Kalle was sitting on the bed attached to the wall. She immediately stood when the Captain and Doctor entered the room, but didn't move otherwise.
Janeway glanced at the security officer and walked up to the force field. She took a long look at the woman on the other side, who was staring at the floor.
"It feels different being on the other side, doesn't it?" She said this softly, but anyone would be able to hear the danger in her voice.
Kalle didn't move or look up and didn't respond.
The Captain again glanced at the security officer and indicated that he should lower the force field. She stepped into the cell and walked up to the trembling woman. Janeway thought she was a far cry from the unemotional woman who had shot her crewman.
"As you know, the majority of my crew is in immediate need of medical attention. Unfortunately, it seems that only your people have the antidote. Tell me what it is."
Kalle still didn't respond. Before Janeway could control herself, her arm shot out and she backhanded the woman as hard as she could. Kalle fell to her hands and knees silently and stayed there, hunched over.
"Captain!" The Doctor took a step towards them, but Janeway brushed him off and knelt over the prone figure, taking her hair and pulling her head up with one hand and grabbing her injured shoulder and burying her fingers in the wound with her other hand. All of her pent up rage at being rendered so helpless over the past few weeks was threatening to burst out, directed at this woman.
Breathing hard, Janeway hissed at her, "I'm offering you a chance here. What is the antidote ?" Kalle didn't respond or even seem to flinch at the fingers digging into the gash in her arm.
Janeway looked into the woman's eyes and it was what she saw there that finally gave her pause. Underneath a layer of fear, there was a level of acceptance that surprised the Captain. In that moment, all the control that Janeway had spent years mastering returned and with a deep breath, she let go, stood up, adjusted her jacket and walked out of the cell.
She paused with her back to the Doctor and quietly said, "Have her escorted to sickbay so you can see to her injuries and make sure she gets some food."
With that, she walked out the door, stopping on the other side when the doors closed behind her. Her head pounded in time with her pulse and she closed her eyes, shame at her actions crowding in with each beat.
It was only an hour later, while Janeway was meeting with Torres and Kim regarding the status of the ship repairs, that the Doctor paged her.
"I think you should come to sickbay immediately, Captain."
"Doctor, I am in the middle of a meeting, can it wait?"
"No, Captain, I think you should see this right away."
Janeway sighed and looked at the officers sitting in her ready room. "Continue with the repairs and keep me updated."
As she once again passed through sickbays doors, Janeway saw the Doctor scanning through data on a console, while Kalle was sitting on the main biobed, with a force field surrounding her. She was still fully clothed and her wound had not been tended to.
"Doctor, what is going on?"
The Doctor looked up and motioned her into his office. They both sat down and Janeway waited for the Doctor to explain why he had called her there.
Nodding towards the woman in the other room, the Doctor said, "She won't let me remove her jacket to treat her injury, so I was forced to do only a cursory examination with a medical tricorder. There are a number of concerning things that I found." The doctor paused for dramatic effect and the Captain tried to hide her irritation. "Not the least of which is that she is human."
"Human!" Janeway sat, stunned. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, Captain, 100%. It seems that some cosmetic work has been done to make her facial features more like the Trelok, but she is human."
"I see. Have you asked her about this?"
"No, I was waiting to tell you first." The Doctor paused before continuing. "There's something else, Captain. The tricorder is showing more extensive injuries than what I would expect from today's events. She has both internal and external injuries, some of which are recent and some of which seem to be days and even weeks and months old. I can't tell you anymore than that, because she won't let me touch her." Frustration was evident in the Doctor's voice.
Janeway pondered this information for a few minutes, unsure of what it all meant.
"Has she said anything to you since you've been with her?"
"Not a word."
Janeway stood up and walked into the main portion of sickbay and over to the biobed.
Kalle had been sitting on the raised platform but again stood as Janeway approached. There was an angry red mark across her cheekbone where Janeway had hit her, and the Captain felt a new burst of shame. She paused at the console, punched in some commands and the force field dropped.
"The Doctor tells me you have some serious injuries that need attention. Will you let him look at you?" Janeway's voice was softer than it had been in awhile. She noticed that Kalle's hands were shaking slightly and the woman didn't even seem to hear her. Janeway was beginning to get extremely frustrated by the complete lack of response from the woman.
