Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek and its characters. Sadly I do not. If I did they would have far more fun!

ONE MAN'S TERRORIST IS ANOTHER MAN'S FREEDOM FIGHTER.

Chapter 21

Could Seska be responsible?

Based on the series 2 episode 'Dreadnought' some of the dialogue is taken directly from the episode.

Three hours later the ships captain sat in her quarters on the sofa settling down with her mug of coffee and a good book in her hand. She knew she could have all the old books on a PADD and it would be much easier for her to read but somehow she felt when reading these old classics she loved to have real paper and bound leather in her hands. She was just getting to the good part in Jane Austin's pride and prejudice where Lizzie Bennet realises she has fallen for Mr. Darcy, much as she was beginning to realise she was falling for her first officer, Chakotay.

It was then that her comm badge sounded and the voice of her Vulcan friend Tuvok filled the silence of her room, "Captain to the bridge."

"On my way." She said with a sigh as she set down her book and stood to leave her quarters, duty always seemed to call her at the most inopportune moments these days.

"Report." She asked as she stepped from the turbolift onto her bridge.

"Long range sensors have picked up some unusual debris." Harry Kim her operations officer informed her.

"Debris Mr Kim?" She asked the young ensign feeling he hadn't given her enough information.

"I can't give you any more information from this distance." He told her. The entire bridge crew were now looking to their captain for orders on how to proceed.

She looked round at them all one by one. She had set up quite a relaxed report between herself and the senior staff on the bridge, she was hoping one of them would chip in with suggestions, when they didn't she knew she was alone, deciding to make the dangerous call she gave her order, "Mr Paris, take us closer, Warp 2. With caution."

"Yes ma'am." he said spinning round in this chair and tapping the commands into his console.

Kathryn felt she was in need of the support of somebody who wasn't afraid to give her suggestions, speak his mind or even sometimes tell her when she is wrong, sitting in her chair and tapping her comm badge she said, "Janeway to Chakotay"

In a loud voice so all the bridge crew could hear his words the first officers voice came stiffly over the comm line, "Chakotay here, Captain I am not playing your games. What do you want? Me to tuck you nicely in your bed? Or just some fun in your bed? It is the middle of the night and I am fed up with you. I think you should-"

But Chakotay never got to say what he thought Kathryn should do. When the captain realised the train of words Chakotay was on as he clearly thought she was alone in her quarters and he was annoyed with her she cut across him to make it clear to him she was on the bridge surrounded by the rest of the staff, "Mr Chakotay, please would you care to join me on the bridge, we need your assistance up here."

"Hu?" he asked taken aback and then rather sheepishly "Yes Ma'am, I'll be right there." Came his voice, "Chakotay out" Kathryn glared tight lipped at Tom who had turned to stair at her and now quickly turned his chair to face his console.

As Chakotay entered the bridge from the turbolift Kathryn looked up at him and told him, "Unusual debris. We are approaching now."

He nodded and casually sat in his seat next to hers, "I think we should get the science officers here." He told her after examining the data on the console between them.

"Great idea." Kathryn told him with a nod, tapping her comm badge to make a ship wide announcement she said, "all science officers please report to your station."

"We are approaching visual range," Harry announced.

"On screen" The captain ordered, a very small distant looking debris field could be seen. The captain glanced at Chakotay who said,

"Magnify."

"There's not much left what ever it was, from the amount of debris I would say it was a small ship no bigger then shuttle craft." Tom told them while tapping things into his console.

He turned to Harry how told them, "I'm not reading any organic material in the debris field it must have been an unmanned vessel Possibly a probe."

Chakotay was checking the console that parted him from the captain feeling annoyed and embarrassed.

"Any idea what happed to it?" a tired captain asked while the man to her left simply stared at the view screen, things started to look bad and if he was right, this was not good…

Half an hour later the native American first officer and the half klingon chief engineer were in engineering examining some segments of the debris the captain had collected for analysis, Chakotay was scrutinising the test results on the PADD he was holding and he really did not like what he saw,

"B'Elanna please tell me this is not what I think it is!" He told her handing her the PADD.

She looked at the readings for a minute and then worriedly handed it back to her friend and mentor, "I wish I could Chakotay, I wish I could." She mumbled picking up some of the debris and staring at it in her hand.

"How did it get here?" Chakotay snapped at her.

Looking worried B'Elanna speculated, "It must have come with the caretaker." Feeling like she wanted to punch something she snapped angrily, "I never wanted to see that thing again."

"And you think I did?" Asked Chakotay trying to keep his calm, "so now we have to stop it." He said trying to find a more productive way at looking at the situation before them.

"It shouldn't be doing this." She shouted frustrated and confused as she looked at the bits of debris before her.

"Well it is." Said Chakotay calmly as he looked once more at the data findings on his PADD.

"What am I going to tell the captain." B'Elanna looked up at the man she saw as her father with great worry across her face.

Chakotay looked down at the young engineer and said calmly, "Just find some was of stopping it! And fast!"

"But Chakotay-" B'Elanna began but was interrupted by the sound of the doors opening and a familiar voice asking,

"Any conclusions?" it was the captains husky voice as she marched towards them.

