Title: Homecoming: The Voyager Coalition, Vol. 2

Description: Janeway and the Voyager crew have returned home at last, but their troubles aren't over yet. Chakotay and the other Maquis face a rocky road to acceptance while trying to heal old wounds newly reopened, and Janeway faces a difficult personal choice she never thought she'd have to make.

Author's note: This is the second volume of a slightly A/U story that is a sequel to my short stories "Year of Hell, Season of Hope" and "Equinox: At the Gate of Daybreak." I have designed this story to be able to stand alone, however, if you don't wish to read the others first.

This story replaces the plot of "Endgame," an episode which disappointed me for a number of reasons. I swore the day I watched it that I would rewrite the finale myself, and 16 years later, I've finally done it. I would also like to note that I have not read any of the post-homecoming Voyager novels, so my story will not match up with them (unless by sheer coincidence!) Rest assured this story will be completed, as I already have most of it written.

Includes the pairings Janeway/Chakotay and Paris/Torres.

Rating: K+ (mild language, no violence, no explicit sex/nudity, but some references to marital intimacy)

Disclaimer: I do not own the intellectual rights to Star Trek, and I don't receive payment for my fanfiction. I do it for the sheer joy of it!

Chapter 1

Captain Kathryn Janeway slouched through the doorway into the new apartment she had been assigned and kicked off her high heels, leaving them carelessly in the middle of the floor. She was so tired she could hardly see straight - although the short walk through the salt-tangy air of San Francisco had revived her somewhat - but looking around, she realized she had been given spacious, comfortable quarters, nicer than the rooms she'd had at headquarters before getting Voyager, and they were already furnished and decorated, too.

She looked blearily at the grandfather clock in the common room. The hour hand was pointing at the 2. She had stayed at Voyager's welcome-home reception almost to the bitter end. Despite Chakotay's accusations of working at her own party, she had enjoyed herself immensely and become reacquainted with a lot of old friends and colleagues she had really missed. It had been a wonderful night, a homecoming every bit as nice as the one she had dreamed of.

She went into the bedroom and unfastened her dress, stepping out of its stiff folds and then draping it across a chair. Clad in a white slip, she went into the bathroom to remove her jewelry and wash off her makeup. The white rose Q had tucked into her hair went into a drinking glass filled with water. She was too tired to bother replicating a vase tonight.

She opened a drawer and saw that her clothes had been unpacked for her. Whoever had prepared her apartment had even turned the bed down. Sleepily, she changed into a silky nightgown and collapsed into bed. She didn't bother telling the computer to wake her at any particular time. She would wake up whenever she woke up, and then she would go straight home to Indiana. Her mom knew not to expect her too early.

Kathryn was woken out of a dead sleep, however, by an incessant beeping. For a long moment, she blinked in the darkness and tried to remember where she was and why she wasn't in her quarters back on Voyager.

Beep beep beep.

Finally, her brain started moving again, and she staggered out of bed, made her way to the closet, and put on a dressing gown.

Beep beep beep.

It was coming from the common room. She turned on the lights, dim setting, and went toward the beeps. They were coming from the desktop computer, which had a Federation seal on the monitor to indicate the call was from someone in Starfleet. The grandfather clock said it was a quarter past four in the morning.

"You've got to be kidding," she grumbled.

Running her fingers through her tangled hair, she tried to look alert as she sat down and accepted the call.

An image of Owen Paris flashed up on the screen. He was wearing a bathrobe and the white hair on the sides of his head was rumpled, too. She tried not to stare. In all their years of service together, she had never seen him anything but pressed and polished, except during combat situations. Well, she comforted herself, at least she didn't have to be embarrassed about her own present appearance.

"Katie," Owen said. "I'm so sorry to wake you, tonight of all nights, but... we have a problem."

"What kind of problem?" she asked.

Owen sighed. "I just got a call from Lieutenant Commander Neal Caldwell. He served with me on the Wyoming, but now he works security here at headquarters under the command of Nelson."

"Who?" she said, mentally kicking herself for not replicating some coffee before answering Owen's call. She was having a terrible time seeing through her own brain-fog.

Owen rubbed at his face. "I'm sorry, I keep forgetting you don't know. Admiral Kurt Nelson. He's head of Starfleet Security now."

"Oh."

"Caldwell just now got off duty and called me to tell me - against orders, I might add - what he has been doing tonight. Apparently, he's been processing-" Owen broke off, and looked up briefly - "-he's been processing members of your crew."

"What?" she barked out.

"Yes."

