Chapter Nine
Chakotay
The third inspection had gone well, I thought. At least in comparison to the first two. We'd barely managed to begin serious security sweeps for the surveillance devices Kathryn was convinced were planted somewhere on the ship when another Devore vessel popped up on sensors. This one tiny. Kathryn had just broken away from her desk, where she'd been huddled over crew reports that still needed to be approved on top of everything else we had going on. In fact, she'd surprised me by heading down to the mess hall to sneak a snack from the kitchen and clear her mind when the ship appeared – meaning I had to call her right back to the bridge. It was a small ship, yes, not one we'd seen before, but we could afford to take nothing Devore lightly.
It was a good thing I'd called her back. The single occupant of that innocuous looking vessel was none other than Inspector Kashyk himself. Spouting cryptic warnings about needing to speak with her.
He was out of uniform. Apparently, this was an unofficial visit. It set the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
We let him come aboard. We didn't have much choice. In uniform or not, with his armada of ships or without it, those resources were a comm. call away, still at his disposal. We couldn't take the chance of refusing to speak with him and having that be construed as a refusal to obey a directive by an officer.
She gave orders for him to be escorted to her ready room. Alone, because she refused to concede ground to him, much less give him the impression she felt she had anything to fear from him. And one on one, I knew she could handle him fine if he stepped out of line. I also had her promise of before that she wouldn't allow herself to get into trouble without calling for help. Any lingering doubt I had about her being alone in the ready room with Kashyk were assuaged by that. Until the minutes started to drag on while they were in there. And on. And on…
She emerged from the ready room. All eyes turned to her. She cleared her throat. "Lieutenant Rollins."
"Ma'am?" He stood at sharper attention, awaiting her orders.
Slowly, she explained, "Inspector Kashyk…has just requested asylum aboard Voyager."
"Asylum?" I couldn't help spitting – beating Tom and the rest of them to the punch.
"Yes. He claims to be defecting."
She didn't believe him. Of course she didn't believe him. I stared hard at her. Watching, waiting for the flicker or the disbelieving smirk that would reassure me that she wasn't putting actual stock in this outrageous tale.
It didn't come. Her voice was expressionless. So was her face. Until she locked gazes with me, that was. For a brief instant, her eyes blazed at me across the deck, a thousand different statements in that single look. Not least of which being that she wanted to speak with me. Alone. I nodded, but she'd already looked to Rollins again. She cleared her throat. "Please escort the inspector to the conference room and make sure he remains under constant supervision until I decide how to handle his request."
The disbelieving looks they were all shooting her hardened my expression, chased away any hint of doubt I'd let show on my face to begin with. I straightened, looking expectantly to Rollins, who only faltered briefly, to his credit.
"Aye, Captain," he acknowledged, gathering himself – and closing the jaw that had dropped open at her last statement. Everyone else turned studiously back to their stations when fixed with piercing looks from the both of us, and then I caught her making for the upper level of the bridge.
"Commander," she called on her way to the turbolift, though it wasn't necessary. I was already almost there, right behind her.
This was a conversation we wouldn't trust to the ready room – or anywhere else we might be expected to discuss it. She led the way…as she had earlier this morning, when we'd first discussed the increasing likelihood of the surveillance equipment the Devore probably left aboard. Like this morning, I followed her silently, waiting to ask the hundred questions that were burning to be asked. Forcing myself to wait. She ordered the lift to dispense us on deck fourteen this time. Varying the location of our impromptu secret exchanges was just an extra security measure.
We'd barely managed to make it to deck fourteen's deserted decks and securely into a snug, secure-as-we-could-make-it alcove before I had to start telling her what was on my mind.
"Kathryn, you can't seriously think we can trust–"
She held up her hand, stopping me in mid-protest. "You can save the scorpion anecdotes, Chakotay," she assured me with a wry tilt of her head. "I don't buy his story for a second."
The tension that had been building since we'd picked up Kashyk's vessel hissed slowly out of me. I couldn't quite manage a laugh at her teasing reference, because it still felt too soon, but…thank every spirit that ever existed, I thought. I swallowed, trying to moisten a desert-dry throat. And cracked a weak smile. "Could have fooled me."
She raised a brow. "Apparently, I did."
"Not really," I recovered quickly. She stared at me, the uplifted brow rising another increment, and I shrugged sheepishly. "You have a hell of a poker face, Kathryn," I had to remind her.
"Hmm." She hadn't quite forgiven me my lapse in faith, but she moved on from necessity. "I just didn't want to show my hand on the bridge."
I waited for her to continue, but while waiting, felt myself lean up against the console beside me, feeling a strange need to block any view of her from outside the tiny corridor's alcove, even though I knew we'd confirmed less than an hour ago that there were no Devore recording devices on this deck – as best we could, anyway.
"We're sending him packing, of course," I finally stated the fact that I knew to be a certainty. "Once you figure out how you want it to look when we do it, we're kicking him back out into space where we found him."
She said nothing. Just stared back me, an intense look in her eye. The look. The one that had my blood pressure rising at the mere sight of it, and I blinked. Shocked. "You're actually going to entertain this?"
"I don't have a choice," she clipped. I started to shift, to fully face her, getting ready to try and talk some sense into her since she'd apparently lost her mind, but she shook her head. Spreading her arms in exasperation. "What would you suggest I do? Tell him there's no way I'm going to believe his story and send him packing? He knows, Chakotay," she gritted out, her voice like steel and her eyes as hard as they were during any red alert, setting my spine tingling and my body stiffening with her demeanor alone. "He just stood there in my ready room, and told me exactly where those telepaths are. How many there are." My eyes widened in shock as she continued, "He knew the specific room and the method we'd used to hide them in it." She scoffed disgustedly, "Hell, he knew when and where we'd taken them on!"
"He knows when…? And where…?" I trailed off hollowly, the blood starting to pound through my temples. My stomach continuing to churn perpetually as I turned her words over in my mind. Slowly digested their meaning. My throat had gone back to its desert dry state, just that quickly.
There wasn't really an ounce of room for questioning what she'd just told me.
"You were right," I realized slowly. "You were right, to be suspicious. He did know." I swore under my breath. "There must be recording devices somewhere on this ship we just haven't found."
"Looks like it," she agreed stonily.
There was no other conclusion to reach. I couldn't see how it could be otherwise, given this new information. "They have to have surveillance technology superior to ours, because we're not detecting their devices, even with our most sensitive scans."
"Looks like that, too," she confirmed darkly. In a way that let me know it had already occurred to her as we both glanced around us uneasily. The question of just how secure we really were while talking here suddenly made real again, despite our intensive scans of this area.
I thought about what this all meant. Kashyk's presence. What he apparently knew. The ramifications of what she'd just revealed to me, had really dumped into my lap like a shuttle crash-landing right on top of me.
Hell. If he knew…
"So it's not some elaborate entrapment he's trying." It had been the first thing to cross my mind when she'd announced his claim on the bridge. "He's not here to trap us into committing a crime by harboring him just so he can detain us for it." She shook her head in agreement as I continued, "Because he already has all the evidence he'd need to detain us, if he'd wanted to." I couldn't imagine what it was he did want if it wasn't what he was claiming after all…hoped I couldn't imagine it…and turned my mind back to the more relevant issue, which was, "So we can't just turn him away. It's not an option. If we do, he has nothing to lose by turning us in."
"No," she confirmed, "he doesn't." And grimaced as she met my eyes again. "Brace yourself," she warned. "It gets worse."
"Out with it," I prodded grimly. Though I wasn't sure how much worse it could get…
"He claims the latest coordinates we've received weren't being sent from the transport vessel we think we've been communicating with."
Not breathing, I waited for her to elaborate. My heart sinking further into the soles of my boots all the while.
"He claims the transport vessel was intercepted and that his people sent us the last transmission. In order to trap us and other vessels smuggling telepaths in one sweep."
