Lt. Tom Paris was trying to get a fix on his surroundings as he focused on one thing at a time, which was just about as much as his mind could handle. Over in the surgical bay, the EMH was running an osteoregenerator over Chakotay's leg. Captain Janeway was standing between him and Paris, and kept glancing his way with a sympathetic look in her eyes. Lt. Tuvok was standing by her, wearing an expression that could only be described as Vulcan. Ensign Kim was on a biobed, back in uniform, looking around sickbay as if trying to figure out what was going on. Torres was seated on the biobed next to him, back in Maquis fatigues. Paris frowned slightly at that—how did she get her fatigues on Voyager? Were the sickbay replicators capable of producing leather vests, tight red pants, and leather boots that went above her knees? Did someone from her ship beam them over? It was easier for him to question such things than actually spend time thinking about what just happened—one second, he had Ryan's wrist in his hand, the next, he was watching his best friend fall to his death.
He shuddered slightly, then forcefully shoved that thought into the back of his mind and pulled himself to the present. Kim was looking at him with a slightly quizzical expression on his face; had somebody asked him a question that he hadn't heard? He was about to ask when the comm system chirped overhead. *Bridge to the captain,* Ensign Rollin's now-familiar voice called out. *Two Kazon ships are approaching.*
Captain Janeway pulled her gaze away from test pilot she had "borrowed" and glanced around sickbay, her eyes widening. "We're on our way," she replied. Her first officer was dead, and she was in sickbay, surrounded by her chief of security, conn officer, and ops officer. Who was left to be manning the bridge? "Mr. Kim, Mr. Paris," she said, shoving aside the feelings of concern. "If you're feeling up to it—"
"I'm fine, ma'am. Captain," Kim said quickly, flushing slightly with the mistake as he hopped off the biobed.
"Wait! I haven't released you yet!" the EMH protested. They all ignored him.
"We need to get back to our ship," Chakotay told Torres. She glanced very briefly at Paris with an unreadable expression, then nodded brusquely as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and strode confidently to the door. Paris smirked slightly when he saw Kim's eyes widen at the sight—it wasn't every day a young Starfleet officer got to see a trim half-Klingon in tight pants and boots like that walk away. He decided he wouldn't ever tell the young ensign about the clingy low-cut dress Siobhan Patel had Torres wear for her first Rigel Cup mixer; he didn't want to give the poor kid a stroke.
---
Chakotay glanced around, slightly uncertain as he tried to remember the way to the transporter room. That's the problem with Starfleet ships, he thought to himself. Every corridor looks exactly the same. He couldn't even remember if they were on the right deck.
"So, I take it there's something between you and Lt. Paris?" he asked conversationally as he glanced over his shoulder to see B'Elanna Torres still matching his quick pace.
He missed the glare she gave him. "Not that it's any of your business, but no," she replied, her tone making it clear that it was not a topic she was going to discuss.
Chakotay grunted as they passed through the doors to Transporter Room One. He didn't believe her—he saw the way she avoided looking at the blond pilot, and saw the way the Starfleet officer looked at her. He had seen men look at the young engineer before, most of the time without her noticing, but that look was different. He figured the two had some sort of history. "You sure about that?" he asked as they stepped onto the platform. She was still glaring when they rematerialized on their bridge.
"Torres to Seska," she barked into the comm system as she took her seat at the engineering console. "What's the status of our engines?"
*We might be able to survive,* the Bajoran's dry voice replied. Torres rolled her eyes and checked her consoles.
"Well?" Chakotay asked, his attention already on his own panel. "Can we do this?"
"Depends on what we're doing," Torres replied. "Are we sticking around and fighting, or getting our asses out of here?"
He grunted. "What can you give me?"
She scanned through the data on her console. "We might be able to get up to warp four, but not for long. Phaser banks are fully charged, amazingly enough after that last stunt you insisted on pulling with Gul Evek."
"Then I guess we're staying to fight," Chakotay told her, his voice grim. As soon as he said the words, he sent the ship into a roll to get in a good position.
"Kahless!" she exclaimed as her knees went into the console. "Some warning would have been nice!"
"I said we're going to fight," Chakotay told her grimly. He wasn't in the mood for one of her temper tantrums. "Just keep those engines running."