The two looked up at her almost in fright. Chakotay knew it was now or never, B'Elanna glanced at him as he said, "Afraid so."

"We have identified the signature left by the weapons fire, it was Cardassian." B'Elanna told her nervously playing with a bit of debris in her hand. Chakotay stared directly at the captain fearing her reaction to the word Cardassian. He found himself having to hold onto the console in front of him to try to contain his anger.

"Cardassian." She said simply staring her big blue eyes directly at B'Elanna and Chakotay noticed that she wouldn't even look at him, then she asked something that he really wished she hadn't brought up, she said, "Could Seska be responsible?"

Nervous B'Elanna looked to an open mouthed and shocked looking Chakotay who just looked back at her playing with the PADD in his hand, slowly B'Elanna said, "No captain." Then taking in a deep breath she nodded and said, "I am." Chakotay saw the look of pure horror and confusion in the blue eyes of the captain.

"Senior Staff report to the briefing room in five minutes." The captain snapped into her comm badge.

Five minutes later all the senior staff, apart from Tom, were assembled in the briefing room. Chakotay chose to sit further away from the captain, where he would have usually occupied the seat to her left he chose to sit at the other end of the table next to Harry. To everyone's surprise the captain chose to start the meeting without Tom but nobody said anything. "B'Elanna please begin," said the captain simply nodding to her chief engineer.

Slowly B'Elanna stood and began to explain, all the staff were watching her, all but Chakotay who was keeping his eyes transfixed on his captain. "The probe was destroyed by and experimental Cardassian weapon from the Alpha Quadrant." She began but had only got through one sentence because a very flustered and out of breath Tom came barging into the briefing room.

"Sorry" was all he said rather causally in a general direction on the captain who said nothing in reply. Chakotay stared at Tom as he causally and rather disrespectfully plonked himself into his chair. Chakotay turned to his captain expecting her to say something. When she did not he looked back at Tom. Chakotay was rather surprised by the captain, this was now the fourth time he had been late in a few days and putting him on report and confining his to quarters didn't help.

When the captain did not respond to Tom, B'Elanna carried on explaining the situation. With Chakotay chipping in to help B'Elanna explain to the staff about their responsibility of Dreadnought the Cardassian bomb that they found in the Delta Quadrant which was responsible for the debris they found floating in space. Back in the Alpha Quadrant it was sent by the Cardassians to go after The Val Jean, it had managed to get past all of their defenses but never actually detonated. B'Elanna explained how she had got inside it and reprogrammed it to work for the Maquis. She opened her mouth to say something else when Chakotay Jumped in to say, "and we gave it a new mission, to destroy the Cardassian fuel depot on Ashilon five but it never made it out of the badlands, we thought it had been destroyed by one of the plasma storms." B'Elanna looked shocked at him but he wasn't looking at her he was looking right at the captain. Who was turned to Tuvok who sat at his place at her side, the place Chakotay usually occupied.

An annoyed captain looked from Chakotay to B'Elanna while asking, "So how do we stop this weapon before it causes any more damage?"

"Dreadnought masked its warp trail with a randomized EM field but I can modify our navigational sensors to get through that." B'Elanna informed them all. She wasn't actually very hopeful it would work but feeling responsible she felt like she had to come up with something.

It hurt as a very sarcastic Tom asked her, "And what are we going to do with it once we find it?""

Quickly replying to him she told him, "I get back inside it." Looking up at the captain she told her, "I know all the security codes I installed them myself."

A very contemplative Tuvok glanced at the captain as she nodded and told B'Elanna, "Lieutenant Paris can assist you with the navigational sensors." And then before anybody else could say anything, or before Chakotay could protest over Tom's involvement she said, "Keep me informed." She then stood announcing to the room, "Dismissed" as she stood.

All of the senior staff stood to return to their work, and started to file out of the briefing room. As Tom made his way past Chakotay's chair to walk towards the corridor Chakotay stood in his way presenting an angry command presence.

"Lieutenant." Chakotay said coldly to the younger man as he passed causing Kathryn to turn her head to see what was going on. The tall Lieutenant looked down at Chakotay with a 'I don't care' look on his face as the commander dressed him down saying, "I expect everyone to show up for meetings on time and properly dressed."

Tom met his eyes and almost laughed in his face as he nodded and said sarcastically, "Yes sir." Before he turned and walked away from Chakotay without waiting to be dismissed.

Kathryn who had stopped and was silently watching from the other side of the briefing room turned away as tom did She left to leave from the other door, which led to the bridge. Kathryn felt she had to run the last few steps onto the bridge so that Chakotay wouldn't see her watching. This whole situation annoyed her so much. Tom was only following her orders, something she had agreed not to divulge to Chakotay. She was feeling bad that Tom was getting the entire wrath from Chakotay for doing something she had asked him to do. She was also sorry she couldn't tell Chakotay the truth. She knew one day soon he would find the truth out and he would be angry with her and feel rather stupid and she hated doing that to him. She also hated the implication that gave that she didn't trust Chakotay. Her emotions were causing her turmoil and it was causing her pain because she could see the pain and hurt in chakotay's eyes.

End of chapter 21… Chapter 22 NOW UP!… Reviews and comments always welcome.