Possession
Chakotay's Vision Quest becomes a nightmare.
by Diane Running Horse Smith
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns the characters and the premise behind Star Trek.
Rated PG
Harsh rays from an unremarkable nebula pierced the windows of his quarters and cast an eerie glow upon the walls. Too bright for meditation, he decided, so he slid the window covers down. Lifting his medicine bundle from a nearby table, he seated himself against the wall in the traditional manner. He placed the wrapped bundle before him, passing his hands over it in blessing.
Within the folds of soft, prepared buckskin - from his first hunt with his father, after which he had thanked the animal for its gift - lay sacred totems. He carefully arranged them on the dark pelt. The smooth, rounded stone, worn by water from the riverbed of his homeland. Carved with the tribe's ancient symbol, it held a living spirit. The fan of blackbird's wing from a creature able to soar to the home of the ancestors. The akoonah - alternative to ancient peyote, the hallucinogenic button of the cactus which for tens of thousands of years had taken his people into the spirit realm.
Chakotay sat silent for a moment, contemplating the bundle and preparing to go inward, for it was a time when he liked to remember and honor the Nations. Not only the Olmec people of Trebus, but all those who originated from Mother Earth.
Many varied stories existed of the Creation and the beginning of the People, and he knew many of them - the theory of migration across an ancient land bridge as the most scientific. The people drifted downward, traveling ever deeper into the new land, bringing human life to every corner.
Chakotay's people had migrated into the central and lower regions of the continent, where they built great temples almost rivaling those of ancient Egypt. They became masters of science, astrology and mathematics. As centuries passed and their way of life became challenged, new knowledge and technology enabled them to consider other options. So it was that some of them left their homeworld and journeyed past the stars. Among these was Chakotay's tribe, who settled on Trebus.
Now was a time to remember those earliest pioneers and honor them. Chakotay would see his family in the vision quest. He would speak of these things to Kolopak, his father. He would walk with his ancestors and see his village as it once was. Chakotay rested a hand on the akoonah and felt the surge of stimulant enter his blood stream. At the threshold of the spirit world, he spread one palm and laid within it the stone, closed both his hands over it, and shut his eyes.
'Akoochemoya,' he intoned.
He did not notice the intense, infinitesimal point of light emerge from the hot glow of the nebula, penetrate the walls of the ship and waft toward him...
Chakotay jerks with an unknown sensation. He opens his eyes.
Unfamiliar mists swirl around him as he enters the realm of the spirit world. It is too dark to see, but judging from the feel of the ground beneath his moccasins he is not where he expects to be. This terrain is not soft with grass, nor grainy with sand and fallen pine needles. There are no pungent, earthy scents - no light, no song, no drums. The ancestors are not here. What is this place?
Perhaps Kolopak will have the answer. He calls him now.
Father. Father! It is Chakotay. It is long since last we spoke.
He waits patiently but Kolopak does not come.
Another summons: Father....
There is a deep silence only the dead hear. Alarmed, he again gives voice to his thoughts.
Spirit Guide, help me.
Silence, and darker swirls of mist through which he sees nothing. He shivers as though from a chill.
The mists dissolve. A being emerges. Relaxing, he does not fear, for it is Snake, the animal guide. Higher and higher the scaly head rises, staring down at Chakotay with the same fascination a bird has for a worm...
'It's unusual for the Commander to be so late,' remarked Captain Janeway to no one in particular, taking her chair on the bridge. She frowned, trying to recall if indeed, the Commander had ever been late. Always, the first sight she beheld when the turbolift doors opened was his large frame already seated in his chair. She struck her comm badge.
'Computer, locate Commander Chakotay.'
'Commander Chakotay is in his quarters.'
Tuvok anticipated her. 'On my way, Captain.'
Worried, she replied, 'No... Tuvok, you have the bridge. I'm going.'
At the door to his quarters, her concern mounted. Three summons had gone unanswered, yet the computer verified his presence. She ordered security override and cautiously entered.
'Computer, lights.'
Nothing seemed amiss. Chakotay's blanket-draped chair set at an angle, books on the table, everything in its place. She moved further into the room, then halted abruptly. Leaning against the wall, eyes open and unseeing, Chakotay did not respond to her call. She knelt swiftly. Two fingers against his neck showed his pulse to be weak and thready, and he was cold. 'Medical emergency! Chakotay's quarters!' she barked through the comm. She glanced around for some clue as to what might have happened. Chakotay had been meditating. His fist gripped the akoonah as if it were a lifeline, but he did not respond to her. Thankfully, the Doctor materialized and immediately began scanning the inert form.
'What's going on here? His lifesigns are barely registering! And what's this?' the Doctor asked Janeway, attempting to pry the akoonah from Chakotay's hand. He either couldn't or wouldn't let go.
