To Stay Where You Are (Part One)
A sillier Fanfic written by Lt Taya 17 Janeway
Space was a beautiful thing, silent and sparkling. A clean void brimming with life and energy, somehow magical, somewhat paradoxical, it had served as the stuff dreams were made out of for many men of Earth over the hard, bitter centuries.
For some, however, those dreams turn darker than they'd like it to.
The pristine silence of space was abruptly torn apart as a primal scream in the form of a spasming tear in its fabric blossomed in the spaces between the stars. A small battered craft belonging to one of those unfortunate souls burst from it at maximum speed. Rabbit-like, it scooted behind the protection of the nearest asteroid chunk.
Then the wolf came tearing out of the portal like an avenging marauder, and the battle was rejoined. The pursuer was a sleek, massive raptor, designed for speed and power and battles and little else. She fired a spread of torpedoes at the asteroid chunk, trying to flush her prey out of hiding.
The tactic worked. The small craft ventured out and futilely returned a few shots, trying to retreat to further safety within the asteroid belt.
It was a lost cause. The powerful warship strafed it with a deadly array of phasers, pummeling it with more energy than it's shields could withstand. The shields flickered weakly once before going out.
Without shields, drained of armaments, the small craft banked downwards desperately, trying to shake off its gargantuan attacker. Moving into a series of deft maneuvers, it tried making itself too hard a target to hit.
It worked for a while, but the warship had the advantage of speed and firepower. A single shot from one of its furious volleys was all it took to disable the small craft's sublight engines.
Immobilized and drained of energy, the craft was helpless as a green tractor beam swept over its scorched hull and began drawing it towards the larger ship. A shimmering cloaking field fell over both ships as they moved deeper into the asteroid belt, and they vanished from view.
On the bridge of the Fleetship Warrior, Intendant Kathryn Janeway smiled sardonically and said, "Welcome back, Commandant Chakotay…"
The Starship Voyager was in orbit around a gargantuan asteroid, probing deep for subterranean dilithium sources. The ship, in its sixth year of its journey home, was once again in need for new sources of fuel, which although not scarce in the Delta Quadrant, often had to be sought out. Much like mining for gold centuries ago in Earth's past. Or oil prospecting.
In her quarters, Captain Kathryn Janeway was trying to juggle a cup of coffee and a stack of padds in one hand while pushing her chair back with the other. It required a phenomenal amount of concentration and muscular coordination, she noted, as she eased herself between the chair and the table.
The door chose that moment to chime, ruining her concentration and her uniform as hot coffee gushed all over it. Janeway repressed a snort of disgust as she lowered the now mostly-empty cup and dripping padds onto the table. "Come in," she said.
It was none other than Chakotay, as she expected. "Did I catch you at a difficult time?" he asked innocently, as the captain inspected the soggy front of her uniform.
"No, I was just carrying out my daily reminder of how clumsy I am," she remarked dryly, heading to the anteroom to fetch a clean jacket.
Chakotay refrained from further comment but handed her another padd. "The away team debriefing has just finished," he informed her.
Janeway took the padd as she walked back and scanned through it. "Interesting," she muttered. Handing it back to Chakotay she added, "Best piece of news I've heard today,"
Chakotay gave her a funny look. "The away team comes back saying that more comprehensive tests are required to search for the dilithium and that's good news?"
"Compared to Borg sightings, power outages and major disputes amongst the crewmembers, I'd say yes," she replied, gesturing to the padds puddling on her desktop. "Extraordinarily good, as a matter of fact."
Chakotay shook his head and sighed. "Such stressful lives we lead; no respite from the toil and drudgery of the day."
"But yet forward we must head; for the chains of command heavy on us lay." Janeway looked away from the mess of her table to glance at Chakotay. "And since when did you add the works of Joeller Kevrin Neaves to your repertoire?"
"Ever since I discovered that he's the greatest 22nd century writer who ever griped about the frustrations of being in command," he replied. "My favorite piece is Unfulfilled Desires of a Commanding Man," he said in a nostalgic manner. "Have you ever read it before?" he asked his captain, his eyes dancing with mischief.
"If it's the one about the one where the a captain envies the men of soil because they can liaison with who and whom they choose, yes. Wasn't it one of the arguments that led to Starfleet relaxing its rules about allowing families on board starships?"
"I suppose." Chakotay moved towards the observation window and his tone grew mock-wistful. "Don't you sympathize with the sentiments that he expresses? The pull, the urges that you sometimes feel?" He turned back to look at her, and this time there was no mistaking the playful look in his eyes.
Janeway returned the favor with a smirk. "Unfortunately for some, no."
"Really." Chakotay walked behind the chair where Janeway had seated herself and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Well, unfortunately for some, I do."
"Hmpf," said Janeway, pretending to be totally engrossed in a coffee-drenched padd. "And just what are you going to do about it?"
"Well, for a start, I could-"
The beeping of Janeway's commbadge interrupted Chakotay mid-sentence. Janeway made a quick jab at it before Chakotay could get there first. "Janeway here."
"Captain." It was Seven of Nine. "Please report to Astrometrics immediately."
The captain frowned. "I'll be right there. Janeway out."
"How convenient," grumbled Chakotay, surreptitiously moving his hands downwards.
"At least she said 'please'. I guess I'd better get going," Janeway rose and ignored Chakotay's attempts to run his hands down her uniform. "This had better be good."
"More bad news, you think?" asked Chakotay, following her.
"I hope not," she said, heading for the door.
