By Carolyn Carey
Disclaimer:
Voyager and her crew are under control of the Paramount Imperium.
I own the Neddiin, the Kalanar Imperium, including all its manifestations, and this story and I'm not making any profit with this.
Summary:
After a nasty confrontation with the Neddiin, Voyager is in dire need of repair and hiding within a nebula. Unknown to Janeway and her crew, they have entered Kalanar space.
When a representative of the Kalanar Imperium is haling them, will they encounter friend or foe?
This is a 'Janeway story'; so excuse the lack of concentration on the rest of the crew.
Hey, TPTB get away with ignoring main characters for entire episodes, so why not I? ;o)
Inspired by Verdi's "Messa Da Requiem". I suggest you don't listen to it as much as I did, or you will come up with such warped ideas as these...
Rating: PG-13
Chapter 1 "Dies Irae"Mentally and physically pushed to her limits she sat among the ashes and debris in the dim ruins of her ready room, her gaze fixed on the natural phenomenon right in front of her in the vacuum of space.
She had been sitting at her desk for hours, ever since the last crew meeting in the conference room. The reason for her withdrawal into her holy sanctum had been to collect her thoughts in order to come up with a solution to Voyager's current predicament, but whichever way she twisted and turned their situation, it remained hopeless. Eventually she had given up, and instead lost herself in the magnificent radiance of the colorful spirals on the other side of the viewport. It was almost as if the fluorescent twists and twirls were beckoning her to join them in their hypnotic dance. With a silent sigh she reluctantly drew her eyes away from the bewitching beauty before her.
It was time to face the facts. Nothing was gained by letting her mind drift in such a careless manner. Grimly she activated her desktop console.
Captain's Log, Stardate 64783.1
Having sustained heavy damage in our recent confrontation with the Neddiin, Voyager is hiding within a class 3 nebula. The high gamma radiation is amply hiding us from enemy sensors; however, we will not be able to stay here for long, since hazardous amounts of radiation are leaking through the hull. Shields are down. Hull breaches have been located on decks five, six, eight, nine, ten, thirteen and fifteen. In order to conserve power I ordered decks four through fifteen have been evacuated. Power and food reserves have been significantly depleted. We are operating entirely on auxiliary power. The replicators are down and our food reserves in cargo bays one and two, as well as airponics have been destroyed. We are currently relying on what little food stock Neelix had stored in the mess hall and emergency rations. Even if I limit the rations to one per person per day, reserves will only last for 11 days.
All recreational activities have been suspended until further notice in order to preserve energy. Energy reserves are down to a minimum, life support is at 40 per cent and falling. Voyager is in dire need of repair, but we lack the necessary materials to undertake them.
Sickbay is run over with casualties. We've had two fatalities today, Ensign Kazarin and crewman Rendall. Crew numbers are now down to 97, which is barely enough to run this ship, not to mention carry out vital repairs.
Exploring unchartered space has been a dream of mine since I was a child, but I never thought I'd find myself this far from the Federation. There is no convenient space dock within our reach, no smiling faces that would welcome us with open arms. We are surrounded by enemies, enemies we hardly know. Enemies who refuse to talk to us, who attack us without provocation, and whose aim it is to destroy us, for what reason we do not know. In all those years we've been stranded in the Delta Quadrant, I do not believe we have ever been in quite as desperate a situation as the present. It's been six years now, and although we have made some friends, we have run into more enemies by far. It's been a six-year battle and I am tired, so tired...
The only thing that could possibly help us now is a miracle...
The chirp of her combadge interrupted the doom and gloom of her log entry.
"Chakotay to Janeway."
"Janeway here!"
"Captain, we are being hailed by an unknown vessel!"
Whatever next? Would it be friend or foe? Right now they could use a friend. Well, there was only one way to find out...
"I'll be right there, Commander!"
Seconds later she entered the bridge, a little bounce of hope in her step, only to witness the incoming hail, albeit on audio only. Visual communications, like just about everything else on Voyager, were still off-line.
The imposing voice of an unknown alien engulfed the bridge, or rather the ruins that were left of it.