"Kalle!" The sharp command brought the woman's head up and Janeway saw confusion in her eyes. Again, Janeway went back to her first assessment that the woman was maybe a little bit stupid. "Take your jacket off now, so the doctor can see to your injuries."
The clear command seemed to break through the woman's haze. Slowly, Kalle unzipped her jacket and shrugged it off her shoulders, pulling her arms out of the sleeves. Underneath, she wore a tight tank top that laid bare her neck and arms.
Janeway gasped at what was underneath the jacket and Kalle took a step back as if Janeway had hit her again. She hunched her shoulders and shuddered once before crossing her arms over each other and hugging her body tightly with them.
Almost every exposed area of skin was covered in bruises or scars. Long, white lines ran across her body and the bruises were in various stages of color. Some were red and puffy while others were tinged purple with mottled yellow around the edges.
Janeway stepped forward and raised her hand in comfort, but Kalle stepped further back, keeping distance between the two of them.
"Who did this to you?" Janeway could barely get her voice above a whisper.
Of course, she got no answer. She turned around and looked at the two guards at the door.
"Would you please leave us? We will be fine with you standing outside the door."
As they left, she turned to the Doctor, who had picked up his tricorder and had continued his scans on the shaking woman. She watched him carefully walk all the way around her, with Kalle standing still, but rotating her head to keep one eye on the Doctor and one on Janeway.
As she stepped closer, the Captain felt as if she was trying to approach a frightened animal. The change in Kalle's demeanor from when she first boarded the ship to now made it seem as if she was dealing with two different people.
She cautiously got as close to Kalle as she could and said, "Please trust us. We're going to try to help you. Will you let us do that?" After a moment, she was rewarded with a slight nod.
Encouraged, Janeway asked her if she would take off her shirt and pants, so the Doctor could fully examine her. She and the Doctor walked into his office, to allow her some privacy to do this.
When they returned, Janeway wished they hadn't. It was almost grotesque, what had been done to the woman's body. Scars criss-crossed her lean and muscular stomach and back. She had deep, red bruises on her breasts and on the inside of her thighs, bruises that were in the shape of fingers. In addition to her scars, there were long gashes on her back in various states of healing. Some of them were oozing out of jagged edges of raised skin. She was skinny enough that her ribs showed prominently through her skin.
The humiliation on the woman's face was almost more than Janeway could take. As the Doctor helped Kalle lay down on the biobed, Janeway walked out of sickbay, trying her best to keep from being sick.
What remained of the senior staff was assembled in the conference room. After leaving sickbay, Janeway had called the meeting to assess their situation. Repairs were coming along slowly, but the warp engines had remained online, as had the weapons system.
The Trelok ship continued to stand sentry outside of the nebula and Janeway asked for updates from each of the officers sitting at the table.
Kim reported that they were safe in the nebula for the time being, but any change in the ion storms within the nebula could put the ship at risk. An in-depth assessment of the Trelok's weapon systems confirmed that Voyager wouldn't stand a chance in another encounter and the Trelok's stolen technology would have no trouble keeping up with Voyager at warp.
Janeway came away from the meeting more discouraged than before, but kept her game face on for the crew. An update from the Doctor told her that the worst of Kalle's injuries had been treated, but that based on the Doctor's scans, the injuries and scars had come from years, if not decades, of continuous abuse. The woman was now sleeping with the help of a sedative.
Lacking any other options, Janeway retired to her ready room and replicated a cup of coffee. She hadn't slept in almost twenty-four hours and the initial adrenaline of getting her ship in order had worn off.
She tried to sort through everything that had happened in the last day. What had initially seemed to be a random incident of a race trying to steal technology from Voyager now seemed to be something much more. The chances that a lone human was amongst a people that had put some much effort into taking control of her ship were slim, in Janeway's mind.
And how had Kalle gotten to the Delta Quadrant in the first place? If what Mayvik had told her was true, the Trelok had stolen technology from countless species. What if they had found something that could transport the crew of Voyager home?
It didn't take Janeway long to realize that she wasn't finished with the Trelok. Besides getting an antidote for the virus-ridden crew members, there were too many unanswered questions. Questions, she hoped might be answered by Kalle.
A check with the Doctor told her that he wouldn't wake the patient without giving her more rest, so the Captain headed to her own quarters to get some sleep.
