PART TWO
That conversation was enough to dampen my suspicions. I didn't realize my mistake until we actually unmasked Seska for a Cardassian, and she fled to the Kazon ship, then I simply wished I'd discovered her sooner.
But it wasn't all a travesty. Sometimes I'd wonder if I'd even received the transmission, or if I'd simply imagined the whole thing. Perhaps Hayes's visage had simply been an illusion, or a dream. At those times, strange as it may seem, Seska was a comfort to me. She was an affirmation, the only definitive proof that I hadn't fabricated the real mission in my mind.
When we received the terrified transmission from Seska, claiming that Culluh would kill her and your son, I knew it was probably a trap. I knew it. But there Seska was, with the child we assumed was yours, and if she were killed, I'd lose that link, that last tie I had to remind me each day that I'd marooned us out here for a reason, and not simply out of whim or sheer idiocy.
Seska and Kes. Seska was the only other person who knew the truth, and Kes was the daughter of the race we saved when I destroyed the array. They comprised my compass, strange as it may seem. They reminded me that I'd done the right thing. And I was terrified of what would happen if I lost either of them.
So I agreed with the plan, and foolishly took the ship headlong into Kazon space. And when the ship was taken, I knew just what a damn fool I'd been.
* * *
Shortly before the crew was herded to the cargo bay, Seska, prowling around the bridge like a triumphant hyena, stopped and leaned over to whisper something in Culluh's ear. He cast a look of scorn in Janeway's direction, and gave a brusque nod. Kathryn tensed as two Kazon stalked over to her and unceremoniously grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet.
"Hey!" Chakotay began, but a fist to the mouth sent him sprawling back to hit the floor of the bridge.
Janeway passively remained in step with her "escort" as they hauled her towards the lift. She knew they were just waiting for an excuse to beat her, and she was determined to give them none. She would not be humiliated further in front of her crew.
Seska stepped in behind them and barked, "Deck 6!" Janeway had a feeling she knew where they were going: Janeway's own quarters.
A few minutes later, after she'd been firmly secured to a chair in her own bedroom, arms bound behind the back of the chair, Seska dismissed the two Kazon lackeys. She made a show of snooping around Janeway's quarters, picking up her things, examining them in an infuriatingly slow manner, then casting them unceremoniously to the ground.
"Nice quarters. I didn't realize they were so large." She looked around a little more. "I have to admit, I expected flowery frilly things. Isn't that what you human women decorate your homes with? I didn't expect them to be so Spartan."
"I didn't have time to pack before we left," Janeway retorted.
Seska turned to her, expression suddenly hard. "Let's cut the bullshit, Janeway." She stepped closer, and sneered, "You had a mission for Starfleet, and I want to know every last detail. You're going to tell me."
Janeway feigned surprise. "Mission? What mission?"
Seska backhanded her with surprising strength. Cardassian strength. Janeway's head snapped back, and the chair she was strapped to wobbled and nearly toppled over.
"Don't play dumb with me, Janeway," Seska hissed dangerously. She looked intently into Janeway's eyes, and then drew back a step, her expression suddenly very calm and neutral. "What do you know about the Obsidian order, Kathryn?"
Janeway didn't say anything. She just held Seska's gaze.
"Do you know just how thoroughly it trains its agents in the art of information extraction?" The way she said 'extraction' led Janeway to know the true meaning: torture. Seska continued, "I can have you begging to tell me everything you know, pleading for me to slit your throat and end your miserable life within an hour." Seska rocked back on the heels of her feet, eyes narrowed into slits. "Not that we have any time constraint. Your ship and crew are under my control. You are under my control. We can take our sweet time."
Janeway stared hard at her, and enunciated slowly, "I don't know what mission you're talking about, Seska."
Seska's eyes blazed. "Have it your way," she spat.
She withdrew, and slipped out of the door. Janeway heard her shuffling things around in the next room, and strained against the ropes to see what Seska was doing. Seska returned then, holding Janeway's phaser, and a ceremonial dagger presented to her by an Aegian ambassador. Deliberately in Janeway's view, Seska fired a thin phaser beam at the dagger, until the metal of the blade lit up to glow bright orange.