"Intruder vessel, this is Commissioner Talshek of the Kalanar Imperium. You have illegally entered our space. Your vessel will be boarded and confiscated. Resistance will not be tolerated. Your crew will be relocated and adjust to serve the Kalanar Imperium."
Kathryn Janeway rolled her eyes in a gesture of annoyance. Just when she had thought that things could not possibly get any worse...
What was it with the species in the Delta Quadrant? Why did they always have to be so goddamn aggressive...? The voice of the current aggressor, however, sounded surprisingly human, although his attitude was decidedly reminiscent of the Borg. If only she had visual... she always found it helpful to have a picture of her adversaries, to seize them up, to be able to talk with her eyes as well as with words. Oh well, no point crying over spilled milk. She would have to make do without an image.
The captain steeled herself and took a deep breath.
"Commissioner Talshek, this is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. I apologize for our intrusion. It was not intentional. We are explorers from a world far, far away, on the other side of the galaxy, and were not aware of your borders. Our vessel is in dire need of repair, so we cannot leave your space at this moment in time, but if you'd just..."
"SILENCE!" the voice of the man she could not see boomed.
Despite the fact that visual communications were still down, the captain's eyes flew to the viewscreen, force of habit perhaps.
"How dare you interrupt a representative of the Kalanar Imperium? Be quiet and comply with our orders!"
Janeway swallowed hard, a strong feeling of foreboding creeping threw her bones. The eyes of the bridge crew were fixed on her, the tension of the bridge palpable.
"Commissioner, surely this must be a misunderstanding. We are just trying to get home. We were not aware of violating your borders. Surely there have to be exceptions... I'm sure if we talked about this..."
"One more word and I will order my tactical officer to fire on you. According to our sensors, your shields are non-functional, so I would comply if I were you. Prepare to be boarded!"
She would rather destroy Voyager than surrender her to these ignorant brutes, but unfortunately the self-destruct command was yet another function that was off-line, due to extensive damage to Voyager's secondary command processors. Sending Voyager on a collision course with the Kalanar vessel was not an option either, since neither warp, nor impulse drive were operational. They were sitting ducks...
She motioned Harry Kim to silence communications. Then she tapped her combadge.
"Janeway to Torres. How long until we have the warp engines back online?"
"Torres here, Captain... I would say about three days, minimum. The plasma coils and circuits need replacing, and the magnetic constrictors are undergoing realignment."
"What about weapons and shields?"
"We have three torpedoes left, but the launchers are fried. We can't even launch manually. Phaser banks are still frozen, and the shields are still down, although I should have them back online in about three hours."
Voyager's commanding officer frowned.
"We don't have that much time, B'Elanna. I need shields now!"
"I'm sorry, Captain. It's impossible..."
"Alright B'Elanna. Work as fast as you can. Janeway out."
Kathryn Janeway gulped. Her stomach was tightening itself into an array of knots. Was this how it was going to end? She and her crew imprisoned -- or worse -- on an alien world, tens of thousands of light-years away from home? Was this what she had been fighting for all those years? It could not be. She simply would not allow it. She would defend her crew and vessel with her last breath, if necessary.
Tuvok's voice broke the silence on the bridge.
"Intruder alert on decks four, three, two..."
He did not have to finish the sentence, for they were being held at gun point by a dozen aliens in black uniforms, reminiscent of Cardassian military gear, yet the aliens looked human, apart from the pronounced cartilaginous bone structure starting at the bridge of the nose and swooping over each eye in place of the human eyebrow.
Thus the bridge crew found themselves outnumbered and outgunned, and the captain was too wise to resist capture. However, she had no intention to relinquish her vessel to these aliens.
"I want to speak to Commissioner Talshek!"
Kathryn Janeway locked eyes with the guard behind her as she spoke those words in a voice that clearly stated that she was not going to take 'no' for an answer.
They had been forced to kneel on the floor in the center of the bridge, vicious looking disruptor rifles pointed at their heads. Luckily none of the Voyager crew had been crazy enough to put up a fight, so there had been no casualties, at least not yet.
The guard's face remained a mask of stone.
