"Harry's clarinet solo was okay. I could have done without Tuvok's reading of Vulcan poetry...But the highlight of the evening was definitely Kathryn Janeway portraying the Dying Swan," he said with a smirk, his heart beating faster at the sound of her laugh, the view of her carefree smile.
He took his seat next to her, noticing her eyes following him as he did so. His attention struggled to remain on the console in front of him.
"I learned that dance when I was six years old. I assure you…" her voice trailed off.
"Kathryn?" he looked at her curiously.
"What's happening here?" she asked, her voice taking on a more serious tone.
He stopped, thinking for a quick moment. It had all seemed so familiar, the shuttle trip, the conversation...a crash.
"You're right. We have been here before." he said, concern weighing heavily on each word.
Suddenly, she sat straight up. He could see her trying to piece together the events in her mind, and in an instant a spark flashed in her eyes.
"Do you remember Vidiians?"
As soon as the question had been asked, images flooded his mind. Hands; gripping, choking, shots were fired, and they had died.
"Yes. They shot us down and attacked us..." he said. Her expression told him she remembered exactly the same thing.
"We may have wandered into some kind of repeating time loop. I'm going to scan for temporal anomalies."
She stood up, her stare determined, and walked towards the back of the shuttle, punching in commands on the controls.
"Whatever's going on, let's change tactics this time. Let's not try to land on that planet," he suggested.
"Agreed," she said, continuing her hunt for data.
"I don't see any evidence of temporal flux, or any kind of anomaly for that matter," she reported.
He looked around, scanning the area from his console for any potential threats.
"Or of Vidiian ships," he added.
"So far, so good," she said with a nod.
He attempted to contact the ship, in hopes that they could help them out of whatever mess they had wandered into.
"Chakotay to Voyager. Chakotay to Voyager, do you read us?"
"We're out of range," Kathryn said with a sigh.
She made her way over to her seat and facing him, and with an intense stare over her carefully concealed fear, she spoke again.
"I'd still like to figure out what happened to us. Send a subspace message that we won't be landing on the planet. Tell them that we'll be looking for evidence of temporal anomalies."
He nodded, reaching for the communication controls, but before he could follow through on her orders, the console began to beep.
"I see a ship approaching at high impulse. It's on an intercept course," she said.
"Is it Vidiian?"
"Yes."
He scanned the area once more, dread filling his body.
"I've got it. It's a warship, loaded with weaponry. It's closing fast."
"Can we outrun it?" she asked.
"We can try."
The shuttle leaned to the right, swerving off it's intended course in an attempt to lose the attacker, but it wasn't working.
"They're two hundred thousand kilometres away and gaining," she warned.
"Setting evasive pattern Delta four," he said, typing commands into his console as quickly as he could.
"They're powering weapons. Shields up! Stand by all phaser arrays," her voice was dark, and vacant of the glimpse of fear he had noticed before.
Out of the vast darkness, the Vidiian ship appeared, towering over their proverbial prey. Three rounds were fired before the massive ship was seen flying over the shuttle, casting their dark shadow overhead. They rocked back and forth forcefully and once their balance returned, they immediately assessed their damage.
"Shields down to eighty four percent," he said.
"Returning fire," she said, keeping her voice calm.
"Nice aim."
"It didn't stop them," she grunted, as another shot sent sparks flying throughout the shuttle.
"We've lost shields!" He couldn't keep anxiety out of his voice like she could.
"Firing starboard array!"
Before she could take any action they were hit critically. He could feel the shuttle beginning to fail, one look at his console confirmed just as much.
"That one hit the reactant injectors."
"Shut them down, they'll leak antimatter." she commanded.
"The magnetic fields are failing. The gas flow separators are down" he responded.
"Dump the core!" she said, as a last effort to save themselves, but it had been too late.
Within a single moment they were engulfed in a bright light and intense heat, then everything was gone.
He stood staring at the console, trying to think about the conversation he was about to start but feeling as if they had already discussed it. Instead he remained silent and walked over to take his seat.
She too kept her eyes straight ahead, piercing the dark abyss before them on the viewscreen. As soon as he sat, a sense of eeriness washed over him and he quickly remembered. It had seemed like a nightmare, a hallucination of sorts, but twice they had tried to escape and twice they had died. He looked next to him to find Kathryn staring back, his disturbed look reflected at him in her own expression. No words were said, just a silent understanding that they were in deep trouble.
After a few brief moments, her Captain's mask was set in place and she began thinking out loud.
"It's looking more and more like we're in a time loop. The question is, how do we break it?"