She grumbled something under her breath that he didn't catch and figured he didn't want to. She punched at her console with much more force than was necessary and opened the comm link to engineering again to begin yelling orders to the crewmembers down there. He was tempted to tell to just get down there and take care of it herself, but knew that in a crunch, it was better to have her on the bridge.
*Janeway to Chakotay,* Voyager's captain said in a hail. *Lt. Tuvok and I are going over the array. Do you think you can handle the Kazon for a few minutes?*
He was tempted to reply that he was sure her crew was well enough trained to be able to fire their own phasers in her absence, but bit back the remark. She was extending the olive branch by including his small little ship in the fight, which was a pretty big gesture coming from such a by-the-books officer. "I think so, Captain," he said instead. He saw Torres shaking her head emphatically, but ignored it. She had pulled off miracles before; this time should be no different.
They worked in silence for a few minutes, she giving him more power where he needed it without him saying anything. Suddenly, she gave a long, vicious-sounding Klingon curse. "We have company," she said grimly, nodding her head toward the viewscreen. Even though he had seen the signs of the large ship on his sensors, he glanced over to take a look. It was quite an ugly ship, even worse than the monstrosities the Cardassians flew around in.
The smaller ship he had been firing at seemed to be taking cover behind the large one, so he turned his attention to it. Apparently, targeting sensors weren't one of Torres' crew's top priorities in repairs; he didn't know where on the ship to focus his fire to do them any damage, or even take out their weapons. Fortunately, it seemed to be ignoring him in favor of Voyager, giving him some time for trial and error firing.
"Their weapons array was hit," Chakotay reported, referring to the Starfleet ship in front of him. Why was he able to get that on his sensors instead of something a little more useful? "They're in trouble."
Torres grunted in agreement. "Neither of us has the fire power to hold off that thing," she said angrily.
"I thought you said the phaser banks were powered," he replied.
She scoffed. "We never had the fire power for that kind of ship," she said disdainfully. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times—"
"I know, I know. This ship is more useless than an arthritic targ, not even worthy of a scrap yard," he interrupted. "Well, there's one thing these thirty-nine-year-old engines are good for. I've set a collision course. Get the crew ready for transport over to Voyager." She opened her mouth to argue, but he stopped her. "Just do it!"
She was about to ask why he wasn't getting the crew ready, but she figured this wasn't the best time to start an argument with him. She quickly rose from her seat, tapping her communicator on her wrist as she headed toward the berths in the rear compartment. "Torres to all hands," she said. "Stop whatever you're doing. We're abandoning the ship. If there's anything you care about in your berths, I suggest you get it now." She closed the channel before the questions could start to come in. She knew she didn't have answers to any of them.
One of the fortunate things about being on a ship so small for anybody to have any personal space is that nobody had anything unpacked. All of Torres' possessions, much like her crewmates, were in the duffle she kept under her berth. She grunted as she pulled it out, surprised at how heavy it seemed. What do I have in here? she wondered as she headed in the direction of the transporter room. She didn't think she opened it more than five times since arriving on Chakotay's ship; most of the time, she just pulled her boots off and slept in her fatigues, putting them in the refresher while she was in the sonic shower. She felt something hard and flat in the bag hit her side as the force of another blast sent her into the bulkhead. The bat'leth her grandfather had made for her when she was commissioned into the defense force. Without knowing why, she mentally ran through an inventory of the bag's contents as she continued down the corridor. Some clothes, a few pairs of heeled boots that weren't nearly as menacing as the ones she was currently wearing, some PADDs, her good toolkit. And a bottle of French champagne. She just about stopped moving when she realized that that was still in there. She didn't know why she still had it; she had swiped it from a New Year's party almost four years before, mostly for Tom's amusement. She had wanted to open it then, but he insisted she hold on to it. They agreed they would share it when she graduated or he was promoted, whichever came first. Well, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
Torres watched most of her crewmates rush past her toward the transporter room, their duffles similarly slung over their shoulders. She passed Chakotay's room, the only "private" room on board, a ready room of sorts which doubled as his quarters, thanks to the cot he had set up in there. Even though he had enough space to unpack, Chakotay kept his belongings in a duffle, just like the rest of his crew—when you live fast, you have to be ready to leave fast. She grabbed it, making sure it had the things he would want, namely his akoonah and medicine wheel, and hefted it onto her free shoulder with a curse; it was even heavier than hers. Without a second glance into the room, she headed for the corridor.