"I said, I want to speak to your commanding officer!" she repeated, this time rising to her feet. There was no warning. The Kalanar barely moved a muscle as he swung the butt of his rifle at her. It made violent impact with the base of her neck, and she fell forward, unconscious.
The name of the planet was Laxys III, the third planet in orbit of a red giant. At daytime it was living hell. Temperatures rose so high, that no vegetation existed. At night, however, the planet grew cold. The contrast between night and day temperatures was so extreme, that the planet was uninhabited, except for the prisoners who worked in the labor camps, and they usually did not last long.
Laxys III would have been a place of no interest to the Kalanar Imperium, had it not been for the trilithium hidden under the planet's barren surface. Its applications were many. The Kalanar had built their entire Imperium on the chemical compound. Refined into dilithium, they used it as an energy resource for their cities and as a warp/propulsion crystal for their starships. Last but not least, unrefined trilithium was used as a powerful weapon that could be used to destroy a starship, or even an entire planetary system. When delivered into the heart of a star, the chemical caused a quantum implosion of sufficient force to halt all fusion reactions in the star, resulting in an energy release that destroyed all planets in the star's system. The Kalanar had used it against their enemies, whose names and worlds only lived on in history books.
All this had been proudly recited by the labor camp overseer, Tanar Lyok, a proud Kalanar, middle-aged, tall as was the norm for Kalanar males and slightly overweight. It was his 'new arrivals speech.' Whenever a new convoy of prisoners arrived, and it was often, he told them of the hardships of life on the planet, and gloated of the grandeur of the Kalanar Imperium. He never grew tired of it.
The reaction of the prisoners was what kept him going in this hellhole. The fear and desperation in their eyes, their marveling at the magnificence of the Imperium... But this crowd in front of him was no fun. They just stood there, apparently indifferent to their fate.
Kathryn Janeway was suffering from a terrible headache, which started at the base of the skull, where the butt of the weapon had hit her hard. She felt dizzy and nausea was threatening to overpower her at any moment. Lyok's words were spinning in her head, repeating themselves all over again, and in no particular order. She had regained consciousness just in time to witness Voyager's landing on the planet. She had never managed to get to speak to Commissioner Talshek. The man seemed to be unreachable. She gathered that he must be a very high-ranking officer of the Kalanar Imperium, because after the initial hail he had not been involved any further in the takeover of Voyager and the relocation of her crew. Getting his hands dirty was obviously beneath him. He had his hangmen to do it for him.
The crew was split up into two groups, male and female, and lead to the chemical shower rooms. Much like a sonic shower this did not involve water, but merely chemical gases that exterminated harmful bacteria and other infectious agents. The chemicals burned in their lungs, throats and eyes and made them all cough uncontrollably. Their uniforms were burned and they were given beige tunics and trousers made from a cotton-like fabric, no doubt well suited to the hot environment.
When they were finally hoarded out of the main building and into the open air, the red giant was already sinking below the horizon. In the distance, huge rock columns that looked a little like giant toadstools rose toward the twilit red sky. The ground was rocky, dry and laced with cracks, the wasteland was a conundrum of deep rocky canyons and rock formations. Somewhere in the distance the human eye could barely make out a seemingly endless sea of dunes.
The air was hot and thin, and the captain and her crew struggled to catch their breath. Only Tuvok, Vorik and B'Elanna seemed to be immune to the climate, which was not surprising considering that the climates of their respective homeplanets were equally hot. As a matter of fact Laxys III evoked distant memories of Vulcan. Hundreds of prisoners sat on the barren ground. The labor camp was a melting pot of countless alien species, who seemed to have nothing in common but sorrow and misery. They all looked exhausted, sick and emaciated, and they were all wearing the same beige uniform, which in most cases hung off their various colored bodies in shreds and rags. Apparently there was no such thing as a second set of clothes in this place. You just wore the same old rags, until they literally fell off you, by which time the prisoner would most likely be dead anyway, so why waste new clothes on him or her? Kalanar economy... Kathryn secretly wondered what the average life span of a prisoner on Laxys III was... The camp was quiet, too quiet for such a large amount of people. No one gave them as much as a straying glance as the crew of the Federation starship Voyager walked through the flock of prisoners in search of a spot of their own.