I shook my head, not wanting to believe that could be true. That we were already so deeply into this and hadn't realized. "But the signals matched each time we received those transmissions. They came from the same source…that was verified…"
"They would have, if the Devore simply sent the message from the confiscated transport vessel."
"True," I had to acknowledge, swallowing thickly. I mulled it over. Forcing my mind to work like Kashyk's. "It could still be a lie. He could just be pretending to know about the transport ship. He could be doing this whole song and dance about defecting to get us to lead him to the other vessel. Hoping to take out even more smugglers before–"
She was already shaking her head, making me trail off before she revealed, "He referred to the nebula specifically. He knows the coordinates we're headed for. And he claims it's a trap. That there are Devore warships lying in wait to detain us there."
"And he can prove all of this?" I couldn't help making sure.
She nodded. "So he claims. He says he'll give the necessary modifications to Seven to enable her to detect their warships, and then we'll be able to see for ourselves he's telling the truth."
"He admits they use some sort of technology to cloak their ships?" I asked, my eyebrow rising in dubious surprise to mirror hers. She nodded again, and I exhaled a low breath.
My head shook slowly back and forth as the magnitude of his arrival here, and the gravity of our response to his ludicrous claims that he was defecting, all began to wash over me, one right after the other. As I came to understand how everything could now be riding on our response to his ridiculous ruse alone. "So we can't turn him away. But we sure as hell can't let him stay. We can't just…let him roam the ship freely…"
What the hell did we do?
But before I could grow uncomfortable enough to prod her, she looked up at me again. A new clarity to her eyes, and a crispness to her expression and body language. "Get Kir," she repeated. Her eyes flashing, no – flinting – steel. "And Tuvok. I'm going to speak with Harry, Tom and B'Elanna. Let them know what's going on, and that we haven't yet decided how to handle it. Get their first impressions. And then I'll meet you there – we'll decide what to do about all this between the four of us. And send Seven to Astrometrics in the meantime. I want to see this technology his ships are using to evade our sensors. Maybe it'll give us an insight into how to search for those recording devices, if nothing else."
That hadn't occurred to me yet. But I wasn't surprised it had occurred to her. We were already separating, parting ways. "Aye, Captain," I barely had time to respond as she disappeared around the corner. I set off at a pace just slightly short of running.
Janeway
"It's unusual, but not unheard of," Kir assured us when we confronted him with Kashyk's unlikely story in the mess hall. I raised my eyebrows as he continued, "There have been sympathizers before. Kashyk may be telling the truth."
Chakotay broke in with, "Maybe you should just read his thoughts."
I fought the urge to frown at him, even as Kir repressed a smile. We'd discussed that already, and I couldn't help but wonder where Chakotay's mind had wandered to in order for him to have missed it as Kir gently supplied, "Devore soldiers undergo years of mental training to prevent that."
"He might be telling the truth," Tuvok broke in, "but he also might be using us to find the wormhole."
That was the most likely scenario, now that we'd confirmed Kashyk's claims about those warships in that nebula. And the specifications on the Devore's refractive shielding had checked out, also. Meaning he either was telling the truth…unlikely…or he wanted to get to the wormhole desperately enough to betray a crucial tactical advantage his people had held over us until now.
Our credits were increasingly being stacked on the latter.
"So what do we do," Chakotay asked, exasperated, "throw him in the brig?"
That had been Tom's heated suggestion. B'Elanna had been less kind with the phrasing of hers. But it had made me smile, her intensity. I'd found it refreshing to have that intensity directed to another target besides me for a change.
Neither idea helped me, however. And there were still advantages to be had in this mess Kashyk's grand "defection" afforded us – the refractive shielding specifications only one of those advantages. I could make this elaborate deception of Kashyk's work for us, rather than against us. If I was wise enough to take advantage of the situation. If I could continue to play Kashyk even more skillfully than he was attempting to play me. It would be difficult. He was a particularly intelligent, and cunning, man. It would take all of my focus, my training and instinct, to be able to play this to our advantage the way he was playing it to his.
I could do it, I decided firmly in that instant. I could do this…because I had to.
"No," I declared. Making my final decision. All eyes snapped to me as I furthered, "We take him up on his offer to help. See how it plays out. But I want round-the-clock security," I cautioned strongly. "We need to watch his every movement." Tuvok and Chakotay's nods were all I needed to see before turning my attention back to Kir. "That leaves us with our next question. How do we find the wormhole?"
We'd have to do it on our own, now that the transport vessel that had been compromised.
"I've given it some thought," the telepathic patriarch mused. "There's a scientist named Torat. He's from a nearby system. He's rumoured to know more about the wormhole than anyone. He might help us…for a price.
"A price?" I prompted warily.
He frowned slightly. "His species power their ships with a fluidic alloy that's difficult to find."
"Perhaps we can replicate it," my security chief took the words right out of my mouth – though with a more stoic delivery than I'd have given them, of course.
"I have some data on its composition," Kir ventured hopefully.
"See what you can do," I instructed both men. "In the meantime we'll set a course for Torat's planet. Try to track him down."
Chakotay
Finding Torat had been tricky; he'd been a man not wanting to be found, but we'd done it. And after she and Kashyk worked him over, the funny little alien scientist had provided us with some previous known coordinates of the Brenari wormhole – that Kathryn hadn't wanted the inspector to see.
She called for Torat to be escorted to the transporter room, but we didn't see her emerge with the inspector for a few minutes yet. When she finally stepped out of the ready room, Kashyk in tow, I had to pause looking at her. She'd looked alive and…satisfied. A particular glint in her eye catching my attention as she'd all but brushed by me, handing me a PADD and casually instructing me to have the data integrated into the computer core, because she and Kashyk wanted to work on it immediately. They were going to do it in the mess hall, where they could grab something to eat while they worked, she called over her shoulder. Kashyk lingered only briefly. Probably to gloat over the fact that he'd spent the better part of the past two days with her, and his smug smile was nothing less than viscerally provocative. Intentionally, I knew.
I refused to give him the satisfaction of rising to his bait. I refused to even look at him for more than a few seconds' time.
I repressed the smoldering of my rage when he passed by me, exchanging a more perfunctory nod with Tuvok as the inspector traced the path Kathryn was taking. As I held the PADD she'd handed off to me, giving her a belated nod she didn't see, I inclined my head towards the security team that followed Kashyk everywhere he went, indicating that they should follow now, too. Even if she dismissed them and made them wait outside the mess hall doors like she had the ready room earlier, they would be in arm's reach if she needed them. I had serious misgivings about her working so openly with Kashyk, thought we'd agreed not to share any knowledge with him regarding the wormhole's location. Apparently, I'd been mistaken. Or she'd changed her mind. But that didn't mean I was going to let my guard down around him, too. Even if she appeared to be, to some extent.
Especially if she appeared to be.
Tuvok met my eyes briefly over his console, his steady gaze indicating absolute approval of my direction to his team.
There was no point in hiding Tuvok from Kashyk anymore. He'd known about our telepathic crew, too, according to Kathryn. She thought that forcing a little interaction with our telepathic passengers and crew might even be a good way to gauge Kashyk's truthfulness. After all, according to his claims, he would be living among the Brenari once he passed through that wormhole with them. There was also the fact that making him comfortable, after the hell he'd personally put us through during that first inspection, wasn't exactly our top priority. So far, he was a long way from appearing comfortable around Tuvok, but he held himself in check enough not to give off glaring indications of hating him.
I was glad I'd thumbed the PADD on, curious, before handing it over to Harry to see to her instructions. I caught the note she must have typed into the subject line without Kashyk's knowledge and couldn't repress the small smile as I read her message.
DON'T TRANSFER DIRECTLY TO COMPUTER CORE. USE ALTERNATE COORDINATES, BUT MAKE THEM LOOK SIMILAR. HE GLANCED AT THEM, BUT ONLY BRIEFLY. KEEP AN EYE ON US. I MAY HAVE TO GIVE FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS VISUALLY.
