A/N: I uploaded this chapter on Sun Aug. 9, but ff has been acting funky for the last two days. When I posted this chapter I never did get a notice that it was posted. The same may be true for subscribers. So if this chapter looks like it doesn't make sense, you probably haven't read chapter 9. ~Isobel

Time Enough
Chapter 10: Choices

Another hour in the tubes seemed to pass slowly. In the adjacent corridors occasional hisses were heard from severed conduits and clicks from Ket'zali or Mencari. But the violence seemed to have defused itself. They had not heard the occasional clashes between the two factions, one marked by deep grunts and the other high-pitched growls and clicks.

"You both may rest while I inspect the grill work." Seven began to run her hands along the grate, her tricorder following along.

Both Kathryn and Dani crouched next to Seven. The Captain smiled at the girl, only receiving a tepid half grin in return. She was growing weaker.

Dani turned to face her other mother, who had ambled half a meter ahead, her hand still sliding along the seams of the grating. "Are we there yet?" Dani asked for the tenth time.

"Presently," Seven answered serenely, also for the tenth time.

"What are you looking for?" the girl asked, feeling Cappie again come to rest beside her.

Seven fell to her haunches, running her hand along the duranium grating. "I am attempting to find....ah," she said triumphantly. She pulled open a hatch door. Warm, smoky air rushed in, making the three cough.

Janeway squatted besides Seven, leaning over to peer outside. She covered her mouth and nose with a hand.

Seven traced the curved outline of Kathryn's face. The smattering of freckles also seemed to draw her eyes and she wondered why the Captain did not have a string of suitors on Voyager. She had a good body, attractive face. Yes, certainly she was a little forceful, but was that not her duty as Captain? Kathryn Janeway was not invincible, though she pretended to be. But Seven recognized that as a mere tactic of leadership. Who would follow a fool into battle?

Kathryn's tender side, hidden from most if not everyone, was evident every moment she was with Dani. It only deepened the attraction the blonde had for her. Not even Kathryn's two black eyes could quash those feelings now.

Stepping into the corridor, Janeway rubbed her lower back with a gratifying moan. Still stretching, she turned to regard their situation. Gray smoke reeking of burned plastic and rotting flesh billowed around the corridors, which was four times as wide as Voyager's and twice as high, no doubt to accommodate the ten-foot hulking frames of the lizards. She gratefully accepted a moist red handkerchief from Seven that she tied behind her neck.

Janeway looked briefly at Seven, who was tying a white handkerchief to cover Dani's nose and mouth. "We are nearly a thousand meters from the shuttlebay," Seven declared.

"Only," Janeway muttered. "Is the smoke poisonous?"

"The smoke is not toxic," she said, studying her tricorder. She snapped it closed, as she unfolded her lanky form ever so gracefully from the tube. "But Mencari and Ket'zali are roaming them."

Janeway considered the information. "How far away is the shuttlebay using the corridors?"

Seven's dismay was blaring, but she answered. "One hundred fifty meters."

"Let's use the corridors." Janeway turned, pointedly dismissing any further discussion.

Seven searched Janeway's eyes before responding. "The Ket'zali appear to be unaware of Jeffries tubes' existence. They are a safer course."

"Ket'zali." Janeway tried the word on, finding it oppressive. Images of the Ket'zali in charge of her torture came to mind, sending a shudder through her body. Janeway's eyes traveled up to study the Mencari ship. "Maybe these Ket'zali know about the chutes, Seven," she said. "Maybe they're tracking us now."

Seven's blonde hair was usually tightly wound into a neat and functional gather behind her head. Now long, insolent blonde strands whirled around her face and a few tendrils spiraled down along her neck. Kathryn lifted her hand. The possessive urge to brush the strands was tempting, especially when Seven looked so absolutely adorable with a black smudge at the tip of her nose that streaked in a broken line down her cheek.

Janeway inhaled deeply, as if fortifying her resistance. She let her hand drop and reluctantly dragged her gaze away, spying both ends of the hazy corridor.

