The Ring

Chapter 10 - Rescue

The cloaked shuttle moved past the Cardassian border the moment the sensor pulse had passed, Janeway at the helm, Jack at tactical.

"So far, so good," he said, eyes on several readouts at once. She lowered the shuttle carefully into a geosynchronous orbit above the prison complex dome on Herod Minor, which, like Rura Penthe, had no atmosphere. The sprawling dome looked like a menacing, cancerous barnacle on the rocky surface. Unlike the Rura Penthe enclosure, in which the Klingons had taken some pride, the Herod Minor prison bore signs of haphazard repairs and additions. The whole place had the air of a survivalist experiment that was going badly.

Janeway sat at the edge of her chair, breathing shallowly, until orbit was achieved. Then she started barking orders in a low, tense voice. The team moved to the weapons cache at the rear of the shuttle and began slotting tools and weapons into place on the assault uniforms. Janeway gave the order, Harry initiated the transport, and they found themselves in a poorly lit corridor made of a substance that looked like broken rock held together by cement. Compared to the modern Starfleet facilities in which they all spent most of their time, this space was startlingly primitive.

"Guess they didn't waste any money on décor," Harry whispered.

Holding her tricorder ahead of her, Janeway led the team forward. The corridor they had transported into ended in a T junction. Lifesigns from a variety of species populated the tricorder readings of a larger space beyond the wall they faced – a gathering area, or perhaps a work area, since labor was the only reason to keep most of the prisoners alive. Far to the end of the left arm of the T was a group of Cardassian lifesigns. There was no noise, and it was impossible to tell if they were actually in the corridor or in some other space beyond another wall. Janeway extended a tiny camera attachment from the end of the tricorder and poked it beyond the corner. Empty. She pointed to Jack and Harry and directed them to the left. They readied their phaser rifles and slipped past her silently. Their task was to neutralize what appeared to be a guard station at one end of the cell block where Janeway and Torres hoped to locate Chakotay.

Janeway and Torres took the right hand branch of the T, which led them past a series of heavy doors containing other life signs: Klingon, Romulan, even a few Cardassians, then several empty cells. Janeway was about to turn back when the tricorder picked up faint readings all the way at the dead end of the corridor. As they hurried forward and more data appeared on the screen, Janeway turned to mouth over her shoulder to Torres: "Human."

The door hiding the weak human life sign was just like the others: low – barely five feet high – and made of solid metal with a niche out of the bottom just large enough to slide a tray across the floor in and out of the cell. No light was visible from within. The corridor itself was lit with light-emitting rocks embedded in the ceiling at regular intervals, giving only a sickening amber glow. Janeway removed a small blowtorch from a pouch on her armored vest and made short work of the locking mechanism. The moment the door shifted from its frame, alarms began to sound and brighter lights clicked on the full length of the corridor. Harry and Jack were no longer visible at the far end.

Even before Chakotay was fully visible to them in the dark cell, they heard a hacking, phlegm-bearing cough. Janeway and Torres clicked on wrist lights that illuminated a tiny room with a small hole in the middle of the floor and a low cot against the far wall. Slight movement solidified into a human form on its side on the cot, and at last Janeway could identify the dirty, emaciated shape of "Chakotay!" She cried out at the sight and rushed forward to throw her arms around him as he held a hand up against the lights and tried to withdraw across the narrow cot.

His arm, slowly closing around her, was thinner and weaker than she remembered. His body under her hands was all ribs and spine and sinew and his dark brush cut had grown out into long, silver strands. He bore a strong resemblance to images she'd seen of his aged father. She held him tight and let her hot tears soak the thin tunic that was his only protection against the prison's cave-like cold. Finally, she realized that he was shaking and pulled away enough to see his face.

"Kathryn," he breathed, studying her up close in the glow of her wrist light, making sure that every pore, every eyelash was as he remembered. "I thought I'd never see you again." He coughed a little and blinked as B'Elanna's face came into focus just behind her. "I made myself believe I would never see you again." She could barely hear his voice over the wail of the alarms.

Janeway heard the noise of B'Elanna setting up the transport enhancers around them, but she did nothing but cradle Chakotay in her arms. "I never gave up," she whispered in his ear. "I never gave up."