He reached out and grabbed her waist. "We'll continue this later," he said.
"That's what you think," smirked Janeway, extricating herself form his grasp, and heading determinedly for the door.
"Interesting," muttered Janeway, scanning through the sensor readings in Astrometrics. "The readings are clearly artificial."
Seven nodded in agreement. "They also do not match any known readings stored in the computer databanks."
"Meaning we do not know what we are looking at." Janeway folded her arms and frowned deeply. "Would you like to make a guess about where it comes from?"
Seven brow crinkled slightly. "Since the origin of the energy spikes still continues to evade our sensors, there is a high probability that it may be residual flow from a cloaking field."
"This is what you think." The captain placed her hands on her hips, lost in thought. "And if we have hidden company out there…" She gazed hard at the walls, as if she could see through them and reveal their hidden companions if she tried hard enough. "I want you to inform Lt. Torres about this. See if she can make any more sense out of this." She paused slightly. "And… just in case, tell Cmdr. Tuvok to prepare himself for possible hostile actions."
Seven nodded. "Aye."
Just as the captain was about to leave, Seven turned around and called. "Captain."
Janeway turned to face her. "Is there a problem?"
"No… just a strange thought," replied Seven.
"A hunch?"
"Perhaps." Seven paused hesitantly, and finally said, "Captain… what if whoever or whatever is watching us out there… is someone we know?"
"Someone we know?" The captain frowned. "Someone we have encountered before and is trailing us?"
"That might be a possibility."
"Well…" Janeway regarded her protégé with a strange light. "I suppose… that it would be most intriguing." And with that, she left the room, still humming verses from Neaves' The Hard Life.
Commandant Chakotay had every reason to be nervous. After all, this was the very woman he'd betrayed more than a month ago. Now that he was back, albeit somewhat unwillingly, in her hands, there was no knowing what'd she'd do. She was dangerous and unpredictable.
Very unpredictable.
Of course, there'd been a time when she'd been different, when Chakotay thought he understood her. When she had been the innocent young thing he'd loved. But that was a long time ago, years before this ship, this struggle, and the hardened bitter woman in front of him had seen too much pain, too much suffering, to be anything like her at all.
The Intendant turned away from the porthole and faced him, steel-blue eyes boring into his. "Welcome back, Commandant," she said, in that low husky voice he'd come to know so well. "I hope you've had a pleasant trip."
The smirk. The characteristic acid sardonism. Nothing about her had changed.
No, he decided. Something had changed. There was something new in her voice- more hurt, more anger. Anger at him. For betraying her. For betraying the cause he was supposed to have stood by for the last twenty years.
Except that he never really believed in it. No, his mind had been somewhere else, focused on another, contradictory goal- one which she fought with every fiber in her body.
Now she knew the truth- that the past twenty years had all been a lie. Chakotay suppressed a shudder. He knew what she did to traitors and their ilk- he'd been there on so many occasions. Not a pretty sight.
"So, tell me, how many of them were there?" Janeway walked towards him. "Ten? Twenty? A hundred?" She lowered her gaze, walking around him. "I know that the five you ran off with you weren't all that there were." She walked behind him, her fingers tracing lightly across his neck, sending a strange tingling sensation down his spine. "I asked all of them, I did. Some of them broke down. Many, in fact." She stopped in front of him "But was that all to it? Just a paltry few out of the hundreds we have?"
Chakotay kept his face and tone as neutral as possible. "Those who stayed were the cowards- you probably found them all."
"Really. But it seems that not all the cowards stayed on board." Her smile grew wolfish, triumphant. "I suppose you'd like to know how we found you."
Chakotay kept his tone hard and bitterly flat. "BE'lanna. I know."
"The ravishing engineer, eh?" she said, her eyes sparkling with malice. "Well, perhaps she wasn't quite so ravishing after all. And I thought you Rebels knew not to trust Klingons. Even halfbred ones." She sneered derisively.
Chakotay said nothing. Well, it'd gone better than he thought it would….
"She's back at work at the engine core now," remarked Janeway. "A real wonder, isn't she? Feeding us coordinates, sending cloaking schematics, luring you into this trap…"
Trap? Chakotay felt momentarily confused. Then he remembered. Of course. The mirror universe device…. his heart gave a strange flutter. He'd be so anxious he'd nearly forgotten the wonder of it – being in an completely different world, where people led different lives in a nearly utopian state. Where he could be happy.
"Yes, didn't you know?" the Intendant smiled at him. "Haven't you ever heard of our sister universe and its miraculous world where humans are not just underdogs, but masters of the galaxy?" She chuckled. "What fairy tales. But, one must admit, their ships hold a great deal of potential, do they not?"
Chakotay only blinked. "What do you want me to do?"
Her smile grew more twisted. "It would be a perfect opportunity, no?" she asked him. "Infiltrating an unsuspecting ship, taking the ground from beneath them before they even know what's happening. But to do so requires a great deal of stealth and trickery. Subterfuge."
Chakotay could see where this was heading. "And no-one on this ship knows about them better than I," he commented wryly.
"Ahh." She gazed at him with satisfaction. "I knew that you would volunteer yourself for this mission."
Chakotay groaned inwardly. He should have seen it coming- he knew her too well. She would devise something-some crafty double-edged plan that would enable her to kill two birds with one stone- to test his loyalties. See if he was ready to be back on her side. But no matter. It could be done… In Chakotay's mind he was already formulating plans on how this would work to their advantage. It was a promising situation. Was she too foolish to trust him this much at this early stage?