"Let's retrace our steps. Get back to the part of space we were in before all this started happening." he advised.
"Agreed. If we're experiencing a temporal field, a tachyon burst might disperse it." she said shooting him a quick glance.
"Chakotay," she said wearily.
"Let me guess. It's a Vidiian ship,"
"Two Vidiian ships, still twenty million kilometres away but headed right for us."
"Sacajawea to Voyager. Do you read us?"
He knew it hadn't worked the last time he tried, but he prayed that since they backtracked a bit they would be able to get the message through. As luck would have it, he began to hear the static before a stoic, familiar voice rang in his ears.
"Voyager here. You have just come into communication range, Commander," Tuvok stated.
Chakotay subtly released a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.
"We're being pursued by two Vidiian ships. Set a course for our shuttle and have weapons powered," he said.
"We also believe we're experiencing some kind of temporal phenomenon, a time loop," Janeway added.
"Make certain you scan for anomalies."
"Aye Captain. We're on our way," Tuvok replied.
"If you're going to emit that tachyon burst, you'd better do it now. In a couple of minutes those ships'll be right on top of us," Chakotay said.
"Here goes."
With the simple press of a few buttons, a wave of energy emerged from the shuttle, expanding for several hundred kilometers before dissipating into the dark expanse.
"I can't tell if it's affecting anything," she said.
"The Vidiians are almost within range. Ready weapons,"
The two of them prepared for the attack, aiming their weapons and waiting, but suddenly the two ships simply disappeared.
"What happened?" he asked.
"They just vanished!" she said in astonishment.
He console beeped.
"But I'm picking up a residual temporal signature."
"Then those ships must have been part of the time loop," he suggested, there seemed to be no other reasonable explanation.
"And the tachyon burst disrupted it." she said, putting the pieces together in her mind.
"Not a minute too soon. I was getting awfully tired of talking about Talent Night," he said with a laugh, feeling relief wash over him.
He watched her laugh and then focused on the chirping that signaled voyagers impending arrival.
"Voyager to Sacajawea. We will rendezvous with you in approximately four minutes," Tuvok said.
"Believe me, Tuvok, we're looking forward to it," Janeway replied.
They shared a glance of amusement before focusing once again on their tasks, ready to back on solid ground.
A few minutes later the shuttle docked on Voyager. The Captain made her way to the bridge, as Chakotay completed the shuttle procedures.
She arrived on the bridge, she nodded to Tuvok, who moved back to his usual station.
"Good to have you back captain," Tuvok stated.
"Good to be here," she replied with a smile.
As she made her way to her seat the hiss of the doors let her know that Chakotay had just come off the turbo lift.
"Commander," Tuvok said with a slight nod.
He walked to the center of the bridge and sat next to Kathryn, immediately facing her.
"Do you have any idea what was happening to us in that shuttle?"
"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean?" She replied, crinkling her brow in confusion.
"Did Voyager detect evidence of a temporal field or anomaly?" he asked.
"I don't believe so, why?"
"What do you mean 'Why?'. We were stuck in a time loop," he said, disturbed by her dismissive attitude to the events of the past few hours.
"Are you feeling alright Commander? To my knowledge we were never in any time loop,"
"You don't remember? We were making our way to the second planet in the binary system and then Vidiians-" he started but she interrupted.
"Vidiians attacked us...but we managed to escape and make it back to Voyager."
"This time yes, but there were two other times we weren't so lucky. We died, twice, and each time we would start from the exact same point in time. We would reappear during our conversation about talent night," he said, trying to remain calm.
"Perhaps you should go to sickbay and see the doctor,"
"No…" he began to get defensive, standing up. He didn't know what was happening, how to make her understand, but suddenly she looked at him with her bright blue eyes and gentle smile and he felt slightly more at ease. He knew she was trying to get him to relax and see that she was only trying to help. When she spoke again, she did so with a calm tone.
"It's alright...if you say that's what happened then I'll have Tuvok perform some extra scans, but in the meantime I suggest you go get checked out by the doctor just to be safe,"
"Alright, I'll go," he conceded.
"Good, and I'll keep you informed about the results of the scans," she said.
"Thank you,"
She didn't reply, just a simple nod and a soft smile, but he could see the concern in her eyes. She was worried about him.
"Well Commander you seem to be in perfect physical health. No sign of memory modification or temporal activity." The Doctor looked down at his tricorder. "Although...you could use a bit of extra time on the holodeck, perhaps an exercising program to help stay in shape. Men of your age tend to rapidly lose muscle mass and-"
Chakotay bit back a laugh. "Thank you Doctor, but I didn't come here for advice."