Just as B'Elanna finished setting up the transport technology, Jack came crashing through the door of the cell, Harry in a fireman's carry over his shoulder. "Get us out of here!" he shouted at B'Elanna. "NOW!" The transporter activated just as three armed Cardassians rushed into the room, firing into the circling molecules, striking only at air.

They materialized in the rear compartment of the small shuttle, bumping up against shelving as Janeway protected Chakotay's half-lying, half-sitting form with her armored body. When the full light of the shuttle hit him, just before he winced at the brightness and shut his eyes, she saw him staring at her with an expression of such anguish that she thought she would collapse with the weight of it.

"I'm right here, Chakotay," she said. "It's Kathryn. Your wife. It's me. You're safe now. I'll be back in just a second. I have to take care of Harry."

She turned away from Chakotay to where Jack had deposited Harry on the deck before rushing to pilot the shuttle back to the Dauntless. Harry was clutching his abdomen, barely conscious. Janeway filled a hypospray and held it to his neck, then hesitated for an instant and glanced toward the chair where Jack sat. She leaned in close to Harry. "What happened?" she whispered.

Harry's eyes opened for a moment to fix hers. "Jack … he saved my life. Picked me up and ran from the Cardies. If I don't make it, tell him" – Harry's face contracted again in pain, but he forced out the word "thanks" before losing consciousness. Janeway applied the hypospray before opening his uniform to examine the phaser blast he'd taken full in the belly. The skin was unbroken, but the medical tricorder indicated severe internal injuries. The only hope was the fastest possible trajectory back to the Dauntless and the EMH.

Janeway turned back to Chakotay, who was still conscious, lying on his side facing her, eyes shut in a mask of pain. After a moment he blinked his eyes open and looked over at Harry, then at Jack and B'Elanna, who were at the controls, frantically evading pursuers on a return course through the neutral zone. Chakotay looked around him at the tiny, unfamiliar space. "It can't be real," he said. "I'm hallucinating. I do that sometimes."

"Let's get you to the bunk," Janeway urged, trying to help him shift toward the low bed a meter behind him. When he attempted to move, however, he cried out and fell back toward the deck on his right side.

"No – leave me here," he panted. Janeway shoved the pillow from the bunk under his head, seized a medical tricorder, and began to evaluate her second patient almost before Chakotay's head rested on the pillow. She clucked and sighed as readings began to fill the screen. "I'd say they did a very competent job of trying to kill you, Commander," she whispered, leaning down to kiss his temple. "But you happen to be very hard to kill. I'm going to have to give you something to let you sleep." She took a hypospray from the medkit only to feel Chakotay's frail, contracted hand push back against hers.

"Please," he implored. "Let me stay awake a little while longer. This might all be gone when I wake up. Let me stay with you." His plea was so earnest, so pathetic, that she couldn't refuse. She grasped his hand. He grimaced at the touch, so she let go and scanned his hand.

"You have several crushed phalanges," Janeway announced and delicately rested Chakotay's hand on the deck. She scooted a little to sit cross-legged where she could see his face. "The Doctor will take care of osteoregeneration as soon as we're back on the Dauntless. You're severely malnourished, dehydrated, and you have stress fractures in … let's see … in the metatarsals of both feet. Several other broken bones are badly healed and will have to be reset. You have contusions across most of your body and" – she broke off and rose to circle Chakotay and kneel behind him as he lay partly on his side, holding his back off the deck as he had on the cot. "May I?" she asked, taking hold of the tail of his tunic.

He twisted away from her, each small movement etching new expressions of pain on his face. "No," he said, "I don't want you to see." He glanced toward the front of the shuttle, where B'Elanna, looking back at them from tactical, had gone very pale.

Janeway crept back to Chakotay's front side. His head rested on the pillow, sweat beading on his forehead. She lay beside him, with her face close enough that he could hear her quietest whisper. "Tell me what I can do for you," she said.

His eyes took her in. "I just want to look at you, for as long as it lasts. They'll start the neural disruptors again soon."

"No," she told him as the shuttle shook with the forces of Jack's unsubtle escape trajectory, cometing back toward the Dauntless. She tried not to think of what might be pursuing them, or whether Geordi would be able to wait long enough. "No more neural disruptors. No more pain. I'm taking you home."