"Ah, now that's lovely," she crooned, grasping the wooden handle tightly and holding up the glowing blade for Janeway to admire. The orange light lent Seska's face a demonic edge.
After admiring her handiwork a few moments longer, Seska's gaze slipped away from the blade and locked upon Janeway's face.
"I've always known that you're a fool, Janeway. Stubborn, impulsive, stupid. I also know Starfleet Command, and they don't get into anything they can't get out of again. If they sent you to this quadrant, they must have had a plan to bring you back." Her eyes narrowed. "Tell me."
Like hell I will, Janeway thought. Seska wasn't going to get within one sector of the Iconian Portal.
"Seska--" she began her disavowal.
As though she already sensed the other woman's imminent denial, Seska swept around behind Janeway, and in one swift motion, grabbed her hair, yanked her head back, and pressed the superheated blade to the flesh on the back of Janeway's neck.
At first, she didn't feel it.
Then the pain drilled into her. A scream ripped from Janeway's lips, and her body jerked against the confines of the chair, straining to escape the heat against her neck. The pain filled her mind, blotted out her awareness. She didn't realize at first when Seska withdrew the blade, or notice the instant that her struggles sent the chair tumbling backwards and crashing down to land on top of her restrained arms. She came to herself slowly, her entire weight painfully crushing her arms, her breath heaving in and out of her chest, and her eyes stinging with tears. Her neck throbbed in hot agony, and her head ached dully. After a few moments, she felt her arms begin to prickle because her weight had cut off their circulation.
Seska appeared in her vision, towering above her. The Cardassian knelt down, grasped Janeway's uniform shirt, and attempted to rip it apart. When the material resisted her, Seska changed her tactics and instead yanked it up and pushed it above Janeway's chest. Seska straddled her torso, and sat heavily upon Janeway's body, adding more strain to Janeway's rapidly numbing arms.
Seska deliberately considered the other woman. Her eyes raked Janeway's flushed face, then raked down her body, lingered upon her chest. "Not much there," she mused thoughtfully. "Chakotay would be disappointed."
Janeway just gazed at her, trying to steel herself for whatever the other woman was planning. She willed herself not to betray the pain she still felt from her burn, from her arms. However, an involuntary gasp escaped her lips when Seska made as if to lower the blade to Janeway's exposed chest. The Cardassian stopped its descent less than an inch from Janeway's skin, and Janeway could feel the heat of it on her bare torso.
"Tell me how you're getting this ship home," Seska intoned.
Janeway's body was rigid in anticipation of pain. She could barely speak over her rasping breath, "If. I... had.a.way.home.." she inhaled deeply, and forced out in one jumbled burst, "Don't you think I would have taken it already?
"Wrong answer."
Seska pressed the blade to Janeway's breast.
Janeway's screams drifted down the corridor. Scream after scream as she cried out in her endless torrent of agony.
Seska continued her relentless torment, burning one area, then another, then another, sometimes slashing with the knife, scouring Janeway's chest and abdomen, leaving ripped and blistered skin, filling the air with the stench of burning flesh.
And after an interminable period of pain, Janeway's awareness returned. Culluh was there, and he and Seska were arguing in unintelligible words. Through her tears of pain, Janeway could barely make out Culluh's gesticulating and nodding towards her.
"--On the planet with the others--"
Seska cut in, "I haven't finished with her--"
While Culluh was saying "--she has every command code on this ship. it's too dangerous . I won't risk keeping her on board--"
"--You can kill her when I'm finished--"
"What do you need from her?" Culluh brought her up short.
Seska fell silent.
"We have Voyager," Culluh gestured extravagantly to his surroundings. "What do you need from her? Are you interrogating her?"
"I'm not interrogating her," Seska protested quickly. "I'm having some fun for the hell she put me through on this ship!"
"I will not risk our victory for the sake of your whim," Culluh spat. "You had your fun, now I will have mine. Leave. Now. Will you dare disobey me, female?"