"You will leave for the briefing in Room 3.3 now," she archly informed him, "After which you will proceed directly to Transporter Room 4 to depart for your mission."
"Directly afterwards?" repeated Chakotay incredulously. Of course. How could he have been so stupid? She'd definitely make him proceed now so that he wouldn't have time to retreat and think. Regroup and formulate a plan. So maybe she didn't trust him as much as he thought she did. He wanted to hit himself for underestimating her. Nevertheless, not all was lost…. Perhaps he could turn this to his advantage. After all, he was renown for being able to think on his feet.
"Do you have a problem with that?" she asked, slipping an arm around his waist.
"No , ma'am," he replied.
"Good," she said.
Co-Secant Tom Paris was not a very impatient man, but there were times he felt that he had been waiting forever and whatever he was waiting for was a long time overdue. And right now, perched in one of the coolant rooms waiting for someone he hadn't seen in more than a month, was one of those times.
Paris held the position of sub-navigator on this hellhole which some considered a starship. Not that it was particularly small or that the amenities were lacking. It was one of the largest and most powerful ships in the Fleet, yet it was also one of the most boring places to be for a human. And the strange thing was, the crew was almost entirely human, except for a couple of so-called superior races pushed on them by the damnable Alliance and its cronies. Hell with it, he thought, if they didn't trust the humans they shouldn't have given them a ship in the first place. It was a stupid move anyway, considering that more than half of the human crew were either already in the resistance movement or about to be in it. It must be some sort of human nature, he mulled, which caused all these people from all over, colonies and everything, to band together and strike out at some oppressive force.
There was slight sound and movement from below, and Paris leaned forward eagerly. Sure enough, here she came. He found it unbelievably ironic that of all people, the Klingon on board their ship was on their side. Gripping the narrow railing carefully, he flipped himself over, using his legs to shift his equilibrium so that he hung upside down from the second level to the first. "Lennie?" he called.
B'Elanna's eyes opened wide. "Atoms?" As Paris did a quick somersault and landed catlike on the floor, she leapt forward and embraced him in a crushing bearhug. "I've missed you!"
Paris chuckled. "Me too. It was hell over here, not knowing where you were, or whether you'd come back…" He sighed as she finally let him go. 'So, how did the plan go?"
The chief engineer grinned at him. "Like clockwork. She fell for it hook, line and sinker. Bait and all."
"That's good news," said Paris, patting her on the back. "Nothing feels like a little good fishing now and then." His tone grew wistful. "You know, when I was a kid, there was this large pond near my house, and every summer, just when the fish were growing fat, we'd go there and spend the whole day trying to lure them into net traps. Those idyllic days, so full of sunlight, youth and the fresh smell of the soil beneath you…. Such wonderful times we had." He glanced at her. "You know, as head engineer, you really should requisition parts for a holodeck. That's what this ship really needs."
"There you go again, asking me to abuse my authority. Still the same old Tom Paris." She put his hand around his waist and led him deeper into the coolant unit room. "Some things never change, do they?"
"Not within a month, that is," remarked Paris. "I guess I'm just pretty much the same," he added coyly, drawing he closer to him.
"Mmmm." Torres leaned over and kissed him gently on his jaw. "And I'd like to find out how much."
Paris said nothing much but returned the favor, pulling her deeper into one of the recesses amongst the massive cooling pipes. "Wait till you hear what the Intendant has been up to…"
Chakotay and Torres were heading back to their quarters after a late-night shift on the bridge. Right now, Chakotay felt bone tired and all he wanted to do was fall into bed and sleep. It had been a long day.
Torres, on the other, seemed intent on another all-nighter trying to figure out a way to resolve the strange sensor readings they had been getting. "Maybe this can give us a clue as to where in Gre'tHor the dilithium in this rock chunk is," she muttered. "The spectrometer shows that there is definitely a very dense core somewhere inside."
"The captain and I were drawing up possible explanations for these phenomena, and one of the ideas we had was that the dilithium belongs to someone and they're guarding it with this cloaking shield."
"I hope not," snorted Torres. "The ship really needs the dilithium or we're just going to fall out of space halfway through our journey. Besides, Seven ran a analysis of the phase modulations of the energy spikes and concluded that there were more than one source of these energy readings. There's something else out there, and I want to know what the hell that thing is."
Chakotay stopped in front of his quarters. "Well, give me a call when you find out." He stepped into his quarters and called back over his shoulder, "Good luck, by the way."
Torres only grunted.
As the door slid in place behind him, Chakotay heaved a sigh of relief. Now he was alone- away from all these mysteries and frustrations. Alone to his own thoughts.
He took off his jacket and tossed it on his bed. What a day it had been. He stood in front of the mirror and realized that he looked even more worn and tired than he thought he was. Dark eye shadows, haggard look, hair slightly ruffled… and he seemed to have grown a bit of a beard. Strange. Hadn't he just shaved that morning? Unless that was one of the side effects of stress… His train of thought cut off abruptly as he realized that his bureau table was somehow mysteriously missing in the reflection and his office desk was in its place instead.
Suddenly he realized there was something wrong with the mirror.
Then he realized it wasn't a mirror.
With frightening suddenness, his reflection leapt out of the wooden frame and slammed him against the floor. Head ringing, Chakotay lashed out with his fists at his assailant and was rewarded with a vicious blow to his stomach, momentarily knocking the wind out of him. Gasping for breath and still trying to grasp what had happened, Chakotay felt rather than heard the hissing of a hypospray even as he tried to shout and fight back.
