All hands. Abandon ship. All hands. Abandon ship. Warning: Impact in three minutes and twenty seconds. Warning: Hull breach on decks 2, 3, 4, 7 and 11. All hands. Abandon ship…
Red lights pulsed in the corridor as Tuvok directed Voyager's remaining crewmembers to escape pods. The constant sound of alarms and computer announcements jarred his concentration as he tried to focus as far as possible on the mah jok—the Vulcan meditation that focused the mind of one approaching death. Three figures rounded the corner, running; he directed them to the open hatch. Engineering beta shift, the last team to leave the ship. They had been responsible for ejecting Voyager's warp core, marking the abrupt end of a voyage that had barely lasted a week. They looked drained, their eyes blank as their feet traced the path that every crew member hoped only to encounter during holodeck safety simulations. He wasn't even sure of their names, yet here he was sending them... to what? Yes, they might survive the immediate moment of destruction, but the escape pod was about to drift helpless into a Kazon firefight. The odds of survival were not favourable.
Refocusing on the present moment, he asked: 'Computer: scan for remaining life signs.'
The computer replied in an unhurried singsong voice that grated with the warning signals: 'Scanners are not operational at this time'. He ran through the evacuation procedure one last time in his head. All had proceeded according to plan: it stood to reason that all crew members had by now indeed left the ship.
Tuvok turned towards the airlock; as he did so, he felt Voyager lurch, the ship's trajectory shifting. But the engines were long offline… Like lightning, the deductive process stood out clear in his mind. It had to be her. Venting plasma to increase Voyager's rotational velocity, ensuring that the array would be destroyed in the impact. It was the only logical option. 'Tuvok to Janeway' he began—then another explosion shook the ship. 'Captain? Do you read me? Please respond...'
Hull breach imminent on Deck 1. Abandon ship.
No response. She must be on the bridge. Already running towards the Jeffries tube, Tuvok shouted into his comm badge: 'Chakotay: lock transporters onto my signal and transport all life signs directly to your sickbay in two minutes from now.' A faint crackling voice replied, 'I hear you, Tuvok. We'll do our best.' As he climbed, he methodically counted the seconds until the transport. Fifty eight… Two floors to go. Eighty seven...
Forcing the bridge doors open, he choked on thick smoke. Coughing, he pointed his tricorder forward. Faint life signs, left. One hundred and three… Where would she be? He forced himself to think… only ten seconds stood between him and the transport. Operations. One hundred and eleven… A dim outline on the ground in front of him. Ripped uniform. Charred skin. One hundred and fifteen... Tuvok bent down, and felt Kathryn Janeway's body fall heavily in his arms as he lifted her. He flinched as he pushed aside a wave of despair rising towards his consciousness. No. Now was not the time for feelings. A loud hiss sounded above him: air was escaping from the bridge.
'Now, Chakotay!' he shouted into his communicator; his outline shimmered as the transport began.
Entering the small room that served as the Val Jean's sickbay, Chakotay turned to Kes. 'Any change?' he asked. With a barely perceptible movement, she shook her head. Chakotay walked towards the single biobed, and looked down at its occupant. At first glance, she might have appeared to be sleeping, but a second look confirmed the stark truth: her limbs formed an oddly angular outline under the blanket, and the right side of her face was blotched with plasma burns. The bleeps of the sensors monitoring her vital signs were calmer now, marking a weak but steady pulse. Somehow, Kathryn Janeway had clung onto life, but ten days after they had beamed her aboard the Val Jean, she was still far from the waking world.
He sat down at the lab table in the corner of the room and held his head in his hands. The ship was ready for launch and today he would have to make his decision: leave Janeway on Ocampa with the surviving Voyager crew, or bring her with them on the Val Jean's voyage into the Delta Quadrant, tasked to seek any means of returning home. She was the most senior scientist of the survivors, and one of the only crew with command experience, but who knew what physical condition she would be in when she awoke? And could he force this captain to abandon most of her crew on an alien planet?
He studied her face. Which would she choose?
He remembered how only two weeks ago, as Janeway had greeted him as he beamed aboard Voyager, he had bristled at her condescending, Earth-accented tones. She was probably in her first command, he had guessed, hiding any nervousness behind an absurdly rigid hairstyle and pulling rank at every opportunity, as if during the years since he had resigned from Starfleet he might have forgotten what the four pips on her collar meant. Yes, she was another of Starfleet's finest. Janeway—wasn't there an admiral with that name?