"They never do," he mumbled.
"If that's all?" Chakotay began to move off the biobed, but the Doctor moved in front of him.
"However, Commander, whatever you've been through, it's obviously caused you a great deal of stress. I suggest you take some time to relax. My advice, wanted or not, is still that of a medical professional and I do hope that you take it."
Chakotay sighed, "Doctor, there's been an unexplained phenomenon. I can't possibly go to the holodeck right now, not when there's work to be done."
"Whatever you experienced, there is no current danger to the ship. I could make this an order."
Chakotay looked into the hologram's face, but he was as stubborn as always. "Fine, I'll go to the holodeck. It's been a while since I've gotten the chance to run my boxing program."
"Excellent. Physical activity lowers cortisol levels. Just make sure the safeties are on, I don't want to have you in with broken bones or a concussion." He turned away, moving to clean up the work station.
"You won't, I'll be careful."
He needed to take out his frustrations, he needed a win after being defeated twice already, after dying twice.
He selected an opponent, making him a Vidiian, the largest and strongest the computer could create. He thought for a moment that if he beat this alien scum to a pulp it might make him feel a little better. It might flush out the images that he couldn't erase from his mind. Of Kathryn, lying on the floor.
Besides, he knew the safeties were on, making it a sure win. He needed that sure win.
The bell rang and he squared into position, his feet bouncing in time with his heart. He went forth with a right jab and it landed square in the aliens jaw.
His enemy recovered quickly, and they began to circle one another, arms up in defensive positions. For a few seconds, it was unclear who would make the next move.
Feeling overly confident, Chakotay threw another punch but missed as the Vidiian swerved just in time.
Tom made his way to the bridge and took his place at the helm, but before he began his work he turned around to face his captain.
"Captain, I thought I would inform you of some complaints we've been receiving about holodeck two,"
"What about it?"
"Well some people have complained about malfunctioning safeties. They switch on and off, and a few people have been getting injured. Nothing major, just a bee sting and a scrape or scratch here and there,"
"Have you mentioned this to B'Elanna?"
"I have, but she needs all hands on deck after a minor incident with the warp core this morning. She says she can't spare the manpower until later in the week, and Harry and I haven't been able to find the problem."
"Well, then I suggest we close holodek two immediately until it can be repaired."
"I agree." He nodded, turning back to the helm.
"Computer, who's occupying holodeck two?"
Commander Chakotay is in holodeck two.
Her breath hitched slightly.
She steadied herself, "Computer, what program is Commander Chakotay currently running?"
Commander Chakotay is currently running Boxing program Alpha Four in holodeck two.
"Captain Janeway to Commander Chakotay."
A slight crackle let her know that the line was open, but there was no response. She waited, desperate to hear the slightest murmur of acknowledgement.
But when a few seconds had passed in silence, she leapt to her feat.
"Tuvok, you have the bridge!"
"Aye Captain."
She was practically sprinting down the hallway, holding onto her last shred of decency in her mission.
"Computer, end program running in holodeck two,"
Error, unable to end program.
She blew out a breath in frustration and walked towards the doors.
The second they opened, she ran inside.
"Just in time" she mumbled to herself, noting that Chakotay seemed to be completely unharmed, focused on his fight against a Viidian opponent.
"Computer end program,"
Cannot comply.
"Fine then!"
She walked over to the ring and called out his name.
"Chakotay?"
His focus was sharp, his eyes never leaving his opponent. So far, every move had been calculated, he was ready to win, but then he heard it.
He could've sworn someone had called his name.
"Chakotay you need to stop!"
It was clear as day, Kathryn Janeway's voice.
He turned to look at her for a split second, but that was all his opponent needed to have his opening.
He heard his name called a third time, but this time there was panic in her voice.
"Chakotay!"
But it was too late.
By the time he realized what was happening, he felt the fist make contact with his jaw.
In the milliseconds before he hit the ground, he wished that he hadn't made that Vidiian so strong. He felt the boxing ring dissolve around him, leaving his body on the cold hard ground of the holodeck.
The ringing in his ears prevented him from hearing the full volume of her terrified scream, but fading into the background he recognized the words "Stay with me", before a string of commands he assumed had to do with beaming him to sickbay.
It was the last thing he heard before he himself, much like the holoprogram, dissolve into nothingness.
He looked up from the console on the wall with a tinge of pain in his jaw and a look of utter confusion. Within seconds, it dawned on him.
"Kathryn!"
She turned immediately to face him.
"I know...we're back!"