I relaxed considerably. That was more like it. A lot more. Handing the PADD off to Harry, I paused just long enough to make sure he read her message. He glanced up and nodded once. Letting me know he understood her orders, and I strolled up to Tuvok's station. "Keep an eye on them," I instructed quietly. "Watch closely for any instruction she might feel the need to give you. I've got to get down below," I was deliberately vague on this part, "and check on our teams. Keep me apprised, and let me know when they're finished."
He raised a questioning brow but nodded. "Understood, Commander."
I met up with her when she was finished, some eight hours later. She'd played it perfectly – admirably, in Tuvok's exact words, and it had been a relief to know. She'd left him at his quarters, declining his invitation to come inside and "toast their accomplishment".
Tuvok had been watching the whole time, keenly following every second of interaction with Kashyk. I knew that, and it was what had helped quell the doubts raging like hungry lions clawing at my back while she'd been in there with him all that time. Having seen just a clip of that interaction, however, all that I had time for with the continual sweeps we'd been running of the ship for surveillance devices, I'd grown decidedly uneasy with the extent of her "admirable" performance in that room.
"He's not quite there yet, Chakotay. He's not where we need him to be."
Those were just about the last words I wanted to hear out of her mouth. She was already giving the bastard more of herself even in role-playing than anyone else in the quadrant had ever really had. I could see it, at least, and even if she couldn't, I knew Tuvok could, too…
"What are you thinking about?" I was brave enough to venture. Not even sure that I really wanted to know.
She grunted a non-answer at me. But looking at her, I could see the wheels turning in her head. Her mind was busily working something over – something I'd never have followed at the speed at which she was processing it then. "Kathryn?" I dared to prompt again. "What aren't you telling me?"
Her eyes had clouded, and I didn't like that because it meant she was further away from me than I'd prefer, but the look passed before I could really focus on it. "I'm just thinking…" she trailed off. Clearly still at it.
I waited as patiently as I could until she locked gazes with me. And then I braced myself.
Janeway
I stalled. I'm not proud of it, but there were other considerations I needed to address first. Or so I told myself. I backtracked on the conversation, needing to clarify certain assumptions. Needing some things laid out before we got to my own role in this mess. "Tuvok made sure the formulas were switched before Kashyk saw them?"
Chakotay nodded gravely. "He did. While you were en route to the mess hall, the data on the PADD Turat filled in was shorted out and switched with comparable locations, like you asked."
I'd had only a second to type that message, asking that the locations be switched. And even while Kashyk and I were en route to the mess hall, I hadn't been able to double check the data to be sure the coordinates we were using were different than the ones the odd little scientist had given us. So I hadn't been sure they'd gotten my message before Kashyk and I had begun "working".
I released the breath I'd been holding, relaxing considerably. "Good. And when I asked the computer to run the locations? You caught what I wanted?"
"Yes. We got to that data, too. Just before he saw it." He paused, looking troubled. "We almost didn't catch that, by the way. What you were doing. You wanted us to have the computer tell him what you were asking it to do had worked."
"I wasn't sure you'd be able to pick up on that. I didn't want him looking at that data for too long, false or no, but I couldn't shut him out of the process outright without him being too suspicious." He nodded his understanding, shifting to rest his weight on his arm, placing his hand against the wall beside me as I continued. "I didn't think of that last maneuver until we were already in there, going through the data. It took some time for me to get a feel for his strengths and weaknesses." Chakotay gave me a questioning look at that, and I elaborated, realizing he wasn't privy to my every observation about Kashyk's capabilities. "He hasn't had any formal training in the field," I explained. "What he knows are the basics, with some specialized knowledge he's picked up over the years…or else intuited on his own, if I had to guess. But his foundation isn't there. It's no wonder he hasn't been able to find this wormhole on his own. And if his education on astrological phenomena is typical of most Devore, it makes sense that none of the Devore scientists have found it yet, either."
"You realized you could get away with asking the computer to run the transkinetic analysis, based on the knowledge he showed he has. Or doesn't have."
"Exactly. After we'd been working for a while, I realized the easiest way would be just to make him believe we'd worked it out." I cringed, remembering the tension running through me and how hard it had been to hide from Kashyk the almost unreadable signals I'd been giving Tuvok. How I'd been praying he'd catch them, as subtly as I'd had to give them.
"I'd just gotten to Tuvok's station when you told the computer to run the trans-kinetic analysis." He shrugged almost sheepishly. "It seemed plausible enough to me. Tuvok, too, I think." I smiled, unable to repress it. Like Kashyk, this sort of thing simply isn't his strong suit. "Tuvok caught what you wanted him to do when you looked at the door the third time when Kashyk's back was turned, but he wasn't sure why you wanted him to do it."
"I wasn't expecting him to, really. I was just hoping like hell he caught my signal to do it – and that he did it." I squinted at him, considering what he'd said as it caught up with my racing thoughts. "So…how did you figure it out then? What I was really doing?"
He considered pretending offense at my lack of faith. Gave up on the idea just as swiftly at my penetrating stare, another sheepish smile dimpling his chin. "Seven had stopped by to see if she could help work on the analysis."
"Ah." That's my girl I thought, studying my feet as I shifted my weight with an auspiciously proud little quirk of my lips.
"And when you wanted the points in subspace, she pulled us outside. Wanted to know what the hell you thought you were doing. She said you'd made a 'crucial error in logic' that seemed 'beneath your usual standards'." His smile was tolerantly amused now as he recalled her wording for my vicarious enjoyment, and I laughed, picturing her austere Borg expression when she'd said it. "She realized it a few seconds later."
"And informed the rest of you." I was beyond proud of them. We'd pulled that off perfectly. I couldn't have asked for better. But I sobered. "She's not still working on it, is she?"
He shook his head. "She wanted to, but I made her go back to the cargo bay to regenerate. She hasn't for several days, by my count."
"Good. I need you to stop by her alcove in the morning and ask her to go for a walk."
His eyes widened in expectation.
"Under no circumstance is she to continue working on that wormhole's location. Is that clear?"
He began shaking his head. "I thought we wanted…?"
"To find it? Yes. I'm pretty sure I've figured it out. Most of it, anyway. It's related to what I told Kashyk, but with a few crucial tweaks. After I take care of a few smaller things, I'm going to spend the rest of tonight working from a remote workstation. With the computer's help, I should be able to work this out alone, but I'll need to erase everything the moment I do."
"You don't want him able to work it out later," he realized aloud. "Or to find your work if he goes pawing through the database again."
I leaned forward, locking eyes with him to make the point hit home. "It's vital that he not be able to do that, Chakotay. Aside from finding the wormhole, that's our top priority. He is not to have access to that information. Not to the true previous locations, nor to the true formulas to be able to work out future appearances. That information cannot fall into Devore hands – I can't stress that enough. Everyone needs to be made aware of it."
"We've decided he's definitely not defecting, then?"
I snorted. Just staring at him from across the small space between us. He grinned. "Just checking."
I sighed, rolling my shoulders against the tension forming in them.
And because he couldn't help himself, he tried, "You don't have to work on this tonight, Kathryn. Get some rest. It'll keep until morning."
I shook my head. "No. It won't. These calculations are far too complicated to let go, and I need to be working on them soon, while they're fresh in my mind. Waiting until morning will be too long." I took a deep, inward sigh of a breath. "If I could have Seven's help with it, maybe," I mused ruefully. "Or Harry's…"
"You can," he insisted. "You know they can be trusted to–"
"No," I cut in. Firmly. "It's not a matter of trust, Chakotay. It's a matter of deniability and of ship's security. No one is going to know those formulas but me."