"Owen," she said, wide awake now and growing angry. "You promised me... Hayes promised me... you all swore up and down that this wasn't going to happen!"

"I know," Owen said tersely. "We were told it wouldn't, but Nelson went over our heads. Look, Katie, you can't take it personally. Everyone's still paranoid after the shapeshifter incidents."

She didn't have a clue what he was talking about, and frankly she didn't care. "Who did they take?" she demanded. "The Maquis? The Equinox crew?"

"Both," Owen said. "They've all been removed from your command and taken into custody."

"On their first night home?!" She leaned forward, fists clenched. "They should be with their families now!" She fought for a modicum of control. "Where are they being held? At the central lockup? Or have they already been taken to a penal colony?"

"It isn't quite as bad as that," Owen said. "Apparently they're confined to quarters here in San Francisco, under guard, and their combadges confiscated. Nelson said that in the morning, they would be tagged with security anklets and then permitted to go home to their families, although they'll be required to stay planetside until their trials in a few months."

"This is unacceptable," she said, her voice deepening in anger. "My crew is not a flight risk. Haven't I already given Starfleet Command my personal guarantee on that point? Where exactly are they being held?"

Owen knew exactly where she was going with this. "Don't go and do anything foolish, Katie," he said. "I know it's a humiliating thing to be tagged like that, but at least they'll be allowed to go home."

"It isn't the humiliation, Owen," she said. "It's the precedence. It isn't going to help their cause with the courts and boards of inquiry, if they've been tagged like wild animals." A memory rose up in her mind of the day she had recruited Tom Paris for the mission to the Badlands, and the palpable sense of shame in his countenance thanks to the heavy security anklet encircling his leg. A sudden thought struck her. "They didn't take Tom, too, did they?"

Owen sighed. "Not exactly. His name wasn't on the list. He fulfilled his agreement with the parole board by serving with you, and I've been told his rank will be confirmed. But he was with B'Elanna when they tried to leave the reception last night. Two officers stopped B'Elanna and asked to speak with her alone. Tom must have had some suspicion about what was happening, because he refused to let them separate him from his wife. He kicked up enough of a fuss that they eventually let him go into confinement with her and the baby. It's the only reason we even found out about all of this tonight. Caldwell knew I would want to know what had happened to my son."

"Owen," she said. "We can't let this happen."

"There's only so much I can do," he said wearily. "Nelson has seniority over me, and as head of security he has the discretion to do what he feels is necessary to protect Starfleet's interests. I can file a protest - and I will, first thing in the morning - but everyone knows my son is on your crew and they won't expect me to be objective about this. I don't know how seriously I'll be taken."

"Do whatever you need to do," Kathryn said. "And I'll do what I need to do."

When the call with Owen had ended, she grimly initiated a transmission to Tuvok.

Chakotay sat cross-legged on the floor of the quarters that were currently serving as his prison, and stared at the wall.

He had been taken to one of the many dormitories typically assigned to cadets, now vacated for the summer, when a significant number of cadets returned to their families for a break or left to study abroad. This one was built to hold six students, judging by the bunk beds installed in each of the three bedrooms, but Chakotay had been put in here alone. Can't have the Maquis conspiring with each other, it seemed. He had tried knocking on the walls to either side of his quarters, and each time someone had knocked back, but the walls were too thick to hear voices clearly. No way to know who his neighbors were.

He had been searched, his combadge had been confiscated, and the computer interface in here had been taken offline, as well as the replicator. Some water and shelf-stable food had been left on the table. That made it better than a Cardassian prison, at least. He had been in plenty of worse places, come to think of it. But coming in contrast to the welcome-home they'd gotten yesterday, it seemed very bleak.

Chakotay glanced at the window, where the pre-dawn light was beginning to reveal the neat landscaping in the courtyard outside, and touch the shoulders of the security guards stationed at each entrance to the building. It was around 0600. Sekaya must be worried by now, unless she had fallen asleep waiting for him. He could only imagine what her reaction would be when she woke up and found that he wasn't there and wasn't responding to calls. To say she had been skeptical of his assurances that Starfleet was not going to arrest him was an understatement.

And now she had been proven correct. Couldn't he just see Sekaya's face when he walked through the door sporting the security anklet the guards had promised he would receive in the morning? As if she needed any more reasons to hate the Federation.

Here he had spent a sleepless night, going over and over in his mind all the choices he had made that had led him to this point, and trying and failing to identify a single moment in which he had done something he thoroughly regretted. Had there been choices he might have made differently, knowing what he knew now? Perhaps. Yet he had always done what he believed to be right in the moment the choice was presented to him. What more could he have done? What more could anyone do?