His expression didn't change, but his eyes shone with love and confidence. "I know you'll come for me, Kathryn. You won't let me die here. My beautiful wife. I don't deserve you." He was clearly trying to focus on her, but she saw consciousness slipping away from him. His eyes slipped shut and his breathing became a little less labored.

"Sleep, my beloved," she murmured to the white-haired, devastated creature on the floor beside her. When she was sure that he slept, she applied the sedative and analgesic hypospray, then jumped up to take her station.

#

Captain La Forge's crew beamed Chakotay, Harry, and Janeway directly from the shuttle to Sick Bay the moment the shuttle bay doors closed behind them. Even as her feet settled onto the Sick Bay carpet, Janeway felt the shudder as the Dauntless jumped to warp. Geordi had been nervous. They must have barely made it.

She handed her tricorder readout to the Doctor, who gestured at once to the Dauntless's CMO. "Dr. Turvill," he said, "we're going to need to begin at once. I am very familiar with these patients. I understand that this is your Sick Bay, but would you be kind enough to assist as I treat Ensign Kim? His condition is critical." Dr. Turvill agreed at once and stepped to the head of the biobed.

Janeway moved to the biobed where Chakotay's body had appeared. He had awakened with the movement of the transport. He was groggy, but he managed to lift his head. "No. Please, Kathryn – wait outside."

She could have fought him. He was in no condition to resist if she chose to stay. But his eyes pleaded with her, and now that he was back, alive, and she was in a position to give him something he asked for, she found herself unable to refuse. "Okay," she told him with a small nod, leaning over to kiss what looked like a small, unblemished spot on his cheek. "I love you." The Sick Bay nurse moved forward with another hypospray, and Chakotay sank back into sleep.

The EMH and Dr. Turvill didn't look up from their urgent work on Kim as Janeway backed out the door. In the corridor, Jack and B'Elanna were rushing toward her.

"Let's get you to the mess hall," Jack said in a firm, brisk tone. "This could take some time and you haven't eaten in hours." In the short weeks he'd known Janeway, she'd been distracted and rather easy to cajole into simple things like eating and sleeping, as long as their plans advanced at a good pace. He took her arm, expecting that she would follow him without objection. This time, however, there was no yielding in her.

"I'll stay here," she said without emphasis. "Until he's awake." Her voice made clear that this was the end of the discussion.

"We'll bring you back some food," B'Elanna said and started off immediately down the corridor, waving to Jack to join her. When they'd gotten out of earshot, she said, "This is the way they are. Whenever one of them is hurt, the other waits. Nobody can do anything about it but bring them food."

"I see," said Jack. Then, in a tense voice, "He didn't look very good, did he?"

B'Elanna frowned. "No. But they've both come through worse. I'd give him a good fighting chance, especially with the EMH. We learned a few things in the Delta quadrant."

"And Harry? I didn't get a look at him after we got back to the shuttle, but he took a direct phaser blast. Only the body armor could have saved him."

B'Elanna stopped walking and faced Jack squarely. "The body armor helped, sure. But you saved him, Commander. When I'm wrong, I say so."

Jack acknowledged her apology with a nod. "You were protecting your captain. I respect that."

Over an hour later, the Doctor appeared at the Sick Bay door to announce to the trio seated against the far wall, "They're both resting quietly. Ensign Kim's internal injuries have been repaired, and he's strong enough that he will recover quickly. Commander Chakotay's condition remains serious. I've repaired the dermal damage and begun healing and rehealing the fractures, restored his fluid levels, and treated several infected areas. There are neurotoxins in his bloodstream, including hallucinogens, that will take days or possibly weeks to flush out of his system completely, and it will take even longer for him to regain his strength completely. He's out of danger, but he will require ongoing treatment."

Janeway was on her feet. "May I see him? Does he want me?" she asked in a subdued tone, craning her neck to see the figure on the biobed. Unlike before, he seemed to be resting comfortably on his back.

The Doctor waved her in. "He's still mildly sedated, but he'll know you're here."

Janeway pushed away from the wall, walked over to the biobed, and pulled up a stool before leaning close to Chakotay's head. His face looked more peaceful. The mask of pain had dissipated, but he had still aged greatly in a few short months. With a glance at the Doctor, who nodded permission, she carefully took Chakotay's hand, and leaned down to kiss him lightly before she sat at his side. "You gave me a scare," she whispered. "No more solo vacations for you."