The last thing he thought before the world faded into blackness was that at least he'd found what the hell that thing was.
"Engineer? Engineer!" A vaguely petulant voice echoed down the corridors by the coolant room. "Wherever you are, I am summoning you out! Intendant's orders!"
In the bowels of the coolant unit, Lenn Torres tore herself away from Paris. "Damn!" she muttered. "Annika's looking for me. Must be some stupid haywire fault again. I don't know what all you guys were doing in the month that I was gone, but it looks like I got back none a moment too soon, before the whole ship falls apart."
"Must you go so soon?" asked Paris. "I was just beginning to enjoy myself."
"Well, you know… duty calls." She shrugged. "We can always continue this later."
Science Director Annika Hansen stalked into the cooler room, looking more ruffled than her usual icy self. Torres emerged from the shadows, hoping that her jacket wasn't too rumpled. Annika, as always, was clad in skin-tight, jet-black synth leather from head to toe. She glanced at Torres ruefully. "So there you are, Lenn. I was looking all over for you." She gave Torres' disheveled appearance a disparaging once-over. "What have you been doing all this while, making out in there?"
"Checking the tensile strength of the coolant pipes," Torres remarked vaguely. "What's it this time? Another botched repair job?"
"No." Her ice-blue eyes narrowed considerably. 'We have our first captive on board the ship, currently in the brig. The Intendant wants you to prep the program for the second phase."
"Ahh. Already done. The file's in Sector Two of the databank." Torres shrugged. "Anything else?"
Annika shrugged noncommittally. After one month of separation, the bitter rivalry between the two had changed little. The only change it had taken was a turn for the worse, because Annika now saw Torres both as a traitor and a competitor for the ship's helmsman. Annika might be the Intendant's darling little pet, the shameless vixen that she was, but Torres had her man and she wasn't about to let him go. She'd never cared much for supercilious human jerks and she never would.
"I find your behavior extremely annoying," Torres had told her once.
"Sucks to be you," she'd replied. "That isn't my problem."
Torres crossed her arms. "Are you going to get lost, or do I have to throw you out of here?"
Annika glared at her with thinly veiled contempt and replied, "How very courteous of you."
"Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment," snapped Torres. "Now leave."
Her dignity offended, Annika stormed out of the cooler room- no doubt to report it back to the Intendant. No matter, thought Torres. Soon it would be all over. And it just served as another reminder as to why she'd joined this mostly lost cause in the first place.
It was early in the morning, 0600 hours ship time. The EMH was tending to a patient in sickbay when the doors swished open, admitting Commander Chakotay. Neelix, who had gotten up early on the pretext of delivering breakfast to one of the crewmembers who'd been injured in a recent away mission, waved enthusiastically to him. "Good morning, Commander! It's nice to see you up so early. Are you here for one of those annual medical exams?"
Chakotay blinked and stared at Neelix, momentarily confused. After a pause, he shrugged. "Well… but of course." He glanced around sickbay. "Listen, Mr…. um… never mind." He scratched his head. "Would you mind leaving for a little while? I'd like to talk to the doctor in private." Looking at the trays of food that Neelix was pushing, he decided to take a risk. "Fetch me a cup of coffee, or something."
Neelix perked up. "A cup of coffee? Absolutely! I'll have one brewing right away." With that he cheerfully made his way out of sickbay.
Chakotay prayed that coffee makers took as long to make a cup of coffee in this universe as it did anywhere else. He searched for the nearest computer terminal and started towards it, trying to refresh his memory on how it worked. Smiley had shown him the LCARS workings a few weeks back, but he'd never really gotten the hang of it.
He pressed the first few controls and waited with bated breath. A small slot opened in the crevice beside the console, and he retrieved the isolinear chip from his belt and slotted it in. With a whirring of servos, the computer accepted it. So far, so good.
The EMH came sauntering up to Chakotay. "Pretty busy this morning, aren't we?" he asked.
"Good morning, doctor," said Chakotay, keying in commands as fast as he could.
"And just what are you doing?"
"Oh… nothing. Just a few improvements here and there… on Janeway's orders." Chakotay completed the last set of instructions and paused slightly to admire his handiwork.
"Let me see just what those 'improvements' are," said the doctor, trying to push Chakotay aside and look at the console.
Chakotay pushed him back.
The doctor immediately tried to pin Chakotay's arms to the side of the bed-
Chakotay kicked at the doctor only to find out that he was not there-
The doctor lunged out and tried to hit the abort command-
And in a last minute desperate move Chakotay knocked a tricorder off the nearest equipment tray onto the console-
And the EMH disappeared, only to be replaced by his spitting image. Just with a few modifications added. He released Chakotay's arm. "Sorry," he said.
"Never mind," replied Chakotay. "Just carry on as usual- you know what to do. She'll expect some sort of report soon, so try to give her as little information as possible. I need time to work."
The neo-EMH nodded. 'I'll be careful. They won't notice a thing." From the opposite side of sickbay came the sounds of one of the patients waking up. "Well, back to work, I guess."
Neelix chose that moment to barge in with a large steaming pot. "You coffee, Commander?"
"It's alright, my business here is over," replied Chakotay. But seeing the crestfallen look on Neelix's face, he changed his mind. "On the other hand, I think I'll take it back to my cabin."
"Why not the mess hall, sir?" suggested Neelix cheerfully. "The captain's having breakfast."
The captain… well, it had to come sometime. "Very well, then." said Chakotay, and he followed Neelix, fascinated, to the mess hall.