Now the time for choices was over. Now his fate rested in the choices of others.

He could not remember a time when he felt so helpless.

It seemed a good time to pray. Chakotay wanted to do it properly, with the akoonah, but last night when the guards brought him the bag he had packed to take to Huatabampo - with the contents completely rearranged - he had not found his akoonah. The guards said that all devices had been confiscated. He pointed out that there was nothing in an akoonah that could be used as a weapon or a communication device. They had shrugged and told him to take it up with Admiral Nelson, and then they waited while he changed into civilian clothing, and took his uniform away and left him alone, sealing the door behind them.

At least he had the other items in his medicine bundle. He unwrapped them now, the bird's wing and the river stone, and left them resting on the pudu skin. He touched the stone with one finger.

It was marked with a spiral swirl crossed by two long lines: the chah-mooz-ee, the ancient symbol of the Rubber Tree People since the days of the Sky Spirits. No one knew for certain what the source of the symbol was, but when Chakotay had discovered the planet of the Sky Spirits in the Delta Quadrant, for the first time it had occurred to him that, as a space-faring people, the Sky Spirits may have taken the symbol of the galaxy itself as their own. As for the lines crossing the swirl, maybe they represented paths across the galaxy. Wormholes, perhaps, or simply the route taken by the ancient Sky Spirits from their home to Earth. The same path Voyager had traced on their way home.

Not for the first time, he marveled again at the unlikelihood of it, that of all the billions of planets in the Delta Quadrant, he should stumble upon one so intimately connected with the history of his own people. An accident? A statistical anomaly? A cosmic coincidence? That was what he said as a young man, whenever he heard people in his community claiming miracles or visions from some spirit or another. They only saw what they wanted to see. Or they were lovable but crazy old men, like his grandfather, confusing mental frailties for spirituality. And young Chakotay, having already embraced the Starfleet way in his heart, having fallen in love with sciences and inventions and cold hard observable reality, had become ashamed of his own heritage. His own people. His own father.

What an easy thing it was, to doubt someone else's faith. It was another thing entirely to reject the experiences he had lived himself. Once, he would have looked at Voyager's unlikely return home as a "miracle" only in the human sense of the word, and softened it with a thousand hedges, attributing it to luck, to skill, to determination, to the triumph of science and warp cores and slipstream drives and Borg conduits and Kathryn Janeway. And these explanations were all true enough. They all answered the "what" question, as Kolopak had loved to say. What brought Voyager home? This question could be answered by cold hard observable reality.

A far more difficult question to answer was: Why?

If he knew that, it might be a little easier to bear the coming storm. If there were some overarching purpose to their journey, some great blessing to counteract all the grief that occurred and all that was yet to come, then he could endure his trial with patience.

Maybe.

Father, Mother, Grandfather, help me bear it with patience. Help me find the reasons why.

A loud pounding shattered the early-morning stillness.

"Fifteen minutes!" a man's voice shouted through the door. A few moments later, he heard another, fainter thumping, and another call: "Fifteen minutes!"

Chakotay rose, stiffly: at his age it was getting more difficult to sit on the floor like that for any length of time. He went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face and combed his hair. He couldn't shave. They'd taken his razor. He went back out to the common room and packed all his things back in his bag and then forced himself to eat something, although he wasn't hungry.

Another knock on the door. Immediately it slid open, and there was a pair of armed guards to escort him out. They scanned his body again and then hustled him into the corridor, leaving his bag behind. Chakotay hoped he would get it back at some point.

There were other guards in the corridor, and more of Voyager's crew being brought out of their quarters and herded into a group. All of them were dressed in civilian clothing. There was Ken Dalby, and Chell, and Mariah Henley, and Curtis Ayala. Ayala nodded to Chakotay as he joined the rest under the watchful eyes of their guards, but they didn't say anything to each other. What was there to say?

Dalby was not so quiet. "Where are you taking us?" he demanded of a pair of guards who were busy scanning Ann Smithee in the doorway of her quarters.

They didn't answer as they switched off the equipment and moved Smithee into place with the rest of them.

"Hey Starfleet! I'm talking to you!" Dalby snapped, face reddening.

"Dalby."

Dalby turned his glare on Chakotay. "What?"

"Shut up."

"Why should I?" Dalby demanded. "I didn't survive the Bajoran frontier, and the Cardassian War, and every alien race in the Delta Quadrant shooting at me, just to be pushed around by a bunch of Starfleet goons the first day I get home! Hey!" Dalby spoke to the nearest guard very slowly and distinctly, as if to a child. "Where. Are. You. Taking. Us?"