The acrid smell of urine, feces, vomit and decay clung to the thin air, and Kathryn had to fight the urge to retch. My kingdom for a breath of fresh air, she thought. She could not let her crew see her weakness. She had to keep up an element of hope that they were going to get out of this hell. She had given them her word that she would get them home, and she intended to keep it. She would have to come up with an escape plan, soon, before she or any of her crew got sick. But first things first. They had to find a spot of their own, had to create a base camp, a spot from which they could explore their new surroundings and then rendezvous at.
"Captain!"
Kathryn spun around to face Chakotay, who was standing right behind her.
"There is a small rock formation over there that should offer ample shelter from the elements. It's also a little apart from the crowd. I think it would make a good base camp."
She squinted and gazed into the direction he was pointing at. It did indeed look like a good spot for a camp. It was isolated, but not too far from the base camp. A rock formation formed almost a half circle. Ample shelter indeed.
"Alright!"
Kathryn raised her voice to attract the attention of her crew.
"We are going to make our base camp over there by that rock formation. If there's any daylight left, we will then separate to explore the neighborhood, and then rendezvous at the camp. Tomorrow we are going to start working on a way to get out of here. I don't intend to spend the rest of my life in this hellhole. But one step at the time. Lets get going."
They all started to move in the direction of the rock formation. Neelix walked up to the captain.
"Captain, I know you're probably busy right now, but I thought you should know that two of our people are missing. Sam and Naomi Wildman haven't been seen since we all got separated prior to the showers."
Kathryn stopped dead. Startled, Chakotay, who had been walking right behind her, almost bumped into her.
"Commander, you go ahead with the rest of the crew. I 'm going to have a word with the overseer."
"Captain...?"
But before he had the time to protest she was already gone.
"Okay, you heard the captain. Lets go!"
Kathryn faced the guard at the entrance to the main building.
"I need to speak to the overseer!"
The guard merely sneered at her.
"Go away!"
"Two members of my crew are missing, and I don't intend to leave here until I have them back. Is that clear?"
"I said go away! If you cherish your life, you'll do as I say!"
He was about to point his disruptor rifle at her when suddenly the tinted glass door behind him slid open, to reveal non other than Tanar Lyok, who immediately addressed the guard.
"What the hell is going on out here? What's the meaning of this commotion? Do you think the Commissioner is going to be impressed with the lack of discipline in this place?"
"It's one of the new prisoners, Sir. She won't go away.", the guard defended himself, staring at Kathryn.
"Sir, I need to talk to you. Two of my people have gone missing."
Lyok shot the female prisoner before him a contemptuous look. She had quite a nerve, interrupting his meeting with the Commissioner for something this trivial. However, he could not help but be a little curious about her. There was something commanding about the way she presented herself, something that demanded respect despite the fact that she was a small female prisoner who had by all means been defeated and subdued.
Seeing that she had his attention she appealed further,
"Please, I just need to now that they are safe. It's a mother and her child."
Curious, the concern that she had for the members of her crew. Usually the prisoners in the camp cared only about their next food ration. He could not help but be a little intrigued by her.
"All mothers and their children are housed in the maternity unit. They will join the camp when the child is deemed old enough to work in the mines. Now go away." he snapped.
Before she could say another word the door slid open once again, and out stepped someone she was already acquainted with.
"Ah, Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. I hope your new home meets with your approval, Ma'am.", Commissioner Talshek smirked.
"Is this prisoner causing you trouble, Lyok?"
"Nothing we can't handle, Commissioner, I assure you."
Kathryn stared at the man in front of her, the almighty Talshek. Lyok seemed almost scared of him. Curious...
"So, what's all this pandemonium about then?", Talshek enquired further. Kathryn Janeway took the cue.
"I merely wanted to know what happened to two of my people who appear to have gone missing. Lyok tells me they've been taken to a maternity unit."
The corners of his mouth drew up into an evil smile.
"Ah, touching, very touching, Captain. But don't worry, soon you won't concern yourself with anything but a good night's sleep and your daily ration."
