The Governess of Dunmoore Hall

A shameless adaptation of "Our Man Bashir", including direct quotes, and the wonderful "Jane Eyre" for my own diabolical J/C purposes. Enjoy :o)

Chapter 1

„Computer, run programme Janeway Lambda One. Engage privacy lock."

Captain Janeway turned away from the holodeck entrance to watch the yellow grids around her transform into a familiar setting. Comfortable chairs, heavy velvet curtains and dark wooden panels on the walls indicated she was once again back in the 19th century.

She smoothed her large dress down and let out a breath. She hadn't used this programme in years, but something today had reminded her about it, and she figured she never finished it. To be fair, every time she had used it, something dramatic had happened. The last time, for example, she had suddenly hallucinated, imagining objects and people from the story on real-life Voyager. Of course, that had been alien influence, but somehow she had never quite felt at ease again to step back into the role of Mrs Davenport, governess at Dunmoore Hall.

Janeway heard voices in the corridor and tried to settle into her role. She could make out the detestable housekeeper, Mrs Templeton, ushering the children to bed, before entering the drawing room.

"Ah, Mrs Davenport. I just made sure the children are getting to bed. I hope you forgive my intrusion into your... territory." She ruffled her nose and glanced at Janeway over the top of her small glasses.

Janeway didn't have to be reminded twice that this woman was not for her to like. She raised her chin, a pose not unlike that she assumed whenever Voyager encountered particularly hostile aliens. "Not at all, Mrs Templeton. I am glad you lend me a hand, on occasion." She bowed slightly, but not letting the housekeeper out of her sight.

Mrs Templeton gave her a curt nod and a cold "Good night," before leaving the room. Janeway tried to suppress the uneasy feeling this woman gave her. She checked herself – this was just a holonovel, and her Captain's instincts were not needed here. All this woman was upset about was the fact that the 'disruptive' governess had managed to charm the cold Lord Burleigh.

Janeway sat down, watching the fire, simply enjoying its glow on the dark walls. He would probably seek her out soon. One particularly bad memory from the hallucinations was Mark, accusing her of being unfaithful, because she had kissed "the man from the holodeck." Now, Janeway figured, Mark wasn't a topic that troubled her any longer, and as the years in the Delta Quadrant became tougher, she had learnt to appreciate those scarce hours of freedom. And if they included kissing a handsome English gentleman, all the better.

"Oh come on, Chakotay, it was boring – admit it!" B'Elanna slumped down next to her friend on the back seat in the shuttle.

He simply grinned. "We haven't even taken off, B'Elanna. Couldn't you have tried to seem a little less annoyed with them for the last ten minutes?" He had to agree with her, though silently. The negotiations had been boring, with all the protocol the aliens had insisted on. If not for the stunning scenery, the mission would have been a total waste of time and energy.

She huffed and rolled her eyes. Tom took the pilot's seat, with Icheb next to him. The ex-Borg was using these small excursions to learn more about piloting shuttles and anything else that Tom was willing to teach him – mostly "social skills" as B'Elanna had dubbed such previous lessons as 'playing pool'.

Last to enter the shuttle were Seven, dragging a bouncing Naomi by the hand. The girl was chattering away about all the things she had seen during what had been shore leave for her. Seven had a hard time not smiling constantly, as Chakotay noticed. He was happy that at least someone had enjoyed themselves. He planned to talk to the Captain about arranging shore leave for everyone.

Icheb eased the shuttle back into space, under Tom's close observation. After they were safely en route to Voyager, Tom turned around to the others. "It was all a bit weird, if you ask me."

B'Elanna looked up. "If by 'weird', you mean 'pointless', I agree."

"No, well, yes, it was boring, but didn't you notice how nervous they became when we started to ask certain questions?"

Now he had Seven's attention. "You are referring to your inquiry about their history."

Tom turned to her. "That, and my remark about how quiet it was. They kept looking at each other after that."

Chakotay frowned. "That's not such an unusual thing to say, it was pretty quiet down there. But as to the history, I don't see why they should share that particular detail with us. It's none of our business. "

B'Elanna agreed. "Yeah, we're just passing by anyway."

Tom sighed. "All I'm saying is, if they had nothing to hide..."