Janeway knew an exhaustive debate between them was most certainly imminent, given the piqued expression on Seven's face. The Captain almost sighed, until a throbbing pain at her temple reminded her that allowing her lungs to catch up meant painful reminders of her injuries.

Once again, Janeway glanced back between both ends of the corridor. The smoke was making it difficult to navigate, but it would also provide. She looked up at Seven. "Have you considered how we will escape those tubes if the Ket'zali happen upon us?"

"They will not." She intoned with the typical Borg arrogance.

"You don't know that," Janeway said.

They both watched Dani crawl out and slid down a bulkhead to land on her butt with a gentle thud. Two loose fists held her baby face. The elbows balanced against bent knees and her feet were angled in.

"It is a small opening, Captain," she said. "They will not know that we are aware of them. The Ket'zali appear to be larger than the Mencari would find the entire network too confining."

Janeway shook her head. "I don't like this, Seven. None of it." She pointed out to Seven how easy it had been for them to escape and walk for a several hours, even converse quietly as if they were having a spot of tea. She found it difficult to believe the Ket'zali did not know their whereabouts. "Maybe they are herding us here."

"The Ket'zali are outnumbered—"

Before she could stop herself, Janeway's hands went to her hips. "You don't know that."

"I interfaced with the ship, Captain. I do know."

"What if more Ket'zali beamed over since your last computer interface?"

Dani rubbed her temples in circles, as she listened to her parents argue. She'd heard them argue countless times, usually more acidly than now. But the disagreement sent a foreboding chill through her and she shuddered.

As their discussion became heated, Seven stepped closer to Janeway to lower her voice. She noticed the burning red on Kathryn's ears and face. "These tubes sufficed to search for you. We have not encountered any hindrance. I do not comprehe—"

Janeway trembled and then her skin prickled to sense Seven standing close. The taller woman's heat felt comforting. With her fingertips, Janeway grazed her forehead above her right eye as an unwelcome dizziness tried to settle in.

She closed her eyes when she felt Seven's plump breast pressed against her shoulder blade. Janeway leaned into the hand at her elbow. "Captain," Seven whispered, as if she were hovering near her ear, the soft buzz of the tricorder lilting up and down. "You appear to be—You are fevered, Kathryn!"

Janeway pressed a palm against the bulkhead to support herself, her head lobbing forward. "So, let me get this straight," she rasped with all the bluster she could manage without toppling over. "If I disagree with you, I'm sick?"

Janeway expected a monotone outburst of anger that only Seven could deliver with a stinging effect. But for several heartbeats, only the hissing of severed conduits around them and the clanking of small devices in a backpack could be heard. Then below her, Janeway heard Seven growl through gritted teeth. "How inefficient! Fever reducers are unattainable in a hypospray."

The Captain blinked down at a palm offering two white tablets. The Captain shook her head. "Save it!" she whispered. Captain Janeway was not about to allow more drugs into her system. She needed her wits.

The palm fisted, turning a ghostly white. "Dor-sho-gha!"

Janeway slowly tipped her head to look at a disheveled and stone-faced Seven. "Did you just swear at me? In Klingon, no less?" Her eyebrows rose to the ceiling, as she pushed herself off the bulkhead.

Seven took two deep breaths, smoothed a hand over her wild strands and replaced the analgesics inside the medkit. She stood, shouldering her backpack. "You are a most frustrating patient, Kathryn."

When Janeway continued to study her, Seven turned away, the scrutiny almost crushing. "Lt. Torres suggested that invectives could be a useful management method." The blonde looked back at Janeway. "For demanding occasions requiring robust techniques."

"Did it work?" The Captain asked innocently, tipping her head. She let her eyes settle on the small hollow at the bottom of her throat.

Seven adjusted the backpack at her shoulder again. "It did not. You remain inflexible and uncooperative."

Janeway made a soundless "ah." "Be wary of advice from an engineer whose only tool is a sledge hammer."

Rubbing the needle puncture, the Captain considered the murky corridors, looking along both directions. She turned to catch a downcast Seven, following her gaze to a sleeping figure on the floor.