His entire expression dropped. That look crossing his face…the one that I'd been hoping like hell I wouldn't have to combat. Not tonight, damn it, there was too much left to do and I was too tired–
He dropped the gauntlet anyway. "You want to make sure you're the only person they can come after later," he declared flatly.
I met his accusing gaze. Unflinching, and unwavering. "Yes."
That was all I wanted at this juncture. And it would happen exactly that way, whether he, or the rest of them, liked it or not.
He considered trying to stare me down, I saw – trying to talk me down. I made sure he saw no chink in my armor, no weakness to be able to work. And after a moment, he simply closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall, and I'd won, and wanted to be satisfied with myself, but I saw the tired lines around his eyes and mouth so clearly again that I was suddenly saddened. Very saddened, for reasons I wasn't even sure I could identify.
But I sure as hell didn't have time and energy to waste in trying. Not with what I had to lay out for him next, and not with what I knew full well could be an explosive, vehement argument in the making from him.
I needed to know where he stood on this. How much I could count on him for support. That would determine how things played out as much as anything. I braced myself for the coming confrontation. Marshalling the remaining dregs of my stamina and squaring my shoulders for the coming fight.
Chakotay
"He's intelligent, Chakotay."
Damn. I tensed instinctively. Her tone was wrong. She was buttering me up for something…something bad. Considering the bomb she'd just dropped on me about the wormhole location…it did nothing good for the ulcer I was steadily developing. I felt my hands going low on my hips, preparing for the plasma grenade she was about to detonate on me now but kept my tone even. "You've said that, Kathryn," I reminded her patiently. "And I've agreed with you."
"We need him to believe he's succeeding in this deception."
Which one? I forcefully clamped down on my tongue to keep from asking as she continued.
"We're only going to have a chance of coming out of this unscathed if we can convince him that he's convincing me. If I keep playing along," she expanded, even added, "and it'll help if you do, too."
I felt a huge portion of my stomach dropping into my boots as she pointedly avoided looking me right in the eyes.
Playing along. With the way I'd seen him looking at her, the few seconds of footage I'd been able to review of the encounter she'd just come away from in the mess hall, I knew what that meant. All too plainly. She was already playing along. How much more did she think was warranted here? And I could feel panic beginning to shoot through me, as surely as I knew that showing it would have me shut out of her plans, and I tamped down on it as tightly as possible, making sure it wouldn't be visible.
"Playing along," I echoed hollowly. Prompting her to explain what I knew she didn't want to.
"I'm going to keep letting my guard down around him," she gritted out painfully. "Let him think he's winning me over. That's going to work much better if you and the rest of the crew react as naturally to that idea as possible." I stared at her, and she raised her eyebrow again. "If you make no secret of not being happy about that fact," she clarified. "It'll be a lot more believable that I'm falling for him if the rest of you appear to hate the idea as much as you should."
Falling for him. The phrase alone made me sick. Deception or no, these were dark, murky waters. Dangerous waters, with deadly predators lurking just below the surface. Waters rife with massive rip tides, like the ones I remembered from childhood…like those on Dorvan after a hurricane had bypassed the coast. She could so easily be caught up in them and carried far beyond any human aid. We all could.
My throat was starting to close up and feel tight. "Falling for him," I heard myself repeat faintly. "You want to pretend…" Spirits, hell. No. Kathryn. Don't!
But we don't do that. We don't play that game, don't even dip our toes in waters that neither one of us can afford to try and tread out here. Water just as dangerous as the other she was proposing diving headfirst into. The two of them would not mix. And no amount of overreaction, even reaction from me was going to play well right now, but I couldn't just let her…
I swallowed, my gaze deliberately, carefully on the deck as I tried to control my breathing. My heart rate. "Does 'pretending'…mean what I think it does?" I don't know how I managed to ask it as calmly as I did.
"We're at a distinct disadvantage here." She began laying out her argument. One I already knew would be smart and logical. Tactically sound – and probably impenetrable. "They do have most of the power, and apparently, the ability to figure out what we're really doing. They do this for a living. They're not to be underestimated in any circumstances, and I can't afford to throw away a single opportunity to keep him distracted. And it's a long shot that he's genuinely interested," I kept my mouth firmly shut, even clamping down on the outside edges of my tongue to keep anything but my jaw from flexing at that, "but if I have a chance to fool him enough to think that I'm genuinely interested, and cause him to underestimate me – I have to take it."
Her eyes were finally on mine then. Sharp. Assessing. "Tell me I can count on you to understand all this, Chakotay."
I was forced to meet her eyes. To swallow my personal concerns. I had one thin line I could wander along, one chance to say everything I desperately needed to say to her. One shot to convey every sentiment I wanted her to take to heart. About her welfare, and the danger involved in such a plan.
"It's my job to look after your safety, Kathryn," I returned as evenly as possible. Carefully showing no more hint of concern than I knew I could get away with. "And on top of that, you're my friend." That much, I was allowed to say, to acknowledge. No more. "This isn't going to sit well with me, no matter how carefully we do it." Stressing the "we" as unsubtly as I could was difficult while ensuring the inflection didn't betray me, but I managed it. And held my breath for her reaction. For her assessment.
I'd passed. I could see that I'd passed in the slightest softening of her expression. Relief flooded into me as her hand came up to rest bracingly, warmly on my arm. "If it makes you feel any better, it sure as hell isn't going to sit well with me, either."
It did, actually. It made a tiny, primitive part of me feel better to know that she wasn't going to enjoy it, at least. In spite of how admirably she'd been pretending otherwise over that coffee moments beforehand.
But I also needed to know how far she would go. And outright asking her now, in this climate between us, under this kind of strain and tension…wasn't the way to play it. I had to coax it out of her. Baby step by agonizing baby step.
"Are you sure?" I actually forced myself to tease, despite it being the last thing in the galaxy I was in the mood for. I pushed the clenching, the twisting of my gut away in the back of my mind, kept my tone and tenor steady. Because I knew it was the best way to lighten the tension for her. To make sure she had no excuse to "shield" me from any of this, and to ensure that she at least kept me in the loop as to her plans.
I had her curious with my efforts, albeit warily, and she gave me a mistrustful glare in response. "What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded, self-righteously indignant. "Am I sure about what?"
I shrugged, scrubbing a hand over my chin to disguise the weakness of my smile. "Granted, I'm not the best judge, but I'm told he's handsome enough, by general consensus of the female crew…"
"Really?" The glare had receded. She slanted a suspicious eyebrow at me. Knowing what I was doing now, yet appreciating me for it all the same. And then she grimaced, as some unseen thought crossed her mind. "Good God, Chakotay. Was someone actually taking a poll?"
I shrugged again, realizing what I'd just betrayed. Great. Now she'd be worried about what the crew was thinking. I tried playing it off as much as possible. "B'Elanna and Tom might've been wondering about–"
"Never mind." She held up a hand again, her eyes closing in deep suffering as she shook her head. "I'm sure I'd rather not know."
She was probably right, and it had annoyed the hell out of me to come up behind them and overhear them discussing it, but it wasn't the crew's fault. The inspector's interest in her was hardly a well-kept secret. He'd made it obvious enough from the way he looked at her, from the way he'd always pulled her into the ready room alone. From the way his hooded eyes followed her around the room even now that he'd "defected", when he thought no one was looking.
And Kathryn's pretending not to have noticed, or believing it wasn't genuine, be damned. I could rail about it, yell, plead, beg her to be reasonable until I was blue in the face – to counterproductive results – or I could smile. Jest. Joke about it. Keep her confidence, and some small measure of control over how safe she was while she did this.
I smiled, ignoring the lead in my gut. The way it seemed determined to have lodged there permanently. "So," I furthered the jest, almost hoping she'd bite. "He's handsome. He's got the big guns, the fancy title, and the fast ship. What would you think you were thinking about him…if you were me?"
She grinned, irreverently and wide. "That he's probably compensating for something?"