Seska looked rattled. Janeway could tell she wanted desperately to continue to the interrogation, but she couldn't tell Culluh why she was truly questioning Janeway. She couldn't tell him that she had other ambitions-- that she still wanted to return to her people.
After a moment, "Yes, Maj."
Janeway's head slumped back to the carpet in relief. Her breath heaved in and out of her, and she tried to concentrate upon steadying it instead of feeling the brunt of pain forcing its way into her consciousness. She actually was going rather numb, at this point. She knew that it would be in agony later, but her body was simply throbbing at the moment.
Footsteps behind her.
She felt the chair being lifted up to its upright position, and large hands intertwining with the restraints on her arms, working at them, tugging them off in a rough, jerking motion that sent hot needles of pain up her arms.
When her arms were free, she found herself still unable to move them, numb as they were, and she could only slump helplessly when she was grabbed, and hauled across the room, then deposited unceremoniously on her back on the bed. She stared up at the plain, gray ceiling a second as her mind worked out what would happen next.
Of course I should have expected this, Janeway thought. Culluh, who spent the majority of their encounters ranting about the evils of females in command, who desired to show her "a woman's place." What better way to rub in his victory than by violating her body?
She didn't have the strength to fight him, didn't have the will to try. It was better to let him get it over with, and possibly spare her crew for any recrimination should she put up a resistance.
Janeway peered up with weary resignation as Culluh kneeled between her legs, tugged first at her pants, pulling them down to her knees, then fumbled with his own. He seemed to be avoiding looking at her burnt and cut flesh, but he couldn't resist the occasional quick glance. His hand tugged furiously at his own crotch, and his frustration seemed to mount. At some point, with a soft grunt of frustration, he grabbed her by the shoulder and flipped her over onto her stomach to hide Seska's handiwork from view. Janeway moaned in pain as her tender flesh rubbed against the bed sheets. She could feel him grinding his hips against her buttocks, and his fingers fumbled around and probed her sex, then returned to work on his own genitalia. He fumbled for a little longer, trying to arouse himself, and then with a growl pulled back, and jerked her by the shoulder up to unsteady feet, sending a lingering look of disgust towards the blistered and shredded skin left in Seska's wake.
"I should have come before she worked on you," he muttered, and shoved her to a sitting position. He seemed both repulsed, and embarrassed by his own impotence. "Get dressed."
Later, Janeway made her way on shaky legs across the cargo bay to lower herself next to Chakotay, relieved that she'd been given a little time to rest and recover before being escorted to her crew in the cargo bay. The skin beneath her shirt smarted painfully against the coarse material of her uniform, but she relished the pain. It was stupid, stupid, stupid of her to fall for Seska's ruse, to bring the ship into Kazon space, and this pain was the least of what she deserved.
Chakotay seemed relieved to see her looking well. Her face was unblemished; there was no way for him to discern the ordeal she'd just been through. And when she lowered herself next to him, stinging with the humiliation of defeat, she was able to bury the ordeal as well.
* * *
Janeway came back to the present, emotions churning in her stomach along with the memory of that day. She looked up. Chakotay's expression was dark.
"You never told me about that," he said quietly.
"It wasn't important," she replied in a whisper.
He looked up, suddenly angry. "If your wounds had gotten infected while we were stranded on the planet, you could have died!"
"Well, they didn't," Janeway replied calmly. "And even if they had, there was nothing you could have done about it." She took a steadying breath. "Chakotay, it was a long time ago."
"And when I think of that bastard Culluh--" his voice was shaking, and he abruptly stopped speaking.
Janeway looked away, gave him a moment to recover his composure. A part of her knew that his concern was not for her ordeal; it was for the ordeal suffered by the Kathryn he'd known and loved five years earlier. Janeway remembered that their four-month sojourn on New Earth had been just a few weeks before the incident with the Kazon.
When he looked at her again, his face had lost any hint of emotion. "So that's it? Seska never told you anything?"
Janeway smiled wryly. "Actually, she did. Later on, she told me most everything."
"But Seska died. You never would have had the chance to speak with her again."
"That's where you're wrong," Janeway replied. "You see, Seska wasn't really dead."