Seven's hand followed a decisive, experienced path from the girl's forehead to the pulse at her neck and quickly placed a hypospray to the thin neck. A small hiss announced its activation.

Seven fixed the pale child's collar, waiting for the injection to take effect.

The girl began to taste her mouth. Dani's eyes fluttered open, but they remained lidded. "Thirsty."

Seven opened a canteen and handed it to Kathryn, who tipped it against Dani's lips. "What did you give her?" Kathryn asked.

"Epinephrine."

"Adrenaline? We better get the hell out of here before it wears off!" The Captain looked down each end of the corridor again. Neither direction seemed distinguishable from the other. "We have been sitting here for fifteen minutes without so much as an invitation to dance. Maybe the aliens decided we left."

Captain Janeway squinted slightly at Seven, who was angry with the her, the Captain knew. The ex-drone did not like orders, particularly when she believed she was correct. But they could not very well debate this here and now. "Which corridor leads to the right hangar?"

Seven pointed to her right.

"All right," Janeway said, rising so quickly her bones complained. "I think I'd rather jog than crawl anyway."

"The corridors are dangerous and this is a tactical error," Seven said smoothly, rising to meet the other woman's measuring gaze.

"Objection noted," Janeway said coolly, as her hand flicked forward. "Now let's move."

Without another word, Seven assisted Dani to her feet. The three made their way in single file, running around or hurtling over cadavers.

=/\=

Captain Kathryn Janeway was infamous for having a sharp retort for every occasion that was neither vulgar nor crude. But she was at a loss just now. Dangling like a morsel with fifty Mencari lolling their tongues, dribbling saliva and humping each other's legs.

It was just the tight spot to make her want to break that rule of decorum. A bevy of coarse swear words were on the tip of her tongue. It wasn't so much her endangerment. It's part of the job of a Starfleet Captain. But Dani's unexpected presence churned up more emotions than expected. Added together with the beatings during interrogations, Janeway was not in fine form.

Of course, the Mencari's warlike tail slams didn't help her concentration. They dangled their disrupter rifles; some letting them drag as if they were afterthoughts, like mere brooms. Their leader was familiar to Janeway and Seven. Councilor Ba'tour's extravagant style of dress among a culture of simplicity made her stand out. Her purple silk pantaloons were billowing, and she displayed none of the baser instincts of her crew.

Her large head swayed back and fourth, taking the trio in. "Ush'maul," she said at last, her lisp more pronounced than before.

Janeway recognized the Mencari honorific and wanted to fire the compression rifle and severe the lizard's jumbo head.

But Ba'tour recognized none of these emotions playing across the face of a usually calm Starfleet Captain. Ba'tour held an open palm upward. "The last enemy of a thousand suns lies in wait for the girl, Ush'maul," she said.

Janeway glanced at Seven, who understood the subtle command. She briefly assessed Dani's position between them as adequate and turned to survey their location. Two corridors, at right angles to each other, spilled out into a large anteroom. Her tricorder began to buzz behind the Captain.

Meanwhile, Ba'tour took a step forward, her long, thick tail slithering behind her. The business end of Janeway's rifle fired a single, concentrated shot, scarring the bulkhead just ahead of the lizard and filling the half moon shaped foyer with the smell of burning plasteel. "Gifts," Ba'tour said. "I bring gifts for the sa'tumi."

Sa'tumi? Oh, dear heavens, did I go and get myself married to some Delta Quadrant native, Janeway thought morosely. She glanced apprehensively at Seven, who met the gaze with a hint of concern.

"Sa'tumi says...." The Councilor's eyes twisted in the opposite direction as guttural growls and clicks flooded from her throat. Then another Mencari stepped beside the Councilor, holding a large bucket filled with objects that Janeway or Seven did not recognize.

"It is I, Councilor Ba'tour...." She raised her arms, as if allowing the women to examine with their own eyes. She slammed a fat, clawed paw into her chest. "Your sa'tumi."

Janeway had long since tugged down her bandana, squinting and coughing at the swirling black smoke that hemorrhaged from the ship. She ran a filthy sleeve over across her face to clear her watery eyes and the profuse sweating. She narrowed her eyes, her rifle at the ready. "I'm afraid I don't know what sa'tumi means, Councilor."