A sillier Fanfic written by Lt Taya 17 Janeway
Space was a beautiful thing, silent and sparkling. A clean void brimming with life and energy, somehow magical, somewhat paradoxical, it had served as the stuff dreams were made out of for many men of Earth over the hard, bitter centuries.
For some, however, those dreams turn darker than they'd like it to.
The pristine silence of space was abruptly torn apart as a primal scream in the form of a spasming tear in its fabric blossomed in the spaces between the stars. A small battered craft belonging to one of those unfortunate souls burst from it at maximum speed. Rabbit-like, it scooted behind the protection of the nearest asteroid chunk.
Then the wolf came tearing out of the portal like an avenging marauder, and the battle was rejoined. The pursuer was a sleek, massive raptor, designed for speed and power and battles and little else. She fired a spread of torpedoes at the asteroid chunk, trying to flush her prey out of hiding.
The tactic worked. The small craft ventured out and futilely returned a few shots, trying to retreat to further safety within the asteroid belt.
It was a lost cause. The powerful warship strafed it with a deadly array of phasers, pummeling it with more energy than it's shields could withstand. The shields flickered weakly once before going out.
Without shields, drained of armaments, the small craft banked downwards desperately, trying to shake off its gargantuan attacker. Moving into a series of deft maneuvers, it tried making itself too hard a target to hit.
It worked for a while, but the warship had the advantage of speed and firepower. A single shot from one of its furious volleys was all it took to disable the small craft's sublight engines.
Immobilized and drained of energy, the craft was helpless as a green tractor beam swept over its scorched hull and began drawing it towards the larger ship. A shimmering cloaking field fell over both ships as they moved deeper into the asteroid belt, and they vanished from view.
On the bridge of the Fleetship Warrior, Intendant Kathryn Janeway smiled sardonically and said, "Welcome back, Commandant Chakotay…"
The Starship Voyager was in orbit around a gargantuan asteroid, probing deep for subterranean dilithium sources. The ship, in its sixth year of its journey home, was once again in need for new sources of fuel, which although not scarce in the Delta Quadrant, often had to be sought out. Much like mining for gold centuries ago in Earth's past. Or oil prospecting.
In her quarters, Captain Kathryn Janeway was trying to juggle a cup of coffee and a stack of padds in one hand while pushing her chair back with the other. It required a phenomenal amount of concentration and muscular coordination, she noted, as she eased herself between the chair and the table.
The door chose that moment to chime, ruining her concentration and her uniform as hot coffee gushed all over it. Janeway repressed a snort of disgust as she lowered the now mostly-empty cup and dripping padds onto the table. "Come in," she said.
It was none other than Chakotay, as she expected. "Did I catch you at a difficult time?" he asked innocently, as the captain inspected the soggy front of her uniform.
"No, I was just carrying out my daily reminder of how clumsy I am," she remarked dryly, heading to the anteroom to fetch a clean jacket.
Chakotay refrained from further comment but handed her another padd. "The away team debriefing has just finished," he informed her.
Janeway took the padd as she walked back and scanned through it. "Interesting," she muttered. Handing it back to Chakotay she added, "Best piece of news I've heard today,"
Chakotay gave her a funny look. "The away team comes back saying that more comprehensive tests are required to search for the dilithium and that's good news?"
"Compared to Borg sightings, power outages and major disputes amongst the crewmembers, I'd say yes," she replied, gesturing to the padds puddling on her desktop. "Extraordinarily good, as a matter of fact."
Chakotay shook his head and sighed. "Such stressful lives we lead; no respite from the toil and drudgery of the day."
"But yet forward we must head; for the chains of command heavy on us lay." Janeway looked away from the mess of her table to glance at Chakotay. "And since when did you add the works of Joeller Kevrin Neaves to your repertoire?"
"Ever since I discovered that he's the greatest 22nd century writer who ever griped about the frustrations of being in command," he replied. "My favorite piece is Unfulfilled Desires of a Commanding Man," he said in a nostalgic manner. "Have you ever read it before?" he asked his captain, his eyes dancing with mischief.
"If it's the one about the one where the a captain envies the men of soil because they can liaison with who and whom they choose, yes. Wasn't it one of the arguments that led to Starfleet relaxing its rules about allowing families on board starships?"
"I suppose." Chakotay moved towards the observation window and his tone grew mock-wistful. "Don't you sympathize with the sentiments that he expresses? The pull, the urges that you sometimes feel?" He turned back to look at her, and this time there was no mistaking the playful look in his eyes.
Janeway returned the favor with a smirk. "Unfortunately for some, no."
"Really." Chakotay walked behind the chair where Janeway had seated herself and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Well, unfortunately for some, I do."
"Hmpf," said Janeway, pretending to be totally engrossed in a coffee-drenched padd. "And just what are you going to do about it?"
"Well, for a start, I could-"
The beeping of Janeway's commbadge interrupted Chakotay mid-sentence. Janeway made a quick jab at it before Chakotay could get there first. "Janeway here."
"Captain." It was Seven of Nine. "Please report to Astrometrics immediately."
The captain frowned. "I'll be right there. Janeway out."
"How convenient," grumbled Chakotay, surreptitiously moving his hands downwards.
"At least she said 'please'. I guess I'd better get going," Janeway rose and ignored Chakotay's attempts to run his hands down her uniform. "This had better be good."
"More bad news, you think?" asked Chakotay, following her.
"I hope not," she said, heading for the door.
He reached out and grabbed her waist. "We'll continue this later," he said.