That conversation was enough to dampen my suspicions. I didn't realize my mistake until we actually unmasked Seska for a Cardassian, and she fled to the Kazon ship, then I simply wished I'd discovered her sooner.
But it wasn't all a travesty. Sometimes I'd wonder if I'd even received the transmission, or if I'd simply imagined the whole thing. Perhaps Hayes's visage had simply been an illusion, or a dream. At those times, strange as it may seem, Seska was a comfort to me. She was an affirmation, the only definitive proof that I hadn't fabricated the real mission in my mind.
When we received the terrified transmission from Seska, claiming that Culluh would kill her and your son, I knew it was probably a trap. I knew it. But there Seska was, with the child we assumed was yours, and if she were killed, I'd lose that link, that last tie I had to remind me each day that I'd marooned us out here for a reason, and not simply out of whim or sheer idiocy.
Seska and Kes. Seska was the only other person who knew the truth, and Kes was the daughter of the race we saved when I destroyed the array. They comprised my compass, strange as it may seem. They reminded me that I'd done the right thing. And I was terrified of what would happen if I lost either of them.
So I agreed with the plan, and foolishly took the ship headlong into Kazon space. And when the ship was taken, I knew just what a damn fool I'd been.
* * *
Shortly before the crew was herded to the cargo bay, Seska, prowling around the bridge like a triumphant hyena, stopped and leaned over to whisper something in Culluh's ear. He cast a look of scorn in Janeway's direction, and gave a brusque nod. Kathryn tensed as two Kazon stalked over to her and unceremoniously grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet.
"Hey!" Chakotay began, but a fist to the mouth sent him sprawling back to hit the floor of the bridge.
Janeway passively remained in step with her "escort" as they hauled her towards the lift. She knew they were just waiting for an excuse to beat her, and she was determined to give them none. She would not be humiliated further in front of her crew.
Seska stepped in behind them and barked, "Deck 6!" Janeway had a feeling she knew where they were going: Janeway's own quarters.
A few minutes later, after she'd been firmly secured to a chair in her own bedroom, arms bound behind the back of the chair, Seska dismissed the two Kazon lackeys. She made a show of snooping around Janeway's quarters, picking up her things, examining them in an infuriatingly slow manner, then casting them unceremoniously to the ground.
"Nice quarters. I didn't realize they were so large." She looked around a little more. "I have to admit, I expected flowery frilly things. Isn't that what you human women decorate your homes with? I didn't expect them to be so Spartan."
"I didn't have time to pack before we left," Janeway retorted.
Seska turned to her, expression suddenly hard. "Let's cut the bullshit, Janeway." She stepped closer, and sneered, "You had a mission for Starfleet, and I want to know every last detail. You're going to tell me."
Janeway feigned surprise. "Mission? What mission?"
Seska backhanded her with surprising strength. Cardassian strength. Janeway's head snapped back, and the chair she was strapped to wobbled and nearly toppled over.
"Don't play dumb with me, Janeway," Seska hissed dangerously. She looked intently into Janeway's eyes, and then drew back a step, her expression suddenly very calm and neutral. "What do you know about the Obsidian order, Kathryn?"
Janeway didn't say anything. She just held Seska's gaze.
"Do you know just how thoroughly it trains its agents in the art of information extraction?" The way she said 'extraction' led Janeway to know the true meaning: torture. Seska continued, "I can have you begging to tell me everything you know, pleading for me to slit your throat and end your miserable life within an hour." Seska rocked back on the heels of her feet, eyes narrowed into slits. "Not that we have any time constraint. Your ship and crew are under my control. You are under my control. We can take our sweet time."
Janeway stared hard at her, and enunciated slowly, "I don't know what mission you're talking about, Seska."
Seska's eyes blazed. "Have it your way," she spat.
She withdrew, and slipped out of the door. Janeway heard her shuffling things around in the next room, and strained against the ropes to see what Seska was doing. Seska returned then, holding Janeway's phaser, and a ceremonial dagger presented to her by an Aegian ambassador. Deliberately in Janeway's view, Seska fired a thin phaser beam at the dagger, until the metal of the blade lit up to glow bright orange.