She hadn't been back to her quarters since before the attack and it seemed that Mayvik had been using her rooms as his own. She spent some time removing his belongings and finding what had been hers. Her quarters were fairly bare of personal belongings.
When she was being honest with herself, Kathryn hated being in her quarters. It reminded her too much of what she had lost - a life as a real person, with feelings and emotions that could be acknowledge and tended to. It was easier to keep her Captain role at the forefront at all times. Allowing herself to slip into being Kathryn only made it harder to accept what her life had become. The crew needed a Captain, not a woman.
Once she had tidied up, she slipped off her boots and jacket, but didn't bother to change into her bedclothes. She lay down on her bed and eventually drifted off to sleep.
She awoke with a start a few hours later. She fumbled for her commbadge and, her voice husky with sleep, called the Doctor to get the status of his patient. He informed her that she would be ready to be woken at any time.
Janeway spent a few minutes cleaning herself up and then headed straight to sickbay. Kalle looked almost peaceful lying on the biobed and a quick glance under the sheet that covered her showed that her open wounds had been tended to and her bruises were on their way to healing. The scars were still visible, most of them too old to be erased by medical equipment.
The Doctor approached the bed with a hypospray and injected it into Kalle's neck. Nothing happened for a few moments and then, suddenly, she opened her eyes and pulled herself up into a sitting position. Finally, focusing her eyes on Janeway and the Doctor, she pushed herself away from them, almost falling off the bed. She hopped down and backed up until she was pressed against the wall.
Janeway reacted by putting her hands up with her palms facing toward the woman and making a soothing noise in the back of her throat. Again, she was reminded of trying to calm a wild animal. The Doctor seemed to be at a loss, apparently lacking in a program that could deal with this situation.
After a few minutes, the wildness in Kalle's eyes died down and her breathing evened out.
"I'm sorry, we didn't mean to startle you, " Janeway said. "I'd like to talk with you. Will you come sit down?"
Kalle moved back to the biobed and the Doctor helped her up, Kalle flinching away from his touch.
"The doctor ran some scans and found out something that interests us greatly." Janeway paused and gave Kalle an assessing look. "He has done DNA tests that seem to indicate that you are human."
Janeway watched her carefully to see her reaction. The woman's head shot up quickly to look at Janeway, her eyes wide with surprise. But then, just as quickly, she removed the emotion from her eyes and looked back down.
A second later, with a voice rusty from disuse, she said her first word to Janeway.
"Human?"
There was questioning in the voice and confusion. There was nothing to indicate that she had known she wasn't Trelok.
"You didn't know you were human?" Janeway asked her this without any intonation.
"No, ma'am."
When nothing else seemed forthcoming, Janeway probed some more.
"Do you know how you came to be in the Delta Quadrant, living with the Trelok?"
"No, ma'am."
Janeway walked closer to the woman, "You've spent your entire life here, then?"
There was a pause before Kalle answered.
"I don't know, ma'am."
Janeway looked at her in confusion. "You don't know?'
"I don't remember anything from before I was twelve. My only memories are from being with the Tal."
"What is your relationship to him?"
There was a moment of hesitation.
"I belong to him, ma'am."
"You belong to him?" Janeway was getting sick of repeating everything the girl was saying.
"Yes, ma'am."
Janeway thought about this for a moment. There was obviously a lot more going on than she could handle at the moment. She had to keep focused on what was most important.
"Kalle, I don't know what is going on here and before we can figure out it, I need to get my crew healthy again. Can you tell me how to help them?"
Kalle shook her head, "I'm sorry, Captain, I don't know anything about it."
Janeway sighed and turned to the Doctor, "We'll continue this conversation later. Doctor, please make sure that our guest is comfortable."
Kalle wasn't sure how to take these Federation officers. She had seen the hate in the Captain's eyes when she came to her in the brig and, frankly, didn't blame her. She hated herself as well, for shooting that crewman. She had tried her best not to kill him, had lowered the setting on the phaser when Mayvik wasn't looking, although the Trelok didn't have anything as low as merely a stun setting. After Mayvik had left, she had transported the downed man directly to sickbay, hoping that holographic doctor could save him.
