Disclaimer: I do not own StarTrek Voyager, it belongs to Paramount, nor do I own Before Dishonor the story this novel is based after, that belongs to the author, and no copyright infringement is intended.

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Lauraac2110

Before Redemption

A Voyager Fan-fiction

By Lauraac2110

Prologue: The Fallen One

Earth, Paris, Year: 2383

How has it come to this? How has he fallen so far? She thought as she watched him, from her hiding place by the back door, as he continued drinking heavily by downing yet another glass of alcohol. He was already strongly intoxicated and this showed quite badly on his pale face. He had never displayed a strong desire for alcohol before but, now...

She looked at him sadly. He was a mere shadow of what he had once been; the man she had once known.

He was no longer the proud, gentle, intelligent, courageous leader and friend she had known. He was no longer Captain of Voyager, as he had resigned three years ago without explaining himself, and since then he had been slowly reduced to the drunkard that she saw sitting at the bar before her. She knew that something must have happened to him which had caused him to change so drastically that she could barely no longer recognise him because of what he had become.

A lot had happened since 2380, the year which she had been assimilated by the Borg to become their new Queen. She was presumed to be dead to the world. Yet here she was, scarred, but, most importantly, still alive despite the fact that the odds had been against her. If Lady Q hadn't intervened, she knew not where she would be at this moment in time but she knew, with all certainty, that she would likely be dead. Lady Q and the Q Continuum had, by using the Doctor to remove as many of the Borg implants as possible, nursed her back to health and, now, three years later, she had returned to Earth to complete the mission the Continuum had assigned to her in return for her continued presence on this world.

Vice-Admiral Kathryn Janeway was to destroy the Borg forever, to put a stop to their reign of terror, as even the all powerful Q were beginning to see them as a threat. The Borg were beginning to rally again, as some of the Borg Cubes had managed to escape the Endgame virus, under a new Borg Queen. Their mission, predictably, was the assimilation and destruction of all M-class sophisticated planets that they came across in the universe. However, before they could complete their mission, they had to get her out of the way first.

Kathryn Janeway had knowledge of the Borg which the Borg knew was a threat to their existence. Her brief period as the previous Borg Queen, before her near destruction when the Endgame Virus had been unleashed which destroyed the Borg Cube she was on, had given her the entire collective knowledge of all Borg to ever have existed. It had also given her a few advantages as well which she planned to use against them but, first, she needed the one man who sat at the bar, heavily drunk, before her.

Chakotay. The last five years or so had been hard on him. He had split with Seven of Nine when he had become Captain of Voyager. She had now married her Beta Quadrant lover Axum, who had finally found her three years ago after the Endgame virus had been unleashed, and life had really went down hill from there for him. He had resigned from his Captaincy, and Starfleet, when he had heard the news about Kathryn's assumed death and since then he had deteriorated from the man she had respected as her trusted advisor, and closest friend, to the heavily drunk fool she saw now before him.

However, things had been better for the others senior officers of the original Voyager crew. The Doctor had created his neural interface chips and had done rather well for himself whilst concealing the fact that he knew Kathryn was still alive from the world. Tom and B'Elanna Torres had three children now with a fourth soon on the way. Tuvok had returned home to Vulcan to spend as much time as possible with his family and was reportedly enjoying every moment that he spent with those he had missed most when he had been in the Delta Quadrant. As for Harry Kim, he was currently the new Captain of Voyager and he had also married his sweetheart, Libby.

The original crew had heard from Neelix too. The Q Continuum had, at Kathryn's insistence in return for accepting their task, brought him, and the Talaxians that he had chosen to stay behind with, to the Alpha Quadrant to find a safe place to make their own home. They now lived on an outpost on the Moon, similar to their old asteroid home, and were enjoying every minute of their lives there without fear of being destroyed by the Borg or anyone else.

However, their peaceful lives were now in even greater danger than they knew as the Borg were coming, with assimilation and destruction on their mind, and she was the only one who could stop them. However, in order to save everyone, Kathryn Janeway needed Chakotay to implement the final stages of her plan to destroy the Borg. Firstly, to her despair, she had to find a way of restoring him to his previous state, though. He had fallen and she intended to get him back on his feet.

It was going to be quite a challenge to restore him but Kathryn Janeway was not deterred by this fact. Her destiny, by any means possible, was to destroy the Borg and, compared to that challenge, the challenge of restoring Chakotay to his old self would be easy.