"Ah, now that's lovely," she crooned, grasping the wooden handle tightly and holding up the glowing blade for Janeway to admire. The orange light lent Seska's face a demonic edge.
After admiring her handiwork a few moments longer, Seska's gaze slipped away from the blade and locked upon Janeway's face.
"I've always known that you're a fool, Janeway. Stubborn, impulsive, stupid. I also know Starfleet Command, and they don't get into anything they can't get out of again. If they sent you to this quadrant, they must have had a plan to bring you back." Her eyes narrowed. "Tell me."
Like hell I will, Janeway thought. Seska wasn't going to get within one sector of the Iconian Portal.
"Seska--" she began her disavowal.
As though she already sensed the other woman's imminent denial, Seska swept around behind Janeway, and in one swift motion, grabbed her hair, yanked her head back, and pressed the superheated blade to the flesh on the back of Janeway's neck.
At first, she didn't feel it.
Then the pain drilled into her. A scream ripped from Janeway's lips, and her body jerked against the confines of the chair, straining to escape the heat against her neck. The pain filled her mind, blotted out her awareness. She didn't realize at first when Seska withdrew the blade, or notice the instant that her struggles sent the chair tumbling backwards and crashing down to land on top of her restrained arms. She came to herself slowly, her entire weight painfully crushing her arms, her breath heaving in and out of her chest, and her eyes stinging with tears. Her neck throbbed in hot agony, and her head ached dully. After a few moments, she felt her arms begin to prickle because her weight had cut off their circulation.
Seska appeared in her vision, towering above her. The Cardassian knelt down, grasped Janeway's uniform shirt, and attempted to rip it apart. When the material resisted her, Seska changed her tactics and instead yanked it up and pushed it above Janeway's chest. Seska straddled her torso, and sat heavily upon Janeway's body, adding more strain to Janeway's rapidly numbing arms.
Seska deliberately considered the other woman. Her eyes raked Janeway's flushed face, then raked down her body, lingered upon her chest. "Not much there," she mused thoughtfully. "Chakotay would be disappointed."
Janeway just gazed at her, trying to steel herself for whatever the other woman was planning. She willed herself not to betray the pain she still felt from her burn, from her arms. However, an involuntary gasp escaped her lips when Seska made as if to lower the blade to Janeway's exposed chest. The Cardassian stopped its descent less than an inch from Janeway's skin, and Janeway could feel the heat of it on her bare torso.
"Tell me how you're getting this ship home," Seska intoned.
Janeway's body was rigid in anticipation of pain. She could barely speak over her rasping breath, "If. I... had.a.way.home.." she inhaled deeply, and forced out in one jumbled burst, "Don't you think I would have taken it already?
"Wrong answer."
Seska pressed the blade to Janeway's breast.
Janeway's screams drifted down the corridor. Scream after scream as she cried out in her endless torrent of agony.
Seska continued her relentless torment, burning one area, then another, then another, sometimes slashing with the knife, scouring Janeway's chest and abdomen, leaving ripped and blistered skin, filling the air with the stench of burning flesh.
And after an interminable period of pain, Janeway's awareness returned. Culluh was there, and he and Seska were arguing in unintelligible words. Through her tears of pain, Janeway could barely make out Culluh's gesticulating and nodding towards her.
"--On the planet with the others--"
Seska cut in, "I haven't finished with her--"
While Culluh was saying "--she has every command code on this ship. it's too dangerous . I won't risk keeping her on board--"
"--You can kill her when I'm finished--"
"What do you need from her?" Culluh brought her up short.
Seska fell silent.
"We have Voyager," Culluh gestured extravagantly to his surroundings. "What do you need from her? Are you interrogating her?"
"I'm not interrogating her," Seska protested quickly. "I'm having some fun for the hell she put me through on this ship!"
"I will not risk our victory for the sake of your whim," Culluh spat. "You had your fun, now I will have mine. Leave. Now. Will you dare disobey me, female?"