I blinked. Then laughed out loud before I could stop myself, coloring as I realized how loudly the sound had traveled in the small compartment we were stuffed into and leaned in closer, lowering my voice. "Something other than being a murdering, genocidal xenophobe, you mean?"
"You forgot arrogant. And insufferable," she added caustically. Entirely straight-faced and non-apologetic. "And yes – I meant something other than even that."
"Good to know where you stand on him, then," I allowed, but I was already sobering. Because none of our making light of it spoke to the danger, to all of the other, seedier aspects inherent to such a plan, and the mood of lightness was impossible to maintain for long.
She sighed. Rubbing at the tension accumulating in her shoulders. "I'm going to keep letting him think I'm working with him on the finding the wormhole. Letting him in, so to speak. But if possible, I want every relevant piece of data we can amass continually kept from him. I may have to give you signals that aren't so…obvious again, if the time comes and especially if he's in the room." She paused, thinking it over, her mind working at a million kilometers per second. "Just…be ready to pick up on the slightest of cues from me, if I have to use them again."
I nodded. "Can do."
She'd relaxed into my acceptance of this. Rather, into my apparent acceptance of it, which was what it really was at this early juncture. But I could ask now what I needed to know from her.
"How far will you take it?" I asked her quietly. Steeling myself for, clenching my gut in anticipation of her answer.
It came, right on cue, and just as deadly as expected.
"As far as I have to, Chakotay," she returned evenly. Decisively, and without hesitation. "It's really going to be up to him…"
"It's up to you, Kathryn, not him. Not ever him," I retorted heatedly. Too heatedly, too swiftly, and too automatically to stop myself. I forced myself to back down at the sharp reproach in her eyes then and to take a breath. To soften my approach. "What I meant…" I backtracked quietly, "is that any number of distractions and emergencies can come up at any given signal from you."
"And you don't think he'd find that the slightest bit suspicious?" She raised her eyebrow at me in that humoring way that makes me crazy more than anything. "If every single time we're about to…if every time, something comes up?"
"Plenty of men have been in the position before and learned to deal with it."
"But not without getting the hint, eventually, that she isn't interested. Which is exactly what we don't want in this instance," she reminded me sharply.
I could only look at the floor. Trying to summon the right words. The right argument…anything…to change her mind.
And coming up empty.
And then it was too late.
"I've got to meet with him again. If I've gotten as good a read on him as I think I have, he's arrogant enough to expect me to break and come back to him tonight. He's expecting me, I'm sure of it. But first I need to stop and jot down these wormhole calculations. Get them into print before I lose them." Her hardened expression flickered just one tiny bit. "I'll let you know as soon as I'm finished."
She started to walk by me. Ready to leave. I couldn't let her.
I caught her arm. She raised a challenging brow at me for about the fifth time in the last fifteen minutes, and I ignored the fifth one, too. "Tuvok's still watching him," I reminded her. She took her arm back, and I let her without a fight because my point had been made.
Surprising the hell out of me, she didn't bother arguing, or demanding that the surveillance be stopped. Maybe because she saw the determined light in my eye. Maybe, if I wanted to delude myself, just because she was taking her safety into account for once. Maybe because she fully realized how dangerous this kind of deception was with a man like Kashyk, with a race like the Devore, and because she'd already planned to have someone watching out for her. I don't know. I just know that she nodded curtly. Agreeing. "You or Tuvok will continue monitoring in case I run into…trouble," she allowed archly. "No one else. And no matter what you see in there–"
"No one will interrupt you unless you call for us…or you're being harmed." It killed me to say it. To confirm it. But it was the only option she was leaving me with. The only option Kashyk was leaving me with. And because if he did try to harm her, in any way…it would give me the excuse I craved to rearrange his cocky face for him.
She was silent for a moment. Running through her options? Trying to find a way out of this? Out of doing what she was considering?
She still hadn't explicitly told me what it was she was even considering. Again, I couldn't gauge her reasons. But again, she nodded.
And that had to be enough for me. Even if it wasn't. Watching her walk away from me, against every instinct in my body, I let her go.
Kashyk
"It worked."
I almost missed it. The smile she gave me when she spoke those words. She breathed them, pure pleasure reflecting across those smoldering alien features. Pure triumph. So close. And I almost missed it, I was so focused on the success of that method. On the nearness of my life-long dream. I'd never thought to check in subspace…really, who would have? It was the most obscure method of looking for the thing I could think of – but it worked. She was right. And we were going to find that wormhole, once and for all, I realized – with her help, of course.
It was in the next instant, once my own surge of triumph had its way with me, but in the next instant…
That was when I realized just how intelligent she really is. I'd known she wasn't stupid, of course. But that kind of reasoning…that kind of pure, deductive reasoning…there was no way in seven hells any man watching her work out that age-old problem could go on underestimating her any longer. And I wanted her for it all the more. But it was then that I realized just how deeply she was playing the game I'd laid out for us to play…just how deeply we were both playing it. As deeply as anyone ever had, deeper than I myself had ever hoped to be able to play it. I've simply never had an adversary with the necessary qualities. But she did. Kathryn had them. She was playing the game to the fullest, with every single faculty at her command.
And there was no more denying that they were watching me, that they were watching us. She wasn't foolish enough to trust me at this early stage in the game, would never risk being alone with me, no matter how willfully prideful I already knew her to be. And my gazes, the long, lasting, lingering gazes I'd made a habit of allowing to pass over her when she wasn't watching had to be quelled immediately. Along with many other things.
I told her the story while we waited for the results from the computer. The story I'd prepared about the telepath girl. And, like a good liar, I made myself believe it while I told it.
To put on an effective performance, some part of you must always believe your own lies. There's no other way to do it effectively.
The tears pricked my eyes, the emotion swelled in my throat as genuinely as any I've ever had, and I soiled the purity of my own soul with the compassion I was forced to summon for the girl. For the compassion I was forced to summon for myself – far less palatable, strangely. There was no cause for self–compassion and certainly none for self-pity. I was on the verge of achieving everything I'd ever dreamed of, everything I'd ever longed for.
I still wanted her then – I made myself believe I wanted her then, in spite of my excitement over our progress with the wormhole. I made myself believe I wanted her the way she undoubtedly wanted to be wanted, that was to say gently. With affection, not possession. With reverence and caring. Compassion. I've read her database. She wanted romance. Tenderness. That was what a human female preferred. She would want to make love first as equals. To establish trust and to reinforce her equality I would take her gently, generously attending to her pleasure over my own. A thing as alien to me as she was, but one I would do, for the love of country.
I could do it, if I had to, I'd decided, and I was consoling myself with the knowledge that it would only take once or twice to establish her complete and unfailing trust in me. Then, when she trusted me, I'd introduce her to the pleasure of being taken, completely and utterly, without apology or doubt or thought, but first, it had to be her way. With mutual respect, and with tenderness I would have to muster from…somewhere.
I told myself that was how I wanted her in order to make her believe it, too. And I turned my attention back to her, to seducing her. For it was that alone which would engage her emotions into this dynamic between us, would sway her more under my control and make her future actions more predictable.
I'd miscalculated. It was in the slightest gestures from her, which I had to be excellent at catching, at analyzing. It was in the smallest facial expressions…no, it was the intensity of her eyes. The more agreeable I was to her every miniscule whim, the more that intensity, that heightened tension stretching between us like an ever-thinning plasma thread about to snap…began to fizzle, and fade. Too much, I realized belatedly after much confounded calculation on my part. Too much giving, too much subservience.