He had followed her into the joint away mission on the Ocampa homeworld, uncomfortably realizing how quickly he fell into the old Starfleet protocols, walking behind Janeway as if tacitly acknowledging a command hierarchy, yet also impressed by the seemingly indefatigable energy with which she pushed the away team forward, certain that they would reach their goal, calmly assessing the situation as the escape tunnel collapsed around them. Perhaps he had underestimated her, he thought, feeling a wry smile curling on his lips as they transported to the array to negotiate their return to the Alpha Quadrant. She could have made a good Maquis, he had thought.
But then, things had started to go wrong. Kazon ships: first three, then five… nine… The Kazon ships had opened fire on Voyager; both ships had returned fire, but as his shields failed, he had been forced to move the Val Jean behind one of the spines of the array, watching in horror as Voyager took blast after blast. Her voice crackled over the comm link: 'Chakotay, we are evacuating to the Ocampa homeworld. Rendezvous with us there.' He saw the first shuttles and escape pods shoot into space, as Voyager begun to spin out of control.
He had set a course for Ocampa, dodging behind debris segments, then Tuvok's voice had crackled over the comm link. As much as he resented the implication that Janeway's Vulcan spy still had any business on his ship, he knew that the request must be urgent. He scanned the surroundings: they would need to make a close pass next to Voyager and lower the shields for the transport. He breathed deeply. 'Bendera: on my mark, drop shields for transport. B'Elanna, you have the con.'
Energizing the transporter, Chakotay ran to the small room behind the bridge, sensing the smell of burning before he saw Tuvok. The Vulcan was setting a dark, lifeless figure down on the bed. 'Ayala! Medical emergency!' he shouted: the Maquis raider had no doctor, but Ayala had field medical training. Grabbing the emergency medical kit from the storage compartment, he had glanced back at the figure on the bed, his heart sinking with the sudden realization that it was Voyager's captain, her uniform and face blackened by blast smoke.
The next minutes had passed in a blur: as he returned to the bridge he had seen the explosions behind him as Voyager collided with the Caretaker's array. He yanked the controls just in time, flying in the shadow of the debris field until the way to the planet was clear.
There they had found Voyager's survivors scattered across several kilometers of the planet's surface. Even Tom Paris had been lost for words as he landed the shuttlecraft which carried copies of Voyager's computer databank and as much critical technology as the engineering team had been able to load. Emptying the cargo hold, he immediately took off again in search of further survivors. That evening, they had all gathered in an Ocampa courtyard. On the planet's surface, they were just over a hundred survivors from Voyager, plus twenty-three Maquis crew. Nineteen known to have perished. Another seventeen of Voyager's crew missing, presumed dead.
The Ocampa were generous hosts, yet both crews were stranded, far from home. There was no choice but for Starfleet and Maquis to work together; during the next days Chakotay found himself becoming a reluctant leader, sitting with Tuvok, Paris and Torres in an uneasy truce as they considered their options. The Val Jean was an old ship, less than a quarter of Voyager's size, designed for short missions, not deep space work, but it was the only ship available to them that could cover long distances at warp speed. B'Elanna was working on upgrading the warp drive and shields using components salvaged from Voyager, but even at maximum velocity it would take over a hundred years to reach the Alpha quadrant. Their only hope would be to find another array, or a lucky wormhole. At least from here they could hardly be thrown much further from home, he mused, bitterly.
There was space for fewer than thirty crew aboard the Val Jean. If they were to have any chance of finding a way home, they would need the most skilled pilots, operations specialists and engineers. For two evenings, the four of them had argued over the crew lists. Chakotay reluctantly acknowledged that Paris was the strongest pilot they could hope for, and Tuvok agreed that B'Elanna was the most competent engineer. Finally, they had a list of twenty-four names, twelve from each crew. Looking up at Chakotay, Tuvok uttered the sentence that had been on all of their minds: 'And Captain Janeway will join the crew.' B'Elanna had immediately risen in protest: 'We don't even know if she's going to wake up—what is she going to do on a raider?' Paris had shaken his head slowly: she was a friend of his father, and he had felt numb when he read the medical reports. She had seemed so alive when she pulled him out of the prison colony.
Silently, Chakotay had left the room, hearing their arguing voices grow fainter as he climbed the tunnel to the surface. His ship was a welcome oasis of quiet, only two engineers working through the night. Now here he was, sitting in front of Janeway, still with no clear answer to his question. Walking back over to the bed, he placed his hand on her shoulder and sought inner guidance, but she remained responseless and his mind was stubbornly closed. He opened his eyes, to see Kes standing in front of him. 'I'm coming with her,' she said, her grey eyes looking deeply into his, an uncanny tone of certainty in her voice. Startled, he looked at her, then he understood: the spirits had spoken. Kathryn Janeway and Kes would be joining the crew of the Val Jean.