"To have the terms of your parole explained to you," one of the guards answered quietly. Not the one Dalby had spoken to - he was silent and grim-jawed, standing a few feet away with his hand on his phaser. This one was a Bajoran woman in a lieutenant's uniform, with her black hair pulled back in a tight bun.

"What, don't tell me you're on their side?" Dalby said to her in disbelief. "Why didn't you enlist with the Bajoran Militia?" Henley was looking at the Bajoran woman with a similar expression of disgust.

"Shut up, Dalby," Chakotay said again, loud and clear. "Anything you say or do will just make it worse."

"Or what?" Dalby said, turning his contempt on Chakotay. "You'll throw me in the Brig? Looks like they took your uniform, too. I guess I don't take orders from you anymore."

His attitude was annoying, but it was better for him to unleash his rage against Chakotay than against the guards. "The way I remember it, you took orders from me before I wore a uniform," Chakotay pointed out quietly. "Or do you only answer to rank now, just like the Starfleet officers you've always claimed to hate?"

Dalby stewed over that, but he did shut up. Possibly he was remembering what had happened the last time he had insisted Chakotay deal with him "the Maquis way."

"Let's move!" called one of the guards. The six Voyager crewmembers, flanked by six guards, were marched down the corridor, through an annex and out the doors into the cool breeze of a May morning in San Francisco. The pair of guards in front led them north, toward a large administrative building in the midst of the dormitories.

There was a clatter of boots behind them. Chakotay turned back, squinting against the glare of the rising sun, and raised a hand to shade his eyes. There was another group of six prisoners behind them. Oddly, one of them was still in uniform. Not the new gray-shouldered uniform like the guards wore, but the old style, with command red on top. Chakotay strained his eyes to see, and after a minute managed to catch a glimpse through the bodies well enough to recognize Tom Paris. He had one arm around B'Elanna, who was holding a small white bundle in her arms. Little Miral, probably.

That was when Chakotay felt his first spurt of rage. To lock up people like Dalby and Ayala and himself for war crimes was one thing. To lock up a new mother with her small baby was another thing entirely. Suddenly it was all he could do not to turn and unleash abuse indiscriminately at the nearest guard, just as Dalby had been doing.

As a red flow of anger seeped through Chakotay's brain, there was one small corner that understood, intellectually, that B'Elanna stood accused of the same crime as the rest of them, and that they had all been housed in reasonably comfortable quarters, nothing inadequate for the care of an infant... but he wasn't inclined to feel reasonable just then.

Grandfather, help me bear it with patience.

They had arrived at the administrative building. Chakotay recognized it as the place he had come as a cadet to submit his application for Command School. The plaza outside was deserted this early in the morning. Or so Chakotay thought at first. Then he noticed a stooped figure in a straw hat and brown overalls working in a flowerbed planted near the entrance, weeding between clusters of petunias arranged in the asymmetrical arrowhead shape of the Starfleet insignia.

As they filed past, the old man slowly straightened up, pressing one hand against his lower back, and surveyed the groups of prisoners parading past.

"Morning, Boothby," the Bajoran guard said, raising one hand in greeting.

"Morning, Anara," Boothby said in his cracked voice. His eyes slid past her until he locked eyes with Chakotay, and both tufted eyebrows waggled up and down meaningfully.

Distracted by the sight of Boothby, who almost seemed to be trying to give him some sort of cryptic message with his eyebrows, Chakotay bumped into Henley as everyone suddenly halted before the doors. There was a brief pause as the guards used the retinal scan to gain entrance.

"Hey, fellas," Boothby called out gruffly from behind them, waving his spade in the air. "I think you got the wrong man."

More than one of the guards looked back at the old groundskeeper, and a few of them chuckled quietly as they all filed inside.

"Must be getting senile," he heard one of the guards murmur to another. "He's got to be close on a century by now. You'd think he would retire."

Inside the building it seemed dim and gray, compared to the dawning light outside. Chakotay and the others were guided through the foyer under watchful eyes and taken toward a large meeting room with the door propped open. Besides the two men in security gold standing guard on either side of the door, there was another pair a little further off down the hall, with their heads close together as if in quiet conversation. Chakotay had only spared them a passing glance, but suddenly Ayala dug an elbow into his ribs and silently nodded toward the pair.

Chakotay looked again and this time, recognition dawned. Harry Kim and Tuvok.