"Let's get out of here," she said as she entered the transporter room and did a quick count to confirm that everyone was there. Hogan quickly tapped the controls, then joined the rest on the platform.
Torres hadn't bothered to think ahead as to what she would do once they beamed over to Voyager, and found herself slightly out-of-sorts in the transporter room she had just left from so recently. Without giving herself an opportunity to talk herself out of it, she shrugged off the duffles and placed them on the ground. "Ayala," she barked out. "Watch the stuff." She didn't give him a chance to argue as she turned and headed out the transporter room, toward the nearest turbolift.
As she stepped off the turbolift onto the bridge, she immediately made her way to the front of the room—right next to where Lt. Tom Paris was expertly manning the helm controls. She tried to keep her eyes fixed on the viewscreen in front of her as Chakotay's ship got closer and closer to that Kazon monstrosity, but she couldn't help but glance down at the pilot seated next to her. His hands were moving quickly over the controls, his face locked in an expression of concentration, but he seemed almost calm about it. She remembered her first Rigel Cup competition, when she had been monitoring him during finals. She remembered how calm he was while flying, how he instinctively knew exactly what to do and when to do it. That hadn't changed.
Despite trying to do three or four things at once, Paris glanced up quickly at the Maquis engineer standing beside him. Their eyes locked for a moment before they both looked away. He wished he knew what to say, but fighting off three alien vessels while making sure the array his captain was on didn't get hit wasn't the most conducive environment for striking up a conversation.
Torres held her breath as she heard Chakotay give the order to be beamed over, releasing it only after she heard him confirm that he was okay. Well, that's the one thing we have going for us, she thought darkly, realizing that with their ship fused to the side of the Kazon vessel, they really were captured. Well, she had always heard New Zealand was nice this time of year.
"Damn it," she heard Paris mutter, his eyes fixed on the viewscreen, showing the large ship slowly drifting toward the array where Captain Janeway and Lt. Tuvok were supposedly talking to the Caretaker about getting them home. Calculating vectors quickly in her head, she realized the ship was heading for one of the spikes to the side of the array, not the main part itself, where she assumed the command center would be. She saw Paris' shoulders relax slightly, and knew he had realized the same thing.
She looked up when she heard the turbolift doors open, and headed back to meet up with Chakotay. He looked surprised for a second to see her standing there instead of in the transporter room with the rest of the crew, but he got over it. "I got your stuff," she said quietly as they both stood back and watched the battle around them. He nodded once, the only indication he gave that he had heard what she said.
A few minutes later, they both turned when they heard the turbolift open again, this time revealing the captain and security chief. "Mr. Tuvok, ready the tricobalt devices," Janeway ordered as she marched toward her chair. "And hail the lead Kazon ship."
"Channel open," the Vulcan replied.
"I advise you to move away," the captain said coldly once the face of the Kazon maje appeared. "I intend to destroy the array."
"What?" Torres heard herself hiss, quiet enough that she doubted anyone heard her.
"You can't do that!" the Kazon protested.
"I can, and I will," Janeway retorted. "End transmission." Torres noticed the surprised expression on Chakotay's face; clearly, he hadn't seen this coming, either. "Mr. Paris, move us four hundred kilometers away," Janeway ordered.
That was enough. "What do you think you're doing?" Torres asked angrily, making her way toward the captain she hadn't really met. "That array is our only way home!" For as much as she wasn't looking forward to serving time in a Federation penal colony, the idea sure sounded better than being trapped in the Delta quadrant for the next seventy years or so.
"I'm aware that everyone has loved ones back home," Janeway said softly to her. "But I'm not willing to trade the lives of the Ocampa just so we can see them again. We'll have to find another way home."
"What other way?" Torres exclaimed, frustrated as the captain turned her back to her. She looked around the bridge, but saw only blank stares in disbelief. "Who is she to be making these decisions for us?" Torres asked Chakotay.
"She's the captain," he said quietly. Torres froze at those words, realizing that he was right; she was the captain. They were on her ship. No, not only that; they were prisoners on her ship. She could do whatever she damned well pleased. She remained silent as the captain gave the order to fire on the array, and watched quietly as she saw her only way home explode into a few million pieces of debris.