That was it, and I could have kicked myself for my stupidity. I'd taken it too far in the beginning. Had been too nice, too solicitous now. Already, she knew me better than to trust it. What intrigued her about me, what she trusted and knew to be true in me had everything to do with the uniform and all it represented. With confidence and pushing back at her, with being her equal, if not her superior (which I undoubtedly was, of course, even if she was far too arrogant to ever admit it). But the struggle for dominance, the play of intellect was the crux of it. The challenge. That was what she wanted, needed, to be drawn completely into me. She needed to see aspects of that challenge in my behavior to be able to trust it was genuine, and I stepped it up immediately. Began to push back, to rework into the dynamic of conversation the power play we'd engaged in upon my previous visits, and then I almost forgot about the wormhole entirely because I fell into the role so well. That heat began resurfacing, the scent of her interest swelled in the air around us, and that delicious tension that's been charging the atmosphere whenever we were in the room together began to reassert itself as I stood close to her, reminding her with casual dissonance to her confidence that she has made questionable command decisions according to that all-helpful database of hers. Challenge. Forcing her to stay alert, and keeping that battle going. Feeding the tension.
It was beginning to work. I had tagged her jacket by the time I'd joined her at the viewport, ensuring that I could track her movements about the ship until she changed it, and my setup was almost complete.
I almost had her. At the doors, when she dropped me off just now, I knew I was close to having her. One final test, I'd decided. And I thought that I'd appeared sincere enough to pass the crucial test for her to relent and enter with me. To trust me. But I was wrong.
Only because they're watching me, I told myself as I forced my movements to be easier instead of sharp, which they wanted to be at her demurral. I covertly checked the local transponder, a complex coded encryption that alerted me to her location via the transponder's signal, imbedded discreetly along the inside sole of my shoe. This I checked only in the privacy of the bathroom – if I had privacy anywhere, it would be there. She was still in her quarters, according to the number sequence. My jaw clenched as I made my way back out to my living area. She was leaving me here, in this…sparse room. Deliberately sparse. No computer access. No communications, and even if I'd dared activate the subspace transponder and file my report to Prax, I already knew there was a communications damper around the room. No signal would transmit – not even my state of the art technology would penetrate it. She'd left me in what was little more than a well-padded cell. With a nonworking replicator.
A safety precaution. You understand?
A snarl pulled at my lips. If I was sure of being unobserved, I'd have kicked something. Smashed something and taken untamed pleasure in the crunching and smashing of glass that would double as the delicate bones in her arrogant, smirking face in that instant of destruction…
But I wasn't certain. In fact, I'd come to be more certain of two things as I stood there, just inside the doors and literally shaking with rage. The first that I was being observed, that she was far too cunning not to want to know every small detail she could glean from the moments in which I might mistakenly believe myself ensconced within the safety of complete privacy…and the second what I should have known at the outset of this mess: she wasn't going to make this as easy as I had anticipated. Damn her. If she didn't trust me, even a little, this would never work.
I needed some kami juice. Something to help me calm down. The pitcher of water on the low coffee table by the couch in the living area wasn't going to be enough to do more than slake my basic physical thirst, but I approached it anyway, my irritation growing. Water. What's next…bread?
She could not have been less subtle in the message to someone who has read her database. Through my anger, I wondered if she was perhaps testing what I'd read and what I hadn't, but of course I skimmed their practices for holding prisoners. Practices, theory, evolution. I was interested in the knowledge in its own right, though I might not have gotten around to it under other circumstances, but it was certainly practical information to peruse just before coming here to pretend to throw myself at her mercy. My lip still curled in disgust as I gripped the glass harder than necessary to turn it right-side-up for pouring, my hands trembling with building wrath as I filled it and tried to control my rising ire, snorting softly to myself in an attempt to expel some of it from my system.
It was plain, of course. Cool. Nothing like the coffee – which I still hated, despite the lie I'd told her. But at least the coffee had some sort of strangely…satisfying aspect to it upon consumption. When I got back to my ship, I needed to look that up. To study its chemical structure and see if I could determine what that mysterious element was that made the bitter stuff so satisfying to consume. Hells, I was craving some of it now. Not the taste but the sensation of satisfaction. Anything with an ounce of calming to distract me from the physical condition she'd left me in after standing there with her in that mess hall, breathing the scent of her all damned night long.
My jaw worked as I forced myself not to pace. I don't like it here, I thought to myself again. It was too alien, too strange. At least it's clean, I tried to console myself yet again. Still, perhaps one of their sonic showers would be in order. Just to…make absolutely certain…
But what if she came back and I wasn't available? In the back of my mind, I'd decided that she would. That she'd wanted to, that she wanted to be where she belonged this evening, which was in this room, in my bed. Under me. I think I'd been telling myself that she simply didn't want her crew to know how much she wanted to be in here, and that made sense to me…her not wanting them to know how much she wanted me. I'd honestly been expecting her to show, perhaps to use the transporters when no one was manning them, even though it would be a violation of codicils. She was being quite casual in disobeying those in front of me, knowing there was little I could – rather, would – do about it. At least now while I was in the middle of this farce.
But the minutes passed, ticking by while I stood there, standing over the coffee table and drinking the plain, unsatisfying water. And I began to realize with sinking heart that too much time had passed. She wasn't coming after all. I'd fail–
She materialized before the thought could be completed, and even if the sound didn't alert me, I would know who was here well prior to turning and facing the intruder. The scent of her swirled in the air around me, though she had not yet moved, and it intoxicated me just that swiftly. To my surprise, I wasn't entirely ready for it. Though I should have been. Knowing she couldn't resist temptation for very much longer…
I'd known, of course. I hadn't been worried. Not really.
"Inspector." The purr of her voice. It sent shivers through me, if I was honest. It was meant to, and I cursed her for it, decided to add it to the list of sins she would atone for later, when this farce was over and done with and I had the wormhole, the ship…and her. And again, I damned the unmasculine, civilian clothing obscuring my body as I turned to drink in the sight of her. She'd left the jacket back in her room, and stood here in the more form-hugging grey sweater…shirt…whatever the hell it was. That was why I hadn't been alerted that she'd moved, of course. But good. It would be one less layer to have to remove in a few moments, and I licked the remaining drops of water from my lips as I observed her from under hooded lids.
My eye ridges drew up into the appearance of surprise, but I allowed the slow smile to spread across my face, taking care not to allow it to cross the line of being too smug. There was a balance to be maintained here, as she'd caused me to learn earlier this evening. Not too much either way. "Captain. This is…a surprise."
She made a chastising sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth, although her smile was tolerant, her eyes amused. "And you were doing so well with being truthful this evening." She crossed the room, her movements so languid and fluid that it took me a moment to realize she held something in both her hands…I almost smiled again to grasp it as she set the items down on the table beside the water. Coffee. A container exactly like the one we'd shared in the mess hall and two of the same cups specialized for the warm liquid, all of which she arranged neatly and succinctly on the table before straightening and facing me again. "Don't spoil your record now," she chided softly. "You knew I'd come."
Yes. Of course I had. I merely shrugged as I continued to regard her closely. Drinking in that scent of her I was coming to know – and crave – so well. "Why didn't you accept my invitation earlier?" I questioned.
She held up two fingers in front of her. "Two reasons. The first–"
"Being that your crewman was watching," I quietly, only slightly smugly broke in before she could dance around it.
I would swear she colored at that. It was almost charming. But she never took her gaze away from my face, and as close as we were standing then, it was a heady sort of perusal she was subjecting me to then. I was being studied. Catalogued. Decided upon. I kept my cool, despite the unmistakable rise in temperature beginning to saturate the air around us. "What was the second?" I asked, casually sipping the remaining water in my glass just to restore some more of the moisture to my throat. My eyes never leaving her for an instant.
The grin she flashed then was pure deviousness. Deviltry. But it didn't quite prepare me for the frankness of her reply.
"Because you're an arrogant son of a bitch as it is, Kashyk." I blinked in shock, but she only laughed – low and warm and sultry, and I admit it took much of the sting out of the blatant insult as she elaborated, "I couldn't have you thinking you were irresistible, now could I?"