The two weren't even looking in their direction, but Chakotay felt a sudden relief course through his veins. It couldn't be a coincidence that they were here. Despite the confiscated combadges, somehow they had found out what was happening anyway. And if Harry and Tuvok knew, so did Kathryn.

No, wait. Not good. Because if Kathryn knew, she would come too. And when she came, she was going to kick up a fuss and annoy the brass, and make a bad name for herself at a time when she could least afford to do so. She was just stubborn enough that he could see her getting herself reprimanded for insubordination. Silently Chakotay cursed to himself. He should have known. He did know, all along, that something of this sort was going to happen. There was no way to avoid the fact that he and his crew would have to face the music when they got home, and at the same time there was no one who could stop Kathryn Janeway when she was on the warpath, fighting to protect her own. This was a showdown that had been eight years in the making, whether anyone in Starfleet Command knew it or not. Well, he had a feeling they would know pretty soon.

The six of them were brought into the meeting room. Tom and B'Elanna's group came in practically on their heels.

The rest of Chakotay's old crew and the entire Equinox crew were already here. Chakotay saw Marla Gilmore, looking pale and resigned, having her handprint and retinal scan recorded by a security officer at the front of the room. James Morrow was next in a ragged line of Voyager crewmembers in civilian clothing waiting to be processed. A long table down the side of the room held several crates full of security anklets awaiting their new owners.

Another security officer standing by the door began to give a well-rehearsed speech in a bored tone of voice to Chakotay and the other new arrivals. "My name is Lieutenant Hollen. Stand in line to have your bio-identifiers recorded. Proceed in an orderly fashion, with no talking or changing positions in line. When one of the officers in the room has cleared you, take a seat and await further instructions. You are now under the command of Admiral Kurt Nelson, who will explain the terms of your parole when he arrives. You will then be fitted with security anklets and permitted to leave if you agree to those terms."

Chakotay and the others shuffled obediently into line. Chakotay ended up standing behind B'Elanna and Tom, who had his arm around B'Elanna. She was holding little Miral, who was sound asleep, swaddled tightly in a blanket.

"Did you see them?" Chakotay murmured to Tom and B'Elanna.

"See who?" she whispered back.

"I said no talking!" Hollen snapped at them.

When the man had turned his attention elsewhere, Chakotay caught B'Elanna's eye and then jerked his head toward the door. She looked over and her eyes widened as she saw Harry Kim sticking his head through the door.

"Voyager crew?" Harry asked Hollen.

"Yeah. You got another group? Bring them in."

Harry stepped aside from the doorway, and crewmembers began to file in. But they weren't anyone from Chakotay's old crew or the Equinox. They were all from Voyager's original crew: Samantha Wildman, Golwat, Susan Nicoletti, William McKenzie, and Michael Parsons.

Some of those in the back of the line to be processed were watching with surprised expressions, having recognized the sound of Harry's voice and turned to see what was happening. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Hollen was frowning deeply at Harry's group. "Why are they still in uniform?" he asked abruptly.

"We weren't instructed otherwise," Harry said. Somehow he managed to sound only slightly puzzled, as though there had simply been some small mixup.

Hollen sighed loudly, not bothering to hide his annoyance. "The admiral isn't going to like it," he said. He looked Wildman over. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Samantha Wildman, sir."

The officer looked over the PADD he was holding. He scrolled back and forth several times and frowned again.

"You aren't on my list," he said. "Are you from the Equinox or the Val Jean?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Chakotay could see Tuvok now standing at the doorway, and another group of uniformed Voyager crewmembers were quietly slipping past him into the room.

"I'm assigned to Voyager," Wildman said. "All of us here are."

Hollen was growing irritated. "Yes, but before that!"

Now Joe Carey was leading in another six. More and more of the crewmembers in line to be processed were noticing the steady flow of people into the room, and they were fighting to hide their relief as they recognized their friends' faces and realized what was going on.

"I was assigned to Deep Space 9 before that, sir," Wildman said.

"Then..." Hollen was confused now. "You weren't on the Equinox or Maquis crews at all?"

"I don't understand the question, sir," Wildman said. "There's only one crew on Voyager."

She spoke quietly, but her words seemed to carry like electricity through the room. Almost everyone was looking her way now, and a strange hush fell over them. Lieutenant Hollen noticed the change in atmosphere and looked around, suddenly uneasy, but finally his eyes fell on Harry Kim and he squared his shoulders.

"You!" he said. "Why did you bring her in? She isn't on the list."

"I'm following Admiral Nelson's orders, same as you," Kim said. "The Voyager crew is to report for processing."

