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The Voyager Exile.

Not for the first time, Janeway wondered to herself when things had become so problematic for her and her crew since they had entered the Delta Quadrant. It brought back memories of her time learning at school where she learnt about the history of the Federation before her knowledge was further enhanced, about the voyages of Jonathan Archer and the others of his time frame, but while their situations were remarkably similar; starships from Earth, sent out to explore interstellar space, far from home, alone, their situations were vastly different.

Even back then the support base of captains like Archer had been strong enough, and even while travelling at warp five on the old warp scale, it wouldn't have taken long for the Enterprise NX-01 to return home, or at least contact Starfleet and everyone they'd left behind.

But ever since the Caretaker had dragged them into the Delta Quadrant, and the later encounter with Suspiria had only made the nightmare worse because the other Caretaker had been far from willing to actually help, though Janeway continued to hold out hope even to this day even if they hadn't actually seen her for a long time now, that letting her go would make Suspiria actually think.

But so far the second Caretaker in this part of the galaxy had left them alone, though what she was doing Janeway had no idea, though she still sometimes thought about her, wondering just what was going through the mind of the entity.

Her current thoughts was weighing on her mind as they continued to cross Borg space while still at red alert (Janeway wished the designers behind the Intrepid class and the other classes of ships built around the time Voyager had been constructed hadn't developed an alarm mode where the bridge lighting was dark, though she understood the necessity of power conservation), but so far nothing had happened, and even if what Kes had said was true about the Borg's defeat after being connected to the aliens, she had no intention of dropping her guard.

Janeway still blamed herself for stranding the crew in the Delta Quadrant, she had long since sworn never to make that mistake again. No matter what Seska had believed, Janeway had no intention of risking the lives of her crew, but then again no-one in their right mind would ever want to cross Borg space, though while Chakotay had made the good point about there being still plenty of Delta Quadrant left to explore, she had felt going through Borg territory would be a great way to shorten the distance even if it was risky, but if they had taken the right precautions they would be safe.

But events had not been in their favour.

If they had known about the war between the Collective and Species 8472 before they'd even entered Borg territory, they would have done what Chakotay had stated they should be doing when she had made her reckless plan to forge an alliance with the Borg - just let them fight it out between themselves, but the attack on Harry had made things personal for her.

Janeway pushed those thoughts aside - thinking about the past was not going to help her or her crew anytime soon, and besides that, they needed to just get through Borg space without knowing for sure what was out there. Lifting up the padd given to her by Tuvok earlier to document his report, Janeway read through it once more.

Transwarp signatures had been detected, but none of the usual indications of the quantum singularities Species 8472 used to enter this reality; she wasn't worried about that right now, from what she knew about the aliens, okay it wasn't much, Species 8472 was probably more interested in attacking more attractive targets. She hoped it was the case now, and that they were planning to attack places like planets or large clusters of ships.

When will this end? she thought to herself despairingly.

When Voyager had entered Borg space, they had been prepared to detect transwarp signatures and they had, but Tuvok had noticed something about the way the Borg moved in a manner he referred to as both logical and orderly. In the report Tuvok made special emphasis for her benefit about picking up seven transwarp signatures that continued to match, forcing the Vulcan to conclude something was very wrong with the Borg. Tuvok had included diagrams using the star charts compiled by stellar cartography to help Tom determine a shorter route through Borg space to show what the Borg ships were doing.

The Borg Cubes were….going around in circles.

It was just so completely bizarre Janeway had wondered for a moment if she had gone through another universe herself. Her knowledge and personal experience of the Borg was limited, she had never encountered the Cube which had decimated Starfleet at Wolf 359, and she had only been on the peripheral of that incident involving the deranged android Lore, but Janeway felt she understood enough about the Borg Collective to know they were not the type to wander around space in circles.

Tuvok may have been a Vulcan but that did not mean he didn't know anything about emotion. He noted in the report he'd given her the Cubes seemed to be travelling to a place at high speed, stopping and then going in another direction, only to repeat the pattern, but Voyager's sensors were good enough to tell the stresses caused by their manoeuvres was putting a lot of stress on the hull of the ships. Tuvok found it virtually impossible to explain, but he speculated the Borg on those ships were confused.

Janeway didn't really care since she had made up her mind and had already given instructions to Tom that if the sensors detected even a spark of a transwarp echo in their current flight path, he was to avoid it; Kes had told them straight the Borg had been heavily attacked using neurogenic weapons which tore through the Collective mind, doing God knew what to them. Janeway really did not want to know what the mental state of those drones on those ships was, so she thought it was best if they just avoided them. It sounded simple to her, and yet…. somehow, she knew they would encounter one of those Cubes.

It was unavoidable. It seemed to be the story of their lives in this part of the galaxy.

"Problems?" Chakotay's gentle voice drifted over to her ears.

Janeway turned to smile at him. "Ah, just thinking about what I read in that report," she said.