"Brood mates are we."

The Captain Janeway eyed her cynically, alarmed by the casual friendliness. In Janeway's view, the Mencari had lured her to the Eesh'tob on false pretenses and then attacked. Her trust of the Mencari was at zero after the Ket'zali incursion. It was as if they had planned it together. She didn't like being ensnared. It raised her Irish dander and smothered any desire for Starfleet diplomacy. Not a good combination.

Ba'tour tried to take another step, but Janeway waved the rifle barrel menacingly. The action forced the Councilor back once again. One of the Captain's strategy was to keep that long tail out of reach. It could mow them down before they could even blink. Of that, she had no doubt.

The Captain felt Seven behind her, the whisper tickling her ear. "Captain, there are two Starfleet signatures in the hangar bay."

Janeway arched a brow, taking a deep breath. "That's the best news I've heard all day."

"Indeed," she said, stowing her tricorder.

While the two were whispering, Ba'tour issued orders in a guttural draw that the universal translator had difficulty interpreting. Before they had even finished, Ba'tour made room for two more crewmembers, each carrying one side of a large, covered vat.

The lizard turned to another of her crewman, growls, clicks and pops were exchanged between them. Finally, Ba'tour turned, raising her arms triumphantly. "The Ritual of Friendship! Sisters are we, Captain!"

Captain Janeway offered a cautious smile. "How fortunate for us. Okay, sister Ba'tour," she said dryly. "How about you open this hangar bay for us and let us leave peacefully. I believe your Field Marshal was more interested in flopping her tail around than helping the sa'tumi."

Ba'tour's mouth fell open and her tongue flicked out. "Amusing, sa'tumi. But she did not share the ritual with you. And, yes, the Field Marshal is one of our more aggressive do'cali'rah."

"Do'cali'rah?" Janeway shook her head slightly. "I think the universal translator is petering out, Seven," she whispered to the woman next to her. "Tell me, Ba'tour," she raised her voice again. "Did you plan this little ambush with the Ket'zali?"

The question brought another round of clicks and growls, along with rabid tail thumping. Janeway turned her head slightly away. Seven noticed the blush creeping down her face. "I could really lose the disturbing dry sexual grind of lizards over there," she whispered to Seven.

Seven observed the animalistic drive of some of the more aggressive lizards holding more docile ones down or against a bulkhead. The stronger Mencari would grind their pelvis against the groin of their chosen partner. "I believe, Captain, it is less sexual and more a show of dominance over one another."

"I'm sure they would just love to bully our legs," Janeway growled.

"Or perhaps just yours, Kathryn."

Janeway's eyes lifted to Seven, who raised a brow.

"You are the Captain, the Ush'maul and now the sa'tumi. Authority over you would be quite the feat."

Janeway faced the increasingly restless Mencari. "Well, I didn't let my Irish setter hump my leg and I'm not about to let a lizard do it either."

"That is wise," Seven said. "Interspecies copulation is against regulations without prior authorization."

Janeway's eyes again darted to Seven, who was completely devoid of even the faintest smile. With no sign of amusement, Janeway filed that comment away for another, more appropriate time.

Suddenly, Janeway turned toward Ba'tour, sniffing. "Seven, do you smell..." Janeway inhaled deeply again. "Do you smell manure?" Before Seven could answer, Ba'tour began to call to her.

"Sa'tumi," Ba'tour cried. "If you but relinquish the child to us, then you may—"

"Not a chance in three hells, sister." The faint humor in her gray eyes vaporized, replaced by a glacial stare.

Ba'tour resumed wagging her head, a move that Janeway took for dismay. This was her opening. "Sister Ba'tour," she said calmly, letting any scorn wash away. "The child is my daughter." She saw a ripple of movement begin in the Mencari and tails began to twitch.

"Sa'tumi! We were not aware—"

"The Field Marshal knew."

Ba'tour smashed her tail to the ground once, sending a reverberation through the ship's plating. "She failed to mention it! This changes everything, Sa'tumi."