"Yes, but not the whole crew!" Hollen looked around the room, bewildered. "There's only supposed to be 62 here... it looks like we have a hundred! Are you telling me all these people in uniform aren't even from the Equinox or the Val Jean? They weren't supposed to be arrested!"

"None of them were supposed to be arrested."

The voice of Kathryn Janeway cut clearly across the entire room, and there was a sudden movement near the door as everyone stepped back and made way for her. Looking across the now-crowded room, Chakotay realized that Hollen was wrong - there were far more than 100 crewmembers here. It looked to him as though the entire crew of Voyager had arrived for the occasion. There were Neelix and Seven coming right behind Kathryn, and the Doctor could be seen squeezing between Billy Telfer and Vorik to get inside the door. The room could barely contain them all.

As for Kathryn herself, she couldn't have gotten more than a few hours of sleep last night, but she didn't look tired in the slightest. She had that set look on her face that Chakotay knew oh-so-well, the one that denoted a carefully-controlled inner rage that was far more dangerous than any raw fury. It was the first time Chakotay had seen her wearing the new style of uniform, and the grim gray-and-black color scheme seemed to suit her mood to a T.

"Captain Janeway," Lieutenant Hollen said, looking uncertain and a little dismayed. "Sir, you were not ordered to report here today."

"Oh, but I was," she said quietly. "Admiral Nelson wanted the Voyager crew to be brought here. I am a member of Voyager's crew, am I not?"

Hollen didn't have an immediate reply to this. Several of the security officers from the front of the room joined him, and the four of them turned away from Kathryn with their heads close together and held a hasty, whispered conference.

Chakotay felt emboldened enough to leave his place in the line and make his way to Kathryn's side. He touched her arm and leaned in close to murmur in her ear: "Don't do anything rash." She turned to him and gave him an unwavering blue look as her only answer. This was not exactly encouraging.

The huddled conference was breaking up. Three of the security officers positioned themselves side-by-side in front of Kathryn while Hollen nudged his way through the crowd and headed out the door.

"Hollen to Nelson," they heard him say into his combadge as he retreated down the deserted corridor. "We have a problem, sir."

Into the sudden silence remaining in the room, Neelix spoke up.

"I wasn't aware a crew reunion constituted a problem," he said.

The tension in the room shattered. Everyone from Voyager laughed, some of them with a slight edge of hysteria in their voices. Even Kathryn smiled. The remaining security officers watched them warily, hands hovering near their holstered phasers.

Less than a minute later, they heard rapid footsteps approaching, and about a dozen more security officers came into the room and efficiently distributed themselves throughout the crowd.

Everyone waited in silence. The room was growing hot and uncomfortable from the press of bodies, but no one uttered a complaint. Chakotay saw B'Elanna loosening the blanket around Miral, who stirred and whimpered softly in her sleep.

Chakotay sidled closer to Kathryn and murmured quietly in her ear: "What makes you think you can talk Nelson out of this?"

She met his gaze levelly. "I doubt I can," she said quietly.

Chakotay stared at her. "Then why-"

Just then, more footsteps could be heard coming down the corridor. The people near the door did their best to move aside, and soon Lieutenant Hollen reappeared, slightly behind and to the right of Admiral Nelson.

Nelson was not a tall man, or a broad-shouldered one, but he had the kind of wiry build that often accompanied surprising strength.

"Well, well, well," he said briskly, coming forward through the crowd to face Kathryn. "This is an unexpected pleasure, Captain Janeway. What can I do for you?"

Kathryn was clearly in no mood for pleasantries, because she cut straight to the chase. "You can have your men gather up those security anklets and take them away, sir," she said. "They won't be necessary."

"I disagree," Nelson said coolly. "And since these detainees are no longer under your command, Captain, it is my opinion and not yours that matters. In fact, I think you must be well aware that your presence here is completely inappropriate. How did you get into the building?"

Kathryn faced Nelson levelly. "I've personally met with every single one of my crewmembers whom you arrested, Admiral. They gave me their word that they won't be going anywhere before their trials. And you have my word. They are not a flight risk. You don't need to tag them."

Nelson did not look at all discomfited by Kathryn's defiance, despite being closely surrounded by unsmiling Voyager crewmembers. "Tagging is a routine security measure, nothing overly burdensome," the admiral said. "Hardly worth the effort to raise an objection, if you ask me. If your crew lacks the courage to accept responsibility for their actions, Captain, that is not my problem."

