it, but it works slowly, weakening the essential systems of the body before finally attacking the central nervous system."

"Who died?" Commander Chakotay asked, resignation lining his voice.

"Ensign Brooks, just last year." She looked to the floor as she said it, watching from the corner of her eye. She flinched slightly when his fist hit the desk. I barely even noticed it, but it was the first hint of weakness I'd ever seen her show. "Tom Paris just began exhibiting symptoms yesterday. Nearly twenty four members of the crew are in the intermediate stages."

Commander Chakotay turned and was about to say something, but I interrupted him. "So you don't know if is a weapon, or a natural occurrence, or even what quadrant it's from?"

Janeway sighed and shook her head, looking me in the eye for the first time since I'd returned. "No, Ensign, we don't. It's completely unlike anything anyone's seen."

"But no one except the Voyager crew has become infected?"

"That we know of, but it's still too early to tell how the disease, if that's what it is, is even communicable or what the early symptoms are."

"Why hasn't Starfleet alerted the general public, or had the Voyager crew quarantined?" the Commander asked, coming around to stand next to Admiral Janeway.

"It's all being taken care of," the Admiral said, holding up a hand. "But there has been no indication that anyone is still contagious, but we're closely monitoring all reports of symptoms like Ensign Brooks." She turned to me, and said, "Ensign Dargin, I was hoping you would be willing to study this and help us discover more about it."

"Me?" I looked up at her in surprise. "Admiral, with all due respect, I'm a command track officer and I-"

"Ensign," she said softly, and came to stand in front of me, resting her hand lightly on my shoulder. "We are command track officers, yes, but the science is what burns in deep within our hearts. I need your help on this. The Doctor would very much appreciate a willing hand."

"You found the EMH's program?" I asked, surprised. When Voyager had returned two decades ago the EMH had been forcibly removed and his program was shunted into one of the laboratories for further study.

Janeway quirked an eyebrow and grinned. "I did my stint in Covert Ops just like any Starfleet officer." She walked back around the desk, avoiding Chakotay, and pressed her hands against the desk. "I'd like to know I can count on you Ensign. This is a highly confidential matter, and I need the best people I can find."

Later that evening, I sat in my robe and slippers, watching the holoscreen that was positioned exactly center to the couch I was sprawled on. "In other news, the tabloids are setting fire to the proverbial newsstands as Starfleet Headquarters issued out a call for all of the former crew of the U.S.S Voyager to report to San Fransico. No word yet from the brass on what exactly this calling means, but speculations have led to-"

"Holoscreen off," I said, the picture vanishing and cutting the Bolian anchor off mid-sentence. I had a decision to make.