"Ah," I allowed, with an acknowledging nod. I set the glass down on the table, keeping my eyes glued to her and not missing the flicker in her smoky blue gaze as the leaning brought me to within centimeters of her and her scent assailed me, almost flooding through my senses as I scrutinized her just as closely as she was me. Judging her reactions, her true intentions as I straightened with deliberate slowness. Took a single step forward that almost brought me flush against her curved body. She tilted her head back to continue meeting my eyes, making the column of her white neck more visible, and my eyes couldn't help being drawn very briefly to the pulse beating at her throat.
The now swiftly-beating pulse at her throat.
"Then why are you here, Kathryn?" I taunted softly. But I wasn't feeling the superiority because she could change her mind at any second, and overstepping the balance would have her doing so out of sheer pride if nothing else, and I very much knew this about her already. I blunted the edge of the question, "Why did you come if I'm so easily…resisted?"
Her voice was low enough, sensual enough to be torturous as she whispered, "I don't quite know, Inspector."
"I hate that title," I reminded her of the lie. "Kashyk, please." I surveyed her expression at that, calculating what it could mean and ventured, "Unless it's the title that really attracts you."
We both knew that, on a basic level, it was.
She could no more afford to admit it than I could, however.
"Of course not. Kashyk," she added pointedly and cleared her throat.
She broke the spell – somewhat – by moving slightly out of range to lean down, giving her attention to the coffee long enough to pour two cups. As she stood upright again, sipping slowly from her mug, she pointedly ignored the way I stood, staring and soaking up her every minor movement. Avoiding my direct gaze. Leaving the ball in my court – where, incidentally, I happened to be comfortable with having it.
"Coffee?" she indicated the second cup with her free hand, where she'd poured out a portion for me.
It had lost all appeal, however. Considering the more tempting offering standing just beside it.
I made my decision. I want to say it was my mind that made it, that it was necessity that made it and not the raging, increasingly straining bulge in my civilian pants that made the choice, but that was as much a lie as any other I'd told her while pretending to defect to her "protection".
"No," I declined, hearing the growl of my own voice and seeing in the last second before I completely circled behind her the way she froze in the middle of taking another sip. Going very still as I stepped up behind her. And this time, I did allow our bodies to touch. Tentatively for an instant, and then, when she didn't protest, more firmly. I reached around in front of her, briefly closing my hand over the one that held the cup, and letting my fingertips – my very bare fingertips – trail over the outside of hers. Beginning already to relearn the texture of fine porcelain skin there. Skin she didn't know how I already knew, skin she had no idea had me aching to learn the rest of it.
"Put it down," I commanded – wincing to realize the tone may have been too harsh in my increasing focus on what we were going to do now.
But she didn't react adversely to my tone. She did little more than comply, leaning forward briefly to set it down, and I confess it wasn't accidental that I stepped forward with her as she moved, allowing the flexing of her muscles to play against my own very aroused body, letting her feel the extent of what she did to me with just her presence. With just being here, only standing so very close to me. And it was with no small amount of satisfaction that I noted the way some of the hot liquid splashed over the side of the cup as my hands moved to smooth over her shoulders as she straightened.
"Are they watching?" I asked, not accidentally very close to her ear, and I felt her reaction to those vibrations as what I liked to call a shiver.
"No." Her voice was a throaty whisper, almost breaking on the on the word.
I wasted no time, my fingers tightening into the bones of her shoulders, pulling her just this side of roughly back against me, relishing in, being further tortured by the softest of gasps escaping her slightly open mouth. My hands smoothed up and down her arms before I took some of the shining, faintly perfumed red hair aside, sweeping it to the right and exposing the left side of her compelling throat to my willing, hungry mouth and fastened my lips on the white skin revealed just below her ear. Sweeping my tongue along the warm expanse of skin my own open mouth encased, I heard another soft sound escape her lips. More of a moan than anything else, and then she unmistakably began to press herself back against me. Into me, and as her hand came up to cup the back of my head, her fingers playing through my hair and stimulating the sensitive skin even while she pushed back against me with as much skilled deliberation as with passion, the groan that filled the too-hot air around us was entirely masculine this time.
Even if I hadn't had to play this role with her, I already knew from studying that I would have to be somewhat gentle. There were discrepancies in our physiologies, I strained to remind myself, even as I felt my stubborn resolve to restrain myself unraveling under the feel of her moving against my body.
She wasn't making retaining control of myself easy. Nothing about her was easy. If I could be sure she wasn't lying about them watching…
If I could have been sure of that, she would already have been face down on the table, trying to hold on for dear life as I drove as deeply as possible inside of her. But I couldn't be, and the restraint required alone was sapping me of crucial intelligent thought. I allowed her to break free of my grip, to turn excruciatingly in my arms, brushing against me, and I schooled my features not to betray the depths of the wild, raging hunger she'd been fueling, building from the beginning of our first encounter. We looked into one another's eyes very briefly, catalogued the level of need in the other, checking for genuineness and for hints of deception. Just barely present enough, I suspect, in both our cases to do that one final time…
And then her fingers were coming up to my head again, her half-closed eyes focused on my slightly open mouth, fingers sliding through my hair, bringing my head down to her level in tandem with her rising up on her toes to bring her mouth higher, and our lips almost crushed together with all the ferocity living in both of us –
No, I remembered in the back of my mind at the last instant: I wasn't going to let her…not right away. I pulled my head to the side, out of her grasp, intending to play it off as I instead nuzzled the side of her neck, licking and nipping at the flavor of the flesh I'd already decided I needed to taste again and again before I'd have enough of–
"Kashyk," she murmured, in a tone meant for response.
I ignored her, my possessed hands smoothing firmly up and down the curves of her waist, ready to wander to more delightful places entirely, my eyes already dropping to her breasts and mentally undressing her, beginning to guess at what I would find once I began stripping away those cumbersome, coarse layers of cloth separating me from my prize. Her hands were sliding between us, flattening over my chest, and I tensed in anticipation of her skilled fingers slipping under the material, expecting to feel her nails perhaps razing my heated flesh and not certain I wouldn't lose control of myself entirely when she did…
She pushed back from me entirely, breaking free, and I groaned in frustration. In more than a little aggravation.
"What?" I growled, not bothering to keep the irritation from creeping into my voice. It was then, studying her expression closely, that I noticed how much clearer her eyes were. How much the haze of passion had receded from the blue…
She stepped forward again, but with deliberation. More calculation than need, and when her hands went again to my face, to the sides of my head and she leaned up to within a centimeter of my lips, I pulled back this time out of necessity. Out of concern.
It was the wrong thing to do.
She leaned back down, flattening her heels on the deck, pure, hurt accusation lasering me where I stood. Yet her voice was quiet, almost deathly calm as she asked, "Care to explain…?" She gestured vaguely between us, eyes locked onto mine, and we both knew what she meant.
"I…" Had she reduced me into a stuttering fool? Damn her, did she have to make everything such a trial?
I tried to look apologetic instead of murdering. This was a careful, crucial part of my calculations, had been from the beginning. I wanted her to believe she was weaning me from my beliefs in stages. I needed to hold something in reserve to be able to convince her my falling for her was gradual, genuine, and I had left that one simple aspect…kissing…for much later. Because it was intimate, more so than simple fucking. And especially because it certainly wasn't going to interfere with our pleasurable activities otherwise…as her filthy telepathic friend would have said, it was the logical choice.
Or so I'd thought.
She stared at me, no hint of arousal left on her face. Only the slight flushing of her skin remained of that, and that heady scent that had been swirling in the air, the scent unique to her was fading swiftly. I wished my own de-escalation was as swift, but in that moment, through my incredible rage at being so abruptly denied contact with, release from her, most of the crucial blood I was trying to gather for proper thought was still pooled decidedly in certain southern regions of my body.
She was still waiting for a response. This mattered to her that much, and I was confounded.
"It…isn't done," I blurted more than explained.