"That's what you think," smirked Janeway, extricating herself form his grasp, and heading determinedly for the door.
"Interesting," muttered Janeway, scanning through the sensor readings in Astrometrics. "The readings are clearly artificial."
Seven nodded in agreement. "They also do not match any known readings stored in the computer databanks."
"Meaning we do not know what we are looking at." Janeway folded her arms and frowned deeply. "Would you like to make a guess about where it comes from?"
Seven brow crinkled slightly. "Since the origin of the energy spikes still continues to evade our sensors, there is a high probability that it may be residual flow from a cloaking field."
"This is what you think." The captain placed her hands on her hips, lost in thought. "And if we have hidden company out there…" She gazed hard at the walls, as if she could see through them and reveal their hidden companions if she tried hard enough. "I want you to inform Lt. Torres about this. See if she can make any more sense out of this." She paused slightly. "And… just in case, tell Cmdr. Tuvok to prepare himself for possible hostile actions."
Seven nodded. "Aye."
Just as the captain was about to leave, Seven turned around and called. "Captain."
Janeway turned to face her. "Is there a problem?"
"No… just a strange thought," replied Seven.
"A hunch?"
"Perhaps." Seven paused hesitantly, and finally said, "Captain… what if whoever or whatever is watching us out there… is someone we know?"
"Someone we know?" The captain frowned. "Someone we have encountered before and is trailing us?"
"That might be a possibility."
"Well…" Janeway regarded her protégé with a strange light. "I suppose… that it would be most intriguing." And with that, she left the room, still humming verses from Neaves' The Hard Life.
Commandant Chakotay had every reason to be nervous. After all, this was the very woman he'd betrayed more than a month ago. Now that he was back, albeit somewhat unwillingly, in her hands, there was no knowing what'd she'd do. She was dangerous and unpredictable.
Very unpredictable.
Of course, there'd been a time when she'd been different, when Chakotay thought he understood her. When she had been the innocent young thing he'd loved. But that was a long time ago, years before this ship, this struggle, and the hardened bitter woman in front of him had seen too much pain, too much suffering, to be anything like her at all.
The Intendant turned away from the porthole and faced him, steel-blue eyes boring into his. "Welcome back, Commandant," she said, in that low husky voice he'd come to know so well. "I hope you've had a pleasant trip."
The smirk. The characteristic acid sardonism. Nothing about her had changed.
No, he decided. Something had changed. There was something new in her voice- more hurt, more anger. Anger at him. For betraying her. For betraying the cause he was supposed to have stood by for the last twenty years.
Except that he never really believed in it. No, his mind had been somewhere else, focused on another, contradictory goal- one which she fought with every fiber in her body.
Now she knew the truth- that the past twenty years had all been a lie. Chakotay suppressed a shudder. He knew what she did to traitors and their ilk- he'd been there on so many occasions. Not a pretty sight.
"So, tell me, how many of them were there?" Janeway walked towards him. "Ten? Twenty? A hundred?" She lowered her gaze, walking around him. "I know that the five you ran off with you weren't all that there were." She walked behind him, her fingers tracing lightly across his neck, sending a strange tingling sensation down his spine. "I asked all of them, I did. Some of them broke down. Many, in fact." She stopped in front of him "But was that all to it? Just a paltry few out of the hundreds we have?"
Chakotay kept his face and tone as neutral as possible. "Those who stayed were the cowards- you probably found them all."
"Really. But it seems that not all the cowards stayed on board." Her smile grew wolfish, triumphant. "I suppose you'd like to know how we found you."
Chakotay kept his tone hard and bitterly flat. "BE'lanna. I know."
"The ravishing engineer, eh?" she said, her eyes sparkling with malice. "Well, perhaps she wasn't quite so ravishing after all. And I thought you Rebels knew not to trust Klingons. Even halfbred ones." She sneered derisively.
Chakotay said nothing. Well, it'd gone better than he thought it would….
"She's back at work at the engine core now," remarked Janeway. "A real wonder, isn't she? Feeding us coordinates, sending cloaking schematics, luring you into this trap…"
Trap? Chakotay felt momentarily confused. Then he remembered. Of course. The mirror universe device…. his heart gave a strange flutter. He'd be so anxious he'd nearly forgotten the wonder of it – being in an completely different world, where people led different lives in a nearly utopian state. Where he could be happy.
"Yes, didn't you know?" the Intendant smiled at him. "Haven't you ever heard of our sister universe and its miraculous world where humans are not just underdogs, but masters of the galaxy?" She chuckled. "What fairy tales. But, one must admit, their ships hold a great deal of potential, do they not?"
Chakotay only blinked. "What do you want me to do?"
Her smile grew more twisted. "It would be a perfect opportunity, no?" she asked him. "Infiltrating an unsuspecting ship, taking the ground from beneath them before they even know what's happening. But to do so requires a great deal of stealth and trickery. Subterfuge."
Chakotay could see where this was heading. "And no-one on this ship knows about them better than I," he commented wryly.
"Ahh." She gazed at him with satisfaction. "I knew that you would volunteer yourself for this mission."
Chakotay groaned inwardly. He should have seen it coming- he knew her too well. She would devise something-some crafty double-edged plan that would enable her to kill two birds with one stone- to test his loyalties. See if he was ready to be back on her side. But no matter. It could be done… In Chakotay's mind he was already formulating plans on how this would work to their advantage. It was a promising situation. Was she too foolish to trust him this much at this early stage?