The Captain's eyebrows shot up, incredulous. "What does it change exactly?"

"May I die in hunger and isolation, Ush'maul, if I speak a lie! We did not know when we found her among the Ket'zali." She paused briefly, her eye turrets jumping between the child and Janeway. Then Ba'tour bared her serrated teeth. "How did you come to lose such a little one, Ush'maul?"

Janeway felt Dani's eyes on her, as if she were waiting for the answer, too. But sometimes, the best diplomacy was a tap dance. "You said you bring a gift. The only gift I want is for you to open the shuttlebay door for us," she gestured with a thumb behind her. "I would say that would be the most effective sign of sisterhood yet."

It was then that Ba'tour began to jerk her head and twitch her paws. Neither Starfleet officers understood what her chameleon-like change to green meant.

Janeway nodded diplomatically, Ba'tour gestured to the container, nodding for them to open the lid. A loud sucking sound filled the room, along with a malodorous stench.

Janeway grimaced, while Seven merely parted her lips to breath through her mouth. Dani whined loudly, before clamping her nose down with both hands.

The foul odor appeared not to have affected the Mencari. They all stood unyielding. Ba'tour's continued friendliness was disconcerting.

"Quickly, sa'tumi. Before the Evil Ones come." She gestured to the vat. "We would protect you."

Janeway's wary expression turned adamant. "No, thank you, Councilor Ba'tour. But I think we can take care of ourselves."

Ba'tour's tail finally began to heave, her crew falling back cautiously. She dipped her paw into the vat's chunky, brownish-green soup, drawing a long and loud throaty cry from her crew. She raised her paw. Its stench slapped the trio and nearly floored the girl.

Seven caught her under the arm. Her knees were nearly too wobbly to stand, so Dani wrapped her arms around her mother's waist. A reassuring Borg-gilded hand gently stroked her shoulder.

"Is that...?" Janeway looked down at Dani. She wanted to give in to the word "shit." It was the only word capable of even suggesting her revulsion of the reek. Instead, she darted back to Ba'tour. "Is that feces?"

"Yes, it is our gift we mentioned."

She scratched her forehead, suddenly remembering her gravimetric headache. "Not the one I want, Ba'tour."

"It will save the child, Ush'maul. From the evil ones."

Janeway allowed herself to glimpse the girl, who oddly enough was not stricken in panic. The Captain dismissed the observation because she may be too fatigued to register the danger.

Dani watched wide-eyed and listened intently. She held onto Seven.

"We think of the child, Ush'maul. And the cherished Borg."

Janeway carefully avoided Seven's expression, as she stood next to her. A peculiar, trivial and intrusive thought came to her: "Now there's a worthy title." And then it skittered away as quickly as it came.

The Captain turned to fully face Ba'tour; her demeanor was full command mode. "What exactly are you suggesting?"

Dani knew exactly what they were suggesting. The act had saved her life on a previous occasion. "Ket'zali eat young ones...." Ba'tour gestured with her claws for Dani to come forward.

The Captain worked her mouth, watching the lizard as she held a handful of excrement. Janeway poised the rifle site on Ba'tour's approaching belly. She cocked her head, rubbing the length of the trigger with a finger. "There's going to be a family funeral if you don't back off, Ba'tour."

Ba'tour slammed a paw into her chest, yipping at the pain.

The Captain wasn't sure, but maybe the Councilor was frustrated, too. Their lack of facial expressions made it difficult to read them.

Keeping her eyes on the self-flagellating lizard, Janeway pitched her voice for Seven's ears. "Something's agitating our friends."

Though she had been calm, Dani was showing signs of agitation. Perhaps she is alarmed by the growing unrest of the Mencari, Seven surmised.

Ba'tour was growing increasingly restless and frantic. "Sa'tumi, there is no time!"

"So, Councilor, what are you suggesting?"

Ba'tour tipped her head side to side. "Have I not said?" She gestured with the hand slathered with puce mush.

"Are you telling me that you want us to roll around in shit?" Janeway was so appalled by the idea the word slipped from her lips. She glanced down at Dani, catching a look of surprise.

