What if only a captain's principles could have gotten them home? AU, dark. Very delicate hint of J/C.
I was very lucky to have Mrs Singing Violin as my beta for my second Voyager story. My greatest thanks for her keen eyes for illogical statements and deep knowledge of Voyager canon. What remains is my personal interpretation of what could have happened, in an AU. Comments welcome of course.
It took them less than three years to abandon all hope of getting back home.
The Accident, as they called it, happened just two months after Voyager was hurled into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker. It inflicted devastating damage to both crew and ship. Voyager limped to a godforsaken space station for spare parts and resources. On the edge of nowhere, it took them six weeks to repair the ship. It was stripped of some of its technology, including the EMH, as high tech was the sole trading currency. Tuvok had interjected, stating Starfleet protocols. He was told to accept the senior team's decision or leave the ship. The captain was not seeking his advice anymore. He stayed, silenced.
They left the station behind to crawl at warp 4 through a particularly empty part of space. Without medical expertise on board, the journey cost them more lives.
It took them a year to clear the barren area. Then, there was a succession of navigational errors due to sub-standard replacement sensors. After another two months of side trips, they ended up in a very busy corner of the Delta Quadrant. Failed negotiations for space routes followed as they tried to bully their way through too many territories. Lost battles added to the death toll, Kes and Vorik among the early casualties. Voyager's company continued to shrink as crew members disappeared during overdue shore leaves on seedy trade posts. With resources dwindling, nobody on the ship was keen on spending time man hunting.
After a year and a half, they finally got back on track, thanks to more compromises arranged by the Talaxian and approved by the captain. They used their skills and genetic material for trade this time. They did not have much else left to exchange. Only volunteers and disgruntled crew members were left behind as part of the exchanged goods, Voyager's pilot among them. Tom Paris had set up one betting ring too many. He had been lucky to be left on a planet with a breathable atmosphere after being almost kicked out of an airlock without a space suit.
The ship plunged further towards the galaxy's centre, along the space-time curve linking the two quadrants. The crew began to hear warnings of a massive territory stretching for hundreds of light years ahead. Millions of Borg cubes were lying straight across their path, waiting to turn them into ruthless and efficient drones.
After a tempestuous meeting of the Senior Staff, during which B'Elanna Torres hit the captain and got demoted to Crewman Third Class, the decision was taken to wait and see if a stronger species would take on the Borg for them. Like a fly banging against a window trying to reach the light on the other side, Voyager bounced around the perimeter of Borg territory for several months: overly cautious, never punching their way through potential breaches in the Borg frontline, motivated by their dread of assimilation.
Nobody challenged the Borg.
The crew could see no course across and too long a way around. The senior team would not commit to a decision, so there were lengthy ship-wide debates over whether or not to settle in the Delta Quadrant. The pro-settlement side consolidated its position over the multiple ballots. After the 6th poll, a delegation approached the senior staff to lobby them to follow the majority opinion: 75 in favour of settling down and 12 votes against looked like a clear-cut result.
Retracing its path, Voyager flew from system to system, its crew attempting to find a permanent base for themselves. They contacted one planetary government after another, asking for permanent settlement in exchange for their technical and combat expertise. However, renowned for their underhand tactics and dubious principles, their reputations preceded them. Voyager was refused docking rights time and time again. They finally bribed lowly-ranked border officials who had only enough influence to smuggle small groups. They ended up on separate planets, unable—or unwilling—to stick together as one crew. Tuvok, Kim, and Neelix were among the first group to disembark.
The ship touched down for the last time, on a pre-warp planet, the Prime Directive well and truly ignored with Earth out of reach. By then, only a handful of Voyager's crew members were left, led by their captain. Thirty-six months after being flung in the Delta Quadrant, Voyager's hope of going back home finally collapsed, its crew dispersed or dead, its legend never written.
"When did you realise we had given up?" asked Chakotay one evening, a cup of local tea in his hands. He could just see Voyager nestled in the valley below. The ship had long been gutted of all her components, except for her hull and landing gear. She still looked magnificent.
B'Elanna was sitting beside him, contemplating the star-studded night sky. This close to the galaxy centre, stars were as dense as pebbles on a beach.
"Soon after the Accident," she responded. She accepted his use of the collective pronoun.
Chakotay turned towards her, his face illuminated by the star lights. There was no need for a moon on this world. "But we continued towards Earth for more than two years after that. We didn't think about settling down for quite some time."
"With her gone, we sort of lost our bearings," she observed.
Chakotay snorted. "Our bearings? You mean Starfleet principles? Rules and codes of conduct? Remember when Tuvok tried to stop us from selling bits of Voyager's technology in the name of Starfleet protocols? We had the right to pull him down. We would have never survived if we had followed the Starfleet rule book. Even Harry realised that fast enough."
She sipped on her cup. She knew why Harry had seemed to quickly accept the new rules that governed Voyager after the Accident. Or more to the point, the lack of rules. Just like everyone else on the ship, he had had to adapt to a new leadership, a mere eight weeks into its ultimately failed journey back to the Alpha Quadrant. No wonder he had left as soon as he did. He had not wanted to have anything to do with the remaining Senior Officers now that returning to Earth was impossible.
B'Elanna studied her captain. She could feel his weariness. He was tired, greying on the sides, his face showing hard lines and a few faint scars here and there: a reminder of past battles, too many to recall. Not that much different from what she looked like.
"I know something, Chakotay. She was not following Starfleet principles because they were Starfleet. After all, she did take a few liberties at times, including destroying the array. She acted the way she did because it was the right thing to do. It was so ingrained in her that nothing could touch that, no matter what quadrant she was in."
She added, a sad tone in her voice. "We failed to see that, Chakotay. We thought we could just replace her with a new captain, change some rules, and everything would be okay. But we didn't grasp the potential consequences of our choices. As we reacted instinctively to one problem, we created the next crisis, and the one after that. We lost our way." And half of the crew, she thought.
He did not seem to have heard her last words. "And what about Klingon principles? She died in a Jefferies tube for heaven's sake, trying to get the environmental controls back on line. Hardly a warrior's glorious death."
"What's your problem, Chakotay?" B'Elanna got up, now angry. "Trying to justify the decisions we took? Do you think we would have received a hero's welcome if we had managed to get back to the Alpha Quadrant all by ourselves? We would have been court-martialled and sent to a penal colony because of the way we'd acted in the past three years. Not because of our Maquis past, you know that. She was our captain for two months and we failed to understand what she was trying to do. To get us home while keeping to our principles. Human principles. To be proud of not only what we would achieve by getting back home, but how we conducted ourselves during that long journey."
"Why didn't you talk to me like that before?" Chakotay asked, intrigued.
The Engineer smiled ruefully, sitting back down, her anger already spent. "I tried. Several times. The last time I did, you sent me to scrub the manifolds with a toothbrush, remember?"
Chakotay remained silent for a while. "Do you think Voyager would have made it back to the Alpha Quadrant, if she had lived?" he asked wistfully, looking at the ship.
B'Elanna laughed softly. "I think that woman might have just brought us home." She cupped her hands around the distant powerless ship and moved them upwards like a bird. "I can see Voyager still racing towards the Alpha Quadrant with her as the captain and you as the second-in-command. It would have taken a long time, but, yes, I believe she would have gotten us all back."
They sat outside a while longer, reflecting on what they had lost. They had given up what they believed in and never made it home.
Chakotay stood up, still facing the abandoned ship. "You know the hardest thing of all, B'Elanna?". His voice broke. " I cannot remember Captain Janeway's face anymore."
The End.