"You will leave for the briefing in Room 3.3 now," she archly informed him, "After which you will proceed directly to Transporter Room 4 to depart for your mission."
"Directly afterwards?" repeated Chakotay incredulously. Of course. How could he have been so stupid? She'd definitely make him proceed now so that he wouldn't have time to retreat and think. Regroup and formulate a plan. So maybe she didn't trust him as much as he thought she did. He wanted to hit himself for underestimating her. Nevertheless, not all was lost…. Perhaps he could turn this to his advantage. After all, he was renown for being able to think on his feet.
"Do you have a problem with that?" she asked, slipping an arm around his waist.
"No , ma'am," he replied.
"Good," she said.
Co-Secant Tom Paris was not a very impatient man, but there were times he felt that he had been waiting forever and whatever he was waiting for was a long time overdue. And right now, perched in one of the coolant rooms waiting for someone he hadn't seen in more than a month, was one of those times.
Paris held the position of sub-navigator on this hellhole which some considered a starship. Not that it was particularly small or that the amenities were lacking. It was one of the largest and most powerful ships in the Fleet, yet it was also one of the most boring places to be for a human. And the strange thing was, the crew was almost entirely human, except for a couple of so-called superior races pushed on them by the damnable Alliance and its cronies. Hell with it, he thought, if they didn't trust the humans they shouldn't have given them a ship in the first place. It was a stupid move anyway, considering that more than half of the human crew were either already in the resistance movement or about to be in it. It must be some sort of human nature, he mulled, which caused all these people from all over, colonies and everything, to band together and strike out at some oppressive force.
There was slight sound and movement from below, and Paris leaned forward eagerly. Sure enough, here she came. He found it unbelievably ironic that of all people, the Klingon on board their ship was on their side. Gripping the narrow railing carefully, he flipped himself over, using his legs to shift his equilibrium so that he hung upside down from the second level to the first. "Lennie?" he called.
B'Elanna's eyes opened wide. "Atoms?" As Paris did a quick somersault and landed catlike on the floor, she leapt forward and embraced him in a crushing bearhug. "I've missed you!"
Paris chuckled. "Me too. It was hell over here, not knowing where you were, or whether you'd come back…" He sighed as she finally let him go. 'So, how did the plan go?"
The chief engineer grinned at him. "Like clockwork. She fell for it hook, line and sinker. Bait and all."
"That's good news," said Paris, patting her on the back. "Nothing feels like a little good fishing now and then." His tone grew wistful. "You know, when I was a kid, there was this large pond near my house, and every summer, just when the fish were growing fat, we'd go there and spend the whole day trying to lure them into net traps. Those idyllic days, so full of sunlight, youth and the fresh smell of the soil beneath you…. Such wonderful times we had." He glanced at her. "You know, as head engineer, you really should requisition parts for a holodeck. That's what this ship really needs."
"There you go again, asking me to abuse my authority. Still the same old Tom Paris." She put his hand around his waist and led him deeper into the coolant unit room. "Some things never change, do they?"
"Not within a month, that is," remarked Paris. "I guess I'm just pretty much the same," he added coyly, drawing he closer to him.
"Mmmm." Torres leaned over and kissed him gently on his jaw. "And I'd like to find out how much."
Paris said nothing much but returned the favor, pulling her deeper into one of the recesses amongst the massive cooling pipes. "Wait till you hear what the Intendant has been up to…"
Chakotay and Torres were heading back to their quarters after a late-night shift on the bridge. Right now, Chakotay felt bone tired and all he wanted to do was fall into bed and sleep. It had been a long day.
Torres, on the other, seemed intent on another all-nighter trying to figure out a way to resolve the strange sensor readings they had been getting. "Maybe this can give us a clue as to where in Gre'tHor the dilithium in this rock chunk is," she muttered. "The spectrometer shows that there is definitely a very dense core somewhere inside."
"The captain and I were drawing up possible explanations for these phenomena, and one of the ideas we had was that the dilithium belongs to someone and they're guarding it with this cloaking shield."
"I hope not," snorted Torres. "The ship really needs the dilithium or we're just going to fall out of space halfway through our journey. Besides, Seven ran a analysis of the phase modulations of the energy spikes and concluded that there were more than one source of these energy readings. There's something else out there, and I want to know what the hell that thing is."
Chakotay stopped in front of his quarters. "Well, give me a call when you find out." He stepped into his quarters and called back over his shoulder, "Good luck, by the way."
Torres only grunted.
As the door slid in place behind him, Chakotay heaved a sigh of relief. Now he was alone- away from all these mysteries and frustrations. Alone to his own thoughts.
He took off his jacket and tossed it on his bed. What a day it had been. He stood in front of the mirror and realized that he looked even more worn and tired than he thought he was. Dark eye shadows, haggard look, hair slightly ruffled… and he seemed to have grown a bit of a beard. Strange. Hadn't he just shaved that morning? Unless that was one of the side effects of stress… His train of thought cut off abruptly as he realized that his bureau table was somehow mysteriously missing in the reflection and his office desk was in its place instead.
Suddenly he realized there was something wrong with the mirror.
Then he realized it wasn't a mirror.
With frightening suddenness, his reflection leapt out of the wooden frame and slammed him against the floor. Head ringing, Chakotay lashed out with his fists at his assailant and was rewarded with a vicious blow to his stomach, momentarily knocking the wind out of him. Gasping for breath and still trying to grasp what had happened, Chakotay felt rather than heard the hissing of a hypospray even as he tried to shout and fight back.