Kathryn glared the tall and dark impersonation of evil in front of her. Her voice turned as cold as ice.
"Why are you doing this to us?"
"Because I can, Captain." he chuckled.
Kathryn spun around, appalled at the nonchalant words that had been thrown at her and started towards the new base camp. Then, abruptly, she stopped and turned to face Talshek once more.
"Go to hell, Commissioner!" she spat.
Talshek only chuckled,
"You first... 'Kathryn', isn't it? And please, call me 'Talshek', my dear."
"Shall I have her disciplined, Commissioner?" Lyok intervened.
Talshek stared after her as she disappeared into the distance.
"No, I'll take care of that myself. Breaking her spirit will be a pleasure. I shall take her into my service. You will be amply compensated for the loss of her labor."
"Shall we hold market here tomorrow? I know plenty of people on Kalanar Prime who are looking for fresh slaves..."
"Yes, what an inspired idea, Lyok! I'm impressed! We shall hold market at dawn!"
"As you wish, Commissioner."
Kathryn was fuming. She could not believe that her crew's fate had been decided for no better reason than because Talshek felt like flexing his tyrannical muscles. This was not why she had made so many sacrifices during the last few years. It was certainly not how this was going to end. She would not stand for it. Come what may, they were going to make it back to Voyager, and yes, they were going to make it back home. She had defeated the Borg. She was not about to be stopped by the self-indulgent whims of a megalomaniac tyrant. And the Kalanar Imperium would not be the first to be defeated by her and her crew, though she hoped to god that it would be the last.
When she reached the camp Chakotay and the crew had already started several campfires. They sat huddled together to keep warm. In her fury she had neither noticed the change in temperature, nor the fact that it had gone almost completely dark. If it had not been for the scattered light of the moon in the distance she would not have been able to see a thing.
A myriad of clouds cast their eerie shadows over the night sky, obscuring most stars from view, except for the diffused light of the large moon and the occasional glimpse of the other two planets in the system. Laxys Prime and Laxys II were now in clear view of the planet. It was strange to see two more planets so close to the surface of the one she was standing on. Like Laxys III they were desert planets. The red giant had seen to that. She wondered if those two worlds also homed prisoners forced to work in labor camps...
Folding her legs under herself, Kathryn sat down on the ground next to Chakotay and warmed her hands on a campfire. For a moment they just sat in companionable silence. Then she spoke.
"They are keeping them in a maternity unit until they deem Naomi old enough to work in the mines."
"I see. They are not completely barbaric then." Chakotay commented wryly.
He knew how much this situation was tearing at her. She had lost control, had lost her ship, and now her crew were being forced to work and live in conditions that were, by all intents and purposes, appalling. There was no doubt in his mind that she was blaming herself for all of it, and it made him furious. They were a team, so why could they not share the bad times as well as the good ones? He took a brief side-glance at her. She looked totally worn out. Dark shadows were cast under her eyes, and her cheekbones were standing out more prominently than usual. He sighed.
"Kathryn, it's dark and there's really nothing we can do right now until daybreak. Why don't you get some sleep?"
She shook her head determinedly.
"Maybe later. I need to think about this a little longer, Chakotay. You go and get some sleep. I'll stay up awhile longer."
With another sigh he hesitantly got up and found himself a place to sleep. But sleep would not come easily tonight, not for any members of the Voyager crew...
Kathryn sat on the ground, staring into the flames of the small campfire, but not really seeing them. Her mind's eye conjured up a variety of images. This morning she had thought they were beyond hope, but now the situation had turned a hundred times worse. She could not even begin to come up with a possible plan of escape. Only to herself she would admit this, but she could not see a way out.
In command training she had learned that a captain had to keep up the facade of hope at all costs. Keeping an element of hope alive among the crew was of paramount importance. It was their only chance of survival, if there was such a thing in this case.
Admittedly this was not the first time that she thought their situation hopeless. At the beginning of their adventure in the Delta Quadrant things had not looked so rosy either. First of all they had been stranded seventy thousand light-years from home, which would make their ETA at Earth approximately seventy years at maximum warp. Then there had been the Kazon. She could not help comparing their current situation with the incident at Hanon IV, when the Kazon had taken over her ship, and dumped her crew on a barren planet. She had had no hope for them then, and it had turned out all right in the end.