"We're approaching Voyager," Icheb stated. Tom dropped the conversation. They were hailed by Tuvok, and cleared to dock. Suddenly, a console beeped. Icheb frowned and ran his fingers over the panels before him.

"This is strange. I am detecting an energy build-up in our engines."

Tom grinned. "You're supposed to slow down, you know..." But he immediately became serious when he realised that something was wrong. "What the... if we don't shut down they're going to overload. Cut main power!"

"I can't! I'm locked out of all controls!" Icheb frantically pressed several buttons. B'Elanna had jumped into action and accessed a wall panel. Seven was comforting Naomi, and Chakotay looked over Tom's shoulder.

"B'Elanna, access the emergency override!"

She hammered a fist against the wall. "It's been disabled!" She looked at Chakotay, they shared a worried look. "Sabotage."

"What?!" Tom just shook his head in disbelief. "Paris to Voyager! The shuttle engines are overloading, and we have no way of stopping it, get us out of here!"

"Acknowledged, drop your shields."

"Shields down. Forty seconds to overload!"

A blue glow enveloped them, and that was all they remembered.

The six away team members appeared on the transporter pads. Harry was relieved only for a second, when suddenly the beam turned white and fluctuated.

Tuvok's stoic voice rang over the comm channel. "The shuttle has been destroyed." There was a pause. "Do you have them, Ensign?"

Harry faintly noticed Ayala step next to him, as he tried to figure out what was going on. "Not yet, but they're almost there..." The console beeped.

A white flash, a shockwave. Harry looked up, and they were gone.

"Ensign? What happened?"

"I'm not sure, Commander. It looks as if the energy from the blast somehow travelled back along the transporter beam and collapsed it." Harry pressed a few buttons again and added, "the primary energy coils are fried," his heart began to race, "but the patterns are still in the buffer!"

Tuvok even seemed agitated now. The whole bridge was holding a collective breath, listening to the conversation. "Can you retrieve them?"

"We need to repair the damage first! But there's no time – if we don't rematerialise them now, the patterns will degrade."

Tuvok didn't waste a second. "Computer, store the patterns currently in the transporter buffer in Voyager's main computer memory."

"Unable to comply," came the metallic response. "Insufficient memory for desired procedure."

Ayala cut in, "the patterns are losing coherence!"

Harry wiped his hands over his face. Think! "Computer, erase all data in Voyager's entire memory banks and save the patterns from the buffer!"

"Warning. This procedure is unprecedented and could result in a complete system failure."

"The buffer is depolarizing!"

In spite of the danger to the ship, Tuvok was prompt. "Computer, this is a command priority override, authorization Tuvok-pi-alpha. Proceed."

All the lights went out, and were replaced with faint emergency lighting. There was a second of silence, then Ayala stared at Harry. "The buffer has lost coherence. The patterns are gone."

Harry frowned. "I think we have them, Commander. The computer did save the patterns..."

"Where?"

Harry's eyes went wide. "It seems... everywhere."

Janeway looked up from her musings when the light flickered. This wasn't unusual for the house, though. Everything was made to be spooky in this programme. But nothing could prepare her for the shock she received a second later.

"Lucie! There you are!"

A man stood in the doorway, still hidden in the shadows. He was dressed in typical 19th century gentleman attire, as usual, but there was something odd about the appearance of Lord Burleigh. He slowly stepped forward – why did his voice sound so familiar?

"I've been looking for you," he added gently.

Was the fire playing tricks on her mind? No, now he came closer still. She recognised the tattoo before anything else.

"Chakotay?" Janeway stared at him incredulously. "What are you doing here?"

He stopped and looked puzzled. "I.. what?"

Janeway pulled a lopsided grin, very uncharacteristic of the governess she was supposed to be. "Oh, very funny Commander. But you could've asked me before joining my programmes. You gave me quite a scare."

Now he seemed completely at a loss. "Commander? But I... Lucie, I don't understand what you're saying. Please, I wanted to talk to you." He found his balance again. "About... yesterday."

The Captain frowned and got up. She checked herself from simply confronting him again. Something seemed off about him. How did he know about a day that surely wasn't 'yesterday' to her? And how did he manage the English accent so flawlessly?

She took a few steps backwards. "Computer, restore character parameters for Lord Burleigh."