"Captain," Seven whispered. "Eridani has indicated that is how the Mencari protected her. They saturated her in feces." Seven cast a faint shoulder of disgust their way, as she stood. "It is how they protect their own young from Ket'zali. Eridani was covered in it when the Doctor found her."

Janeway vaguely remembered the smell of manure as she and Seven led Dani in the Doctor's arms to safety. She'd dismissed it as the smell of a poorly kept space station.

"Yes!" Ba'tour waved her arm again. "It is so, sa'tumi!"

"I've handled blind eels, eaten live slugs, held your molted skins and now this?" Janeway's voice was marked with bewilderment. She shook her head, and then realized she may not understand such a gesture. So she painfully enunciated a clear answer. "No."

Ba'tour's eyes twisted frantically in alarm. "We would protect you, sa'tumi, the child and the—"

"Precious Borg. Yes, I understand, Ba'tour." Janeway hoisted the rifle, balancing the stock against her hip. "This will protect us."

Ba'tour swayed her tail. "This is magical." Again she dipped her paw and raised it, renewing the thick odor of putrid rot. "We squeeze it from the large intestines of our prey—"

Janeway groaned, wondering if it would be better to face the Ket'zali instead of these nauseating rituals.

"We've kept it in stasis for this very moment."

Janeway scratched her eyebrow. Sometimes life in the Delta Quadrant was peculiar. No one was ever going to believe this in the Captain's Club on San Francisco.

It was time to exit, gracefully or not. With an eye on the shrewd lizard, Janeway leaned over, a foot falling between Seven's and the Captain's right hand resting on the woman's left hip just under her arm. Seven tipped forward, putting her ear beside Janeway's mouth. It was an intimate near-embrace suited for lovers, not a Captain and her crewmember.

"Seven," Kathryn whispered, her eyes darting quickly between the blonde and Ba'tour. Seven could feel the woman's warm breath on her neck and she closed her eyes for a solitary heartbeat to revel in the passionate sensation. But the Borg was not one to indulge, particularly when duty called.

Kathryn's eyes remained vigilant against a species that would exploit this brief calm. She even caught a brief look of intense inquisitiveness in their child's eyes. But she shoved that thought away. "Listen to me. I want you to—" Kathryn lifted her eyes toward Hangar Bay Ka'ah and back again to Ba'tour. "See if you can contact the Starfleet officers on the other side of that door."

Seven nodded, throwing her backpack to the ground, to hide her lips from the view of their enemies. "Yes, Captain."

They each turned their faces millimeters, their lips a breath away. It was like the trappings of regulations melted away and two women stood together, stripped of rank and age and every other thing that divided them. "Remember, darling," Kathryn whispered. "Remember your promise to me. To get our baby out of here."

Janeway's head snapped toward the line of armed Mencari, when she mistook their fidgeting for an advance. She braced the rifle stock against her shoulder, raising the muzzle to Ba'tour's massive head. She chanced a glance back again, seeing alarm mar Seven's lovely face. "You promised me, Seven."

"We cannot...I cannot leave you, Kathryn. I—"

"You must, Seven of Nine." Janeway felt her chest swell with compassion for this woman. "There is no other way. Consider it an order." Janeway spun toward Ba'tour, watching the Councilor's frenetic exchange with her subordinates. In one swift motion, she caught Seven's lips in a soft but fleeting kiss. "I'll cover you." Janeway patted Seven's hip, and abruptly untangled herself from the woman.

She pulled Dani over in a half embrace. "You and mom are going ahead. Okay, sweetheart?" Janeway brought the girl to her side in one sweep of an arm. She felt the girl stiffen beside her, attributing it to their difficulties relating. She quickly leaned in to give Dani a peck on the lips. "Be good."

"Tell me when, Seven," she whispered as she turned to face Ba'tour again. She was startled to see a white, nearly translucent pigmentation on most of the Mencari, including Ba'tour. When Dani saw the Councilor, she gasped and her eyes began to dart around.

"Ush'maul!" Ba'tour hissed. "They come!"