How long had it been? Chakotay wondered. How long had he been lost in the stars? Minutes? Hours? It was so dark. He tried to think back, why was he here? What had happened? Slowly, it began to trickle through his memory. The dark planet. The benamite.
Standing on the transporter pad with Tom and B'Elanna. Their atoms reconstructed when they reached the surface. The plantet had no moons and it was the darkest of night, and immediately they turned on their SIMs beacons. B'Elanna had flipped open her tricorder and scanned for half a minute before pointing her light at what appeared to be the entrance to some caves close by.
"The strongest concentration of benamite seems to be located in those caves over there," she said without looking up. "If we set up some more of the lights closer to the mouth, I can go in, find the crystals, and start figuring out the best way to get them out."
"Sounds good," Chakotay said. "Tom," let's get the lights over there."
B'Elanna got a head start walking towards the cave with her SIMs beacon shining a narrow path of light in front of her. Tom had bent down to pick up more of the equipment, he straightened, arms full and immediately stumbled over something in the dark.
"Ow!" He complained loudly.
"Stop messing around back there" B'Elanna yelled over her shoulder nearing the entrance of the first cave.
"How did we get the great honor of fumbling around on the perpetual night side of this forsaken planet?" He kicked whatever it was that he had fallen over into the blackness, they heard it land and suddenly without warning the sky ripped open with fire, terrifyingly bright in the blackness that surrounded them. Chakotay grabbed his phaser as he yelled they were under attack. The light was so bright he couldn't even see any aggressors and he had to try and shield his eyes. He fired, though at who, or what, he couldn't say. He tried making it to Tom and B'Elanna but there was another flash of light filling the air, and this time shock waves running through the ground. There was screaming, or was that him? Something hit him in the chest, knocked him back onto the unrelentingly hard ground.
Darkness enfolded him but his retinas burned with the afterimage of the light in the sky. Where were the others? Tom? B'Elanna? He could hear nothing. See nothing. He tried to call out, but his faint raspy voice barely reached his own ears. He tried to use his combadge, but his hand refused the order from his brain. It was so dark.
His thoughts drifted back to Voyager. It was still in orbit and Captain would soon realize that something had happened, that they were attacked. Kathryn would come for them, and would take them all back home.
If not, perhaps he would see his father again, his grandfather, his ancestors. The stars blurred. If he could only hold on to the ground, and keep from falling into the stars. But fall he did and as he fell a star burned bright, his eyes catching the light before closing into the unending darkness.