"The character parameters are correct."

"Computer, freeze programme."

"Unable to comply. Holodeck controls are offline due to ship-wide emergency."

Janeway tried to ignore Lord Burleigh's worried looks toward the ceiling. This certainly wasn't Chakotay, or he would've dropped the charade right now. She turned to the window, and hit the invisible combadge under her dress. "Janeway to Tuvok, what's going on?"

She got no response. "Janeway to the bridge. Are you there?"

She figured communications must be down, and turned to the man who looked like Chakotay.

"I'm sorry, my Lord, but I guess we'll have to continue this another time."

"I've got them, Commander!" Harry had returned to the bridge to continue his analysis there. The light was still dim and people were running around checking the ship's systems.

Tuvok quickly walked over to the ops station. "Where are they?"

"It seems the computer had not much choice." He pointed at a ship diagram. "The memory is barely large enough to hold their neural patterns at all, so now they are saved ...everywhere! Basically every system is offline, because the space was needed for the patterns."

Tuvok nodded as he studied the panels. "Replicators, weapons, shields, even primary life support is affected." He looked around, as if expecting they'd run out of air.

Harry pointed at deck 6. "But look at this: the only place able to cope with the physical patterns is the holodeck."

"Is someone using it at the moment?"

"Yes..!" Harry frowned and touched the panel. "Programme running is... Janeway Lambda One – The Captain's in there!"

Tuvok hit his combadge to contact her, but only got static. "If the patterns use up that much space, it could have disabled the programme. The Captain will be aware that something is wrong."

"Not necessarily. The holodeck could simply save the patterns in it's backup.. as spare parts, so to speak."

Tuvok stepped down into the command area again. "We should investigate. Tuvok to the Doctor."

"Computer, end---"

"DON'T!"

Janeway turned, startled, to see the Doctor standing next to her. Lord Burleigh stared – at nothing. "Don't worry, he cannot see me. Now, Captain, whatever you do, don't end this programme."

Janeway thought quickly, then turned to the Lord with a flourish of her hand. "Oh, my Lord, I am not feeling well. I shall retire now." She silently wished that the emergency had left the characters as dumb as they were about out-of-character moments.

She was right. He jumped into action. "Lucie, oh, what can I do?" The Doctor stared at Chakotay.

She brushed off his advances and left quickly, leaving him utterly confused. The Doctor followed her, but continued to look back in wonder. When she had reached her room, Janeway turned to the him.

"All right, Doctor. What's going on?"

"There was an accident. The away team's shuttle exploded, but were beamed out as it happened. During transport, the energy coils were damaged. Commander Tuvok and Ensign Kim had to find a way to save the patterns before they degraded, so they used the entire ship to do just that."

Janeway stared at him and slowly sat down at the foot of the bed. Her bulky dress and the even bulkier bedding were rustling. "So you're saying the computer put their physical patterns in the holodeck? That's why Lord Burleigh suddenly looks like Chakotay?"

"We don't know exactly how it happened, but yes, the computer has stored the patterns of the entire away team, that is Commander Chakotay, Lieutenant Torres and Paris, Icheb, Naomi Wildman and Seven of Nine, somewhere on the holodeck."

Janeway let out a breath and mumbled, "and I thought he was just messing with me." The Doctor continued. "So you see, we can't end the programme. We can't even open the doors, it might destabilise the emitters and the patterns could be lost. Commander Tuvok sent me, since communications is down as well."

"So what do we do now? Just sit this out, and wait for Harry to reassemble them?"

The Doctor nodded. "Something like that."

Suddenly, the light changed. They both looked out of the window and were shocked to see that it wasn't night any more. The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Well, this is something I never learnt about ancient earth... rapid passage of time."

Janeway ignored his sarcasm, she was worried. She walked to the window and wiped her face with her hands, sighing. "This is part of the programme," she said quietly. "Night is skipped if nothing is scheduled to happen. This is a holonovel, after all. It will continue as planned."

"And? I don't see the problem."

Janeway wrung her hands. "Well, you see..." She started to pace. There's no need to worry, she thought. This would be solved in a matter of hours, she could hold out that long. She waved it off and tried a nervous smile. "Nothing. You're right." This is the 19th century - what could possibly go wrong?