'I couldn't remove it either. Do you think that's what's wrong with him?'
'I don't know, Captain, I'll have to run some tests, but it looks like an overdose of the stimulant. All right, he's stable for now. Go ahead,' he said to the two crewmen, who loaded the heavy form onto a transport bed and proceeded with it to Sick Bay.
The serpent speaks. Come. Come with me. I will take you to your father. Come, Chakotay, directs the serpent, smiling. The way is long, with the serpent gliding soundlessly alongside him. Chakotay becomes concerned.
Where are we going? Kolopak should be here if I only call out for him.
Shhhhhhh, comforts the serpent. We are almost there.
The forest looms...its heart beats through the drums in the distance – but this can't be right! Mournful song accompanies the drums. What is wrong? Chakotay makes his way through the forest, hurrying, running now. He breaks into a clearing.
There, directly ahead, Kolopak lies on a bed of grasses, his personal items arranged in a circle around him.
Father!
Held in Chakotay's arms, Kolopak slowly turns skeletal; the smell of death is upon him.
Overcome with grief, Chakotay turns, but the serpent has vanished.
'Cortical stimulator! Hurry, Ensign, we're losing him!'
'Right here, Doc,' Tom complied. He had given up trying to loosen the akoonah from Chakotay's clenched fist in the face of one medical crisis after another, and the arm lay outside the bioshell. Unexplained convulsions wrenched him at intervals. Janeway stood as near as the Doctor would allow. It was clear they were losing him.
One horrifying vision after another leaves Chakotay gasping on the wet ground, exhausted by the onslaught. The brutal attacks by the Cardassians upon his people...Seska grinning as she gives him to the Kazon...His mother in a Cardassian torture chamber. This is not a vision quest. He is trapped in a nightmare.
The serpent is not his animal guide, but an alien - a demon – one over which he is powerless. If he were only in the corporeal world he would have its skin adorning his walls...but he is at its mercy. Here, within his own mind.
He asks and receives no answers. He tries diplomacy as he would for a first contact situation. He begs for mercy and is awarded with more torture.
With tremendous willpower he reaches into the corporeal world and grips the akoonah. He must end this!
No... No. Here is Trebus after the Cardassian attack. Small mounds of ash...perhaps his mother...lie scattered among her cooking pots! Here and there, more of them...some smaller...those of the children. The wind blows through the blackened remains of his village, lifting and settling the gray and gritty ash. Weakened, he can only sob helplessly until the cruel tableaux ends.
Anger long suppressed takes over. Adrenaline flows and he lunges, taking the serpent down to the wet earth, digging his fingers into the green-slit eyes. He grips the snake with all his strength, screaming.
But the screams are cut short by the cruel coils around his body and his hands fall away from the serpentine head, which rises high above him to watch the lower half of its body slowly squeeze the life out of this being.
Sadly, soon I must leave, it tells Chakotay. The farther this vessel goes, the more difficult a journey back to the nebula. But...not yet. You are much too entertaining...
The muscles relax and the coils loosen. Chakotay gasps for air, pushing at the coils wrapped around his lungs. But beneath his hands the muscles again tighten and he sucks in air before the squeezing agony begins yet once more...
The Doctor broke the news to Captain Janeway. She laid a cool hand on Chakotay's arm and steeled herself to hear what the Doctor's expression already told her. 'I've tried everything possible - there's nothing else I can do. I don't think he'll survive much longer, Captain.' She was looking away. He caught her eye to make sure she understood. 'He's dying.'
'Not if I can help it. Do you have any idea what's happened to him? Or why...?' She held the tightly clenched fist tenderly, akoonah and all, puzzling as to why he consciously maintained such a grip on it.
'His brain wave patterns suggest some activity, but the patterns are abnormal. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was possessed by a demon.'
Chakotay's arm jerked in her hands and the akoonah clattered to the floor. Both Janeway and the Doctor stared at it in amazement, then Janeway reached to pick it up.
'Captain, perhaps you shouldn't touch it.' She waved him away.
'It's all right, Doctor. I've used this before.' She held it for a moment. It was warm and moist from Chakotay's hand. She had an idea. 'Doctor, open the bioshell and leave me alone with him for a few minutes.'
'Captain?'
'Do it. I going to try to reach him.' The Doctor, very reluctantly, dematerialized. 'Computer, lights at twenty-five percent.' She reached for a stool, seated herself, and placed the akoonah on Chakotay's chest. With one hand resting on his shoulder, she laid the other atop the device and activated it, using Chakotay's ancient chant as a key to the door:
'Akoochemoya...' She steps through the swirling mists, every sense sharpened, watching, listening. Carefully, she makes her way across slick, wet ground. Prints in the soft surface tell her the path to follow. There, in the distance. What is it she sees?