Seska looked rattled. Janeway could tell she wanted desperately to continue to the interrogation, but she couldn't tell Culluh why she was truly questioning Janeway. She couldn't tell him that she had other ambitions-- that she still wanted to return to her people.
After a moment, "Yes, Maj."
Janeway's head slumped back to the carpet in relief. Her breath heaved in and out of her, and she tried to concentrate upon steadying it instead of feeling the brunt of pain forcing its way into her consciousness. She actually was going rather numb, at this point. She knew that it would be in agony later, but her body was simply throbbing at the moment.
Footsteps behind her.
She felt the chair being lifted up to its upright position, and large hands intertwining with the restraints on her arms, working at them, tugging them off in a rough, jerking motion that sent hot needles of pain up her arms.
When her arms were free, she found herself still unable to move them, numb as they were, and she could only slump helplessly when she was grabbed, and hauled across the room, then deposited unceremoniously on her back on the bed. She stared up at the plain, gray ceiling a second as her mind worked out what would happen next.
Of course I should have expected this, Janeway thought. Culluh, who spent the majority of their encounters ranting about the evils of females in command, who desired to show her "a woman's place." What better way to rub in his victory than by violating her body?
She didn't have the strength to fight him, didn't have the will to try. It was better to let him get it over with, and possibly spare her crew for any recrimination should she put up a resistance.
Janeway peered up with weary resignation as Culluh kneeled between her legs, tugged first at her pants, pulling them down to her knees, then fumbled with his own. He seemed to be avoiding looking at her burnt and cut flesh, but he couldn't resist the occasional quick glance. His hand tugged furiously at his own crotch, and his frustration seemed to mount. At some point, with a soft grunt of frustration, he grabbed her by the shoulder and flipped her over onto her stomach to hide Seska's handiwork from view. Janeway moaned in pain as her tender flesh rubbed against the bed sheets. She could feel him grinding his hips against her buttocks, and his fingers fumbled around and probed her sex, then returned to work on his own genitalia. He fumbled for a little longer, trying to arouse himself, and then with a growl pulled back, and jerked her by the shoulder up to unsteady feet, sending a lingering look of disgust towards the blistered and shredded skin left in Seska's wake.
"I should have come before she worked on you," he muttered, and shoved her to a sitting position. He seemed both repulsed, and embarrassed by his own impotence. "Get dressed."
Later, Janeway made her way on shaky legs across the cargo bay to lower herself next to Chakotay, relieved that she'd been given a little time to rest and recover before being escorted to her crew in the cargo bay. The skin beneath her shirt smarted painfully against the coarse material of her uniform, but she relished the pain. It was stupid, stupid, stupid of her to fall for Seska's ruse, to bring the ship into Kazon space, and this pain was the least of what she deserved.
Chakotay seemed relieved to see her looking well. Her face was unblemished; there was no way for him to discern the ordeal she'd just been through. And when she lowered herself next to him, stinging with the humiliation of defeat, she was able to bury the ordeal as well.
* * *
Janeway came back to the present, emotions churning in her stomach along with the memory of that day. She looked up. Chakotay's expression was dark.
"You never told me about that," he said quietly.
"It wasn't important," she replied in a whisper.
He looked up, suddenly angry. "If your wounds had gotten infected while we were stranded on the planet, you could have died!"
"Well, they didn't," Janeway replied calmly. "And even if they had, there was nothing you could have done about it." She took a steadying breath. "Chakotay, it was a long time ago."
"And when I think of that bastard Culluh--" his voice was shaking, and he abruptly stopped speaking.
Janeway looked away, gave him a moment to recover his composure. A part of her knew that his concern was not for her ordeal; it was for the ordeal suffered by the Kathryn he'd known and loved five years earlier. Janeway remembered that their four-month sojourn on New Earth had been just a few weeks before the incident with the Kazon.
When he looked at her again, his face had lost any hint of emotion. "So that's it? Seska never told you anything?"
Janeway smiled wryly. "Actually, she did. Later on, she told me most everything."
"But Seska died. You never would have had the chance to speak with her again."
"That's where you're wrong," Janeway replied. "You see, Seska wasn't really dead."