The Vidiians had threatened her crew several times, even causing her counterpart in a parallel universe to destroy her vessel. Naomi Wildman and Ensign Kim had come from that universe.
Once, she herself and Chakotay had been stranded on a planet after contracting a virus that seemingly had no cure. Had she not lost all hope of finding an antidote when a plasma storm had rendered all her scientific equipment useless? She had even gotten used to the idea of living the rest of her live on a planet in the Delta Quadrant, far away from her family and loved ones, and far away from Voyager and her crew, safe her first officer. Chakotay, who had pledged his loyalty and friendship to her on the planet they had named 'New Earth'. She had even begun to cherish their new life on that planet... and then Voyager had come back for them, with the cure.
Countless times in the past few years her vessel had been attacked by hostile aliens, and both, vessel and crew, had taken quite a beating. But they had always pulled through in the end, even if sometimes she had lost a member of the crew. No, Voyager's crew was more than a bunch of people who worked together. They were a family, and each time she lost a member of this family, she felt like she was being torn to shreds. But each time most of them survived, and Voyager would lay in a course for home...
Maybe a situation was never quite hopeless, until you gave up hope...
Kathryn was jolted out of her trance by the ruby glow of the rising red giant. Dawn had come. Only now she realized that she was shivering from the cold. The fire had died a long time ago. She had not even noticed, so immersed had she been in her sinister thoughts.
All night she had contemplated their fate, compared it to incidents in the past, but she had yet to come up with some sort of a plan for the day ahead. It was important to give the crew a sense of hope, so she would have to tell them something when they woke up.
Kathryn's gaze went towards the horizon. Slowly the large disc of everlasting flames rose in the sky, tinting everything on planet crimson. It was an awe-inspiring sight, but she was well aware that its beauty was deceptive, even dangerous. The pregnant sun was a symbol of destruction. She could only guess at the former lushness of this desert planet, its vegetation, which had shriveled and died, its rivers and oceans, which had evaporated in the heat. This star represented only death and decay. It stood as a symbol for the end of hope, no matter how comforting its heat appeared to her after the long cold night.
She stretched her stiff muscles, and wished for a cup of coffee...
"I guess you didn't get any sleep all night, did you?"
Startled she looked at the man who had sat down next to her. She had been too immersed in her own thoughts to notice his presence.
"No, I needed time to think." she replied tiredly.
"And, do you have a plan?"
"Not yet. What about you, Chakotay, any insights?"
"Apart from getting to know our surroundings, no. I think we should split up into four groups today and explore the different parts of this camp, try to find weaknesses in the barriers. That is, if they let us explore. We may be stuck in the mines all day...And then again, does this place have any barriers? I mean, where are we going to go? The desert?"
Even Chakotay seemed to be giving up hope.
"Without water that's unlikely. Whatever happens, lets make sure we all stick together. I don't want to loose anymore members of my crew..."
The low wail of some a horn interrupted the command team. It sounded three times in succession, and then stopped. Slowly all the sick and malnourished creatures around them rose and moved in a ghostlike procession in direction of the main building, their bodies casting long shadows on the cracked, hard ground in the light of the rising death star.
Janeway gave Chakotay a questioning glance...
"Breakfast call?" she quipped in an attempt to lighten up the atmosphere between them.
The Native American smiled a little.
"Maybe they serve coffee..." Chakotay jested.
Kathryn grunted a little in amusement. A little bantering felt good, even if it lasted only for a moment. She sobered.
"I suggest we join the flock!"
Voyager's crew joined the eerie procession towards the main building. When they got a little closer they noticed a new addition to the front of the building complex. A platform of some sort rose in front of the structure. They had made their way halfway to the building, when they were intercepted by a dozen heavily armed Kalanar guards, who pushed them onto the platform. Apparently most of the people immediately in front of the platform were not prisoners, but judging by their appearance, well-to-do Kalanar.