The serpent is not yet aware of her approach, but Chakotay, clenched in the enormous coils, sees her. One arm is outstretched.
Kathryn, he calls within his mind.
Chakotay! she calls back, and the serpent detects the exchange. Hissing violently, it relaxes its hold on the man in its coils and turns, tail whipping, to face Janeway.
Whatever you are, let him go!! Janeway's stern voice demands.
The coils tighten unmercifully. An idea borne of desperation comes to Chakotay.
Kathryn...remember my teachings... He signs to her as the ancients once did. Take the ship to warp...away from the nebula...
I understand, she signs back.
The serpent quickly fathoms their meaning.
Ahhhh! A ruse? You attempt to deceive. But I could be light years from my lair and still return. You are ones deceived. I like this one...he is strong...but he will be done soon...then there will be another...you.
The serpent stares hungrily at Kathryn.
Chakotay signs again, using his tribal language, praying that Kathryn will remember what he taught her, and understand what the alien will not. With the last of his strength, he wrestles with the serpent, diverting it long enough for Kathryn to escape.
Kathryn felt her hand jerked from the akoonah. She had left the spirit world so abruptly it took her several moments to reorient herself. She opened her eyes. Chakotay's free hand had encircled her wrist. Some part of him not trapped in the vision quest now placed his own palm on the device that rested on his chest. Janeway steeled herself - then increased the dosage level. She pressed his hand hard onto the unit, sending a lethal dose of the hallucinogenic substance into his bloodstream. One by one, the monitors in the bioshell shut down.
A faded, weakened infinitesimal point of light left the lifeless form, penetrated the ship's wall and wafted away, back to the nebula.
Only after Chakotay's body began to grow cold did she activate the Doctor, who immediately began procedures to revive him.
Chakotay recovered in time - but the experience left him so dazed that Janeway granted him a long sabbatical, temporarily placing Tuvok in the commander's chair. Only the few on board closest to the Commander and familiar with his culture were told of the incident. So it was that when B'Elanna Torres ran a routine scan over the ship's waste discharge, she notified the Captain of an unusual find before releasing the rest of the contents to the void.
Chakotay's door chimed. 'Come,' he said, not rising from his chair. Janeway entered with a bundle under her arm. Chakotay did not turn around but continued staring out the open window.
'I came to see how you are, Commander,' she said.
'I'm fine.'
'I disagree. You've been brooding in here for weeks,' she went on. 'That doesn't sound 'fine' to me.' She stood behind his chair and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. 'Don't you think meditation might be of some benefit to you now?'
He sighed. 'No.'
'It's always helped you before. By the way, I don't see your medicine bundle.'
'Look, Captain, I know you're trying to help, but...'
'Where is it, Chakotay?'
His reply was short. 'I don't know. It's gone.'
She came around the chair. Balanced on both hands was the medicine bundle.
He shook his head in exasperation. 'B'Elanna?'
'B'Elanna.'
'Damn.'
He got up, brushed past her, and went to the window. Undeterred, she followed. Together they contemplated vast, clear space, marred only by streaks of starlight. There was no sign of the nebula.
'You're no coward, Chakotay,' she reminded him. 'You had the courage to tell me how to rid you of the alien. Then I had to summon the courage to let you die. Please find the courage to take this. You can't give it up. Nothing stands between you and your vision quest now.'
He nodded. He owed it to her and to himself. He would try. 'Will you stay, Kathryn?'
'Right to the end. You stayed with me in a similar situation – remember?'
He almost smiled at her. 'The matrix. You had died, and that alien...'
'Yes. But you and the Doctor pulled me back.'
'As I remember, you pretty much fought your way back alone.' He sighed. 'You're not going to leave until I do this, are you?'
'No,' she grinned.
He took a deep breath and accepted the bundle from her palm. It felt strange to hold it again after so long, yet it felt comforting.
'Computer, reduce illumination to twenty-five percent,' she ordered. She knelt on the floor, waiting.
Chakotay sat across from her in the traditional manner. Placing the wrapped bundle on the floor before him, he passed his hands over it – withdrew them, hesitating - then opened the soft, prepared buckskin. Everything was there, sacred tokens that defined him and his culture, all of which he had come so close to losing. He carefully arranged them on the dark pelt: the smooth rounded stone, the wing of a blackbird and the akoonah. Chakotay lay his hand upon the device. A lump rose in his throat and silently, he thanked B'Elanna. He glanced up at Kathryn, who sat across from him, adamant but devoted. At the threshold of the spirit world, he spread one palm and laid within it the stone, closed both his hands over it, and shut his eyes.
.'Akoochemoya,' he intoned.
The End