She seemed confused. "Kissing? The Devore don't…?" Her eyebrows were rising, but so was my temper. As well as my physical frustration. "Really?"
"No." I felt somehow judged by her incredulity. As if my people were under attack, and my defense was swift. Perhaps too decidedly so. "We do. Of course we…" I was trying like hell to look more confused and sheepish than as enraged as I was becoming. Despite her sudden craving for banal conversation, I was seriously considering shoving her backwards onto the table and simply fucking the impulse out of her but prudence reigned yet over my behavior. "We just…not with…" I nodded in her general direction and shrugged, trailing off, eager to close the matter and move on with far more enjoyable activities.
"Not with a gaharay." Her entire face hardened before she could stop herself.
And I knew for certain that I'd lost my chance, that easily.
No!
"Kathryn…don't," I made myself coax instead of snap. I moved for her, reached for her, desperate not to let her get away. "It's habit, nothing more–"
She put her hand out, a shield against my chest that stopped me from moving forward any further, her eyes lowered to the level of that same hand. "It's all right, Kashyk," she assured me softly. "I understand."
But her refusal to let me near her belied the statement entirely. And she wouldn't look at me.
I took a deep breath to steady myself…a deep, miserable failure of a breath. "You're upset." I forced…forced myself…to remain calm. To remain still. Even though every instinct, every fiber in my body – of my being – protested inactivity. Craved to crush her against me, to learn every centimeter of the feel of her body smothered against mine. And swallowed, looking – I hoped – crestfallen instead of enraged. "I'm sorry. Don't let this ruin something as good as we both know we can be..."
Don't you DARE. I'll break every bone in that delicate little gaharay body of yours if you do, I silently promised her, fuming under the veneer of civility I was compelled to maintain. And in that moment, I think I really would have. If this had been my ship, and she'd done this abrupt turn-around there…
"It's all right, Kashyk." There was a soothing quality to her voice inherent to rejection. I found it distasteful. Galling, that she had the nerve to believe she had the right, or the ability to truly refuse me. I could have her any time I wanted. Could have, already, at least half a dozen times...!
But I had to pretend otherwise, of course.
"I told you, I understand. But I think…this was a good thing, in a way." The incredulous look I shot her then made her smile. Faintly. "Really. We were getting…carried away. And neither one of us can afford to be distracted right now. Our main concern should be finding that wormhole and getting the Brenari – and you – to safety. That's what we need to focus on until we accomplish our mission. You agree, of course?"
There was nothing left for me but to agree. She knew I couldn't afford to pretend that my ultimate goal would be otherwise. It simply wouldn't fit with my defector alibi.
"Of course," I allowed, through only slightly gritted teeth. Forcing myself, yet again, to smother my natural impulse, which was to throttle the life out of her for what she had just done to me. For the size of the now-painful erection she was planning on leaving me with. If she knew what was good for her in future, when I came back and took the ship, she wouldn't dare actually do this…
But there, too, I miscalculated. And it was my final mistake.
The anger. It swelled in my eyes, past my tight control. I know that it did, because her eyes narrowed just barely enough for me to perceive, but I caught it just the same. And she straightened. Beginning to smooth her appearance. Her hair. Her uniform. She'd made her decision.
She was really leaving. Leaving!
It took every ounce of self control not to reach out and stop her as she brushed by me then. But doing so would have been contrary to my mission. And I knew with certainty I didn't have enough information memorized from the little I was permitted to see of the computer's analysis to end this farce yet. Not yet…
As her solicitous, warm fingers that still had the skin on my arms and scalp tingling closed over my bare arm again, she halted long enough to look up at me. "I'll have someone come in and fix your replicator shortly. When they do, you'll have access to whatever food selections you can find in our database."
I tried to muster enough humor to smile, but knew full well it was a sad excuse for one. "Decided you trust me enough not to replicate anything sinister, have you?"
She treated me to one of those low, husky laughs then that did absolutely nothing for the state of physical discomfort I was in, her fingers tightening ever so subtly over my skin. "No. But I think I've decided I like you enough not to subject you to cold leftovers of whatever Neelix made for dinner."
Remembering "lunch", I grimaced in earnest, knowing I'd get away with it. And as we hadn't had time to eat anything this evening, neither one of us being hungry for food while we were working on locating the wormhole, if she hadn't thought of it, I'd have been left to the mercy of whatever leftover monstrosity that orange cretin had devised to torture the crew with this night. It was considerate of her. Surprisingly so, if I forced myself to look at the moment from her limited point of view, in which I'd just gravely offended her. Over kissing, of all god-forsaken things! But she was offended. Deeply so.
And damn me for it, but I was grateful for her thoughtfulness. In spite of the rage, that was.
I nodded. "Thank you," I allowed, in response to her generosity. And surprisingly, meant it.
She returned a curt, perfunctory nod at complete odds with the lingering regret that flashed, unguarded, across her face and held up a warning finger, the devious light returning to her gaze. "I should caution you – if you do try and produce anything with that replicator other than food, my officers will be notified, and you'll be in the brig before you can complete the request."
She was joking. Mostly. I met her eyes. Scrutinized what I saw there. And decided that all was not yet lost, despite the grim outlook of just a moment ago. Not entirely lost. She was only spooked by my missteps.
I would make certain there were no more.
I decided to give convincing her to stay one last shot. "I'm not terribly fond of eating large meals just before bed. Can you recommend anything light?"
"Try the pasta soup – Neelix six five one. It might do the trick."
I smiled ruefully. "Is it safer than the Talaxian's usual fare?"
Another chuckle, light and shallow. Almost rueful, and she took her hand from my arm with a shrug. "As long as I'm not making it, you should be safe enough."
I could only quirk a brow at that, confused, bitterly frustrated that she wasn't taking the bait, weak as it was, and she didn't care to elaborate.
But, she was beginning to trust me. Regardless of what she said to the contrary. She would never have come here in the first place, otherwise. And she certainly wouldn't be allowing me replicator access. Monitoring or no.
I would work on it. Work on her. She would be brought to heel before the necessary interval. Of course she would.
Her eyes softened as our gazes met for a final time. "Sleep well," she murmured, as she made her way a few steps closer to the door.
"And you," I returned automatically. Regretfully. Watching as she tapped her communications pin and disappeared from my room. My cell.
The life sagged out of me, briefly. It was as if the vacuum her disappearance created took with it my last vestiges of reason, of self restraint. My cheaply made civilian suit, taken from a telepath, chafed at the erection I would not fully lose until I achieved some form or release, whether by her – no longer an option – or by my own hand – also not an option, not being certain I wasn't being watched. Despite the optimism of a moment before, a snarl pulled at my lips. I would let her filthy telepaths watch me…I would stoop to that level only when I was long dead and preserved. Without thinking, I picked up the water glass, hurled it across the room. It did not shatter. Neither did the heavy pitcher I hefted next and threw after it. It simply poured water all over the floor it sailed over and the wall it struck as the lid came off and the contents exploded all over the point of impact, but the glass itself again remained unbroken. My rage spiked further at the lack of satisfaction. The chair I seized from across the sparse living area and chucked into the same wall made only slightly more noise, but it too, did not break, and finally, my fist struck the same wall and the pain of crunching my bones into solid, wet bulkhead was – barely – enough to vent the first wave of ire.
I shouldn't have wanted her the way that I did. I shouldn't have allowed my own body so far into the deception that I lost control of my responses. The gaharay bitch was getting to me, in ways no other had, and my other fist struck the wall at the same time that a feral howl of fury escaped me.
She would pay for this loss of control, I decided, inspecting the broken skin of my left fist, which had struck the wall with the most force. For invoking it, for provoking it within me, I would be sure to repay her in kind. I would repay her tenfold, I decided, brought out of my rage only by that thought.
She would account for it, later. I had only to weather the next few days, or however long it would take to locate the next appearance of the wormhole. For now, I would wait. And continue playing the game.