He opened his eyes and examined her face. The strain of the past months as well as the rescue showed in the fine lines around her eyes, but she was lit from within at the joy of seeing him alive and mending. There was no trace of anger or doubt in her warm expression as she held his hand to her chest and leaned over him. Had she forgotten, he wondered? "What I said" – he began. "My statement – it was – "

She gave a tiny shake of her head. "You don't have to explain. I know they coerced you."

His face grew both sorrowful and fearful as he clasped her hand close to his heart. "There are things you don't know, Kathryn. Things I have to tell you." He shuddered. "I'm afraid you won't be so happy to see me when you hear."

She shushed him with fingers on his lips. "It doesn't matter. I know. Sveta came to see me."

A look of wonder stole across his face. "Sveta? She told you?"

Janeway nodded. "She told me what she told you, what she gave you. She couldn't be sure that you actually went through with it. I obtained the sensor grid data and Sveta's technology and confirmed it myself. I'm the only one who knows." Her face was very grave, but she hadn't moved from his side, hadn't removed her hand from his grip.

Chakotay stared as if he was sure he was hallucinating again. "Then … I don't understand," he said. "Why are you here? Are you – are you taking me back to stand trial?"

Janeway lowered her head to his chest for a few minutes, just breathing and listening to him breathe. Finally she pulled back up and looked him in the face. "When Sveta first told me, then when I finished analyzing the data and I was really sure, I – I don't even know how to describe what I felt. You don't know how everything has turned upside down the last few months. Everything I trusted and relied on had turned against me" – at this, Chakotay interrupted.

"Including me." The soul-deep pain had returned to his face. "Kathryn, I'm so sorry."

"There was something Sveta said. She told me that you loved me, and you'd done everything you could to protect me, under the circumstances. And the circumstances were like nothing we could have imagined, back in the Delta quadrant. What Owen did" – she paused and lowered her head. "I don't know that I wouldn't have done the same thing, in your place."

He was quiet for a moment, studying her as if she were surely a welcome figment of his imagination. "You amaze me, Kathryn," he said finally. Twin tears slid out of his eyes and down the sides of his face into his ears. She wiped them away. Then he seemed to remember something. "Then, the annulment?" his voice cracked on the word. "Was that real?" This was what had nearly broken him, the cruelest of the Cardassians' taunts, the one thing he'd truly believed, because how could she not hate him, after what he'd done?

Her face transformed at the word 'annulment.' "What?" she sat up with a small cry. "What annulment? I never signed any annulment. Nechayev and her cronies kept pursuing me to do it, but I told them to go to hell. Did they tell you I annulled our marriage?" Her face was horrified. Her eyes flew to his hand. The ring she had placed there was gone.

His damp eyes followed her glance. "My ring was one of the first things they took from me in prison. I didn't take it off willingly. But they showed me the document, Kathryn, with your signature and thumbprint on it. And then they showed me the news vid where you…" he searched for a euphemism for the contempt with which that other, bitter Kathryn spoke of him, "denounced me."

Janeway's jaw clenched as she struggled to contain her anger. "More forgeries. More false vids. We've been fighting this for months. The conspirators have been exposed, but their poison is still everywhere."

He took both her hands carefully in his, which still ached, but no matter, the joy of touching her was greater than the pain. "I tried not to believe it, but I thought even if you didn't believe I killed Paris, I'd only have to tell you if I ever saw you again. I thought – even if I lived, I'd destroyed the only real happiness I'd ever had. I didn't think there was any hope you could ever forgive me. There were days when I begged to die. Very soon, I think I would have."

His confession was so soft-spoken and honest that Janeway had to blink back her own tears.

"Chakotay – know this," she said, reaching down to cradle his cheek in the hand that still wore his ring. "It was very hard at first. They said terrible things about you. They said terrible things about me for marrying you. And then Sveta visited and I learned that the truth was even worse than I thought. But then my mother came and she reminded me that I'm a Janeway, and the only thing to do was to fight for the man I love." At these words, he turned his head instinctively to kiss her hand. "And that's what I've been doing, every minute, every hour. Like it or not, you are still just as married to me as you ever were."

He had a brief struggle to sit up in his weakened state, but when he had, with her help, he pulled her in as tightly as he could, and wept. There were no more words.