"Courage?" Kathryn repeated softly. "If you'd like to talk about courage, Admiral, let's talk about the courage it takes to serve faithfully on a Starfleet ship, knowing that those at the top back home despise you and everything you stand for. Let's talk about the courage it takes to choose to return to Federation space, at great personal cost, knowing that justice awaits you there." She put one slim hand on Chakotay's shoulder. "There are people in this room who just a week ago subjected themselves to the pain of Borg assimilation, repeatedly, so that they could save your life and the lives of everyone here on Earth." Her voice deepened with scorn. "If they didn't run from all that, Admiral, what makes you think they'll run from you?"

Admiral Nelson crossed his arms and studied Kathryn for a long moment. Finally, he spoke in a mild voice:

"I don't know how things are in the great wilds of the Delta Quadrant, Captain, but back here on planet Earth, we have a little something I like to call a command structure." His voice grew firmer. "Perhaps you've forgotten: it means that orders are not negotiable. I'm afraid you've wasted your time here, Captain. The detainees will be tagged so that Starfleet Command can keep a lock on their locations until such time as justice is served. Feel free to file a formal complaint if you wish; in the meantime, I'm going to have to ask you and your crew to leave the room so my team can carry out their duty."

"But you've just said that my crew is not free to go," Kathryn said, her voice low and velvety smooth.

For the first time, Admiral Nelson looked exasperated. "Those of your crew who originated from the Val Jean and the Equinox have to stay. The rest of you have to go."

Kathryn's voice went darker and harder. "I only have one crew, Admiral."

"If I may, Admiral," Tuvok broke in unexpectedly, drawing the attention of both of them. He was standing at ease, hands clasped loosely together, expression serene. "I believe what Captain Janeway is attempting to establish is a syllogism: if the Voyager crew must submit to being tagged, and if there is only one Voyager crew, then logically, everyone on the crew must submit to being tagged."

"Perhaps the equation would be clearer in written form," Seven added.

"Translation? If you tag one of us, you tag all of us," Harry said.

"I'd like to volunteer to be tagged," Neelix chimed in eagerly.

"And me," Dr. Zimmerman said.

A chorus of voices joined in, from every corner of the room, as crewmembers from every department of the ship offered themselves for tagging. Admiral Nelson turned slowly and met their eyes one by one, clearly taken off guard by this new turn of events. When he turned back to Kathryn, she looked at him levelly and said, "I'd like to be first."

"No," Chakotay said sharply.

"It's my decision," Kathryn said firmly, giving him a look that made it clear there would be no talking her out of this. "I'll be the first to get one, and the last to take it off. Captain's prerogative."

Nelson studied Kathryn with narrowed eyes for a long moment, and then shrugged one shoulder.

"Be my guest," Nelson said. "Tag anyone who wants it," he added to Hollen as he turned to leave.

"But sir!" Hollen's eyes widened as he rushed to catch up to the admiral. "We don't have enough anklets for all of them-"

"Then have more brought down," Nelson said as the Voyagers quickly made way to let him out of the room.

"What about the civilians, sir?" Hollen asked the admiral in an undertone, nodding toward Neelix and Seven.

"What about them?"

"We don't have the authority to do anything to them."

"We aren't doing anything to them," Admiral Nelson said coolly. "They requested a security anklet, and we're being kind enough to provide them." And with that, he strode out the door.

As soon as the admiral was gone, everyone went quiet. Even the security guards looked stunned at what had just transpired, and they looked at one another reluctantly, as if waiting for someone else to make the first move.

As for Chakotay, it was all he could do to suppress his fury. Why did Kathryn have to be so stubborn? There were times it was her greatest asset, and then there were times like this when she just didn't know when to quit. How was it supposed to help anyone if she threw herself on her sword?

Hollen was the first to recover, and he began giving his team instructions in a low, professional tone.

"Have everyone form into two lines, and get them going down both sides of the table," he told them. "Let's do this as quickly as possible. Captain Janeway, I believe you wanted to be first? This way, please."

Kathryn followed him to the front of the line and submitted quietly as Hollen held a retinal scanner up to her eye and then placed her hand on the scanner. When that was done, he took an anklet from the box on the table, its links clicking in his hand. He looked into Kathryn's eyes, hesitated, and then slowly sank to his knees and carefully fastened the device onto her ankle.

Chakotay was next. He had been so busy being angry at Kathryn, he had forgotten his own dread, but as the device clicked into place, it seemed so much heavier on his leg than it really was. He was going to have to wear this for months. Maybe years. Maybe the rest of his life.

