Star Trek Voyager: Noughts and Crosses
Chances
Kathryn Janeway
I hesitated outside my door. It was two hours after curfew and I could my father ranting at my Mother. He was obviously drunk. "She's your daughter. You should know where she is." He was yelling. "Daniel, darling can't we discuss this rationally like two adults please?" My Mother's voice was pleading. I leaned against the wall. Please not again. Not tonight. "No we bloody well can't. You should never have taken up with that...that bloody Vulcan bastard in the first place. Your daughter's nothing but trouble. I told you a halfer would be, you should have had an abortion. Well if this continues she's out." My Mother began to yell back furiously.
I ran not waiting to hear anymore of it. I'd spend the night at Supernova's flat and sleep on the sofa rather than go back there. I'd known my Father despised me but never why. Those hateful words. He'd called me a halfer. A word of pure and utter contempt for someone who was half Vulcan, half human. His words rang in my ears as the tears of pain and anger began to slide down my cheeks. "...You should have had an abortion." Well my Mother hadn't. I couldn't believe my fath- no not my father; Daniel Thompson hated me that much. I'd always known that my Mother's surname was Janeway not Thompson. But I'd assumed that was her maiden name. She'd told me that me and my older sister Phoebe would both have the surname Janeway. I'd never understood till now.
Now I did though. Daniel, bigot, Thompson didn't want two half Vulcans ruining his political reputation by having his surname. I stopped running outside Supernova's flat and punched the wall wishing with all my heart that it was his face. Then I rang the bell realising as I did so that I'd punched the wall too hard and my knuckles were bleeding. Then Supernova came to the door. His real name was Tom Paris, he was nineteen and he'd left home a year ago.
Tom Paris
I opened the door to find Kathryn Janeway standing there with bleeding knuckles. I wasn't too surprised and moved aside so that she could come in. Her father was drunk most nights and she'd often come round here to sleep on the sofa when it got too much. She walked past me into the lounge like someone asleep; I think she'd already forgotten her bleeding hand. I grabbed a dermal regenerator from the med kit in the hall and gave it to her. She smiled briefly, a smile that didn't touch her eyes and ran it over her hand seeming to wake up a bit. "Thanks." She said quietly. "I'll go get a sleeping bag." I replied. "By the way, there are a few stronghold members having a slumber party in the back room; I'm sure they'd appreciate it if you stuck your snout in." She grinned and got up. A real smile this time which is what I'd intended.
I grabbed the sleeping bag and her bag from upstairs. I'd suggested a while ago that she could crash here whenever she needed to and that she could leave some night clothes here for when she did spend the night. I found her in the next room talking to a sixteen year old Vulcan girl called Tiral; Codenamed Athena. Then I came in with her sleeping bag and her night bag and she took it to the bathroom to change. She came out in her navy pyjamas. I'd bought them for her as a joke at Christmas. They were covered with goofy, man-the-moon's wearing striped nightcaps. She climbed into her sleeping bag and settled down next to Athena and a Half-Klingon eighteen year old girl I'd met two months ago, called B'lenna. She'd codenamed herself Bane and anyone who'd seen her in action knew why. No-one could stand up to her flying fists!
She was part of Stronghold even though anyone who wasn't Vulcan wasn't discriminated against. She'd joined our group because she found the way they were treated disgusting when she come to live permanently on Earth from her home planet three months ago. She'd nearly got into the middle of a serious turf war when I'd met her and it took four of us to drag her away.
I was about to join them when the bell rang again and I opened it to allow two more guys inside. That was the thing about my place. Every one of the Stronghold members for two square kilometres dropped in to stay the night when they couldn't stick it at home. After a while we'd jokingly call it "The Thieves Kitchen." The name stuck because although we weren't thieves Stronghold members were unofficially wanted people. They authorities had initiated a segregation policy and to them we were the Anti-Christ. We believed in equality and had commandeered an entire city for people who were known to be wanted. Any Stronghold member was wanted. However the authorities had to find you first.
The only way to keep out of trouble was to use only your codename on the streets. To hide your real identity. Once they found out who you were you'd either get a letter calling you in or you'd disappear in the night, never to be seen again. If you got a letter you ran. You spent the six weeks it took to get to Stronghold in the wild. Because those who responded to the letters were dragged off to concentration camps and eventually lined up against a wall and shot. It made me sick. It was like World War Two again. The authorities were the Nazi's and we were the Jews.
Then the guys came down again and I grabbed my sleeping bag and joined everyone else. We were leaving for Stronghold in at most two years time. None of us wanted to stay in this city for long.
Tuvok Mivaru
I went into the back room with my brother Tirok and Supernova and the first person I saw was Nightingale swapping stories with my sister Tiral and a girl I knew as Bane. I was surprised. Still I'd only ever come here twice and I didn't know everyone. Tiral was the one who came here most often. It was safer for her than in our cramped riverside flat. The gangs roamed that are all too often and would break in to anywhere that looked run down. Our place definitely did. Tiral had tried to stop a gang making off with our credits before and might have got away with it if they hadn't called for reinforcements. I'd been out trying to find a better place. So had my brother. There were a lot of uninhabited apartments left when people fled the city. We'd come back to find her barely alive. She'd been stabbed three times. After that we made sure one of us was always with her or she was here.
After a while things quieted down as it got later and people began to drift off. Nightingale moved her sleeping bag over next to mine after getting uncomfortable caught up in the tangle of people in the centre of the floor. "I never asked your real name. What is it? Mine's Kathryn Janeway." She was looking at me from her position on the floor propped up on one elbow. I told her. "There's a Stronghold meeting at my Ranch for the first two weeks of next month. Would you like to come? My father will be on a business trip. My mother will be there but she's part of Stronghold. We're treating it as a survival trip." I was caught off guard by her question. "Thank you Kathryn. I think I will. Is this by any chance preparation for the Great Escape?" She smiled at my feeble attempt at humour. "Yes it is." She lay back down and pulled the sleeping bag tighter around her. "Goodnight Tuvok." She said before rolling over and falling promptly asleep. I decided to follow suit. Tomorrow morning was going to be hard on everyone. We'd need our strength.