She had hoped to be lucky, that Mayvik wouldn't have time to check up on what had happened. It was a risk, trying to save the man. Days after the incident, she thought she was in the clear. But the Tal had noticed the man working in engineering and he was enraged enough to drag her immediately back to their quarters. He had asked her what she thought the appropriate punishment should be but, before she could answer, he had started beating her with a fury that didn't abate until long after she lost the energy to even attempt to block the blows anymore. Even after that, he had tied her to the bed and whipped her until her back was lined with angry welts and then he used her to sate his excitement from the physical exertion.
It was not the worst beating she had taken, by far, but it sapped her energy and every move she made was punctuated with searing pain as her clothes rubbed against her torn back and her muscles ached against their bruises.
The next day, all she could do was focus on dulling the pain enough to make it through her duties. When the ship was assaulted by the nebula, the impact against the bulkhead was too much for her weary body to accept. She had blacked out immediately and didn't wake until she was found by the security team.
She had tried to fight them, but she was too weak. They subdued her easily and when the Captain had come, she realized that the rest of her people were gone. She knew her duty to the Tal and to her people was to keep her mouth shut and endure what was to come.
She was not surprised when the angry Captain had come to her cell and hit her. What did surprise her was how quickly the Captain's rage had changed to shame. She had seen the color drain from the woman's face. How her shoulders had slumped as if she had somehow been defeated. She didn't understand it when the woman had abruptly left the cell, but she was grateful for the reprieve. She was so tired.
When that doctor had taken her to sickbay, she was sure it was a trap. She couldn't let her guard down, but she was exhausted and hurting. Just when she was sure the doctor was going to forcibly remove her clothing, he had sighed and backed away, leaving her alone behind the force field.
Kalle had sat down on the bed and tried to meditate - usually she could focus the pain to a point inside her before pushing it away. But, too quickly, the Captain had showed up again.
Kalle spent much of her life trying to control her fear. She lived in a constant state of alert, trying her hardest to please Mayvik, but knowing that she was never doing good enough. She had regular duties associated with belonging to the Tal and she worked at excelling at what was expected of her. But Tal Mayvik enjoyed seeing her pain and was constantly reiterating that she deserved it for not living up to his expectations.
She was used to the abuse as being a regular part of life. Over the last 20 years, she had become good at suppressing any outward signs of what she was feeling inside. Since being on Voyager, however, she seemed to lack any control over her body.
She thought the Captain would be angry that she had not complied with the doctor's request to remove her clothes. She was so focused on trying to control her shaking limbs that she was taken off guard when the Captain had spoken with such compassion and concern in her voice. It had startled her so much that she had allowed herself to obey the Captain's request. She found herself mostly naked in front of the two of them, cheeks burning from the shame of what the marks on her body implied.
When the doctor had finally finished and had administered the sedative, her last though was that she had to stay on guard, that this was probably a plan to lull her into a false sense of security. With that on her mind, she had drifted into unconsciousness.
She couldn't remember where she was when she awoke. She sat up with a jolt and immediately focused on the two figures in front of her. She couldn't seem to remember anything and when the woman stepped towards her, she fumbled her way off the bed and pushed herself as far away as she could, until the wall stopped her. Again, her body seemed to betray her as her heart went racing and she couldn't catch her breath. She had to take a few moments to go through a calming routine. By the time her breathing had become even again, she had regained her bearings.
Her thoughts from the night before, when she had vowed to stay on guard, were at the forefront of her mind as Janeway led her back to the biobed. The petite red-headed woman was dangerous, Kalle knew that. Look at how easily she had regained the ship. She was no fool and Kalle was reserving judgement about what the woman was up to until she had more information.
The news that the woman gave Kalle next spun her in a whole knew direction. Human! Was that possible? Were they lying? If so, what would they have to gain by it?
These people were strangers, so different from what she was used to. The only life she remembered was living with the Trelok. She knew she was missing memories of her entire childhood, but after initially being severely punished for asking about it, she had put those years out of her mind.
Things were spinning out of control at a rate Kalle couldn't process. Her initial plan of staying quiet and letting her people come to get her was seeming less and less like a viable option. When the Captain started asking questions, Kalle wasn't sure if she should answer. But there was something about the commanding presence of the woman that compelled her to respond. And, if it were true that she was human, didn't that mean she now belonged to these people?