Their part completed, Chakotay and Kathryn stepped back out of the way to watch as the rest of the crew was tagged. A security guard at the front of the room began reciting the conditions of parole in a loud voice so that everyone could hear. It seemed they were forbidden from going off-planet. Forbidden from carrying a phaser. They were warned their communications could be monitored. Nearby, Paris was wearing a resigned "here we go again" expression on his face.

The line shuffled forward. Crewmembers who had been processed began to leave the room in twos and threes. The room began to slowly clear.

Chakotay glanced across to the other side of the table. The pair of security officers there, who had been working efficiently up until now, seemed to have hit a snag.

"What do I do about him?" one of them whispered to another, jerking his thumb toward the Doctor, who had his foot planted heroically on a chair, waiting for his turn.

"Tag him, same as the others!" his companion replied.

"But he's a hologram!" the man hissed. "He doesn't have a retina to scan, and he can get out of the anklet in about a second!"

The other rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter! The admiral said tag everyone who wants to be tagged, so tag him!"

At last, the last few crewmembers were processed and left. Kathryn and Chakotay began to follow Vorik and D'Angelo out the door, but they paused when, behind them, Hollen spoke up.

"Captain?"

Kathryn turned back to face him. Hollen hesitated a moment, his fists swinging uncomfortably by his sides, and then he blurted out, "I'm sorry, sir. I just want you to know that… we're all grateful for what you did at Starbase 3. All of you," he added, glancing at Chakotay as well.

Kathryn gave him a ghost of smile, and then left the room, with Chakotay by her side.

"Well, I think that went well, don't you?" Kathryn said in a conversational tone.

"Kathryn," Chakotay said.

"What?"

"This is exactly what I didn't want," Chakotay said with some heat.

"Wasn't it one of the American revolutionaries who said something about hanging together rather than hanging separately?" Janeway asked.

"I don't want anyone hanging, least of all you!" Chakotay said vehemently.

Her serenity was maddening. "Relax, Commander. This is what winning looks like."

Chakotay looked down at Kathryn's anklet and scowled. "Well, I don't like the looks of it."

"Really? I think it sets off my uniform very nicely."

Fury and worry and gratitude clashed vigorously for dominance in Chakotay's brain, and then, as he had so many times before in his dealings with Kathryn Janeway, he sighed and gave up trying to figure out which emotion to entertain, and let them all be. It was just how Kathryn was: the problem wasn't that there were times he wanted to shake her and other times that he wanted to kiss her... it was that he so often felt both urges at the same time.

There were days when he strongly suspected that he could have headed off nine-tenths of their infamous arguments at the pass, if only he'd been free to take the latter tactic. The fight-it-out-in-the-Ready-Room tactic had decidedly mixed results. One of these days he was going to have to try it the other way.

Unfortunately, this was neither the time nor the place. They paused at the entrance to wait for the security officers to unlock the doors and let them out, which reminded Chakotay of something. As soon as they were out of earshot, he leaned toward Kathryn and murmured, "How did you get everyone into the building? It was locked down tight."

Kathryn favored him with a crooked smile. "Oh, I asked a friend of ours for a favor," she said. They passed Boothby, still industriously digging away in the flowerbed, and Kathryn gave him a wave.

"Good morning, Boothby," she said cheerfully.

He doffed his cap politely. "Morning, Kathryn," he said, and then he inexplicably gave Chakotay a wink as they passed by.

"Do you mean to tell me…" Chakotay began in amazement, glancing back at Boothby as they continued to walk down the sidewalk.

"Mmm-hmm," Kathryn confirmed, carefully keeping her voice down. "Well, he's the groundskeeper, after all. He has access to almost every building in Headquarters. And he's really very fond of you, you know. It wasn't hard to convince him."

Chakotay didn't know whether to smile at Kathryn or scold her. "With a mindset like that, you would have made a fine Maquis soldier."

She shrugged casually. "I learned from the best."

"Now that your first morning back on Earth has been spoiled," Chakotay said, "at least tell me you're going to go home and take your vacation now."

"I will," she promised. "There's just one more stop I need to make."

"Kathryn…" he said warningly.

"I'm just going to get a cup of coffee from the captains' club first. I am allowed, aren't I?"

"You know I'm the last person on Earth who would deny you a cup of coffee. And then you'll go home?"

"I promise."

"And no work at all for the next two weeks," Chakotay emphasized. "Don't even call me to check up on me. Just enjoy yourself for a change."

"How could I enjoy myself without you?" she objected.

"I'm sure you'll manage."

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's note: What do you think so far? Let me know in the comments!