None too gently they were shoved onto the platform, some stumbling and falling, but the guards didn't seem to care. Kathryn's heart pounded wildly. What was going on? A low gong sounded deeply through the camp, echoing through the tunnels of the dilithium mines. Kathryn Janeway tried to calm herself, so that she could think straight. Something was not right here...
Groaning with the effort in the morning's heat, Tanar Lyok's overweight form staggered up the steps onto the wooden platform, which had been hastily, erected overnight. He took position in the front, catching his breath and clearing his voice.
"Honored Kalanar nobles, you have come here today to purchase strong, fresh servants for your houses, businesses and fields. Let me tell you that you could not have come at a better time! Only yesterday we were lucky enough to receive almost a hundred strong and exotic prisoners from a world on the other side of the galaxy. Although they have never worked as servants before, I'm sure they'll be easily trained. Let us start the auction with their leader!"
The guards moved towards Kathryn Janeway, grabbed her roughly by both arms and dragged her to the center of the platform. Her head was spinning with panic. They were being sold off like pieces of meat. This could not be happening. They would all end up being separated, most likely leaving Laxys III for any number of other worlds of the grand Kalanar Imperium. She would never be able to track them all down again...She had to do something. She could not allow the crew to be separated any further. So she spoke up,
"No one has ever tried to make slaves out of my people, and no one ever will. They will never serve you, Lyok! They'd rather die than become your servants!"
She directed her speech from Lyok to the crowd of Kalanar assembled before her.
"We come from a society in which the freedom of the individual is a person's most basic right. Through the centuries our people have fought hard to hold on to realize individual freedom, and we're not about to give it up, not without one hell of a fight! Are you willing to be murdered in your own beds, to be poisoned by your kitchen hands, or to be ridiculed in front of your servants? If so, then go ahead with this auction!"
Shocked hushes went through the noble audience at her feet, shortly followed by indignant yells of outrage directed at non other than an embarrassed Tanar Lyok, hallowed overseer of the prison camp on Laxys III.
"Is this all you've got to offer us, Lyok?"
"You mean we traveled all this way to be presented with a bunch of insubordinates?"
"You'd better have something up your sleeve, overseer, or you'll regret having brought me all the way to this godforsaken hell hole of yours!"
Kathryn allowed herself a silent sigh of relief. Her strategy was working. No one among this crowd would be willing to buy a member of her crew. Then Lyok came toward her, hissing,
"You will regret this to the end of your days, Kathryn Janeway! I will make sure that none of your people ever get off this planet alive. And I'll make sure that the short time they have left in the world of the living will be tainted with the terrors of unbearable pain, the heaviest of burdens and the deepest of sorrows. I'll make your life a living hell! You will pay for this embarrassment dearly, Janeway!"
The overseer's curses and threats were interrupted by the now familiar dark sound of a certain man's voice.
"Lyok, I don't mind her insubordinate nature. I'll have her anyway. I'll pay you two hundred gribbecs for the woman."
All faces turned towards the man who had spoken so boldly. Hushed sounds of surprise and astonishment went through the camp.
The tall, dark man moved elegantly up the stairs onto the platform, an aura of power surrounding him like an energy field. Recognizing him for none other than Commissioner Talshek, the audience went to their knees and bowed deeply before him. In response Kathryn's mouth almost fell open with astonishment. Exactly how powerful was her adversary? Was he seriously considering taking her with him? Why? Her eyes briefly met Chakotay's, who was standing just a few meters behind her. He saw the brief flash of panic in her eyes, something the rest of the crew would probably have missed, and tried to reassure her with a calm he did not feel.
Talshek was now moving toward Kathryn. She swallowed hard, trying to control her panic as best as possible.
"Are you going to come voluntarily, or do I have to carry you?" was all he said as he stood looming before her. She glared at him. "I'll take that as a 'no'."
A split second later he lifted her over his shoulder and walked off the platform into the main building. Kathryn began too struggle wildly against his hold, but he would not relent.
Once out of sight from the crowd he sat her down on an upholstered chair in the reception lounge. Never taking his eyes off her, he withdrew a small device from his pocket and pressed a few buttons. All the warning she got was a slight tingling sensation that quickly spread all through her body. Then everything around her disappeared.