The last thing he thought before the world faded into blackness was that at least he'd found what the hell that thing was.
"Engineer? Engineer!" A vaguely petulant voice echoed down the corridors by the coolant room. "Wherever you are, I am summoning you out! Intendant's orders!"
In the bowels of the coolant unit, Lenn Torres tore herself away from Paris. "Damn!" she muttered. "Annika's looking for me. Must be some stupid haywire fault again. I don't know what all you guys were doing in the month that I was gone, but it looks like I got back none a moment too soon, before the whole ship falls apart."
"Must you go so soon?" asked Paris. "I was just beginning to enjoy myself."
"Well, you know… duty calls." She shrugged. "We can always continue this later."
Science Director Annika Hansen stalked into the cooler room, looking more ruffled than her usual icy self. Torres emerged from the shadows, hoping that her jacket wasn't too rumpled. Annika, as always, was clad in skin-tight, jet-black synth leather from head to toe. She glanced at Torres ruefully. "So there you are, Lenn. I was looking all over for you." She gave Torres' disheveled appearance a disparaging once-over. "What have you been doing all this while, making out in there?"
"Checking the tensile strength of the coolant pipes," Torres remarked vaguely. "What's it this time? Another botched repair job?"
"No." Her ice-blue eyes narrowed considerably. 'We have our first captive on board the ship, currently in the brig. The Intendant wants you to prep the program for the second phase."
"Ahh. Already done. The file's in Sector Two of the databank." Torres shrugged. "Anything else?"
Annika shrugged noncommittally. After one month of separation, the bitter rivalry between the two had changed little. The only change it had taken was a turn for the worse, because Annika now saw Torres both as a traitor and a competitor for the ship's helmsman. Annika might be the Intendant's darling little pet, the shameless vixen that she was, but Torres had her man and she wasn't about to let him go. She'd never cared much for supercilious human jerks and she never would.
"I find your behavior extremely annoying," Torres had told her once.
"Sucks to be you," she'd replied. "That isn't my problem."
Torres crossed her arms. "Are you going to get lost, or do I have to throw you out of here?"
Annika glared at her with thinly veiled contempt and replied, "How very courteous of you."
"Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment," snapped Torres. "Now leave."
Her dignity offended, Annika stormed out of the cooler room- no doubt to report it back to the Intendant. No matter, thought Torres. Soon it would be all over. And it just served as another reminder as to why she'd joined this mostly lost cause in the first place.
It was early in the morning, 0600 hours ship time. The EMH was tending to a patient in sickbay when the doors swished open, admitting Commander Chakotay. Neelix, who had gotten up early on the pretext of delivering breakfast to one of the crewmembers who'd been injured in a recent away mission, waved enthusiastically to him. "Good morning, Commander! It's nice to see you up so early. Are you here for one of those annual medical exams?"
Chakotay blinked and stared at Neelix, momentarily confused. After a pause, he shrugged. "Well… but of course." He glanced around sickbay. "Listen, Mr…. um… never mind." He scratched his head. "Would you mind leaving for a little while? I'd like to talk to the doctor in private." Looking at the trays of food that Neelix was pushing, he decided to take a risk. "Fetch me a cup of coffee, or something."
Neelix perked up. "A cup of coffee? Absolutely! I'll have one brewing right away." With that he cheerfully made his way out of sickbay.
Chakotay prayed that coffee makers took as long to make a cup of coffee in this universe as it did anywhere else. He searched for the nearest computer terminal and started towards it, trying to refresh his memory on how it worked. Smiley had shown him the LCARS workings a few weeks back, but he'd never really gotten the hang of it.
He pressed the first few controls and waited with bated breath. A small slot opened in the crevice beside the console, and he retrieved the isolinear chip from his belt and slotted it in. With a whirring of servos, the computer accepted it. So far, so good.
The EMH came sauntering up to Chakotay. "Pretty busy this morning, aren't we?" he asked.
"Good morning, doctor," said Chakotay, keying in commands as fast as he could.
"And just what are you doing?"
"Oh… nothing. Just a few improvements here and there… on Janeway's orders." Chakotay completed the last set of instructions and paused slightly to admire his handiwork.
"Let me see just what those 'improvements' are," said the doctor, trying to push Chakotay aside and look at the console.
Chakotay pushed him back.
The doctor immediately tried to pin Chakotay's arms to the side of the bed-
Chakotay kicked at the doctor only to find out that he was not there-
The doctor lunged out and tried to hit the abort command-
And in a last minute desperate move Chakotay knocked a tricorder off the nearest equipment tray onto the console-
And the EMH disappeared, only to be replaced by his spitting image. Just with a few modifications added. He released Chakotay's arm. "Sorry," he said.
"Never mind," replied Chakotay. "Just carry on as usual- you know what to do. She'll expect some sort of report soon, so try to give her as little information as possible. I need time to work."
The neo-EMH nodded. 'I'll be careful. They won't notice a thing." From the opposite side of sickbay came the sounds of one of the patients waking up. "Well, back to work, I guess."
Neelix chose that moment to barge in with a large steaming pot. "You coffee, Commander?"
"It's alright, my business here is over," replied Chakotay. But seeing the crestfallen look on Neelix's face, he changed his mind. "On the other hand, I think I'll take it back to my cabin."
"Why not the mess hall, sir?" suggested Neelix cheerfully. "The captain's having breakfast."
The captain… well, it had to come sometime. "Very well, then." said Chakotay, and he followed Neelix, fascinated, to the mess hall.