Chakotay nodded and looked thoughtful as he moved his head to the side so he could think about it himself. "Yes, I know what you mean," he said slowly. "It's not like the Borg to do anything that doesn't have a point."

Janeway lifted a brow, guessing rightly he was thinking about the time he had been plugged into that miniature Collective, but she didn't open her mouth. "My mind keeps going back to what Kes said about those neurological weapons Species 8472 used on the Collective," she said, looking at her lover with serious eyes. "Chakotay, I really do not want to know. We have enough troubles as it is."

"I know, and I agree with you. We need to think for ourselves, but I also remember what Kes said about the aliens wanting to purge our universe," Chakotay reminded her.

Janeway shrugged. "What can we do?" she asked. "The ship is in pieces and we're still stuck in Borg space. The Collective we don't know about, though it looks like they've been affecting just like that group of Borg manipulated by Lore who had only been driven into that state because the Enterprise crew had sent that drone with a sense of individuality back when they should have sent that computer virus instead."

Chakotay felt she was being a little bit harsher towards the Enterprise crew than he felt she should be, but he could understand her point. The news of what Jean Luc Picard had done had surprised everyone in Starfleet, and dozens more had said he should have just killed the drone or something like that, but truthfully there was nothing they could do about it now.

"Don't be like that," he whispered forcefully, shocking Kathryn who looked at him sharply; Chakotay sighed and hoped she didn't lose her temper. Everyone was under enough stress as it was since Kes's announcement the war was over and that the Borg had lost it, and the last thing they needed for morale was for the captain and first officer to have a public fight on the bridge. "We're still alive," he pressed on, staring at her strongly. "That's all that matters, and as long as we keep thinking we will get through this, then we will."

Although she was smarting from the surprise she'd received when Chakotay had spoken to her in that manner, Janeway was grateful her lover was able to make her see sense, and he was right. They were still alive and that was all that mattered, though they all knew the aliens could come for them at any point for the destruction of those ships, and Species 8472 didn't seem like the type of race to let things go.

"Captain," Tom began suddenly, and she turned her head to take in the helm officer's shadowy form as he worked on the conn. "I'm picking up a Borg ship ahead but its a derelict."

"Confirmed," Tuvok announced from Tactical. "It's currently in our current flight path. There are minimal power readings emanating from the Cube."

Janeway's first thought was to simply order Tom to change course. And yet… it was so tempting to beam a team over even if the last time they had done so had nearly ended in tragedy, but she wanted to know what the current state of the Borg was. The only way she knew how to do something like that was to beam a team over and investigate, but she glanced to her left and saw that Chakotay was looking at her with concern as if worried what kind of decision she would make. She leaned over so they could have a conference without anyone overhearing. "What do you think?" she whispered.

"I can tell you're tempted to have a party beam over and salvage anything we might need," Chakotay said. "But we don't know what the state of the drones over there is like. It could be a terrible risk."

"I know," she replied. "But ever since Kes told us about how…unstable the Borg have become, and Tuvok's reports state the Borg ships are going around everywhere in circles, I've been curious about what the new state of the Borg is. To be honest, I'd rather we knew what it was now while we still can. I don't want us to encounter the Collective, or rather what's left of it, again and discover a breed of Borg which is more dangerous than what we've encountered."

She knew she was going over the top with her explanation, but if there was one thing she had learnt about Chakotay, it was knowing she would have to give good explanations rather than anything ill-thought-out, but judging from his expression she could tell he was on the verge of saying it was a bad idea.

"I know its not a good idea," she said solemnly, "but we've been lurching from one crisis to the next for so long, and besides if we want to get home we're going to have to think of new strategies to keep ourselves safe, and besides I want a guide to base our strategies on if we ever encounter the Borg again."

She said it as if they would ever encounter the Collective again, but she had worded it like the chance was uncertain since they had no way of knowing just what the aliens were doing to the Borg.

Chakotay mulled it over in his head. On the one hand he just wanted to tell Kathryn to forget the idea which was blossoming in her head and not waste any time here than they actually needed, but on the other she had raised a good point about knowing exactly what was happening to what was left of the Borg, though he could guess the rest of the crew would not care one little bit if the Borg were just wiped from existence though they didn't know what the aliens were going to do once the Collective was gone.

Besides if they did encounter some remnant of the Borg, later on, it would be a good idea to be one hundred per cent certain about what they would find instead of blundering into a situation and finding the Borg were homicidal instead of moving around assimilating with zombie-like efficiency.

"Alright," he nodded in agreement. "Do you want me to go?"

Janeway blew out a breath. "No, I will," she decided and quickly spoke over his protests. "I'll go because it's my decision, and besides I've asked too much of the crew recently."

Chakotay wished she stopped with this 'I'm going it alone attitude,' as he frequently thought about it because she was not alone. "I don't like this at all," he began, but she interrupted him solemnly.

"I know. I love you, and I don't want to lose you, but its time I started taking a more active role in this mess," Janeway told him, making it clear to him she was not going to let this go.


Until the next time...